Chapter 119: From That Simple Piece Of Paper
The Fireball shot out toward Troy, who easily dodged the attack. It wasn’t like the attack was meant to hit him, but rather it was a distraction to remind Troy that they were about to clash.
Cillian continued stepping backward, looking at his surroundings, as he was afraid that he might suddenly trip if he focused too much on Troy, or that the other shepherd might suddenly decide to attack.
Cillian decided to leave the smoke screen and lure Troy outside its influence.
’I have to be careful about certain things. First, he might still have a trump card left in his arsenal. Second, I have to create some distance between Troy and the other shepherd. I can’t allow them to team up against me now.’
Cillian was finally out of the smoke after a few seconds, but he had to halt his steps when he saw that Troy hadn’t left it. He had barely escaped the smoke before Troy turned around, looking like he was about to sprint back.
’So you came back to your senses now?!’
Cillian hissed and returned into the smoke, thinking that his lure plan had failed when it was Troy luring him by trying to reach towards the other shepherd at the entrance, only to see through his Nearby Flag Presence that Troy’s Death Flag had stopped.
Then, the Death Flag dashed towards him, seemingly not planning on cooperating with the other shepherd at all.
This made Cillian act right away.
"Fireball."
Conjuring a Fireball at his fingertip, Cillian aimed and shot it toward the incoming enemy.
Cillian saw the flag merely shift to the side before he clenched the sword tightly in his hand and faced the enraged Troy.
"Just how many fucking abilities do you have?!"
Troy and Cillian’s swords clashed.
Troy could confirm how Oer died now that he had pretty much an idea that Cillian could also detect his men through the already-thinned smoke earlier. He tried his best to trick Cillian even in this situation by pretending to give up and luring him back into the smoke, only to ambush him once Cillian followed him inside.
Yet his plans were thwarted again.
Cillian didn’t answer him and merely gave him a mocking smirk.
The two resumed their clash.
After Cillian successfully blocked Troy’s downward slash, he repositioned himself and tried to counterattack by thrusting his sword forward, targeting his face.
Troy then used his sword to slide Cillian’s blade away from the side of his face as it made a sound before using great force to knock the sword out of Cillian’s possession.
Cillian’s hand flung toward where his sword had been tightly clenched. It slipped away from his hands for a brief moment before he gritted his teeth and used the first of his last three Sleight of Hand abilities remaining on the exhausted Faceless.
[Sleight of Hand]
Cillian grabbed the sword that had slipped from his hand a second earlier, using Sleight of Hand before engaging in another bout with Troy.
Clang—!
Cillian continued to be proactive, showing it through his actions while analyzing how Troy responded by studying his movements. One strike, two strikes. He was relentless.
This made Troy suspicious of Cillian’s actions each time their swords met, knowing that he had a slight advantage in the fight.
The hole in his abdomen continued to widen, and the more he moved his shoulder, the more it pained him. Troy could see all of this.
"Fireball"
Yet Cillian continued to put the same effort and force behind his attacks, even though he was on the verge of exhaustion.
Troy could see Cillian’s cold eyes within his line of sight, and each of Cillian’s movements grew sharper... until Cillian finally made a mistake.
In the middle of their intense fight, which felt like it had lasted so long yet only half a minute had passed, Cillian continued to smash his sword down relentlessly until the blade snapped in two. Half of it flew to the side while the broken sword was tightly held in his fist.
’A chance—’
The first instinct that came to Troy’s mind was to attack and return the same level of force, or even greater, by using the same or higher strength from earlier.
But in a second, Troy instantly stopped.
In just a span of two seconds, his instinct and his hesitation came together, and his thoughts raised so many questions.
’Is this a trap? Did he deliberately attack me on purpose to make it appear he had no cards left after successfully making it look like his sword was broken? Will he use the card he had stored from who-knows-where to do it and kill me?!’
Troy was overthinking.
After being tricked by Cillian left and right while having his plans foiled as if Cillian had already seen through them, Troy somehow made a mental note that every move Cillian made was a deliberate action meant to do something.
But it was also somehow a development that Cillian hadn’t expected to encounter.
’Why now of all times?!’
His sword breaking wasn’t within his calculations, or perhaps he had simply forgotten to take it into account. It wasn’t like everything would just fall into place for him, something he hadn’t experienced for a while now.
That’s why he has to improvise.
Letting out the largest exhale from his mouth, Cillian clicked his tongue before rushing forward. That click of his tongue somehow convinced Troy that his "theory" was true, as he believed that he had almost fallen into Cillian’s trap.
’What other tricks does he have left?!’
Cillian rushed forward with the broken sword in his hand. Troy tried to defend himself again, seeing if he had another trick up his sleeve.
They engaged in yet another fight.
Cillian attacked while Troy counterattacked. At most, Troy mostly defended himself, afraid that his trick might be coming soon.
This was something he wasn’t wrong about.
In the ten seconds that their fight continued as a stalemate, Cillian ’sneakily’ used his Inventory, trying to grab something from inside.
This action, however, was something Troy could clearly see, causing him to become very alarmed by what Cillian was doing.
"!"
Troy was very close to Cillian. Whatever Cillian was about to do would definitely hit him.
Whoosh—!
Cillian immediately threw ’it’ toward Troy, who instinctively covered himself with his sword while taking a peek at it through the gaps.
It was a page that appeared as nothing but a piece of paper.
[Name: Obituary Page]
Slash—!
Troy was expecting the piece of paper to do something. He was almost certain that the piece of freaking paper was about to either explode, create an enormous flash of light that would blind him, or summon something out of nothingness.
Anything at all would be good!
But nothing emerged from that simple piece of paper.
And Troy found the hand with which he wielded his sword had been cut off by Cillian, who had given him false information that something was about to happen.
Troy knowing that the Obituary Page is an Artifact? It’s fine.
At the end of the day, that piece of paper served a purpose, and that is to give Cillian a time frame to distract Troy even for a second.
He didn’t use its effect.
He used the very item itself as a decoy.
And it worked crazy well.
’I won.’