Chapter 236: Two Fronts
The clone moved through the chaos like a ghost. Smoke rose from burning homes. Draven soldiers clashed with Gra-Khazul warriors in the streets. Screams echoed through the settlement. The barrier disruption device was still active, preventing Spirit Soul realm reinforcements from entering, but Mana Heart realm Draven soldiers poured through the gaps.
No one was guarding the training chambers.
Finesh moved through the darkness with silent efficiency, the Mask of a Thousand Faces keeping his features perfectly aligned with the real Finesh’s reptilian visage. His clawed hands swept across the stone shelves, plucking Soul Vein Crystals one after another and dropping them into the storage ring Kael had left with the clone.
Fifteen crystals. Each one worth a fortune. Each one pulsing with concentrated soul force that would accelerate soul cultivation by weeks.
A female Mana Heart warrior rounded the corner, guiding a Mora clansman by the arm. Both froze when they saw Finesh standing beside the empty shelves.
"What are you—"
Finesh’s bone blade was already moving. The pommel struck the woman’s temple with precise force. Her eyes rolled back and she crumpled without a sound. The Mora clansman stared, mouth open, but Finesh was already past him, vanishing into the shadow-drenched corridor as his head separated from his body.
Fifteen crystals secured. Objective complete.
Now came the secondary task.
The settlement was burning.
Draven soldiers in red-tinged armor moved through the bone structures, cutting down anyone who resisted. Most of the Gra-Khazul civilians were Core Formation and Foundation establishment realm at best—no match for the invading force.
A shadow detached from the wall behind a Draven squad leader.
The man never saw it coming. A bone blade opened his throat from ear to ear. Blood sprayed across his subordinates as Finesh stepped through the dying man’s shadow, dagger already buried in the second soldier’s kidney.
Schlick.
The third soldier turned, mouth opening to shout. A dark spear materialized from thin air and pierced his chest. He crumpled with a wet gurgle.
Finesh moved on without pause. The clone had no soul, which meant no soul techniques—but it didn’t need them. Devouring Darkness wrapped around each kill like a starving snake, draining residual mana from the corpses to sustain itself. Shadow Step carried it between targets faster than eyes could track. The bone blade and dagger worked in complementary rhythms—blade for killing, dagger for finishing.
A group of fleeing civilians huddled near a collapsed root structure. Four Draven soldiers closed in on them, blades drawn.
Dark spears erupted from the ground beneath two soldiers, lifting them off their feet. Finesh dropped from the shadows onto the third, bone blade punching through his skull. The fourth tried to run. A dagger caught him between the shoulder blades.
The civilians stared at their savior with wide, desperate eyes.
"Move," Finesh said in Finesh’s voice. "Now."
They ran.
The clone continued through the settlement, a ghost in reptilian skin, building the legend of Finesh Nesh with every silent kill.
"Finesh!"
The shout cut through the chaos. Seraya emerged from the smoke and blood, her jade-green skin smeared with crimson, a bone sword dripping in her hand. She waved at him with an almost childish enthusiasm that seemed utterly wrong given the slaughter surrounding them.
Finesh looked at her with an indifferent expression.
She walked toward him, stepping over a Draven corpse without glancing down. Blood was smeared across her cheek like war paint. A smile played on her lips.
"Hey," she said brightly. "I’ve been looking for you, master."
This girl had been pestering him—no, pestering Finesh—for the past month. Ever since that night in the hot spring. She’d sought him out at every opportunity, found excuses to be near him, made her interest painfully obvious to everyone except apparently herself.
"You look awfully calm," Finesh said flatly, "for someone whose tribe is being slaughtered."
Seraya tilted her head, iridescent scales catching the firelight. "Why should I be bothered?"
"My brother will put the barriers back up soon," Seraya continued, examining her bone sword with casual disinterest. "Once that happens, every mid and late Spirit Soul Draven soldier inside the territory will have their power sealed and significantly reduced." Her golden eyes flicked to his face as she came closer and whispered to his ear. "They’ll become lambs to the slaughter."
Finesh filed that information away. Forty minutes until the boundary disruptor failed. Fifteen minutes had already passed. Twenty-five remaining.
The Patriarch had a countermeasure. Good to know.
The forest was a warzone.
Kael’s shadow wolf slammed into Cassius Draven’s flank, jaws snapping for his throat. The red-haired man twisted, force rippling off his body like a shockwave, and sent the wolf tumbling through three trees.
The shadow serpent struck from above, coiling around Cassius’s arm with crushing pressure. Corrosive poison dripped onto his skin.
"Tch." Cassius grabbed the serpent’s head and squeezed. Obsidian scales cracked. The serpent’s coils loosened in agony.
Kael was already moving. Shadow Step carried him behind Cassius, Void Edge blades tracing parallel lines toward the man’s kidneys.
Cassius didn’t turn. A force barrier bloomed behind him without a gesture, deflecting both blades.
BAM.
A force kick caught Kael in the chest, launching him through the air. He crashed through a tree trunk, splintering it, and rolled to his feet with blood on his lips.
"Faster, come on, I expected more, more," Cassius said, walking toward him. "I expected more from a bloody Vorn."
Kael’s hands blurred through multiple seals. Runes materialized in the sky above—Amplification Runes arranged in a triadic pattern, channeling raw lightning from the atmosphere.
CRACK-BOOM.
Three massive lightning strikes descended simultaneously. The forest lit up like daylight. Trees exploded into splinters. The ground cratered.
Cassius stood in the center of a force barrier, completely untouched. White energy swirled around him like a second skin.
He smirked.
"Let’s get serious then."
The force around him shifted. White became yellow—dense, heavy, pressing against the air itself.
"Draven Force Art: Heaven’s Descent."
A concentrated blast of yellow force erupted from his palm. It moved faster than sound, distorting the air in its path.
The shadow serpent threw itself between Kael and the attack.
SHLICK.
The force blast pierced through the serpent’s body like paper. The summoned creature dissolved into shadow before it hit the ground.
Cassius was already moving. His foot connected with the wolf’s skull, sending the beast flying into the tree with a yelp.
Then he was on Kael.
Kael crossed his blades and activated Sky Rending Technique, Third Form: Heaven’s Fall. A 360-degree spinning kill zone of darkness and lightning erupted outward.
BOOM.
Cassius was pushed back—actually pushed back—his feet digging furrows in the earth. Yellow force crackled against the spinning storm of destruction.
His expression twisted from amusement to anger.
The force around him shifted again. Yellow became red—dense enough to see, pressing against reality itself like a physical weight.
Kael deactivated Lightning Body. The technique had been draining his mana at an unsustainable rate. He decided to compensate speed using shadow step.
For the next thirty seconds, Kael fought like a demon possessed.
Feints within feints. Body doubles created through shadow clones, each one attacking from a different angle. Devouring Darkness eating at Cassius’s mana reserves whenever contact was made. Gravity manipulation altering trajectories mid-strike. The Shadow Slayer blades drinking blood with every cut, their special abilities stacking.
Cassius’s red force shredded every shadow clone. His sword—Tier 1, force-imbued—matched Kael’s Special Grade blades through pure realm advantage. But Kael was adapting. Learning. Finding the gaps in the red-haired man’s defenses.
A feint to the left. A clone from the right. The real Kael dropping from above with Pulsar forming in his palm.
Cassius deflected the clone, blocked the feint, and looked up too late.
The Pulsar detonated two meters from his face.
BOOM.
Cassius was pushed back again. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead. For the first time, something other than confidence flickered in his eyes.
FEAR.