Hugo's yataghan clashed with the White Bolt's katana on the forest floor. Static exploded between the blades. Hugo pressed forward. The bounty hunter gave ground once, twice – then turned into the third strike instead of avoiding it.
The movement was wrong. Not clumsy. Not reckless. Familiar.
Hugo's eyes narrowed. He had seen that rhythm before – years ago, from a man who did not teach carelessly.
'No…'
The White Bolt's katana slid along the yataghan and snapped toward Hugo's throat.
Hugo barely leaned back in time.
Both men leaped away, boots skidding over damp earth. But the moment Hugo steadied himself, his eyes widened.
'What the hell?!'
The White Bolt had vanished.
Hugo followed the trails of static upward.
The bounty hunter was already in the air, rushing Neil. The blonde Zaatsu barely crossed his dual swords in time before the silver katana crashed into them and drove him higher.
The White Bolt clicked his tongue in disapproval and spun the katana once in his hand.
Hugo launched himself upward and stopped in front of him. Neil rushed to his side, steadying his blades. Behind the bounty hunter, Marcus landed atop a tree, his staff resting across his shoulder.
"YAAAH!"
Flames roared around the red-haired Sokidu.
"All together!" Hugo shouted.
The three Martial Artists attacked at once.
The bounty hunter's eyes crackled with electric charge.
He countered them with blinding speed.
Hugo froze for the briefest instant. 'How…?'
It had been six months. The Eye had been following the rogue bounty hunter known as the White Bolt, but every attempt to capture and stop him had been futile. He was a shadow they could not trace, a miscreant they could not stop, and a conundrum disrupting the arcane harmony of the modern world.
Rumours and unverifiable intel suggested his name was Vincent. No one knew for certain. Reports described grey, lifeless eyes and a silver-coloured katana that radiated electric charge. Most astonishing of all, when compared against the Eye's historical records, he was adjudged one of the fastest men – perhaps the fastest – the arcane institution had ever encountered.
Zaatsu Master Hugo Baylis, one of the Eye's finest, found the reports of his speed hard to believe. But he was witnessing it first-hand: two Zaatsus, and a Sokidu considered stronger than many Zaatsus, were unable to crack through his defences.
A Zaatsu was no ordinary Martial Artist. It was the highest combat rank within the Eye – a title reserved for those who had mastered the violent application of Ki.
And with Marcus among them, the White Bolt was, in effect, holding off three Zaatsus at once.
He punched the blade of his katana, unleashing a violent shockwave that forced the trio back.
Sitting among the trees, Gina saw a clear line of attack. But before she could throw the Ki blast, the bounty hunter jerked his arm in her direction. A sharp gust of wind rushed at her. She dived out of the way as three tree trunks got sliced in half before the wind died down.
The bounty hunter was fighting close range as if he had eyes in the back of his head. But he was also countering magic and long-range shots almost precognitively.
'Why did he avoid confrontations before?' Hugo thought as he steadied himself atop the tree line of the Tallebudgera Creek. 'He's too good at this.'
Only once had two Zaatsus forced the White Bolt into a proper battle and survived. Hugo had read their reports twice. Half an hour. Evenly contested. No clear victor.
He had assumed exhaustion, fear, and wounded pride had exaggerated the account.
Now, with the White Bolt slipping through three attacks at once, Hugo was no longer so certain.
'If he's matching us blow for blow after getting ambushed,' the Zaatsu wondered, 'those two would've had a much harder time.'
That battle proved to be the single greatest source of information the Eye could gather on the White Bolt. The duo's reports had described impossible timing – Ki charged and discharged in milliseconds, spells formed faster than most Martial Artists could react, counters cast so precisely they seemed almost prophetic.
Hugo had doubted that too. Not anymore.
Suddenly, the White Bolt's eyes changed colour. The flashing white vanished, replaced by a burning maroon hue.
Ella leaped up and stood on a tree branch below Hugo.
"Be careful, Master Baylis," she said. "He's doing it again."
By every measure, the White Bolt appeared well trained in the arts of Ki Manipulation and Magicism. But his expertise extended far beyond that. He utilised wizardry to upset and unsettle his opponents, much more effectively than even the strongest Cultists. And he could even use black magic, drawing Demonic Ki into battle with unsettling ease.
'Demonic Ki again,' Hugo thought. 'Still not Dark?'
