-HUUMMM!!!!!!

...What the hell is this..?

Roan thought as he felt a presence vaster than anything he had ever encountered. His body began to tremble under that ancient force radiating out from Ash, a pressure that seeped into his very bones, making his instincts scream at him to run.

How..?

Even then, he was an assassin. He had been trained to endure all kinds of torture, and one part of that training was resisting the unnatural fear that could break a man's will. His heart pounded wildly, but he forced his mind to gather itself, his willpower holding against the storm pressing on him.

His body reacted on instinct, his daggers rising just in time to block. Ash had appeared out of nowhere, his sword already descending in a heavy strike.

The attack carried a strange weight. It was not only strength, but something deeper, as if the strike itself bore down with the pressure of the mountains.

When the blades met, Roan's bones rattled from the impact, his insides churned, and pain surged through his arms. He had managed to block it, but barely.

Before he could catch his breath, Ash disappeared again. Roan's senses flared as he spun, his daggers coated with Shadow Aura, and with the momentum of the turn, he put everything into his counter, aiming for Ash, who had appeared behind him.

But as his eyes fell on what stood there, his pupils widened like saucers.

What...?

There was no Ash.

Instead, a seething sphere of lightning floated in the air, its surface alive with tendrils that lashed out dangerously. Some burned violet, while others were unnaturally black, like tendrils of death.

Suddenly, another presence appeared behind Roan.

Shit!!

His dagger was already moving toward the lightning ball, and his body, weakened under the suffocating pressure of Ash's Primordial Aura, finally felt the full grip of fear.

I have to stop it....

---

I caught him....

Ash's thoughts were calm as he appeared near Roan. Only a minute ago, he had been struggling to push him back with nothing but swordplay. Now, after lifting the restrictions he had placed on himself, he had already cornered the veteran assassin.

The crackling sphere before Roan was the result of endless practice, a lightning spell into which he had forced a small measure of death mana. It was not perfect, but a rough fusion between two elements.

Ash had long sought a true merging, but it had not yet succeeded. Even so, lightning and death had shown an unexpected compatibility, allowing him to force them together, if only partially.

The result was unstable, but deadly.

The {Black Lightning Ball} held power far greater than an ordinary lightning ball spell, carrying with it a killing property.

While actually ending the life of a living being required several strict conditions, the danger of the spell could not be denied.

Now, with the sphere closing in from the front and his own sword cutting upward in a diagonal slash from behind, Roan was completely cornered.

Time seemed to slow.

For Ash, who was moving under Omni Thought, time was already slowed to a crawl. He could see everything clearly. Roan's dagger was almost upon the sphere, yet Ash did not detonate it. If it exploded now, Roan might still survive. If the fusion had been complete, that would have been his choice, but as it was, he needed the blade to finish it.

But then, within that stretched moment, something unexpected happened.

Roan's body moved in a way that made Ash's eyes narrow. One hand pushed toward the lightning ball, his foot pressed into the ground for balance, and his other arm shifted toward Ash.

At first, Ash thought it was to counter the slash, but no. The assassin was bringing his arm between Ash's sword and his own body.

And then suddenly the shadow beneath his feet stirred and came alive. They enveloped his foot and, with a violent pull, hurled him high into the air.

The throw was powerful enough that both his daggers and Eclipse missed the lightning ball and his body by a hair's breadth. Spinning through the air, his balance broken, Roan had no control over his movements. Ash, watching carefully, willed his destructive creations to move.

He sent Eclipse flying towards Roan, who was still midair, and at the same time guided the incomplete black lightning ball after him.

Eclipse reached first, its sharp edge slicing the air with speed, but Roan managed to avoid it by tilting his head slightly. The sword passed dangerously close, grazing the space beside his cheek, and his focus instantly shifted to the ball of lightning rushing toward him.

In that brief moment, he steadied himself in the air as though taking a stance, gathering his strength for something. His muscles tightened, his daggers gleamed faintly, and it was clear he was preparing to unleash a counterattack.

But before he could act, Ash appeared behind him. Catching Eclipse with practiced ease, he twisted his body midair and kicked Roan straight toward the lightning ball.

That was the last thing Roan had expected.

-BOOM!!!!

The explosion rang out, shaking the air itself. A battered figure was thrown violently from the blast, its body spinning helplessly before it crashed down.

-THUD!!

Ash landed lightly and began to walk toward the unmoving body. His steps were calm, slow, and deliberate. There was no need to rush. He still wished to test more, and the fight was not yet over.

