Bloodstar System: Infinite Evolution Through Beast Slaughter

Boom!

The blood spear and the black heavy blade collided in midair.

A ring of white pressure burst outward from the impact. The ruined courtyard of House Hurst took another devastating blow as the ground rolled like surf and loose stone ground itself into powder.

Crack.

The Black Dragon armor around Joren’s boots split apart.

The force drove him down onto one knee, burying it deep into the shattered rock below.

Middle stage Rank Five was still middle stage Rank Five.

The difference in the quality of their protective force was like mercury against air.

Cracks had already spread across Orson’s blood spear, but the cold, viscous corruption wrapped around it was crawling down the blade and eating into Joren’s arms.

"He blocked it?"

Orson hovered above the courtyard, staring at the figure beneath his spear.

One corner of his eye twitched uncontrollably.

Rank Three and Rank Five were divided by a chasm.

An ordinary Rank Three Warrior would have died beneath the pressure alone.

Yet Joren had stopped the attack.

Worse, that strange black armor had not even broken.

Then the young man pinned beneath the spear slowly raised his head.

A seam opened across the black mask, revealing two rows of white teeth.

The smile behind them was anything but pleasant.

"You had better be hard to kill."

Buzz.

The muscles along Joren’s arms swelled like steel cables being drawn tight.

[Primal Might] surged at full force.

[Bloodthirst Frenzy], eighty five stacks.

Then came the gravity field of [Heaven’s Sin].

"Break!"

Joren roared.

His spine gave a sharp explosive crack.

With the ten meter blood spear still bearing down on him, he forced himself upright.

Then he swung.

The massive blade moved as though it weighed no more than a wooden stick.

One savage upward cut.

Bang!

The blood spear shattered.

Scarlet liquid burst across the sky.

Joren stamped through the ground and launched himself upward like a cannon shell. [Heaven’s Sin] dragged a black crescent behind it as the blade came straight for Orson’s face.

"Arrogant!"

Orson had finally lost his temper.

A Rank Five fighter driven this far by some Rank Three brat would never live it down in Norcrest.

He threw both arms wide.

The air within a hundred meters thickened at once.

The invisible blood corruption condensed into something almost solid, as though a river of blood had appeared from nowhere and swallowed them both.

Joren’s body sank.

It felt like falling into concrete moments before it set.

Every movement took ten times the usual effort.

Even his thoughts began to drag.

This was the mark of Rank Five.

A personal field.

Orson vanished.

A heartbeat later, claws tore across Joren’s back.

[Black Dragon] split open and several drops of blood scattered into the air.

Too fast.

Inside the blood river, Orson moved like red lightning.

Slash.

Slash.

Slash.

In less than a second, more than a dozen wounds opened across Joren’s body, each one deep enough to expose bone.

Even S Class nano armor looked fragile before the claws of a Rank Five Fiend, each one harder than an alloy drill.

"What happened?"

"You were so loud a moment ago."

"Where is that monstrous strength?"

"Where is your speed?"

Orson’s voice came from every direction, amused and cruel.

He wanted to watch this arrogant boy bleed out slowly.

To see despair settle in before the end.

Joren said nothing.

He tried to move [Heaven’s Sin], but the heavy blade crawled through the blood river.

The [Voidshard Array] fared no better. The moment the flying blades emerged, the blood corruption dragged them down and ate at their surface. They could not even form an array.

This was suppression through realm alone.

Complete suppression.

Equipment did not matter.

Talents did not matter.

Until Joren broke through that shell, all he could do was endure.

"Still alive?"

The sight only sharpened Orson’s killing intent.

"Then die!"

Rumble.

Every strand of blood corruption gathered around his right claw.

It darkened until it was black as ink.

The fingertips tore at the air itself, leaving thin fractures in their wake.

The strongest strike of a middle stage Rank Five.

No room to escape.

Death closed around Joren.

At that moment, standing in the center of the blood river with his body soaked red, he closed his eyes.

Not to feel death.

To feel the blade in his hands.

There was nothing in this world that could not be cut.

And if something resisted, then the blade was not sharp enough.

The will behind it not absolute enough.

A breeze passed through the blood river.

Not wind.

Blade wind.

Orson froze halfway through his attack.

Cold touched the back of his neck.

"What is this..."

He turned toward Joren.

The blood covered young man opened his eyes.

His pupils had changed.

Two tiny blades now rested where they had been.

Within three feet of Joren, the thick blood corruption began to peel apart like snow beneath the sun.

No.

It was not melting.

It was being cut.

Even the breath leaving his lips broke into fine currents of edge, slicing through the air with faint hissing sounds.

Both hands closed around the long hilt of [Heaven’s Sin].

The heavy black blade gave a bright, eager tremor.

As though it had come alive.

Man and blade became one.

[Blade Dominion].

Before that absolute edge, Orson’s blood river was nothing more than meat laid out beneath a butcher’s knife.

"Cheap trick!"

The unease inside Orson surged beyond control.

He hurled the black claw forward with everything he had.

"Die!"

The attack tore through space toward Joren’s throat.

Joren stepped down.

Invisible edges seemed to split the entire House Hurst estate beneath his foot.

"Sever."

A single line extended from the edge of [Heaven’s Sin].

It crossed the air.

The air opened.

It passed through the blood river.

The river divided.

Then it met Orson’s indestructible black claw.

Slice.

Like a heated knife passing through butter.

Thud.

Half the claw dropped to the ground.

A heartbeat later, a line of blood appeared from Orson’s shoulder to his abdomen.

Then his body opened.

Blood erupted like a fountain.

His scream climbed into the night.

Orson clutched at the wound that had nearly split him in half and stumbled backward through the air, staring at Joren as though he had seen a ghost.

"Hey, old dog."

Joren raised the tip of his blade and pointed it toward the blood soaked figure struggling to force the wound closed.

"That claw was the interest."

"Now we settle the principal."

Orson looked at the young man standing there like a blade god descended into the world.

For the first time, one thought entered his mind.

Run.

Any later, and he really would die.