Chapter 248: No Recognition
Myles felt their presence before he even turned his attention toward them.
Nine figures approached rapidly with each one carrying a clear and focused killing intent that locked directly onto him without hesitation.
Their presence cut sharply through the chaotic battlefield, distinct even among the overwhelming pressure that filled the air.
His awareness expanded naturally to trace their positions, speed, and the rhythm of their movements in a single sweep.
The intent behind them was simple and direct. They were coming to kill him.
"Fools," he thought, his gaze shifting slightly in their direction, though his body never turned fully.
There was no tension in him. No trace of concern formed after that realization.
Red's condition had already crossed the point of control. The thing inside Red no longer cared about allies or enemies. If they stepped into its range, they would be treated the same as anything else standing in his way.
That understanding settled firmly in his mind, and instead of seeing them as a threat he saw them as an opportunity. "Good," he continued inwardly, his grip tightening around his weapons, "I'll use you to kill your own men."
Red's blade came again at that moment, cutting through the air with a violent force that carried no restraint or structure.
The attack tore forward with raw intensity. But Myles moved the instant it descended.
His body slipped away in a clean motion. The black and colorful distortion trailing behind him as he redirected his path with precise control.
However, instead of circling away or stepping back into a safer angle, he changed direction entirely.
His movement shifted forward and moved across the battlefield toward the incoming group, deliberately closing the distance between himself and the nine elites who rushed to intercept him.
Peter saw that shift immediately. For a brief moment, confusion crossed his face as he tried to understand the intention behind such a move, but that hesitation vanished just as quickly, replaced by sharp urgency.
"He's coming toward us?!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the noise of the battlefield. His expression hardened as he raised his weapon, his gaze locking onto Myles with renewed focus. "Idiot! Move faster, guys!"
His command broke whatever hesitation remained within the group.
Their formation tightened as they pushed themselves to accelerate despite the crushing pressure pressing down on their bodies.
Their steps became heavier and their breathing rougher. But none of them slowed down. Weapons steadied in their hands as they prepared to meet Myles directly.
Behind him, Red moved again, but what followed no longer resembled any form of controlled combat. The last fragments of Red's awareness had already begun to collapse under the overwhelming will of the Blood Sun embryo that surged within him.
His movements lost all structure and became far more violent and erratic. There was no rhythm left or pattern to follow or anticipate. Only destruction remained.
The Ether surrounding his body darkened visibly as it twisted under that influence, turning heavier and hotter with every passing second.
The air thickened, suffocating under the pressure, while the ground beneath his feet cracked, unable to withstand the force radiating from him.
His body continued to deteriorate as he moved. Chunks of flesh breaking away from his body and falling in uneven fragments.
Those pieces did not remain intact. They darkened instantly and turned to ash before reaching the ground like before, leaving behind a grotesque sight of a body that was no longer whole, yet still driven forward without pause.
He showed no reaction to any of it. There was no sign that he felt pain or even recognized the damage. The only thing that remained within him was the need to attack.
Myles moved through that chaos without breaking his flow. He intercepted, redirected, and avoided every incoming strike with calculated precision, never allowing himself to be caught within the path of Red's attacks.
His positioning shifted constantly. His movements placed him exactly where he needed to be, guiding the direction of the clash as he continued to advance toward the incoming elites.
It was not retreat, nor was it reckless aggression. It was controlled, deliberate and exact movements.
The elites made their move as he closed in. Peter gave an order and the casters raised their hands, gathering Ether into condensed forms that pulsed with destructive intent.
The skills surged outward almost immediately, forming multiple projectiles that cut through the air at high speed.
Blazing arcs of power, compressed bursts of force, and focused streams of Ether converged toward Myles from several directions at once to overwhelm him and leave no space for escape.
But Myles had already seen it.
His perception traced every trajectory before the attacks fully formed, mapping their paths with absolute clarity.
He moved at the precise moment they were released, shifting his position with minimal effort.