The assassin's body remained face down, stomach pressed against the ground. No sound of breathing came, no sign of life could be felt. Blood pooled slowly from his wounds, spreading across the dirt. Some injuries were deep and ragged, others carried a strange black burn, twisted and unpleasant to look at.

But who was Ash? He was not someone who could be deceived by such a simple trick. He himself had mastered the art of deception, and he knew better than anyone how easily it could be used. To him, this act was far too shallow to work.

As he neared the corpse, Roan's body melted into the shadows and lunged upward, a dagger striking straight for Ash's heart. Ash, expecting this all along, raised his blade and parried the strike without effort.

-CLANG!!!

---

What the hell is happening with me....?

For the first time, Roan felt a sense of unease he could not suppress. When he had attacked Ash at the beginning, everything had been within expectations. Given their difference in stats and skill, the outcome had been nothing unusual.

But the moment that ancient presence spilled from Ash's body, everything changed.

The most unsettling part was Ash's sudden use of magic. Not only that, his swordsmanship was precise, refined, and overwhelming. Even though it was only the basics.

Roan convinced himself that Ash must be a mage and that the strength in his body and blade was due to the legacy he had acquired. Perhaps it was the same legacy that had given him the strange artifact capable of storing living beings.

If he could kill Ash, everything would be his.

Yet the reality before him was harsh. Though he had managed to escape Ash's attempt to corner him, he had still suffered the full blow of that unstable lightning ball. The damage it caused now weighed on his body, leaving him gravely injured.

And all of it had happened in just a few seconds.

-CLANG!

-CLANG!!

....Damn it, it was a bluff....

Roan gritted his teeth in frustration. An assassin was trained never to let emotions surface in battle, but this time the anger burned too hot to be contained. The golden aura that had shaken the entire space was nothing more than a trick. It had not increased Ash's strength at all.

At first, he thought it did, but as he exchanged more blows with Ash, he realized.

That suffocating pressure was only there to cloud judgment, to give the illusion of overwhelming power. It was nothing but a distraction.

And because of that, Roan had taken injuries he should have been able to avoid. If not for that false sense of dread, he would have reacted properly, and the fight would not have reached this point.

The humiliation cut deep. To be deceived and hurt so badly by someone he still believed was weaker than him was unbearable.

His rage boiled over. All of his fury poured into his killing intent, and the aura of his daggers grew darker, sharper, more violent.

"Shadow Dagger Art... First Form!"

His daggers and his whole body moved with a flurry of speed, leaving behind faint afterimages in the air.

Most of the attacks were either parried or blocked by Ash, but still, many strikes landed, carving into his flesh and leaving holes across his body. Each wound healed with visible speed, yet even that constant regeneration could not erase the sharp sting of Roan's relentless onslaught.

But Roan did not stop.

He did not possess a wide range of skills, only two in total, and both had been gained through skill books. That was simply how he was. He never cared for collecting many techniques or experimenting with a variety. He only kept what was truly useful, what suited him perfectly. And right now, he called upon one of them.

[Debt of Blood]

The moment it activated, a cruel curse spread through Ash's body. Every successful strike forced his wounds to bleed endlessly, the flow of blood refusing to stop until the enemy was dead. The skill constantly drained Roan's mana to maintain itself, but he had an artifact that supplied him with a steady stream of energy. Because of that, he could keep this ability active for hours without fear of exhaustion.

As his daggers bit into Ash again and again, crimson welled from each wound. The cuts closed rapidly, flesh knitting back together, but just as the final layer of skin was about to form, it broke open once more. The unseen force of the skill tore it apart, making blood spill uncontrollably, no matter how quickly Ash regenerated.

..Yes, that's what I was talking about...

Roan's eyes glimmered with a sharp light as he watched the endless flow of blood.

Ash, however, remained calm. He did not even glance at the injuries, because he knew his blood was without end, sustained by the Rune of Life within him. Instead of worrying about the bleeding, his entire focus was on reading Roan's rhythm and intercepting the flurry of attacks that pressed him harder with every second.

Then, in an instant, Ash vanished from his spot. His body flickered out of sight, and in his place, dozens of crackling spheres of lightning appeared at once. They swelled violently, filling the air with a dangerous hum, before they exploded without delay.

-BOOM!!

-BOOM!!

-BOOM!!

The explosions roared one after another, shaking the isolated space and drowning it in blinding light and deafening thunder.

****

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