The man stood still.
Hood drawn low, its shadow swallowing most of his face. A dark mask covered everything below his nose, leaving no hint of expression—no identity, no humanity.
Only his eyes remained.
Red. Not bright. Not glowing wildly. Just…deep. Quietly burning, like embers buried beneath ash.
Arion's eyes were red too…but it could be changed. Since unlocking his Soul Rune, he could change them—but his natural colour was red, so he let them remain. for now.
But the man's eyes...They weren't the eyes of someone reckless, they were the eyes of someone who had already decided the outcome.
His cloak hung loose, torn at the edges, marked with faint, dried stains that blended too well into the dark fabric to be ignored. It shifted slightly as he moved—not with the softness of cloth, but with the weight of something that had seen too much.
In his hand rested a spear.
'This guy...' Arion thought with his eyes narrowed. He only knew two hooded people. One was the mysterious man who was with Moon Goddess, the second was the strange guy from his dream and now, there was a third added to his list.
He immediately tensed, both the mysterious guy who accompanied Moon goddess and the anonymous guy in his dream were strong, abnormally so, and now there was this unknown guy too.
'Seriously, is someone testing my English? First one was mysterious, second anonymous… now unknown? At this rate I'll run out of words for the next one.'
The shaft was dark, almost black, but veins of dim gold ran through it like cracks in the night. The spearhead itself gleamed faintly—not polished, but sharp in a way that felt unnatural, as if it didn't just cut flesh but something deeper. Whatever it was, Arion had no intention of being its test subject.
Hopefully the man agreed.
His gaze lifted.
Those red eyes locked onto Arion. Despite being surrounded by multiple fighters, he didn't waver, and moreover, he didn't even look at them. He only looked at Arion.
'Guess I am destined to be a test subject.' Despite his carefree thoughts, he wasn't as careless. The thoughts weren't carelessness—they were control. A way to steady himself, to stay sharp, to think clearly despite the tension.
Especially to think using that abnormal brain of his.
"Who is he, my lord?" Joel asked quietly, Arion shifted slightly positioning himself perfectly for a battle.
"And how am I supposed to know that?"
The man was in the centre of the hall. The huge hall where his family and the elders of Brooks were supposed to eat comfortably now was in a turmoil due to the unknown man. The hall looked clean and perfect but that would be gone soon.
The hall would be in utter chaos and possibly destroyed in a few minutes. That much Arion was certain of.
The hall was still silent, as more and more guards entered the room, the man finally moved but was stopped by Arion's voice etched with annoyance and coldness.
"Before anything at least introduce yourself, damn it!"
The man was silent, he didn't answer and finally after a few moments he asked
"What is...your...your—name?" His voice...was heavy, and rusty as if he hadn't spoken for decades. It was terrifying, as if he was speaking to someone he wasn't supposed to...but again maybe he really was not supposed to meet him.
His voice was...mad. As if he wasn't in his right mind, he could almost imagine a creepy mad grin on the unknown guy's face despite not knowing how he looked like.
Finally, Arion had enough and lunged forward, his sword was met by the unknown guy's spear, the man then deflected another slash, ducked Joel's and jumped up to avoid getting ambushed.
Many shot multiple long ranged attack, and in the sky he was practically defenceless with no ground to support him and yet, the attacks never reached him. It seemed as if the attacks dodged him.
He landed down with no worries, and followed by dodging a couple more attacks with ease and stabbed a knight through his heart.
"Bastard!" Arion shouted as Voidflare shot towards the man who disappeared and appeared behind Arion, his spear crashing down towards his shoulder, luckily he was stopped by a slash of Joel's sword.
'What is that damned speed.' He immediately dismissed Voidflare and summoned it back to his hand, and right then he blocked the man's next attack.
"Too...bad...I wasted it on you, hoping you would die in one strike..." He looked at Arion coldly before lunging at him with inhuman speed.
Arion reacted immediately. Not instinctively not freely but correctly.
His body moved the way it had been taught—step back, angle shift, weight redistribution. Every motion was precise, almost too precise, like a script being followed under pressure rather than a rhythm he owned.
And despite that, a cut found its way in his thigh, more and more knights closed in on the guy, and the commander himself was fighting him right now, just barely dodging his death each time the man attacked.
The Brook clan's sword method valued control above all else. Stability. Clean lines. No excess movement. No emotion in motion. Just pure control over body.
As expected the man easily dodged every last one of the knights attacks and was then right in front of him, and in a swift motion threw a cube of glass in between them, the glass shattered and from there, a sphere spread outward in an instant pushing everyone except Arion and the unknown guy away.
The sphere spread in from the centre of the hall to halfway between the walls.
Arion met the spear with a straight intercept, blade held firm in a disciplined guard. The impact rang through his arm.
'Too rigid.'
The thought flickered through him instantly.
This wasn't how he was supposed to fight, no it was alright these many years but now that he had unlocked the Soul Rune and his body had gone through changes and his clan's battle art didn't fit him anymore.
He tightened his grip anyway, forcing his body to stay within the structure he had been taught, and braced for the next strike.
