Chapter 64: That Is Exactly What I Wanted to Hear!
Joren barely lifted his head as the enormous claw swelled across his vision.
"That all?"
Boom!
The impact sounded like a high explosive grenade going off beside the ear.
Stone fragments and dust erupted outward, swallowed by a violent blast that swept across dozens of meters.
Hector Tyren stood nearby with a cruel smile curling across his face.
Over.
Genius. Awakened Warrior. None of it mattered.
Before absolute power, every title became a joke.
"Do you see now?"
He adjusted one cuff and turned toward the trembling students.
"This is what happens when you defy..."
The rest never came.
Dust drifted away from the crater.
At its center, the two and a half meter monster still held the same downward striking pose.
Beneath that terrible claw, Joren had raised one hand.
Palm up.
Holding it there as though it weighed nothing.
The green light in Dace’s eyes trembled.
Impossible.
He was Rank Four.
That strike had carried everything he had.
How could Joren stop it?
With one hand?
"So you are that proud of being Rank Four?"
Joren’s fingers closed around the claw.
Black nanofluid rushed over his palm and hardened into an unbreakable gauntlet.
[Primal Might] erupted.
"I will send you down to join the rest."
Crunch.
Dace screamed.
The scaled claw, hard as iron, shattered inside Joren’s grip like brittle pastry.
"Let go! Let go of me!"
Reason left him.
His other fist came whipping toward Joren’s face.
It never reached him.
A single blow launched Dace sideways like a ball struck from a bat.
He flew dozens of meters and smashed into the wall of the old school building.
The entire load bearing section collapsed.
Concrete and steel buried him beneath the wreckage.
Kest stood with his mouth hanging open.
Hector’s legs gave out beneath him, and he dropped onto the ground.
Then the rubble shifted.
A huge hand covered in dark green scales punched through the concrete.
Dace clawed his way out, drenched in blood.
Almost nothing human remained.
Spines had torn through the skin along his back. Most of the fangs in his mouth were broken, and the mutated arm he had once taken such pride in now hung at an ugly angle.
His eyes burned red.
He could not accept it.
Could not accept being so helpless before Joren.
"Joren! I will eat you! I will tear the flesh from your bones piece by piece!"
The ground burst beneath his feet.
All the hatred of a Rank Four Fiend drove that charge.
Joren did not draw [Heaven’s Sin].
He did not call out the unpredictable [Voidshard Array].
A Fiend?
So what if it hit hard?
Joren would show him what real violence looked like.
[Primal Might].
A five hundred percent increase in strength.
The domineering force cultivated through [Heavenly Overlord Body Art] wrapped around his body.
His right arm thickened slightly. Muscle gathered beneath the skin like poured steel, and even the surrounding air seemed unable to bear the pressure.
Dace’s giant claw tore toward him.
Joren met it with a punch.
Head on.
Boom!
Pure force collided.
Then came the cracking.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Before Joren’s fist, the mutated claw might as well have been a tomato beneath a hydraulic press.
It came apart from the fingertips upward.
Scales burst loose. Flesh ruptured. White splinters of bone punched through skin and scattered into the air.
The Shockwave did not stop there.
It raced along the arm.
Forearm.
Elbow.
Upper arm.
Shoulder.
The entire limb exploded into a cloud of blood, as though it had been fed into a grinder.
Dace’s scream had barely begun when the next strike drove it back down his throat.
Joren’s fist tore through the ruined arm and smashed into his face.
Boom!
The two and a half meter body plunged into the concrete playground.
Cracks spread outward from the point of impact, racing across dozens of meters.
A crater five meters wide opened beneath him.
The students watching from afar had forgotten how to move.
That was a Rank Four Fiend.
One punch had nearly destroyed him.
Joren drew back his fist and flicked the black blood from his knuckles.
Then he stepped into the crater.
Dace lay at the bottom, twitching like a dying dog.
Half his skull had caved in. One eye was gone. The one that remained followed Joren with naked terror.
"Go on."
Joren placed a foot on the knee of Dace’s only intact leg.
"Why did you stop?"
A little pressure.
Crack.
Dace convulsed with a scream.
"I hate garbage."
Joren bent down, seized him by the scales around his neck, and lifted his ruined head.
"Especially your kind."
His fist sank into Dace’s stomach.
The Shockwave carried by [Primal Might] passed through flesh and hammered the organs beneath.
Black blood sprayed from Dace’s mouth, mixed with torn pieces of tissue.
His body folded inward.
Another punch landed against the chest.
Ribs snapped.
Then another.
And another.
Joren beat him with the steady rhythm of someone working a heavy bag.
Each strike threw up a mist of blood.
Each one brought another sickening crack from within.
There was no fight left in it.
Only punishment.
"Stop... please stop..."
Hector sat nearby, shaking so badly he could barely force out the words.
After the eighteenth punch, Dace stopped moving.
Nearly every scale on his body had shattered. He sagged against the ground like wet clay.
Only the faint rise and fall of his chest showed that some trace of life remained.
Joren released him.
"So this is a Fiend?"
He looked down at the wreckage.
"Nothing special. Just harder to kill."
Dace forced open his remaining eye.
Blood had blurred almost everything.
Only now did he understand what stood before him.
His voice came out weaker than a mosquito’s hum, bubbling through the blood in his mouth.
"You cannot kill me."
"Lord Bloodfiend stands behind me."
"House Hurst is not what it used to be."
"If you kill me, Lord Bloodfiend will tear you apart."
"He is invincible."
The more he spoke, the more frantic he became.
As though that name alone could still give him courage.
A broken laugh spilled between mouthfuls of blood.
"Joren... scared now?"
"Let me go... while you still can..."
Joren smiled.
The fox had finally shown its tail.
"Bloodfiend?"
"Good."
He reached down and straightened what remained of Dace’s ruined collar.
"That is exactly what I wanted to hear."
Joren rose and no longer spared him another glance.
He lifted his wrist and spoke into the tactical watch, his voice turning cold and official.
"All units of Antares Command, move out."
"Surround House Hurst in Norcrest."
"Not even a fly gets out."