Volume 4 Chapter 88 Interception Battle at Dawn ②
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The enemy’s strength didn’t match the intelligence Rou and Aliona had provided beforehand. The battlefield was evolving in ways Kian hadn’t anticipated.
But there was no time to panic yet.
Scanning the terrain, Kian counted over fifty warrior monks scattered sparsely from the shoreline to the jagged mountain slopes. To an ordinary man, it was a death sentence. To Kian – whose physical limits had been shattered and rebuilt into something monstrous – this was a ten-minute diversion. The only real danger lay in the initial swarm.
He would crush them one by one.
Once their numbers thinned and their rhythm broke, the slaughter would become a one-sided execution.
(I have the Silver Ice¹ armor. Right now, I am impenetrable. I am lightning. I am a juggernaut. A single charge will grind them into the dirt.)
Kian activated a high-speed maneuver, a feat of suicidal daring on the unstable mountain slope. This was the Second Secret Technique of the House of Azrael: ‘Shadow Pursuit’².
Moving at fifty times his natural velocity, the world blurred into a smear of grey and brown. A single trip or a minor collision with an obstacle would tear the user’s body to ribbons. But Kian had danced on this edge too many times to falter now.
The morning sun crested the ridge, bathing the slope in gold.
He identified the weakest point in the encirclement: the northwest. At the front stood the monk who had fired the opening shot. Five meters behind him, another. Kian’s mind mapped the trajectory, drawing a jagged line of death from the heights down to the cold, surging waves of the Sandy Beach.
If he chained ‘Shadow Pursuit’ along those points, he would shatter the siege. Then, he would reset the board.
Spiral Qi³ coiled around his legs like striking vipers. In a heartbeat – less than a tenth of a second – Kian coiled his frame.
Secret Technique: ‘Shadow Pursuit’ – !
”Hyah – !!” Kian shouted.
He exploded forward. A few months ago, this would have been a dream. He had spent his life eating the dust of legends like Isthbaran, Juji, and Sarah. But now, no one could touch him. He was faster than the wind, freer than the light. This was his world; the rest were just statues.
Rita gasped in pure shock, her voice lost beneath the collective intake of breath from the monks. Kian’s silhouette vanished from the slope, leaving only a fading smudge of black haze. In the next nanosecond, he materialized directly in front of a monk who had only just finished regenerating his right arm.
There was a low, sonic thud of displaced air.
The monk’s eyes remained fixed forward, staring at the empty space where Kian had been. It was pathetically slow. Even as he landed, Kian’s rock sword was already mid-swing. Leaving sound itself in his wake, Kian bifurcated the man in a single, horizontal flash.
The two halves of the corpse were hurled away as if struck by a titan. The surrounding monks strained their vision to the breaking point just to register the movement. Bloodshot eyes snapped toward him. Kian felt the shift. In the next heartbeat, they would use ‘Leap’ to swarm him.
He wouldn’t give them the chance to move.
(Secret Technique)
As Kian followed through with the swing of his sword – like the single, obsidian wing of a fallen angel – pitch-black Qi erupted from his spine. This was the Wing of Death, the counter-offensive Sarah had mastered in her youth.
(‘Thunder’⁴)
The moment their comrade’s blood hit the ground, seven monks lunged, their spears leveled in a suicidal thrust. They dove straight into a vortex of black mist, only to be met by a web of white, electric slashes.
It was instantaneous. It was blinding. Just like lightning.
Within the shroud of Qi, seven shadows of Kian materialized, hacking the attackers into mincemeat. They didn’t die as men; they burst like overfilled blood-bags. No screams. No prayers. Just the wet, heavy sound of meat hitting the earth.
As the mist dissipated, the remaining monks stood frozen, paralyzed by a primal, soul-deep terror. Then came the rain. The blood of the burst monks sprayed into the air, falling back down in a heavy, rhythmic patter. A sound like a sudden summer squall filled the silence.
Kian stood amidst the scarlet shower, holding his rock sword level. He didn’t wipe the spray from his face; instead, his skin began to pulse, absorbing the life-force as a thin, predatory smile touched his lips.
Now, who’s next?