A single step carried him out of the center of the hit. His body slipped cleanly to the side while maintaining his forward motion.
The attacks continued forward along their original paths. And Red stood directly in their way.
BOOM!
The first impact landed without resistance, followed immediately by the rest as the barrage struck him in full.
Explosions erupted in rapid succession tearing into his already unstable body. The force of the attacks burst out, sending shockwaves across the place as fragments of burning flesh and ash scattered into the air.
The battlefield trembled under the combined impact. The sound of each explosion layering over the last until it blurred into a continuous roar.
For a moment, everything seemed to stop under that force.
Then Red moved through all of that.
His head snapped sharply toward the source of the attacks, the motion abrupt and unnatural. What remained of his awareness locked onto the elites in the distance, drawn by the impact and the sudden presence of new targets, those who were attacking him.
The shift was immediate, and with it came a surge of killing intent far heavier than before.
It pressed outward like a physical force, crashing down onto the approaching group of his friends with suffocating weight. It was filled with raw hostility that no longer held any distinction between friend or enemy.
The nine of them felt it instantly.
Their bodies stiffened under that focus. Their movements faltered as the full attention of that presence turned toward them.
Red's posture lowered as his body leaned forward, the corrupted Ether around him flaring violently as if responding to that shift in intent.
The ground beneath him fractured further, cracks spreading as his weight pressed down for a single moment.
Then he moved.
"Wha-"
"Is Red going to attack us?!"
The nine elites of Red's troop start to feel terrified.
Red's body launched forward with terrifying speed. The ground shattered beneath his step as he surged toward them.
There was no hesitation in that movement. There was no recognition of who stood before him. Only the instinct to attack that drove him forward as he closed the distance toward his own friends.
Shock hit Peter harder than any pressure on the battlefield. His eyes widened as he stared at Red closing in on them with killing intent that felt completely real, completely directed, and completely wrong.
For a second, his mind refused to accept what he was seeing. This wasn't how Red fought. This wasn't how Red moved.
"Red…?" Peter called out, his voice strained as he took a step forward instead of back, as if trying to reach whatever remained inside him. "What are you doing?! It's us!"
But Red didn't respond.
The others felt it too. The weight of that killing intent pressed down harder the closer he got, and now that it locked directly onto them, it no longer felt like a mistake. It felt deliberate.
"Something's wrong…!" one of them shouted, panic starting to creep into his voice. "He's not stopping!"
"He's not even looking at us!" one of them said again, her grip tightening around her weapon as her breathing turned uneven. "That's not Red… that's not him!"
Varyn's expression hardened as he stared straight at the approaching figure, his jaw clenched tightly. "I told you…" he said under his breath, the words heavy with realization. "He's lost it."
Fear began to spread through the group. This was someone they trusted as their leader. Someone they had followed. And now that same presence turned into something unrecognizable. Something that looked at them the same bloodlust it looked at everything else on the battlefield.
"Peter, what do we do?!" one of them asked, his voice cracking under the pressure.
Peter didn't answer immediately. His eyes stayed locked on Red, trying to find even the smallest trace of awareness in that monstrous expression rushing toward them.
But there was nothing there. Only intent and urge to destroy.
That was when it truly hit him.
Red didn't recognize them anymore.
"Shit!" Peter muttered, his grip tightening around his sword as the truth settled in.
"Move! Spread out!" he suddenly shouted, his voice snapping back into command as instinct took over. "Don't take that head-on—!"
He didn't finish.
Red arrived in the blink of an eye.
The distance between them vanished in a single instant as his body tore through the space with overwhelming speed.
His blade moved.
A single slash happened.
One of the casters barely had time to react. Her eyes widened as Red appeared in front of her. Her mouth parted as if to speak, but the words never came.
The blade passed through her neck. Then her head separated cleanly from her body.
Blood burst outward in a violent arc as her body collapsed, the lifeless form dropping to the ground. The severed head followed a moment later, hitting the ground with a dull impact before rolling slightly to the side.
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