Chapter 70: Windriding Bone
Orson roared.
The ground burst beneath him.
His body became a streak of blood red light, crossing the distance to Joren in a blink. One claw, shaped like that of a tyrant lizard, screamed through the air toward Joren’s skull.
A middle stage Rank Five Bloodfiend.
The force behind that strike was monstrous.
Clang!
Visible ripples exploded from the impact and rolled across the estate.
Several nearby camera lenses shattered. Streamers leaning too close clutched their ears and collapsed, blood leaking from ruptured eardrums.
Joren did not move back an inch.
His right hand held the massive black blade in a reverse grip, its broad body raised above his head.
[Heaven’s Sin].
An S Class heavy blade weighing 1360 kilograms, backed by strength that had already broken beyond human limits.
Like a mountain, it held Orson’s claw in place.
A flicker passed through Orson’s crimson eyes.
Impossible.
The brat was only Rank Three.
Even someone born with monstrous strength should not have been able to stop a full strike from a Rank Five Bloodfiend.
Yet Joren had not budged.
Worse, the recoil had left Orson’s fingers numb.
Joren slowly raised his head.
Black nanofluid had covered his face, forming a sealed mask. Only two cold artificial lenses remained visible, pulsing red in the dark.
"That all?"
Rage twisted Orson’s face.
"You little bastard!"
The bone spikes along his back flared outward.
Then he attacked like a rabid beast.
Both claws blurred, striking again and again.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Joren wielded [Heaven’s Sin] in one hand.
The black blade became a wall.
Every collision sent another Shockwave tearing across the grounds.
Then Joren stepped forward.
Both hands closed around the hilt. Muscle rose beneath his combat suit as [Primal Might] erupted.
No technique.
No finesse.
Just one crushing blow.
[Heaven’s Sin] came down beneath the pull of its gravity field and smashed into Orson’s chest.
Orson crossed both claws to block.
The Great Strength behind the strike hit him like an avalanche.
He staggered back.
The half ruined gate of the House Hurst estate finally gave way beneath the blast and exploded into debris.
Dust surged upward.
Joren followed it in.
Blade in hand, he vanished into the cloud while one cold order carried back through the air.
"All units remain in position."
"Anyone who moves without orders will face military discipline."
He had gone in already?
What happened to the encirclement?
What happened to a joint operation?
This was not an assault.
He had walked in alone to challenge the entire estate.
Outside the gate, Manester stared at the enormous breach and listened to the crashes coming from within.
His raised hand remained frozen in the air.
He had been about to signal a charge.
Now the gesture hung there, unfinished.
Awkward.
As the former Frontier Marshal and current Commander of Norcrest, Manester was used to giving orders.
The moment Orson transformed, instinct had told him to send Antares Command forward and cover Joren with overwhelming firepower.
But Joren was the Frontier Marshal now.
If Manester ordered the troops in, he would be overriding the officer in command.
Yet leaving Joren inside alone?
That was a middle stage Rank Five Bloodfiend.
Worse, this was the House Hurst stronghold. No one knew how many traps, hidden tunnels, or Fiend transformed soldiers waited inside.
Watching Joren enter alone felt like seeing his own child walk into a tiger den while he remained outside, forced to obey a traffic light.
"Ahem."
"All units... remain alert."
After holding the pose for far too long, Manester lowered his hand to the back of his head and scratched it, quietly changing the order from charge to remain alert.
Several squad leaders who had already leaned forward, ready to storm the estate, nearly stumbled.
They looked at one another.
"Manester, are we really staying out here?"
Kaia hurried over, worry plain in her voice.
"The Frontier Marshal is only Rank Three. He is powerful, but that thing is a Rank Five Bloodfiend."
Manester said nothing.
His face had gone dark.
Kyo stood nearby with a toothpick between his teeth, watching the show.
"Enough. Stop twisting yourself into knots."
He looked toward the buildings collapsing deeper inside the estate.
A sharp light entered his eyes.
"Did you forget where that kid came from?"
"He chased a Beast Tide from behind and kept cutting until someone dragged him away."
"Neither of us has that kind of madness."
Kyo pointed toward the estate.
Inside, Joren’s status panel had already changed.
[Windriding Bone Blue]
[Description: Gravity no longer binds you. You may hover freely in the air as currents gather beneath you like obedient servants. When you cross above a city, sonic clouds explode in your wake. You become a human meteor, looking down upon the lives below as though they were ants.]
[Effect]
[Controlled Flight: Grants permanent flight. Flying consumes stamina and Vital Force.]
[Storm Field: High pressure air currents automatically surround the body.]
Joren had expected a difficult battle on the way here.
So he had spent every Bloodstar he possessed.
First, he evolved [Lithe Form] into the blue Talent [Windriding Bone].
Everything else went into Mental Force.
[Host: Joren]
[Mental Force: 5680, Rank Three Psionic Master]
[Combat Rank: Peak Rank Three]
[Bloodstars: 0]
He had officially become a Rank Three Psionic Master.
"You walked into my home yourself, little bastard!"
Orson’s roar exploded beside him.
A Rank Five fighter moved faster than ordinary eyes could follow.
The claw covered in bone spikes came down toward Joren’s head, wrapped in blood red protective force so dense it looked almost solid.
The air detonated beneath it.
An ordinary Rank Three Warrior would have been crushed by the pressure alone, left with nothing to do but close his eyes and die.
Buzz.
Joren’s spine cracked in a rapid chain.
Invisible currents gathered around his body.