Spiral Qi hummed in his calves. The plan was simple: charge to the coast, reaping these blood-bags until the sand turned red. He coiled his body to spring – but a sudden, razor-sharp strike tore through the crimson mist.
”Mgh…!?”
”It’s been a long time, Brother. Not since the Temple Ramsey, has it?” a voice asked.
”What!?” Kian shouted.
Kian caught the incoming black shamshir with his rock blade. The force was staggering – a ‘Tear’ effect so potent it gouged the stone sword halfway through. Kian surged his own ‘Impact’ into the blade, locking the attacker in place. Simultaneously, he used his Silver Ice gauntlets and greaves to kick away the rank-and-file monks trying to find an opening in his back.
The attacker was a featureless, bald monk, but his eyes were pits of absolute darkness. It wasn’t the man speaking; it was a ghost.
”Jibril!” Kian roared, shoving the puppet back with a burst of raw strength.
He spun, dodging a frantic slash from a monk with a well-timed step, and opened the man’s back. Another kill.
”Lord Kian! …Tch!” Rita cried out.
A high-pitched scream of metal on metal echoed from further up the slope. Rita had been intercepted, blasted back by a figure descending from the clouds.
”Who are you!?” Kian demanded.
”Phantom Shadow General Uzai! Heh, I won’t let you play hero, girl. How does it feel to be helpless!?” the newcomer laughed.
”And don’t forget Poison Smoke General Kusai! Taste my rot, you filthy fox-kin! Haaaaaaah!” the other added.
A massive silhouette plummeted toward Kian like an artillery shell. Kian used ‘Shadow Pursuit’ to cut down a nearby monk and leapt backward, narrowly avoiding the cratering impact of the newcomer. The giant, an Oriental man of immense frame, didn’t even look at Kian. He turned toward Rita with singular focus.
”Ryoma of the Reckless Charge is here! We’ll start with the small fry – three on one!” the giant roared.
”Ufufu, perfect, General Uzai. Keep that beast-girl pinned,” the black-eyed puppet said.
The puppet spoke with Jibril’s voice, commanding the featureless monks with effortless authority. Kian regrew his shattered stone sword, his eyes narrowing as he locked onto the void-eyed commander.
”It really is you, Jibril. You’re the one behind this,” Kian said.
”I’m sorry we have to meet like this, Brother. Truly. But we’re on a schedule. Before I deal with you, I have to eliminate that Witch. The one directing the Great Turtle and leading our ships into a deathtrap,” Jibril replied.
”You think I’ll let you touch her? I’ll slaughter every one of you. But, Lord Ryoma! I have no quarrel with you! Surrender now and your life is spared!” Kian shouted.
”You still don’t understand the gravity of your situation, Brother,” Jibril said.
The puppet’s brow furrowed in mock disappointment. He pointed his shamshir toward the sky and fired a ‘Shot.’ It wasn’t aimed at Kian. It was aimed at the grey, indifferent clouds.
The thought was cut short by a sound like a guillotine.
”Wha – “
Kian’s right arm was suddenly, impossibly hollowed out. From his shoulder down to his palm, a series of perfect, square sections were simply… gone. It looked as if a giant cookie-cutter had punched through his flesh.
* * *
(What… happened?)
The sensation vanished. His right side went cold, then numb. In his peripheral vision, he saw a fountain of blood erupt, the metallic stench filling his lungs. His arm was a ruin of square voids. It had burst from the inside out.
He tried to trigger his regeneration, but nothing happened. The link to Talia – the tether to the Spiritual Vein – had been severed. The magic power he had been drawing from the earth was gone.
”Gh!” Kian grunted.
The sudden loss of weight threw his balance into chaos. Kian staggered to the left, his eyes wide as he saw the featureless monks in the line of fire also hollowing out and collapsing into heaps of perforated meat.
What did he do? A path to the northwest was now a literal river of blood and corpses. Jibril had carved a hole through the world – and he had used his own men as the sharpening stone.
(You monster, Jibril!)
He had sacrificed a dozen of his own followers just to take Kian’s arm. It was insanity. Jibril didn’t see allies; he saw resources. Kian stared at his brother’s puppet, seeing the demon beneath the skin.
