NOVEL NEXT Chapter 266: Escape Tokens... Part 1
"What is that?!" Kai exclaimed, his voice laced with disbelief as Thalion appeared before him like a phantom stepping from a nightmare. Though usually composed under pressure, Kai now felt an unfamiliar chill of helplessness. His curved blades, wicked as they were, seemed laughably inadequate against the towering figure cloaked in darkness. Thalion's claws, elongated and wreathed in pure darkness, glinted with lethal intent as he activated Shadow Claw and brought it down in a savage arc.
Kai froze, paralyzed by the sudden surge of dread. Sylas, quick on the draw, hurled him out of harm's way with a gust of wind just in time. Thalion's strike tore through the earth, carving five deep scars into the cracked ground, black smoke hissing from the gouges.
"Unfair!" Sylas barked as he ascended into the air, frustration thick in his voice. "There's no way someone gets this lucky. He must've just claimed that form after someone in his camp killed it."
"You can't win," Thalion said, his voice rumbling like it emerged from the void itself. Oily smoke drifted from his lips and eyes, and the shadows clinging to his body ignited into black flames, growing wilder, obscuring his silhouette and making it harder for Kael to get a clear shot.
"Oh yeah?" Sylas scoffed, forcing a shaky laugh. "You're outnumbered, and your own people aren't even backing you up!"
"Because you're a fool," Thalion growled in response. Without warning, the shadows beneath Kael writhed, and razor-sharp spikes of pure darkness erupted. Kael escaped death by a hair's breadth, rolling away—only to snap his bow in the process. The sharp crack echoed louder than it should have. Thalion's smirk widened as he lunged toward Kai, who was retreating from the creeping black mist.
But Kai's reaction wasn't fear, it was something deeper. Defiance, maybe even madness. The blade he now held shimmered with unsettling power. It looked ancient, corroded by time, yet the air warped around it. Faint screams and ghostly whispers echoed from its edge. A cursed weapon, no doubt.
There was no room for retreat. Thalion poured more power into his Shadow Claw and slashed down. Kai met him head-on with the cursed blade. Ethereal energies curled from the weapon just before their clash, and Kai's aura flared violently. The impact shook the earth. Kai was thrown backward, sailing into the air, while Thalion anchored himself with tendrils of darkness lashing from his back and into the ground.
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Before he could give chase, lightning crackled through the air and struck his back, jolting him mid-step. Screams echoed in his mind, foreign and agonizing, but Thalion forced them out with a pulse of pure soul energy to cleanse the interference. He'd won the clash, Kai's shoulder was ruined, white bone jutting from torn flesh.
Without hesitation, Thalion seized control of the shadows beneath Kai and sent a spike lancing upward. But the cursed swordsman had already produced an escape token. In the blink of an eye, he vanished. Gone.
Thalion clenched his jaw. So close. Those damn escape tokens were absurdly overpowered. How could he kill anyone if they could vanish with nothing more than a flicker of thought? Fine. If he couldn't end them here, he'd make sure they feared ever facing him again.
Now that Kael's bow was broken, there was no reason to stay grounded. Thalion surged into the air, returning to Eagly. As he ascended, the black inferno consuming the battlefield shifted into a crackling azure blaze, electric arcs leaping between tongues of flame. He directed the fury toward Kael, who had been trying to circle around the fire to reach Kai.
"The flames, again?!" Sylas cried out above, eyes wide in disbelief as Thalion morphed mid-air. "Oh no… not the bird again," he muttered under his breath, clearly remembering what had happened last time.
Thalion now cloaked himself in Tempest Glide, and with a howl of wind, he rocketed toward Sylas like a living bullet. Panic flashed in Sylas's eyes as he looked to Kael for help—who merely shrugged in helplessness. Thalion almost laughed. Of course, Kael didn't have a spatial ring. His arrows had likely been stored elsewhere, and now? He was completely exposed. A mid-battle theft of a spatial ring was a stroke of genius.
If Thalion had been even luckier, maybe the escape token hadn't been in the ring either. If that were true, Kael was well and truly doomed. Thalion grinned. Even if Kael was somehow faster, he wouldn't last in a prolonged chase. He lacked the endurance and the fear now clinging to his heart would do the rest.
Thalion had to suppress a smirk as he watched Kael fumble to reassemble his shattered bow. The air around Thalion and Sylas crackled with tension, and though Sylas scrambled to put distance between them, it was a hopeless effort. He wasn't nearly fast enough, and Thalion barely needed to try. With Tempest Glide cloaking his form, lightning coiled around his limbs, propelling him forward like a thunderbolt given shape.