Silas marched over to the middle of their little battlefield. It was simply an empty ground in the village that spanned about 40 meters in diameter. The ground below them was clearly sandstone, with very little vegetation growing in it in the form of a few weeds here and there.
Nymira began to walk away, but before she could, Silas gestured for her training sword.
*Sniff*
Nymira instantly scrunched her nose. No⊠She looked oddly pale.
âHe smells like blood⊠A lot of blood. He smells like a walking ocean of blood. It feels supressed though⊠Why didnât it smell like this last time? Was it because of how many people were around?â
Pausing, she looked at the floor, her breathing and heart rate reaching levels of height that would have made anyone who could see it raise a brow at her state.
However, after a few seconds of this, she kept her head down and simply walked away, not allowing anyone to look her in the eyes until she calmed herself down.
âWhatâs wrong with her?â Silas thought before throwing that thought to the back of his mind and looking forward.
âAre you ready kid? Just a spar. Iâm a lot older than you so donât be too mad if you lose, alright?â The man grinned.
âLetâs hope you donât faint on me.â Silas snorted.
Several hundred meters away, two people stood on a roof and watched the entire situation unfold.
âI canât feel his presence at all⊠Is he that weak?â The woman spoke.
âHeh⊠Heâs Keiraâs grandson. Youâve seen the kind of monster she is on the battlefield.
Rhea didnât take that trait from her, but youâve seen Keiraâs other daughters. If that boy is anything like Keira, I doubt he is as simple as he seems.â The burly man scratched his beard with a grimace.
He already had Syra to deal with, so he really hoped that the boy wouldnât be as much of an eyesore. Unfortunately, Nymiraâs sense of smell tended to be right about everything.
âDo you think he has a blessing?â The woman asked.
âNo⊠But he might have something else.â He narrowed his eyes.
Back at the spar, Silas and the 19-year-old kid stared at one another while slowly circling around one another.
âAlright⊠Just think of killing him⊠Thatâs how it works, right?â Silas closed his eyes and tried to muster it, but killing intent felt more like an instinctual thing.
âJust think of someone you hate⊠Someone you truly hate from the bottom of your heart⊠SomeoneâŠâ Silas grimaced as a face appeared in his mind.
It was someone from his previous life. It was one of the first times Silas ever felt true hatred for someone, and when he did, nothing could stop him from absolutely destroying that man for what he had done.
Silas gritted his teeth and opened his eyes.
*SWOOSH*
For a second, everyoneâs vision became red. For a second, it looked like the ground was covered in blood⊠No, it wasnât just to groundâŠ
When they looked at their hands, they were covered in blood too.
Corpses covered their entire town, yet despite how long that second seemed, none of them looked at Silas.
No one except the boy before him.
But then the second was over, and everything had returned back to how it was beforeâŠ
But despite this, the eyes of the boy before him remained dull before eventually being replaced by another emotion.
âMonsterâŠâ He muttered with pure terror on his face.
*SWOOSH*
A torrent of toki suddenly covered him and his wooden blade. Silas had no idea what had happened. It was hard to feel oneâs own killing intent, so Silas had no idea what kind of effect it might have had on anyone around him, let alone the person who looked into his eyes.
âMONSTER!â A fanatical light appeared in his eyes, making Silas widen his eyes before stepping back and instinctively raising his hand toward the boy.
âI suggest you stay backâŠâ Silas warned, but the boy didnât listen. To be fair, he didnât seem like he was in the right mental state to listen either way.
âOh wait, I canât use magic⊠Uhm. What to do, what to do? Well, Iâve disabled many people in the past⊠This should be easy!â Silas smiled with confidence even though he was slightly nervous. At the same time, his mood was foul due to the memory he forcefully resurfaced.
From the amount of toki the boy used, he could see that he was at least stronger than the man who had attacked their home 4 years ago. From the amount of toki the boy used, he could see that he was at least stronger than the man who had attacked their home 4 years ago. However, Silas was much stronger than back then; plus, he had elemental fusion on his side.
The boy was still a few meters away, but he was closing the distance at a very quick pace.
Silasâ eyes turned a strange shade of green as he threw the sword at the boy without a momentâs hesitation.
Having already infused his body with mana, Silas used 50% of his strength, causing the blade to shoot right through the air, breaking the winds with a power that made them howl at the swordâs presence.
âDid he just copy my move.â Nymira widened her eyes before a grin tugged at the corners of her lips.
He had taken a page right out of Nymiraâs book. Sure, Silas felt like he was cursed to never be good at swordsmanship, but even in his past life, he always adapted.
