4 days later.
It was evening. Hilston Borough.
Arthur Slate sat in the drawing room of his mansion.
He picked up the bottle of vintage wine before him and poured himself a glass.
He swirled the glass around and took in the sweet scent of the wine; finally, he took a sip and hummed in appreciation of its exquisite taste.
Things had not been going well for him; this was the only moment of relaxation he had gotten in over a month.
The ritual to become a sequence 5 'Mentor of Disorder' was to become a dominant force in a city's underground network and cause the city's rate of crime to spike over ten times what it originally was, and this state must stay for a few months.
And he had done it. It took over half a year of preparation; he made contacts with all sorts of gangs and criminals, and one by one, he dominated over them.
He set his own rules, causing the crime in Backlund to increase.
And then he finally ascended to sequence 5.
That was over a year ago.
His rule in the underworld had been going great until some people started targeting him.
He didn't even notice until a month ago, when everything started to fall apart.
Crack!
He looked at the glass of wine in his hand. A crack appeared on the glass surface as, unknowingly, his control over his strength wavered.
He sighed.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Arthur stood up as the floor shook with the vibrations of the blasts.
Boom!
Half the wall along with the door of the drawing room burst open and fell apart due to the loud blast.
Through the smoke, a figure walked out of the rubble; as they walked nearer, their figure became clear.
It was a sharp and plain-looking woman in her late 20s, dressed in a shirt and pants.
Arthur was angry. Not only was his empire crumbling and almost gone, but now there was someone who had dared to attack him right in his own house!!
"Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?" he asked slowly as he released his oppressing presence.
The woman didn't answer; instead, her whole body burst into flames, forming an armor around her body.
Zhoop!
She burst forward with insane speed and force as the floor beneath her feet cracked.
Arthur was calm. By now, he had figured out that this was a sequence 6 Beyonder of the Hunter pathway.
And a sequence 6 could hardly pose a threat to him.
He raised his hand toward her. "Disorder!"
Her speed was incredibly fast, but currently, it seemed like she was running in a single place without lessening the gap between them.
That was because Arthur had used 'Disorder' to scramble the 'order' of lessening the distance between them.
But maintaining such a 'disorder' used a lot of spirituality, so he made his next move.
He took a stance and threw a strong punch with the true strength of a 'Barbarian' at a sequence 5 level.
But the woman was about 15 meters away from him, so how would he hit her with a punch when there was such a large distance between them?
"Distortion!"
Arthur used 'Distortion' to distort the 15-meter distance into 1.5 centimeters.
The power of distortion had been significantly enhanced when he became a sequence 5, so it could now do a lot more than just distorting the intent of a person, or the direction of an attack.
Boom!
The punch crashed into the fire-clad woman and sent her crashing into a distant wall; the wall, of course, broke.
Swoop!
Swoop!
Swoop!
Swoop!
Fire ravens flew from the hole in the wall towards him.
"Distortion!"
—
"Cough—cough!"
Natalie coughed up blood, breathing heavily as she forced herself up from the ground.
She could not believe that the Mentor of Disorder's 'punch' had hit her from 15 meters away. Not only that, it had sent her flying, breaking a wall into what seemed like a study room.
Her jaw had literally been shattered; it was because of the Vampire's bracelet that she was healed instantly.
Swoop!
"Hu—" Natalie blocked with her hand.
Boom!
One of the fire ravens that she had sent to attack the man while she took a moment to recover seemed to have returned to attack her instead!!
'Jace was right, sequence 5s truly are different,' she thought.
Nonetheless, they had a plan. Natalie spread out her hand and a fireball started forming in her palm!
In an instant, Arthur appeared before her. He had, of course, used 'Disorder' to increase his amount of speed while traveling distance between them.
As he appeared, he was ready with his fist punching out at her.
When Natalie saw the punch coming, she brought out her hand with the fireball and thrust her palm with all her strength.
Arthur's powerful fist met with the fireball.
Boooom!
—
Meanwhile, Jace watched from the drawing room as the fist met with the fireball.
Boooom!
The shockwave was large enough to shake the ground and almost sway him off his feet.
'Daamn!!' Jace shouted inwardly.
He had been here from the start of the fight... well, it couldn't really be called a fight; it was just Natalie getting her ass kicked.
Sequence 5s truly were different, and one from the Lawyer pathway even more so.
