As always, the system's description was brutally concise. It never wasted words, never offered reassurance, and never explained more than it absolutely had to. Still, what it had shown him was enough.
The Dimension Slash he had just unlocked was fundamentally the same technique he had envisioned. The core mechanics hadn't changed. The execution, however, absolutely had.
The first and most obvious difference was simple—he didn't possess the Yama Blade.
When the Yama Blade was used to perform Dimension Slash, the motion mirrored a perfect iaijutsu draw. A flash of steel, a clean arc through space itself, and then the blade would slide back into its sheath as if nothing had happened. It was elegant. Efficient. Deadly.
Now, he held the Orthodox Blade instead.
Without the Yama Blade's spatial cutting property, he no longer needed to execute the technique as a traditional draw-slash. According to the system's description, he only had to swing it normally, the same way he would unleash Eight Swords Flash or Earth-Shattering Strike. No sheath draw. No ritual precision. Just a clean swing.
That simplicity felt strange.
More importantly, the Orthodox Blade did not inherently sever space. That meant the Dimension Slash he could perform now might be weaker than the version fueled by the Yama Blade.
Might be.
There was no way to confirm it yet.
Only when he obtained the Yama Blade and compared the two versions side by side would he know for certain. Until then, speculation was useless.
Even so, weaker didn't mean harmless.
This wasn't a game.
In a game, enemies had health bars. Until their HP dropped to zero, their bodies remained intact no matter how violent the attack animation looked. Limbs didn't fall off. Organs didn't spill out. It was all numbers.
Reality didn't work that way.
Even a standard slash from the Orthodox Blade could sever arms and legs if it landed cleanly. And Dimension Slash wasn't standard.
Multiple overlapping spatial cuts tearing through a target would not politely wait for some invisible health pool to deplete.
They would dismantle.
Richard dismissed the translucent information panel only he could see and stored the Orthodox Blade back into the system space. The hilltop wind felt cool against his face as he stepped toward Clarice and Sabretooth.
"Open a portal," he said calmly. "We're leaving."
Clarice nodded without hesitation. A circular burst of violet light unfolded in the air. The space warped and twisted, forming a doorway roughly one meter wide and a little over two meters tall. The interior shimmered like fractured glass suspended in liquid.
Richard studied it for a brief second.
Then a thought struck him.
If her ability were plundered…
Would it strengthen Dimension Slash?
Clarice's power was pure spatial manipulation. It lacked direct offensive capability unless she weaponized the portal's closing edge, but that didn't change its nature. It was space.
And Dimension Slash was undeniably spatial.
When he had absorbed the freezing ability earlier, it had enhanced his "Big Snow" skill. That precedent was clear. Abilities of similar attributes amplified related techniques.
So theoretically—
Clarice's power could amplify Dimension Slash.
He found himself looking at her more closely.
Delicate oval face. Pale skin. Eyes that were clear and unguarded, carrying a naïve softness that almost bordered on foolishness. There was nothing calculating in her gaze.
She noticed him staring and tilted her head slightly. "What?"
He didn't answer.
He considered the possibility coldly. There weren't many mutants with spatial abilities. That was true. But they existed. With enough effort, he could find another.
There was no need to be ruthless here.
He exhaled quietly.
Forget it.
"I'll look elsewhere," he decided internally.
Without another word, he stepped through the portal.
The world shifted. Pressure tugged at his senses for a split second before gravity reasserted itself. He emerged atop a low hill roughly twenty kilometers away from the RV camp.
A moment later, Sabretooth and Clarice stepped through. The portal shimmered once more before collapsing into nothing.
Clarice had pushed her power to its current limit. Richard hadn't specified a destination, only that they leave, so she'd taken them as far as she could.
Sabretooth might have been a competent guardian, but as a mentor? Severely lacking.
Richard turned toward them.
"How did you get caught?"
Sabretooth answered immediately this time.
"After you left, Clarice and I talked. We decided to send her to the mutant school. We got a car and planned to drive there."
He paused briefly.
"The next morning, agents from the Mutant Affairs Department found us. We were arrested before we even left the state."
Richard frowned slightly.
Driving?
He shifted his attention to Clarice.
"What's the maximum distance your portal can reach right now?"
"About twenty kilometers," she replied without hesitation.
"And how many at maximum range can you open in a day?"
"Ten."
Two hundred kilometers per day at absolute best.
That was… disappointing.
In the comics, Clarice's spatial reach extended between Earth and the Moon. Roughly three hundred eighty thousand kilometers. Even accounting for cinematic downgrades, she should still be far stronger than this version.
Movie Clarice could fight fluidly with portals. Offensive maneuvers. Precision placement.
This Clarice was barely scratching surface-level control.
"Do you know how far Los Angeles is from New York?" Richard asked Sabretooth.
"More than two thousand kilometers?" Sabretooth guessed uncertainly.
"Three thousand five hundred," Richard corrected flatly.
He let that number hang in the air.
"Even if you drove five hundred kilometers a day, it would take a week. So now I'm genuinely curious. What exactly is this 'private matter' that made you decide to send her across the entire United States?"
Initially, he hadn't cared.
Now he did.
Sabretooth didn't answer immediately. The wind brushed through the grass around them. More than ten seconds passed.
Then he spoke.
"Clones," he said quietly. "Someone made a clone of me. More than one."
Richard and Clarice reacted at the same time.
Clarice because she had never heard this before.
Richard because his mind immediately flashed to two images—Laura from Logan, and X-24, the feral mirror of Wolverine.
"Did you see them yourself?" Richard asked sharply. "Or did someone tell you?"
Sabretooth's jaw tightened. He didn't respond.
The silence told Richard enough.
He shrugged lightly.
"If you don't want to explain, fine."
He wasn't entitled to Sabretooth's secrets.
But this situation was interesting.
"Here's some advice," Richard continued evenly. "If you truly want to send Clarice to the mutant school, you don't need to drive to New York."
Sabretooth looked at him.
"Call them."
Richard's expression remained neutral.
"You're not exactly a model citizen, but the X-Men haven't forgotten you. And if someone is producing mutant clones, that will absolutely get their attention."
He paused briefly before finishing.
"You call them, tell them what's happening, and they'll most likely come to you on their own initiative."
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