Far out at sea, Kian spotted her. A female monk on a small skiff, holding a black magic sword as if she had just finished a heavy swing.
Meisa. The one he and Talia had dealt with on Cyclops Island before. Jibril must have resurrected her – an ‘Almeisa.’
”Finish it,” Jibril commanded. “Turn my brother into a helpless stump.”
The surrounding monks didn’t hesitate. Despite seeing their brothers-in-arms butchered by their own commander, they charged with hollow praises for Azrael on their lips. Their emotions had been scrubbed clean, replaced by Jibril’s iron will. They weren’t men anymore. They were the Walking Dead.
Kian steeled himself. Analyze. Adapt. If he didn’t focus, Jibril would dismantle him piece by piece.
Kian intercepted a lunging monk with his remaining left arm. He didn’t use a blade; he used the monk’s own ‘Thread’ technique, weaving the air into a garrote that tore the man apart. He began to retreat, moving backward down the slope as the blood-smoke thickened.
(My arm… those squares…)
Kian used the Secret Technique ‘Mist Crow’⁵ to flicker through a spear-thrust, launching a volley of ‘Needles’ from the air. The Qi-hardened points pierced the skulls of the monks below, bursting them like ripe fruit.
(Almeisa’s blade. It has a range of miles. She can’t see me, but she can clear a path through anything in her line of sight.)
”Hyah!” “Die!” the monks screamed.
Black blades lunged from his flanks. Kian caught one with a Silver Ice gauntlet, crushed the steel, and delivered a vertical kick with his right heel, shattering the monk’s skull.
He was a whirlwind of desperate violence. He dodged, he slipped, he used corpses as meat-shields. Blood poured from his shoulder, but he ignored it. Compared to the peak of a mana-induced orgasm, this pain was a dull throb. One by one, he was thinning the herd.
(Are you going to fire again, Almeisa?)
Kian planted his feet, left hand raised in a defensive ward. He watched the horizon. He had the timing now. The first shot was a surprise. There wouldn’t be a second. In fact, if her blade couldn’t distinguish between friend and foe, he would use her. He would bait the shot and let her clear the field for him.
(Jibril. When these puppets are gone, I’m coming for your throat.)
He grabbed a monk by the face, draining his Qi and blood to supplement his dwindling reserves. He didn’t need the earth. He would eat his enemies to win.
”Meisa, hold your fire. Brother has seen through the parlor trick,” Jibril said.
Jibril’s puppet stepped forward, flanked by five elite monks.
”Take up your bows. I will stop my brother’s movements. When he’s immobile, shoot through any of his remaining limbs with a magic bullet,” Jibril ordered.
Jibril vanished. ‘Shadow Pursuit.’
Kian’s vision tracked the blur. He summoned a shard of rock sword and swung, but Jibril’s puppet dissolved into black feathers. ‘Mist Crow.’
The puppet was chaining Secret Techniques. His physical stats were lower than Kian’s, but his technical mastery was terrifying. He was outplaying Kian on a purely mechanical level.
”Shi!” “Hyah!” Jibril shouted.
Jibril circled to Kian’s ruined right side. Kian leapt back, dodging a horizontal slash, but the puppet was relentless, closing the distance for a blade-lock. A violent clash of steel rang out. Kian shoved him off, but he couldn’t stay still. Almeisa was waiting. One magic bullet would end this.
Kian broke into a sprint, his Qi frayed and thin. The blood loss was finally catching up; his feet felt heavy in the mud.
”Ahaha! Brother is running! Just a little more…Chase him! Capture him!” Jibril laughed.
The monks swarmed like a wolf pack. Kian spun, catching Jibril’s pursuit mid-lunge.
”You’re wonderful, Brother. That spirit! That soul! It’s like a diamond I just want to grind into the mud!” Jibril cried out.
”I hate you, Jibril. And I’m not running. I’m positioning. At this angle, if she fires, she hits you,” Kian countered.
”And? Almeisa – I don’t care! Pierce through my brother along with me!” Jibril screamed.
