Chapter 114: Between Blades
The forest barely resembled one anymore.
Flares of Unco ripped through canopies that once whispered secrets, now screaming with each blast. Roots churned beneath detonations. Bark melted. Soil cracked under directed tremorfields and aerial blasts that ricocheted off shattered stone. The reinforcements had arrived like a siege—half a dozen men, some still armored from the village’s inner hold, others stripped to light gear but running high on reserves. Fire. Sound. Kinetic bursts. Bladed wind. The ground throbbed like it remembered war.
And yet—Amari stood in the center. No Unco. No flair.
Just a man with twin daggers and a trail to catch.
His Pulse Daggers slid through the air like scalpels turned to ritual. They sang—not loud, but tuned. Vibrating gently against his palms, responding to tension, the slight hum of intent around him. One fighter lunged from the right, shoulder down, trying to crash through his guard. Amari slipped the shoulder clean—barely a breath between movement—and flicked the edge of his right blade along the inside of the elbow. The man screamed as the joint failed him.
A second fighter leapt overhead, pushing Unco into his legs—fire coiled in his boots to boost the kick. Amari caught the foot with a sidestep, allowed the momentum to carry past him, and elbowed the man mid-air, flipping him down hard enough for the bark to break around him.
They kept coming.
A gauntlet cracked against Amari’s jaw—the blow staggered him briefly. Another grazed his side, drawing blood. One Unco user used a sonic burst that shattered the tree beside Amari, bark splitting like drumskin. He rolled under the shockwave, teeth gritted, and emerged behind the sonic user—dagger first. The blade went low, swept behind the knee, and before the man could fall, Amari’s foot drove into his spine, hurling him into the trunk with a crunch.
But even as they landed blows, even as blood peppered Amari’s face and dust coated his shoulders, none of them could break the rhythm beneath his breath.
He wasn’t fighting to win.
He was fighting through.
His head turned once mid-fight—toward the girl’s trail. Still faint. Still fresh. Not yet gone. That brief glance told more than a shout.