The bounty hunter rushed ahead. Neil hovered in his path. Blades clashed.
"Don't let the Ki touch you!" Hugo yelled.
Neil was no pushover but facing the White Bolt alone was a daunting task. So, Hugo quickly jumped up to assist his second-in-command.
Ella lent a hand this time as well. Her specific expertise as a Mystic allowed her to counter the bounty hunter's Demonic Ki and gave Hugo and Neil a chance to fight undeterred.
Hugo's yataghan clashed with the White Bolt's katana again. Both men pushed a burst of Ki into their weapons. The impact released another shockwave, forcing everyone back.
'He's countering everything,' Hugo thought as everyone landed across the broken forest floor.
The speed was absurd. The Ki control was flawless. His magic carried the kind of vicious precision that would make even Cultists hesitate.
But none of that unsettled Hugo as much as the rhythm.
The way he entered attacks. The way he turned defence into pressure before the strike had even completed. The way his Ki moved as if the battle had already been decided in his head. He was not merely fast; his senses were so finely attuned that he could read his opponents' tactics almost instantly.
Hugo tightened his grip around the yataghan.
'I've seen this before.'
His eyes narrowed behind the fading static.
'This is no bounty hunter.'
The Eye had no record of training anyone like him. The Order denied involvement. The Cults either knew nothing or pretended not to. Six months of Spotter reports had produced only fragments – masks, conflicting descriptions, dead ends, and one name no one could verify.
Vincent…
Whoever he was, he had not learned this by accident.
Before Hugo could chase the thought any further, the bounty hunter began to fade.
Before their very eyes, the White Bolt vanished into the elements around him.
"Stay on guard!" Neil exclaimed. "Wait for Hugo's signal!"
Every report agreed on one thing: the White Bolt's Ki was almost impossible to track. Spotters usually had to trace him through employers, rumours, or aftermaths – never through the man himself.
Even now, surrounded by some of the Eye's finest, he slipped into the elements with ease. Only Hugo could follow him.
'He should be tiring by now,' Hugo thought. 'I can't let him escape… not after what he's done…'
Speed alone had not placed the White Bolt at the top of the Eye's priority list. Nor had his skill, his masked Ki, or the uncertainty surrounding his name.
It was what he had begun collecting: remnants of the Xoitique Diamond, one of the three Celestial Stones.
Worse still, he had been seen using Dark Ki – a forbidden art tied to the lost Scriptures of Rasalhague.
No one knew how he had learned it. No one knew who had given him the knowledge. And no one in the Eye was willing to let him gather the remnants unchecked.
So the Eye had deployed its best: Zeta Squad, a hand-picked hunting party led by the 32-year-old Hugo Baylis. Predicting the White Bolt's next target, Hugo had acquired three remnants from a hidden safehouse in Tallebudgera.
The bounty hunter had come for them.
Zeta Squad had set the trap.
The White Bolt had turned it into a battlefield.
"I can't feel anything, man," Marcus remarked. The flashes of combat had faded. The forest was dark again, visibility was low, and his Ki was masked.
Even Hugo was struggling. With closed eyes, he stood motionless.
"Master Baylis?"
The captain did not budge.
Until suddenly, without looking, he turned to his right and threw his yataghan. It zipped through the air and lodged inside a tree. A few traces of static appeared on the ground and Hugo ran. His squad followed.
"Gina!" he called. "Light em' up!"
"Yes, sir!" The Sokidu charged her Ki and leaped into the air.
Hovering above the tree line, she chanted, "BERTESO-MANASO-POL!"
Ki rushed from her hands, drawing energy from the trees below before erupting in a blast that illuminated the entire area.
Before long, Hugo began slowing down.
Neil moved ahead. "What happened?"
The senior Zaatsu stopped. "He's not moving anymore."
"Where is he?"
The light from Gina's blast slowly faded.
Hugo pointed at the thick covering of trees to his left, on the bank of the Tallebudgera Creek. "He's somewhere in there. But he's hiding."
The bounty hunter had realized that his opponents were more than a handful, even for him, and were not about to back down easily. With depleted strength and the fear of an impending defeat, he had decided to retreat, hide, and rest until he could fight again.
Correctly deducing his intentions, Hugo divided his squad into multiple smaller groups and a quiet hunt began.
But somewhere in the darkness, the White Bolt was waiting too…