Chapter 108. Pitiful Heavens
Rhys charged directly at the Warden, drawing his sword as he closed in. The Warden whirled his sword. The two of them clashed. The Warden parried his strike and instantly forced him back, his strength overwhelming Rhys’s easily. Rhys hopped back, meaning to get some distance, but the other mages were behind him, and if the Warden got past him, the newly-raised Tier 1s stood no chance, let alone the mages still without cores. The Warden gripped his black blade in both hands and struck down at him, and he had nowhere to go.
His core had been taken, but not the clumps of impurity that circled it. Why would they be taken? They were filth, not worthy of an Empress’s eye. But to Rhys, they were the highest grade of trashure.
In all the energy he’d drawn from the guards, he’d drawn plenty of curse energy. It was something to contemplate for later, but for now, the most important thing was that he had curse energy, and he was far from afraid to use it.
The curse energy met one of the clumps of impurities, and two skeletal hands rose out of the ground to encapsulate Rhys. The Warden’s blade hammered into the bone, cutting a deep mark in the bone, but failing to shatter it. With the strike arrested, Rhys dropped the curse and closed in, darting under the Warden’s raised arms to thrust at his stomach.
The Warden dashed back, almost too fast for Rhys to follow. He raised his brows, lowering his blade to give Rhys a serious look. “Not only have you recovered your magehood somehow, but you also wield spells I’ve never seen before. Tell me, have you ever considered working for the Empress?”
“I considered it, sure, and I considered it right into the trash where it belongs. The Empress can get fucked,” Rhys replied adamantly. His stance on the Empire hadn’t weakened, for being confined in its mines. Rather, he opposed them even more strongly now that he saw the filth the Empress allowed under her reign.
“A pity.” The Warden’s eyes hardened, and he slashed his blade. A hyper-pressurized blade of water leaped out and closed in on Rhys, hurtling through the air with the speed to cut diamond. Rhys had no option but to dodge, but the Warden knew that. He was there before Rhys landed and slashed sideways. Rhys jumped sideways, activating Blow Mitigation with all his might, and the hit still sent him rolling over the ground. Blood spilled over his side, soaking into his robes, and a deep gash cut into his side. With a moment, he could close it forcibly, but not with the Warden breathing down his neck. The man chased after him, closing the gap between them in a heartbeat.
Rhys rolled over, moving with shocking speed and agility even to himself. The Warden’s sword struck into the ground, throwing up dust, but it missed Rhys, who rolled right into the center of the depowered mages. The Warden stared after him, confused, and Rhys stared back, with no answers to give.
Trash Step 9 > 11
Rhys raised his brows. Huh, could it be? Trash Step doesn’t just work on trashy ground conditions, but also on trashy movement techniques like rolling around or… I don’t know, hitting the griddy? So much opportunity! To think, he’d been sleeping on such a deep and mysterious technique for this long. Trash Step still held a myriad of mysteries within it, that he needed to steadily study to unlock!