”Are you insane? You’ll lose your link to the field!” Kian shouted.
”I’d rather pass away together with you than live without your soul in my collection,” Jibril whispered.
”Go to hell!” Kian roared.
Kian surged, slamming his forehead into the puppet’s face. Bone shattered. Eyes turned to jelly. But even as the puppet staggered, the other monks fired a volley of ‘Shots’ into the back of Kian’s knees. The Silver Ice held, but the impact forced him to the ground.
Jibril’s puppet lunged, pinning Kian’s wrist with unnatural strength.
I’m stuck. He tried to trigger ‘Heavenfall,’ but Jibril countered every blade before it could form.
”Do it! Almeisa!” Jibril commanded.
”Damn it!” Kian cursed.
Kian steeled himself. He couldn’t escape. He would lose a leg, maybe the other arm. He pulled every scrap of Qi into his core, preparing for the impact. If he survived the hit, he would kill the remaining fifteen monks in a blind frenzy.
On the horizon, three kilometers away, a woman in black raised a silver bow. A magic bullet of pure, cleansing white light began to scream.
(Aliona… I’m sorry. I’m going to be a little late.)
* * *
”LORD KIAAAAAAAANN!!!!”
A scream tore through the air – raw, desperate, and powerful. Kian and Jibril both turned, stunned.
”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!” “Ugyah!?”
It was Rita. She had just pulverized General Kusai with a short spear using brute force. Her face was a mask of demonic fury. Her muscles snapped under the strain; her Qi didn’t just flow, it roared. She threw her spear at Uzai, the phantom general. He didn’t even have time to summon a shadow; the projectile erased his upper torso in a spray of gore.
”Stay back, Rita!” Kian shouted.
”What are you doing? Kill him now!” Jibril ordered Ryoma.
At that moment, the silver magic bullet was released. A streak of white death screamed across the water. Rita didn’t flinch. Her magic power exploded – a terrifying, ancient pressure that felt like a cage being shattered.
The white fox girl kicked off the ground, a blur of fox-fire. The shockwave of her movement sent Ryoma flying and crushed the nearby monks into the dirt. Kian looked at the sea. The bullet was inches away, glowing like a miniature sun.
”GET DOWN, LORD KIAN!” Rita screamed.
Rita’s shadow eclipsed the light. She didn’t dodge. She leapt into the air, grabbed the searing white bolt of energy with her bare hands, and was hurled backward by the sheer momentum. She didn’t just take the hit – she redirected it. She slammed into the slope, her boots carving deep furrows in the rock as she fought to stabilize.
”Wha…” “What is she…?” the monks stammered.
The monks were speechless. Even Jibril’s puppet stared in horror at the girl who had just intercepted a god-killing arrow.
”This is… Mr. Nizam’s…” Jibril whispered.
”Magic Bullet Reversal⁶,” someone muttered.
Rita’s body coiled like a spring. With a roar that shook the mountain, she hurled the arrow back toward the sea. A high-pitched sound rang out as a line of white light traced a perfect arc back toward the shooter.
”Meisa, Windsong Blade!” Jibril screamed.
The arrow vanished just before impact, neutralized by the magic sword’s gale. Rita stood panting, her hand trembling as it hovered over the black curved blade at her waist. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before her fingers clamped onto the hilt.
”Fool! Avoid it! To the sea!” Jibril ordered his men.
It was too late. Kian saw the world go silent. Rita vanished. A second later, a massive explosion of water erupted three kilometers away. A pillar of white foam rose like a wall. A deafening sound like a giant hammer striking the water rang out.
A monstrous surge of magic power flared on the horizon. A single, clean draw of a blade.
Almeisa’s presence vanished. Rita had overrun her.
”Tch! Why didn’t she drop the bow? Too slow…” Jibril cursed.
Jibril’s focus broke. Kian didn’t waste the opening. He stood, drove his knee into the puppet’s shattered face, and pulverized the skull.
”Sir Jibril! Oooooh!” Ryoma roared, charging in.
Kian caught the giant’s blade between two fingers.
”Ha!?” Ryoma gasped.
