Chapter 594: Samuel Vs Ace[3]
"You know, silence isn’t going to protect you. I’m going to figure it out either way. I’ve been studying these bones for some time now. I have my theories. Your responses, or lack of responses, are data points. Right now you’re telling me which questions get close to the truth by the ones you refuse to answer. Would you like me to summarize what I’ve learned so far?"
Ace’s smile didn’t change despite Samuel’s attempt at probing further.
He moved.
His daggers came at Samuel from converging angles, both blades weaving through a technique Samuel hadn’t seen Ace use before.
Samuel raised his sword to intercept. His blade caught both daggers on the flat, redirecting them past his shoulders, but the exchange forced him to give ground for the first time.
He stepped several meters back.
Ace came at Samuel again.
Their blades met and rang across the arena floor. Samuel countered, deflected, feinted, cut. Ace answered every strike with his own, layering pressure that hadn’t been in his repertoire an hour ago. The exchange stretched into a rhythm neither of them broke, the two of them circling each other in a slow spiral across the arena rubble.
Samuel kept talking.
Ace kept not answering.
But every exchange gave the opponents something about the person they were fighting.
After nearly five minutes of constant exchange of attacks, Ace leapt backward.
He cleared dozens of meters in a single leap. His daggers came to rest at his sides.
"It’s been a good fight, Samuel. Although, if I’m being honest, I would have preferred to fight your son. He’s more interesting. Well it doesn’t matter, he has already left."
Samuel’s expression cooled.
Despite it being Alaric that Ace had praised, Samuel felt the comment as an insult directed at himself. His hand tightened on his sword’s hilt.
"You would rather fight my son?" Samuel’s cold voice reached Ace who nodded in turn.
"You are an Ascender. He is a Surpasser. You want the easier fight? I didn’t expect such a lowly statement from someone with your talent and power. Are you telling me you’d rather test yourself against something beneath your rank than something at your level?"
Ace shook his head, an almost wry expression crossing his face.
"You misunderstand."
"Then explain."
"Your son is different. He has touched things you haven’t. He has walked paths you never bothered to explore because they seemed too dangerous or too impractical for your ambitions. His potential is greater than most Ascenders I’ve encountered. Fighting him is interesting. Fighting you, if I’m being honest, is alright at best."
Samuel scoffed, brushing off Ace’s words with open contempt. "You talk too much, boy. Let’s end this. It seems holding back has given you delusions of grandeur. You’ve gotten so full of yourself that you think you can conquer the world ."
Ace ignored Samuel’s insults, "We should end this."
The two of them settled into their preparations at the same moment.
Their auras rose sharply. Samuel’s aura began to gather behind him, reaching upward into the sky, curling around his shoulders and building toward a form Tom, Sierra, and Farid all recognized instantly.
Klein saw it too. So did every remaining Surpasser in the venue.
"What is he doing?" Sierra’s said in an alarmed hiss. "Is he planning to kill everyone still standing?"
As someone who had seen this attack being performed on powerful Third Order beasts in the Third Sanctuary, Sierra was by no means exaggerating.
The attack Samuel was preparing was going to release destruction across at least a five-kilometer radius. The dome was still up, but its strength had been compromised by previous strikes. The barrier wouldn’t be able to contain the full prowess of both Ascender attacks meeting each other in the arena’s center.
Everything below Ascender rank was going to be in the blast zone.
Everything.
The remaining Surpassers didn’t wait for orders.
"RUN!"
The command rippled outward through their shared communication channels. The Surpassers who had been holding positions across the arena’s edges broke formation and threw themselves toward the nearest exit corridor.
All the composure they had carried evaporated in a single instant. They moved like scared kittens, pouring every scrap of remaining mana and stamina into raw speed, chasing the barrier’s edge desperately. The further away they were from the impact point, the higher their survival rate was.
The aura pouring off Samuel was already cutting them.
Small cuts opened across the skin of the fleeing Five-Star Evolvers as they ran. The pressure alone was dangerous. Some of them left blood trails behind their sprinting figures.
None of them stopped. Every second closer to the exit was a second further from the impact.
The few remaining conscious Evolvers below Surpasser rank collapsed where they stood. Their bodies simply couldn’t process the pressure. Some of them fell unconscious mid-step and hit the rubble in loose piles. Others convulsed on the ground with blood streaming from their eyes and ears.
Samuel didn’t notice or care.
The mana behind him solidified.
A massive samurai figure materialized in the sky, formed entirely from red-gold energy. It stood forty meters tall. Its armor was ornate, layered, styled after an era that predated most of the fighters still standing. Its hair flowed behind it in long, wind-swept strands. Its face was cold and expressionless beneath the ceremonial helm. In its hands, it held a sword the size of a small building, raised in the specific stance of an executioner’s downward cut.
The wind itself began to feel like it was slicing everything around it.
Fresh cuts opened across the fleeing Surpassers as the wind carrying the samurai’s aura reached them. Some fell. Their comrades kept running.
Samuel’s voice carried across the venue.
"Crimson Samurai."
Across from him, Ace’s dark crimson aura condensed into a different shape.
The silhouette of an assassin rose behind him. It was thinner than the samurai but not necessarily weaker. It stood at roughly the same height but carried an entirely different presence.
Its body was wrapped in dark robes that moved like shadows through the night. Its hands were open, and between each of its fingers, a dagger was held.
Four daggers in each hand, eight in total. An ninth dagger was clenched between its teeth.
Its eyes were dark red.
Its expression was hidden behind the shadow of its hood, but the aura it radiated was terrifying.
"Ashura Requiem."