Chapter 60: Pigs like you... Should have died a long time ago!
But Lord Wade was not a second-rate mage. His Chi reacted instinctively to the threat, and he stopped the tip of the sword just a few centimeters from his throat. His hand, wrapped in incandescent heat chi, gripped Andromeda’s wrist with brutal force.
"Dirty whore! You wanted to kill me!"
Andromeda showed no panic. She quickly managed to free herself by using her opponent’s force against him, a fluid release technique she had perfected.
She performed a backward pirouette and jumped to establish a safe distance, landing lightly on both feet at the other end of the room.
’A frontal fight against a fire element master would be risky if I gave him time to deploy all his destructive power.’
< Third Sense of Wyrm : Domain of the Serpents >
She used her technique to block the Chi from leaving the area.
A red and viscous chi emanated from her body, spreading across the floor like hundreds of snakes crawling toward the walls. Lord Wade tried to project a burst of flames, but he immediately felt his energy stagnate in his own body. The ambient Chi seemed to have frozen, creating a hermetic barrier that prevented any emission of power outward.
"What is this Sense?" growled Wade while trying to force his way through the energy block.
She did not give him time to understand the functioning of her Ancestral Sense. She propelled herself forward with superhuman speed, her body undulating to avoid the desperate punches of the head of the Fire House.
She passed under his right arm, using her small size to slip into his open guard. Her blade sliced Wade’s flank, opening a clean wound that began to soak his tunic.
Wade roared in pain and tried to grab her by the hair, but Andromeda was already elsewhere. She executed a series of rapid thrusts toward his vital points: the throat, the heart, the groin.
Each strike was precise without wasting unnecessary energy.
"You are going to die here, dirty whore!" shouted Wade.
He attempted a brutal charge, using his physical mass to crush the assassin against the wall.
Andromeda used the wall as support, performing a somersault above him to land behind his back. Before he could turn around, she planted her blade in his shoulder blade, feeling the steel pierce the muscles and scrape the bone in a horrible metallic screech.
"Ahhh! FUCK!"
Lord Wade fell to his knees, his breath becoming short and ragged as the poison from the Wyrm technique continued to paralyze his energy system. He looked at Andromeda with pure hatred, unable to understand how such a frail woman had been able to bring him down.
"It’s the Venom Clan that sent you, isn’t it? If I die the Magic Clan will hunt you down to hell!"
Andromeda did not respond.
Wade rushed forward, his fists slicing the air with brute force seeking to crush all resistance from the first exchange.
Andromeda took a step to the side, her feet sliding on the floor using that supernatural fluidity that made her famous. She dodged a series of powerful jabs, deflecting the last blow with a simple palm pressure on her opponent’s wrist, which sent Wade staggering slightly.
"You move well..." growled Wade while quickly regaining his footing.
His gaze changed instantly to adopt an incandescent glow.
< First Sense of Fire : Heat Vision >
The world around him changed radically, solid forms fading to give way to thermal flows. Wade could now see the exact concentration of heat in Andromeda’s muscles, anticipating every contraction even before the movement was initiated.
He saw the chi flowing toward her legs and understood that she was going to pivot to the left. He launched a devastating hook exactly where she would be a fraction of a second later. Andromeda, sensing the threat thanks to her own combat instinct, could only use her forearm to parry the frontal shock.
The impact was violent, and she felt the heat of Wade’s chi burning through the fabric of her sleeve.
"You are really resistant you dirty vermin!"
Wade, frustrated by this resistance, decided to intensify the confrontation. He stepped back two steps and took a deep breath, the chi from the environment being sucked into his lungs to fuel his energy center.
< Third Sense of Fire : Flame emission >
He thrust both palms forward, releasing torrents of pure fire. Andromeda, anticipating the onslaught, had already placed a protective chi dome around herself, an invisible but solid barrier that deflected the destructive energy. The flames struck the translucent wall with a shrill hiss, ricocheting violently and turning the space into a veritable furnace.
"You are trapped here with me bitch!"
The oxygen being insufficient, he could not use the fourth Sense...
He continued to project bursts of fire, hoping to break the assassin’s will under the weight of the heat and constant pressure. Andromeda did not weaken, she waited for the precise moment when her opponent’s chi concentration would weaken to launch a counterattack.
She felt the air depleting inside the dome and understood that she had to act immediately.
< Second Sense of Wyrm : Serpent’s Breath >
Her muscles swelled under the effect of the massive absorption of her own internal chi, granting her speed and flexibility beyond the laws of human physics.
She propelled herself out of the dome at the exact moment a new wave of flames crashed down on her. She performed a torso twist at a completely impossible angle for an ordinary body, passing under the flow of fire.
In the blink of an eye, she was in contact with Wade, her right hand shooting out from the shadow of her coat. She thrust her palm directly onto Wade’s right arm with colossal force fueled by her chi breath.
Wade’s arm suddenly bent in on itself with a crack of dead wood, the bone shattering in multiple places under the kinetic pressure.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH !!!!!"
Wade screamed in pain, his arm now hanging limply like a foreign limb attached by mere shreds of flesh. Andromeda gave him no chance to recover. In a fluid movement, she drew her short black sword and plunged it deep into his rib, the blade penetrating between the bones to tear the lungs from bottom to top.
"Pigs like you... Should have died a long time ago!"