A few days ago, they had just taken out a sequence 5 Ocean Songster, but that was different. Since the Songster was away from the sea, his most powerful abilities were stolen, and the poor guy didn't even have a chance to sing!
The Ocean Songster was just unlucky.
But a Mentor of Disorder was different.
Every sequence 5 was powerful and different in their own right. Some stood out as the most powerful ones, like a Disciplinary Paladin, a Reaper, and a few others.
Sequence 5s from the Mysteries pathways were just different.
One other sequence 5 that was different was a 'Mentor of Disorder'; they could stand out even amongst Disciplinary Paladins, as they could just distort their verdicts and disorder their prohibitions.
Nevertheless, it was obviously Jace's plan to 'steal' both 'distortion' and 'disorder' from the Lawyer from the start of the fight.
But the man would have noticed and taken 'care' of Jace, as Lawyers were no joke, so he was waiting for the right opportunity.
And now it was time.
Through the broken wall, he saw the back of the Mentor of Disorder. He seemed to have taken some damage, as he was breathing heavily, but Natalie was literally on the floor, half dead.
But Jace knew that she was wearing the Vampire's bracelet so she would be fine, so he focused on the Lawyer.
Both his hands had the Prometheus Ring and the Polymath Ring respectively.
He was currently using the Prometheus Ring's 'decryption' to decrypt the powers of the Mentor of Disorder.
His goal was simple: to steal the power of 'distortion' and 'disorder' simultaneously with the Prometheus Ring and the Polymath Ring's imitated 'theft'.
And that's what he did. He flicked both of his hands simultaneously.
"Double Theft!"
—
Natalie fell down, gasping for air after the impact of the fireball and the punch of a Barbarian.
She was hurt more than she should be, but she understood why. The Lawyer had likely used 'distortion' to distort the damage he received from the impact, which resulted in half of the damage being transferred to Natalie herself.
Jace had warned her about this.
"Ha..."
'Jace, where the fuck are you!!' Natalie screamed in her mind.
She looked up away from herself, the Mentor of Disorder stood looking at her with an oppressive air.
By now, the Vampire's bracelet had worked its magic, and the significant damage Natalie had received had already been healed.
She stood up. Looking at the man before her, she started forming a fireball in her hand to hit him with another blast.
Arthur, meanwhile, looked at the woman forming the fireball.
He raised his arm towards her; his plan was simple. He could see the 'order': the woman was forming a fireball, then she would throw it at him, and then the fireball would go boom!
But with 'Disorder,' he could change that order. Like, now he could change it so that after the woman forms the fireball, he would use 'Disorder' to change the 'order' of her throwing the fireball at him to the 'order' of the part where the fireball goes boom!
Meaning, the fire would burst in her hand, damaging her instead.
His eyes widened as his intuition flared!
He couldn't use it!
Turning around, he looked back, where a plain-looking young man with sharp eyes stood with a palm outstretched at him.
"Lightning Strike!" he said.
Crackle, crackle!
White lightning flew out of his hand and hit Arthur. He, of course, tried to use 'distortion' to evade the strike, but it was gone as well.
Boom!
The lightning hit him, and pain flared in every part of his body. More than that, he was literally stunned.
From behind, the woman took the chance and hit him with a fireball that sent him flying and crashing into the other side of the drawing room's wall with a large boom!.
Jace had used an imitated 'Lightning Strike' of the Ocean Songster.
Catherine had stolen it from the Ocean Songster in the fight few days ago, but she didn't have the opportunity to use it.
The stolen power could only be used for 8 to 10 minutes after 'theft,' so Jace had asked her to use it and show it to him after he had killed the said Ocean Songster.
He wasn't done yet. He sent out multiple imitated 'wind blades' at the Mentor of Disorder, who was still crashed into the wall.
He still wasn't done yet.
Using shadow shaping through the Rose Bishop ring, he pulled out multiple shadow cards and threw them at the still-fallen Mentor of Disorder.
Of course, this wouldn't kill him, but the wounds caused by the shadow weapons were different, as they degraded the wound, causing it to rot, and it would also damage and degrade the spirit of the target.
So it would altogether be easy to immobilize him as Natalie finishes her ritual and does what she has been long waiting for.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+
A/N:- Sorry for the irregular updates Guys, but writing such sceans requires some time and thinking, and as you know I'm writing longer chapter these days.
Hope you liked the chapter.
And send some power stones guys, it feels like there isn't much support these days.