Now that he had an evolution blessing, that adaption increased several folds.
As the sword neared, the blood eyes boy threw a panicked slash at the sword, but that was part of Silasâ plan.
Infusing himself with the water element, Silas dashed forward with moderate speed. The boy saw this and tried to slash down at the incoming green-eyed child, but the sword didnât reach its mark, simply hitting thin air.
Silas moved with the flow of a river, and the precision of a surgeon.
Stepping to the side with minimal movement, Silasâ hand slashed through the air and chopped at the opponentâs tight to pelvis joint.
The attack wasnât strong, but it was decisive. Anyone in their right mind would have been capable of seeing such a thing. Fortunately, Silasâ opponent was far from being in the right mind.
The boy slashed at Silas with the intention of decapitating him, and Silas was worried that it might have actually had the ability to do such a thing since it was covered in a large amount of toki.
Yet, Silas dodged again without much thought before lightly kicking the boyâs calf.
He continued dodging the attack, moving like a ballerina, dancing around his opponent while throwing decisive strikes at certain body parts.
After the calf, he went for the ankle, then the lower forearm, lower bicep, a kick to the knee, a kick to the side of the knee, and several more.
They were only 10 seconds into the fight, yet Silasâ opponent had slowed down significantly, and the pain shooting through his body gave him a sense of clarity. Yet, clarity does not make a foolish man wise. It simply makes their foolishness clearer.
âHeâs a monster⊠HEâS A MONSTER! I SAW IT IN HIS EYES! HEâS A KILLER. HE KILLS HUMANS FOR FUN. HEâS CRAZY!â He screamed as agony shot through his body once again. However, he didnât stop attacking though. Actually, Silas could see that the toki covering him had become more ferocious than ever before.
âLast warning. I suggest you stand down.â Silas warned. His guard was no longer up, but somehow he seemed deadlier than ever.
Maybe it was the gaze in his eyes. Not even Silas knew since he was too busy thinking about everything else.
âAHHHH.â The roar left the boyâs mouth as his swung his wooden blade, but even though his toki looked like it intended to kill Silas, the boyâs condition held him back.
âI warned you.â Silas sighed and circulated earth fusion through his body.
Stretching out his hand, Silas grabbed the sword between his fingers and thumb.
The moment he stopped it in its place, the toki around it dispersed⊠No. The right word would have been disappeared.
It had been his plan from the start. Silas had always wondered what would happen if he simply absorbed the mana a toki user used, and he had gotten his answer.
If he did it while attacking them, his attacks would pack more of a punch even when heâs using less power.
Sure, they would simply take control of more ambient mana and convert it into toki.
Unlike mages, who were confined to a certain amount of mana, toki users were confined to the amount of mana they could control at one time, while their power depended on how they well they controlled that toki.
By absorbing their toki into his mana core, not only did he increase his vitality, for a moment, he also reduced the amount of toki they were controlling, allowing him to attack again and hit them even harder than before.
However, when he absorbed the toki from a weapon as weak as a wooden sword, it would lose its ability to support the power of its user, and since the wooden sword didnât count as part of their body, they would have to coat it again using the toki that coated their bodies.
And that was exactly what the boy did.
âYou should have retreated.â Silas spoke, the fire element suddenly coursing through his body and firing up his muscles.
Tensing up his hand, Silas turned the blade into splinters as an explosive power shot into his fingers.
At the same time, Silas coursed this explosive burst of power into his other arm, reeling it back and slamming it into the boyâs solar plexus with so much power that the boy instantly puked out the contents of his stomach.
However, before the boy could fly off, Silas grabbed his hair and threw a devastating uppercut infused with the explosive power of the fire element to shatter the boyâs jaw.
It had been a little more than a minute since the battle had begun, yet for those watching, it felt like it had ended just as fast as it had begun.
Everyone watched on in stunned silence, yet only a few could understand even a fraction of Silasâ lethality.
At the boy collapsed to the floor with his jaw still shattered into a million pieces; Silas walked away from the body and gently took his sisterâs hand before walking away.
As he passed Nymira, he could see a dangerous flame ignite in her eyes. However, no matter how fanatic the gleam in her eyes seemedâŠ
âShow me what youâre made of, kidâŠâ Silas grinned as he passed her.
âI knew he was different.â Nymira smiled from ear to ear as excitement boiled deep in her soul, to the point that the bloody smell no longer repelled her, but instead, it made her feel aliveâŠ
Because for the first time in her life, she found a rival.
ââââââ
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