Chapter 45: The Tide Turns
"Plunder."
Buzz.
The moment 1000 Bloodstars vanished, a freezing current shot into Joren’s spine.
His outline blurred.
For a second, he looked less like a person and more like a patch of mist about to dissolve into the air.
[Plunder successful. Obtained blue Talent: Phantom Thorn.]
[Talent Description: You are a dancer in the shadows, and even light becomes your accomplice. By the time an enemy notices your afterimage, death has already closed around the throat.]
[Effect: Grants the active skill Light Refraction. When activated, the body enters optical invisibility for five seconds. Cooldown is thirty seconds. The first attack made while invisible is guaranteed to deal 200 percent critical damage. Passive effect: Movement automatically creates afterimages to confuse enemy vision.]
Invisibility and critical damage.
Built for stabbing someone in the back.
Now he had strength.
Speed.
Defense.
Perception.
And even an assassination skill.
A complete fighter from every angle.
...
Norcrest, northern defense line central command.
"Heavy artillery position is requesting support. Flying Voidbeasts have surrounded them. They only have enough ammunition for three more minutes!"
"They are pulling back. They must be regrouping for another charge!"
Reports from every part of the front poured through the command hall.
Manester stood before the live feed.
The Beast Tide that had once crushed everything in its path was now in complete disorder.
Lower level Voidbeasts screamed as they were trampled into pulp. The rest fled in every direction, as though something far worse than themselves was hunting from behind.
At the very front of the retreat were the Rank Four lords.
More than a dozen enormous beasts that had towered over the battlefield only minutes ago.
Now they ran like startled rabbits.
The Flame Brutebull, famous for its defense, stumbled through the ruins so desperately that it did not even bother knocking obstacles aside. It simply crashed through them, as if wishing it had two more legs.
The Frost Direwolf was no better.
Tail tucked tight beneath its body.
Tongue hanging out.
Fear clear in its eyes.
They were running.
Actually running for their lives.
"This..."
"Is that Joren?"
Manester’s voice came out strangely distant.
The image was blurred, but he recognized the blade.
The figure too.
That same new recruit whose file had listed him at Mortal Perfection.
The screen shook violently.
The drone fought to stay steady in the wind and pushed its focus to the limit.
Even the alarms in the command hall seemed to fade.
At the center of the image, a blood covered figure swung an enormous Spider King with one hand, then killed it with a single punch.
"It is not over. Look at the side!"
The adjutant pointed sharply toward one corner of the screen.
Joren had only just landed when a slit opened in the shadow behind him.
Phantom Mantis.
He did not turn.
His right hand simply reached backward and closed around a dark green scythe.
The mantis was dragged out of concealment, its compound eyes wide.
Joren’s left hand closed around the Black Gold blade.
Lightning and blade light merged.
A violet crescent swept across the screen.
The Phantom Mantis split into two bloody pieces and crashed to the ground.
Joren flicked the green blood from the blade.
Loose.
Wild.
Cold.
A female staff officer spoke under her breath.
"One man is hunting an entire lord squad?"
"Commander, should we request support to cover him?"
"Notify every unit on The Frontier."
Manester’s answer came at once.
"No. Redirect every long range weapon we still have."
"Block their escape."
"Do not let a single one of those beasts get away."
"Today, I want to watch that kid wipe out the whole lord pack."
Far below, Joren seemed to sense the drone.
He lifted his head for a moment.
Ahead of him, the remaining Rank Four lords were already howling in despair.
The hunter had changed.
So had the prey.
...
Across the wilderness, a streak of dark red light cut through the sky.
Kyo stepped through empty air. Each footfall produced a deep burst of compressed wind.
As the only member of Sirius Bureau stationed in Norcrest, he had long grown used to solitude.
Part of it came from the gap between him and everyone else.
The rest came from watching the world rot year after year.
He looked up at the gray sky.
According to classified intelligence from Altair Directorate, Norcrest was not the only place in danger.
At this very moment, several border regions of the Aurelian Dominion were already sending emergency reports.
The truth was simple.
The world was falling apart.
The Aurelian Dominion still stood among the five great powers in name, but its reserves of high level Awakened Warriors were nearly exhausted.
"So Norcrest is going to fall too?"
The words left Kyo quietly.
Weariness sat in his eyes.
Then he approached the center of the northern defense line and spread his Mental Force ahead by habit.
His brow tightened.
Something was coming toward him.
A huge mass of chaos and fear.
Not human fear.
Voidbeasts.
They were retreating into the wilderness like water dragged back by a tidal wave.
"Did Manester use an orbital weapon?"
Kyo increased his speed.
No.
A secondary city like Norcrest had no authority to deploy something at that level.
Reinforcements from another city?
Also impossible.
No fighter of equal rank had moved anywhere within five hundred kilometers.
Kyo crossed the final two kilometers in one step.
He had expected to descend like a savior and break the Beast Tide with his presence.
Instead, the first thing he saw was a hunt.
Violent.
Brutal.
Almost beautiful.
He knew battle well enough to understand what he was seeing.
Absolute suppression.
"Peak Rank Two?"
At last, Kyo caught the Vital Force coming from Joren.
He had lived in Norcrest for five years.
Never once had he heard of a Rank Two Warrior beating Rank Four lords into the ground.
Then the young man moved.
A burst of violet light tore across Kyo’s vision.
Boom!
The enormous head of the Flame Brutebull exploded beneath the lightning like a rotten melon struck by a hammer.
Before Kyo could fully process it, the young man standing on the corpse twisted strangely.
Then vanished.
"Spatial ability?"
Kyo’s pupils narrowed.
No.
Optical invisibility.
Behind the fleeing Frost Direwolf, the air split into a vacuum corridor under the force of Joren’s movement.
He appeared like a thorn rising from the underworld.
One precise cut entered the wolf’s neck.
The massive head flew.
Then he became lightning again and raced toward the next target.
No wasted motion.
No pause.
Fast enough to choke the breath.
"Where do you think you are going?"
Joren’s laughter carried across the wilderness, arrogant and fevered.
Kyo stood at the edge of the cliff and watched him chase a pack of lord class Voidbeasts through an entire army.
If he stepped in now, the only thing left for him might be collecting beast cores.
Even within Sirius Bureau, where monsters gathered among monsters, talent like this was rare.
Very rare.
Kyo watched the young man drive the fleeing lords into one terrified howl after another.
Then a thought rose in him.
Ridiculous.
And yet it made his blood move again.
Perhaps this collapsing age did not need another veteran holding the line.
Perhaps it needed a genius to arrive from nowhere and change everything.