Sebastian just watched with a ghostly expression at the intruder as he slowly drifted into the embrace of death, his breath shallow and fading, his eyes dimming with the weight of inevitability. He didn't think much of all that the intruder had said in his so‑called confession in the throes of death, largely because the words carried no sincerity, no trace of truth. Instead of offering Sebastian a genuine answer to the question he had asked, the intruder had chosen to cloak himself in riddles, speaking in parables and half‑truths, revealing only fragments of the information he wanted to give, and nothing more.
A decision that had unfortunately led him to his near demise, although Sebastian felt no emotion whatsoever toward the intruder and would, without hesitation, have granted him the mercy of death immediately as he held his blade poised above his neck. Yet when he heard what the intruder had to say, and witnessed the strange displays he had given before finally fainting, Sebastian sensed a deeper necessity. He felt compelled to stabilize the intruder's fragile body, to possibly repair his destroyed energy pathway, and to manipulate the currents of power within him, forcing the energy to accelerate the rate at which his body mended the fraying tissues, sealed the cracks, and restored the broken harmony of his inner structure.
However, to Sebastian, the intruder had not given him any reason to be rescued; he hadn't even offered useful information—except for the final, chilling words: "He is coming…". A faint gleam flickered in Sebastian's eyes when he heard the badly injured skeletal figure mutter those three words, for he felt a subtle recognition, a shadow of knowledge concerning who might be approaching. As he reflected on that ominous statement, he was compelled to glance abruptly over his shoulder. Yet although he turned just in time, all it achieved was positioning him perfectly for the incoming strike, the brutal punch slamming directly into his face. The impact left his features marred with fractures, jagged and raw, almost resembling the broken visage of the intruder lying helplessly on the floor below him, a grim mirror of shared suffering.
Sebastian couldn't help but mutter a curse under his breath; the signs were painfully obvious, and even the intruder had made it known that he was the one who had placed Diego in a mode of stasis. He had even confessed his dilemma, explaining that it was only because of his draining energy that Sebastian had managed to escape his grip. The implication was clear and heavy—if the intruder died, his grip would also die with him, and Diego's fate would be sealed. That realization struck Sebastian with a cold weight, forcing him to consider the fragile balance between survival and sacrifice, and the dangerous consequences of letting the intruder's life slip away too soon.
Sebastian assigned all the blame to himself, but he couldn't afford to waste precious moments drowning in regret for the horrible mistake he had made or pondering how better decisions might have changed the outcome. His mind was instead assaulted by a relentless barrage of physical attacks, each strike threatening his very existence.
The blows were precise, deceptively simple yet devastatingly powerful, and they came upon him in such overwhelming quantities that Sebastian had no chance to plan a counter of his own, much less preoccupy his thoughts with "irrelevant things." He survived only by relying on his foresight ability, coupled with his immense speed, keeping himself a single step ahead of disaster—rbarely evading strikes that would have left him impaled, battered beyond recognition, and utterly incapable of fighting, or worse, dead upon the ground.
***
Diego had been trapped in stasis for a while; however, that didn't mean his mind was frozen or entirely subdued. It seemed the intruder had cleverly tricked his consciousness into believing he was on the verge of catching up to Sebastian, feeding him illusions of pursuit and victory. So when Diego was finally released from his mode of stasis, the pent‑up desire within him surged violently to the surface. He acted without hesitation, driven by the lingering deception and his own burning will, doing immediately what he had longed to do from the very moment his eyes had first locked onto Sebastian—strike with unrestrained fury, as though time itself had been waiting for this inevitable clash.
Diego knew the threat Sebastian posed, and within the confines of his mind he searched relentlessly, convinced that Sebastian had used his teleportation ability to vanish into a place hidden from his immediate reach. Each imagined moment of pursuit felt like a cruel theft, robbing Diego of the precious time he did not possess—time he believed could have been used to end the danger once and for all. Yet in his perception, Sebastian was not idle; he seemed to remain one step ahead, patiently waiting for the crucial instant when his foresight ability could be activated again. This belief gnawed at Diego, intensifying his frustration and sharpening the illusion of a duel where hunter and hunted were locked in a battle of patience, deception, and inevitability.
And he was right—immediately upon laying his eyes on Sebastian, he unleashed his attack. Each blow he hurled was brimming with raw energy, energy channeled to enhance his strength and magnify the volatility of his strikes. Worse yet, every strike moved at the same insane speed with which he himself advanced, a terrifying display that was far from ordinary. While an average combatant's punch carried predictable rhythm, Diego's barrage was something strange, almost unnatural—hundreds of blows per second, each precise, each devastating. And if that was not enough, the combination of his speed, precision, and enhanced force produced chaos beyond comprehension. Every impact carried a destructive resonance, unleashing devastation so overwhelming that the force could only be described as anticlimactic, a violent crescendo likened to the eruption of a supernova tearing through the battlefield.
Though a few punches managed to land on Sebastian's body, Diego could clearly see that Sebastian had regained his foresight ability. Without it, Sebastian would have already been obliterated by the sheer force of Diego's very first strike. However, now that his foresight had returned, Sebastian moved with fluid precision, evading each blow one at a time because he had already seen them before they were unleashed. Despite the overwhelming appearance of a relentless barrage, a storm of countless punches raining down upon him, Sebastian's perception was entirely different. To him, the chaos resolved into only two distinct strikes, simplified by his foresight. A thousand blows would have been impossible to evade, but two—two carefully anticipated attacks—were relatively easy to counter, allowing him to remain one step ahead in the deadly dance of survival.