The diminutive man stood speechless, his mouth slightly agape.
The white-haired boy with pale skin he had kicked just moments ago was standing before him, seemingly unaffected.
He retracted his head slightly, ‘How in the world?…this has never happened before!’
This wasn’t the first time he had hit someone.
His strikes packed enough power to make the earth crack, courtesy of his unique talent and attributes.
He was a formidable force that no one in the vicinity dared to trifle with, not even Sage Gilbert himself.
They understood his position, his strength, and his usefulness. Even if they wished to challenge him, a single punch was all it took to knock some sense into them.
Although he could unleash far more than just a punch, he had always been grateful that he didn’t need to… because utilizing his true strength would be devastating.
Meanwhile, Northern was gazing at him with a slightly parted mouth.
Well… ‘gazing’ at him.
This way:
Name: Hao Lee Redmond
True Name: [Little Giant]
Attributes: [Earthquake]
Soul Rank: [Nomad] freēwēbηovel.c૦m
Soul Core Saturation: High
Talent: [Lord Of Destruction]
Talent Class: [S]
Talent Ability: [Heavy Flow], [Seismic Waves]
‘Wow… an S-class talent. Looks delicious…’
Northern licked his lips, eyeing Hao, which caused the man’s brows to furrow.
“Bastard! How dare ya look at me like I’m some meal?!”
“Eh? Crap, did my thoughts leak?”
Hao’s frown deepened, “Did ya thoughts leak? What vile thoughts ya having, filthy soul!”
Without hesitation, Hao dashed forward, the earth crumbling with each step he took, slowing his approach… for the likes of Northern (he’d have been normally fast for Ellis).
This time, Northern saw the blow coming and threw his hands up to guard his front as Hao’s hand shot towards him.
Wham!
Even though Northern was sure he had blocked the punch, it didn’t feel like it.
‘I think I broke a bone.’
He might have been able to stop himself from flying away due to the force he stood with and absorbing the shock of the blow with his entire body, directing it down to his feet—something he had learned from Shin.
But he was unable to protect his guarding hands from the punch, they shouldered most of the direct damage. Taking it to the stomach and flying away seemed like it would have been a better choice.
Northern bit down his lips, his legs wobbled, and his hand fell lifelessly, dangling.
Hao, seeing this, wore a satisfied grin, “Next time, that’ll teach ya to respect ya elders.”
However, a second later, Northern slowly curled up the corner of his mouth and smirked.
‘So this is how it works… tch… painful!’
He had never taken any damage since he stepped out of the rift and became a drifter. This meant he had never witnessed the extent of some attributes.
Most especially [Chaos Thread].
Northern could feel the searing pain within his bones, as though something powerful was stitching them back together.
Since he was well-versed with his ability and had looked forward to seeing [Chaos Thread] work, he could tell immediately.
A couple of seconds after the stitching, the pain slowly subsided… but it didn’t disappear entirely.
Behind his leather vambraces, his hand was still scathed and swollen. The difference, however, was that he could at least move his hands.
He raised his hand and clenched his fist, feeling his bone throb. He released the grip and looked at Hao—who was now gazing at him with widened eyes.
“How? How can ya move those hands so fast? That blow should have shattered your bones.”
Northern shook his hands, “Oh, it did shatter my bones. The thing is, I’m not a runt you can just run over…”
Northern had spoken before he realized how ill-advised that statement was.
Ellis facepalmed himself, ‘Darn it! Where did this guy come from! Forget reasoning with Hao, at this point we’d be lucky if we leave here alive…’
Of course, Ellis knew they would. He had no doubt about that; his thoughts were merely figurative… since Hao currently looked like he wouldn’t rest until he saw the end of Northern.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it lik—”
“Seismic Wave!”
WHAAAAM!
Northern’s eyes widened and glowed as a tremendous gale erupted from nowhere and shot towards him.
Immediately, he shot out his hand just as Hao had done, narrowed his eyes, contracted his hands quickly, and punched into the incoming gale, softly pronouncing:
“Seismic wave…”
WHAAAAAAAAM!!
A gale of equal… no, even more powerful force exploded from the air around him and collided with Hao’s, causing the entire area to explode in a flush of wind.
Everyone was sent reeling back, only Northern managed to withstand the force of the explosion, stumbling just a couple of seconds back but was cut in different areas by the sharp wind.
However, the slight cuts all over his body began to exude purple smoke, slowly and painfully being knitted together.
‘What just happened?’
Northern’s eyes were wide open. It had all happened in an instant, so he didn’t even know how to arrange the events.
What he knew was that he was alert… he had never been so alert before when anticipating an attack.
Perhaps it was because of the damage Hao had managed to inflict on him in just a couple of minutes of meeting him, or it was because he wanted to copy Hao’s skills.
Maybe it was because he now had a talent that amplified his senses, but what he knew was that in that tiny moment before Hao used his talent ability, he was on edge, his spatial awareness at its peak.
And this might have caused the [Unseeing Eyes] to instinctively activate, for a fraction of a second, Hao’s attack slowed before his eyes, and he perceived every single thing in a world of blue threads.
He could see the strings that flowed around the invisible wave, connected them to each other and also a tiny, almost unnoticeable one tracing back to Hao.
An understanding of the ability immediately dawned on him in that fraction of a second.
Seismic Wave was a simple ability rooted in Hao’s core but expanded its attack force by forcing the wind to move beyond their will.
It was powerful enough to compound and compress a tornado ratio of wind into a simple gale and shoot it forward, hence making it more impactful and devastating.
But Northern still felt like this was not the true extent of the ability.
Perhaps the man did not intend to cause so much damage…
However, this much alone was enough to emulate… he didn’t even need to copy the talent.
In that brief moment of witnessing the ability’s true essence, Northern perfectly copied it while applying more momentum by striking harder to make his more powerful.
And the result?
They were all thrown away from each other, Ellis and Hao were lying on the ground, struggling to get up. Between them was a smoothly disheveled ground with jagged cracks.