No matter the fact, he didn't know any other battle art and so, had to fight how he was thought.
He barely raised Voidflare in time, the force driving him half a step back even as his stance held. The Brook technique absorbed impact through structure, not reaction—but this was beyond what structure was meant to handle.
The man pressed again, and again, and again.
With each strike, his composure vanished, his first bonus gave him enough insight on battles and even gave him an instinctual way of fighting.
That was it-that was his battle style but sadly he had no time to learn it.
Arion grit his teeth as the man continued his mad assault.
The guy didn't have any style of fighting, or at least it seemed so, the man appears, strikes, wounds and kills and if he can't wound he would use his inhuman speed to find an opening in the enemy.
However now, the man seemed to be holding back...no, even calling it an understatement would be an understatement.
He was not even trying, he was only assessing him, and then suddenly Arion understood what the man wanted, he wanted to see how strong he really was.
'There is no escape..'
Just then, his eyes flickered to outside the sphere, to the people outside and his eyes widened, they were all looking at the sphere but what shocked him was that they weren't looking at him, all of them were not even looking at a single direction, it was like...a one sided-transparent glass.
And from the outside, no one could see what was happening inside.
"I see…" Arion muttered as he jumped back, boots scraping against the polished stone floor.
For a brief moment, both of them stopped
"Who are you really? And why are you attacking me?"
The man was silent for a moment and spoke. "You are the prince of the Brooks."
"Oh yeah, and you are trying to kill me for that reason alone? Sorry I might look like a fool, but sadly I'm not." Launching a blood needle with perfect accuracy, he shifted to the side and summoned two more swords launching it at the man.
There was no need to hold back anymore.
The hall around them felt distant now, drowned under that thin pressure that always formed when two people decided words were no longer useful.
Then the man moved. The way he moved...It wasn't fast in the way normal people were fast. It was immediate, like the concept of movement had been skipped entirely. One instant he stood still, the next he was already closing in, spear angled straight for Arion's chest.
And he was still not even trying...
Arion reacted—but not like he wanted to.
His body obeyed before his mind agreed, falling into the Brook clan sword method. Step back. Angle shift. Weight redistribution. Every movement precise, every motion correct, every instinct carefully overwritten by years of discipline.
Steel met steel with a sharp, ringing impact as Voidflare intercepted the spear.
The force rippled through his arm.
And immediately, Arion felt it.
'Too rigid.'
That same thought again.
The man dodged all of it with ease and was suddenly in front of Arion, his spear though was deflected by the floating Voidflare which had slipped itself off of his hand, now Arion had a different sword in his hand. It was a medieval longsword.
His clan's style didn't really unleash his full power, and the man was agile, extremely so. His style was almost like...dancing, and he always found a way to appear in front of him, just like he did now.
Before he could adjust, pain bloomed in his thigh. A shallow cut—but perfectly placed. Not lethal. Just enough to interrupt.
The man didn't even look satisfied. He simply pushed forward again, like the exchange hadn't mattered at all.
'Annoying…'
Arion clicked his tongue and moved backward, blood forming at his fingertips before he flicked it forward. A needle of crimson shot through the air with precision that would have been lethal against anyone slower.
The man tilted his head slightly.
It missed.
Of course it did. He dodged the first needle, so why would the second one hit.
Arion didn't waste time reacting to that failure. Two swords manifested behind him, hovering mid-air, suspended by his will. They didn't strike yet—they were waiting, aligned, controlled. Voidflare stayed forward, still absorbing and storing the force of each clash like a starving thing.
Arion jumped back, leaving Voidflare and his other two swords to engage the man in combat, his wound had already healed itself-Rebuild was doing its job well.
[Rebuild]
Allows the user's body to regenerate, gradually recovering from injuries.
Voidflare was continuing to suck and store energy.
It was sucking Arion's magic at a low and slow pace and absorbing the unknown man's attacks too at a high pace drinking and storing it all inside it like a greedy dry sponge.
But the man appeared in front of him again, thankfully his swords were with him too.
One step. One shift. One clean angle through the gap Arion hadn't even realized existed.
A sword came down. Blocked.
Another came from the side. Dodged without looking.
Voidflare moved in again, barely intercepting the spear before it could reach Arion's ribs.
The impact shook him again.
Arion gritted his teeth. Then he summoned his skill [Sword Domain]
[Sword Domain]
Creates a dome of floating swords around the user, forming a defensive barrier that intercepts and blocks incoming attacks.
Rank: Lesser.
Dome swords. 10/????
Now, he had to use all his trump cards to survive.
He had already made a plan, and now that he made one he would turn the battle into his advantage.
Arion was using the pain instilled in him by the man's attacks to clear his mind and body, so that he could use all his skills and abilities without losing his mind.
He had five skills and two abilities along with [Blessed Insight], [Rebuild], and [Blessed]. Along with his bonus, Blood manipulation. All he had to do was simple, but doing simple things were something hard.
"Good..." The man's rusty voice stopped him.
Arion suddenly felt a chill run down his spine as he saw the dangerous gleam in the man's eye.
"I've had...enough testing you...Thirteenth."