[Windriding Bone].
The claw came within a hair of his head.
Joren slid ten meters backward without turning or stepping, as though the laws of motion no longer applied.
Then he shot straight into the sky.
Boom!
Orson’s claw missed and smashed into the ground.
The earth convulsed.
A crater more than ten meters wide opened beneath him, while broken stones flew like bullets and punched holes through the surrounding pillars.
"What?"
Orson jerked his head upward.
Joren hovered ten meters above him, looking down with [Heaven’s Sin] held loosely in one hand.
"No."
"That is impossible."
Joren’s gaze remained flat.
"Go join your son."
The air burst behind him.
A white sonic cloud exploded into existence.
Driven by gravity and the thrust of [Windriding Bone], Joren became a black meteor and dropped toward Orson.
[Heaven’s Sin].
Crushing Pressure.
A blade weighing 1360 kilograms, driven by Joren’s absurd strength.
The kinetic force behind it was a disaster in motion.
Orson’s scalp prickled.
He did not dare take the strike carelessly.
Both arms crossed above his head as every trace of his Rank Five protective force erupted.
"Break!"
Clang!
The impact tore through the estate.
A visible Shockwave swept outward and flattened the nearby structures.
Orson’s legs sank into the ground up to the knees.
The earth beneath him surged and burst like water.
He bared his teeth.
Scales cracked across both arms, and black blood seeped through the gaps.
A middle stage Rank Five Bloodfiend.
Suppressed by strength.
Something inside Orson snapped.
"Come out!"
"Tear him apart!"
A shrill howl rolled through the ruins.
More than a hundred figures staggered from the shadows.
The death soldiers House Hurst had cultivated in secret.
Orson and the black robed Bloodfiend envoy had already drained their remaining life through forbidden methods and forced them into full Fiend transformation.
Some had arms shaped into bone blades.
Others crawled on all fours like spiders.
Every one of them was a Fiend transformed killer.
The weakest were Rank Two.
Several had even reached early stage Rank Three.
This was the private army House Hurst had hidden for years.
"Kill him!"
"Wear him down!"
The monsters charged with a collective roar.
Several leaped upward, jaws spreading wide as they snapped at Joren in the air.
Joren smiled.
Bloodstars.
Rows and rows of them.
[Mental Force: 5680, Rank Three]
Buzz.
The air behind him rippled.
[Voidshard Array].
An S Class psionic weapon.
Thirty six blades, each thinner than a cicada wing, disappeared from sight.
Slash.
The spider shaped Fiend that had jumped the highest suddenly froze.
Its head slid from its neck.
The cut shone smooth as glass.
Only after the body struck the ground did black blood erupt into the air.
Whish.
Whish.
Whish.
An invisible net of death spread across the courtyard.
Joren remained motionless above it.
Below, blossoms of blood opened one after another.
Fiends charging forward were cut through the waist.
Those who raised weapons to block were sliced apart along with the weapons in their hands.
This was a Psionic Master.
Death above the battlefield.
A god cutting through grass.
[Ding! Rank Two Fiend killed. Bloodstars obtained: 20.]
[Ding! Rank Three Fiend killed. Bloodstars obtained: 200.]
[Ding! Talent Bloodthirst Frenzy activated. All attributes increased by 1 percent. Current stacks: 20.]
System notifications became one continuous chime.
In only ten seconds, the courtyard had become a slaughter ground.
Power kept pouring through Joren’s limbs.
The feeling was addictive.
"Enough!"
Orson stared at the broken bodies covering the ground.
These soldiers had consumed years of resources.
His hidden trump card.
And Joren had slaughtered them without lifting a hand.
"A Psionic Master..."
"You are a Psionic Master too?"
His voice shook.
Monstrous strength.
Flight.
Mental Force.
How many abilities had this brat hidden?
If Joren left this place alive, House Hurst was finished.
"He has to die."
"He must die!"
Orson stamped down.
The air turned thick and scarlet.
Unlike Rank Four fighters, who could only project protective force outside the body, Rank Five fighters could shape it into a force unique to themselves.
Hiss.
Joren’s brow tightened.
His Mental Force sank into something like a swamp.
The once fluid [Voidshard Array] slowed sharply.
Even the currents holding him aloft were crushed beneath the blood soaked pressure.
His body began to fall.
"Get down here!"
Orson closed one hand in the air.
Blood condensed above Joren into two enormous palms several meters long.
They slammed together.
Boom!
Joren was driven into the ground.
Sparks burst across Black Dragon.
Orson gave him no time to recover.
Steel bars and blood from the corpses rose out of the surrounding wreckage, twisting together into a crimson spear ten meters long.
Wails seemed to echo from its shaft.
It carried enough force to erase everything in its path.
The point drove straight toward Joren’s chest.
There was nowhere to evade.
Joren knelt on one knee and looked up.
Behind the black mask, his eyes held no fear.
Only a rising hunger for battle.
"Good."
"If you died too easily, taking your Bloodstars would feel almost unfair."
Red light flashed across the Talent display at the edge of his vision.
[Bloodthirst Frenzy: 85 stacks.]
[All attributes increased by 85 percent.]
The minor enemies were gone.
Time for the boss.
"Come on!"
Joren closed both hands around the hilt.
He did not dodge.
Golden protective force erupted from his body and forced the blood mist back.
This time, he would not fly.
He would meet Orson head on.
Then break every bone in that old monster’s body, one piece at a time.
Heaven’s Sin rose toward the sky.
And came down to meet the spear.