Behind Ryoma, the fox girl reappeared. She was moving in jagged, unnatural skips, as if she were teleporting through the frames of a film. Every time she appeared, another monk’s head hit the sand. Even Kian could barely track her. To the monks, it was simply death made manifest.
”It’s over, Jibril,” Kian said.
Kian shattered Ryoma’s knees, dropping him into the sand. He stepped over the giant, closing in on the remains of Jibril’s puppet.
”Not yet, Brother. I’m tenacious until the end,” Jibril gasped.
Kian’s fist punched through the puppet’s chest, crushing the heart. He dropped the lifeless husk and turned to the teleportation gate opening on the beach. A black-haired woman – Hanami – stepped through. She ignored Kian, throwing a talisman at Rita’s feet.
A black, spherical barrier erupted, swallowing the fox girl whole.
”That’s fine, that’s the correct answer, you did well,” Jibril’s voice rattled from the dying puppet.
Kian decapitated the remains of the puppet with a kick and lunged for Hanami, but she grabbed Ryoma and vanished back through the gate. The beach was a graveyard. Only Kian remained standing. Rita was gone – trapped inside a pulsing, five-person-wide sphere of shadow.
”Rita!” Kian called out.
There was no answer.
”That girl is already finished,” Ryoma groaned.
Kian turned to find Ryoma – bleeding and broken, but still alive – staring at the barrier.
”It’s Hanami’s mental contamination barrier. No matter how strong she is, she will become a vegetable,” Ryoma said.
”…!”
”Serves you right,” Ryoma muttered.
”Ms. Hanami, a deal! I’ll return Lord Ryoma to you, so help Rita!” Kian screamed at the empty air.
”Enough! Don’t bring her out, Hanami! I was prepared for death from the start!” Ryoma roared. “Do not go against Sir Jibril’s will! You will be in danger! This is fine!”
”Lord Ryoma. If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill even Linca’s father,” Kian threatened.
”Hah! Death is nothing! Don’t underestimate this Ryoma, youngster!” Ryoma spat.
Kian cursed. He wouldn’t get anywhere with threats. He struck Ryoma across the temple, knocking him cold.
’Kian, are you safe? Are you okay!?’ Talia’s voice rang in his head.
When he looked up, a small bird golem was gliding down the blood-stained slope.
—
Summary:
Kian decimates an army of warrior monks using secret techniques until Jibril intervenes with a puppet and a long-range magic sniper, hollowing out Kian’s right arm. Rita awakens a latent power to intercept and reflect a magic bullet, killing the sniper before being trapped in a mental contamination ward. Kian defeats the remaining ground forces but faces the loss of Rita to a psychological weapon.
—
Character Insight:
Rita demonstrates extreme loyalty and untapped magical potential, successfully performing a ‘Magic Bullet Reversal.’ Jibril shows absolute ruthlessness, sacrificing his own soldiers and his puppet’s life just to secure a victory or satisfy his obsession with Kian’s soul.
—
Behind the Scenes:
The ‘hollowing’ of the arm is a visual trope signifying the absolute erasure of matter by Almeisa’s magic sword. The mention of ‘mental contamination’ suggests Hanami’s role as a psychological specialist within Jibril’s ranks.
—
TL Notes:
Notes:
• Isthbaran – The High Warlord of the ‘Storm Herd.’
• Juji – Male. Leader of the Wolfmen’s ‘Jinsou’. A skilled warrior with sharp senses and combat abilities. Relationship: Part of the Beastmen Alliance’s delegation.
• Uzai – A shadow user who enjoys harassment.
• Kusai – A poison user with yellow teeth.
• Talia – A high-ranking vampire spirit currently possessing the body of Lyritisse. In this form, she has flaxen hair, blue eyes, and thick lips.
• Nue – A Shikigami summoned by Linca. It has the appearance of a monster with a tiger’s limbs and a monkey’s head. Nue is a powerful but dangerous creature that requires a skilled magician to control.
• Mag – The wolfwoman under Yelmar—the one who was caught by Kian’s group earlier.
• Linca – Jibril’s favorite girl. High-ranking warrior monk woman from Shin, with strong abilities like ignoring attacks and poisons.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply