NOVEL NEXT Chapter 382: Eat This, Reality!
Thorn didn't wait.
The moment Lilith lunged into her own battle, he tore across the hallway toward his opponent, boots thudding, cloak billowing, bone arm raised like a battering ram.
But the mercenary didn't move.
He simply raised a hand.
Wham!
Another wave of pressure slammed into Thorn, trying to crush him flat.
The tiles beneath his feet shattered, the walls cracked, and his knees buckled slightly under the weight but only for a second.
Golden light pulsed from within him as he adjusted one of his charges, rerouting it into gravity resistance and bolstering the two charges that were already doing the job.
Instantly, the force pressing down on him fizzled to nothing.
The mercenary's eyes widened.
"Impossible." He mouthed, though no sound escaped.
Thorn grinned. "Try harder."
He lunged forward, swinging his bone arm in a brutal arc toward the mercenary's midsection.
The mercenary vanished upward.
Gravity shifted, not for Thorn, but for the mercenary himself.
He flipped onto the ceiling, boots slamming into stone, and launched forward like a cannonball, sword drawn.
Thorn ducked just in time. The blade sliced clean through the air behind him.
He twisted and punched upward, his bone arm grazing the mercenary's ribs as he flew past, sending him crashing into a wall.
The mercenary twisted in midair and reversed his gravity again, this time dragging himself sideways onto the adjacent wall like it was ground.
Thorn snarled and shifted another charge, this time into speed.
He vanished in a blur.
The wall cracked as Thorn's fist hit the wall, missing the mercenary by inches. Every impact from his arm sent more cracks spiderwebbing through the stone.
The mercenary twisted gravity again, flipping himself backward onto the opposite wall, then sliding upward to the ceiling.
He used gravity as a weapon, boosting his falls, launching into jumps, and twisting at impossible angles to attack from places Thorn couldn't predict.
But Thorn wasn't the same man he'd been a year ago.
He moved with purpose.
One charge into speed. One into strength. One into spatial awareness.
As the mercenary dropped like a bullet from the ceiling, Thorn sidestepped and caught him mid-fall, planting his foot and slamming the man through the floor with an explosive uppercut.
The tiles cratered.
Stone dust and debris flew.
But the mercenary didn't stop.
He slid across the floor through Thorn's legs, twisted gravity again, and launched back toward Thorn from below, blade first.
Thorn dropped all charges into reflex and perception.
Time slowed.
He stepped around the blade and grabbed the mercenary by the collar, slamming him headfirst into the wall.
The stone cracked. Blood splattered.
They separated, both panting, bodies bruised.
But neither yielded.
The mercenary launched forward again, swinging, his sword a blur of gravity-assisted arcs.
Thorn dodged left, shifted a charge into durability as the blade skimmed his shoulder, leaving only a shallow wound.
He countered with a kick, sending the man tumbling across the hallway.
They fought like animals. Wall to wall. Floor to ceiling.
Every surface became a battleground.
And then, the world trembled.
The hallway shuddered violently beneath their feet. Dust rained from the cracked ceiling.
Both men froze mid-motion, eyes snapping down the corridor toward where Ren and the other mercenary had been fighting.
And Thorn's heart skipped.
What the hell had Ren done?!
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Ren's spear arm pulsed, wrapped in kinetic energy and Push resonance, a storm of purple lightning dancing along its edges. The corridor around them trembled with pressure.
The mercenary's expression finally shifted from stone-cold composure to unease.
He moved first, vanishing in a sidestep that blurred the space around him, dodging a split-second before Ren lunged. Ren's spear carved the air, slicing through empty space.
'He's cautious now,' Ren noted. 'Good.'
Ren twisted his torso mid-swing, using the momentum to flip backward, landing in a crouch.
The mercenary dashed toward his flank, trying to capitalize on the moment, his blade aimed for Ren's exposed side.
Ren blurred into action.
He reappeared behind the mercenary, his spear already thrusting, but there was a shimmer, and the mercenary bent the outcome, his body slipping sideways as if guided by the hands of fate.
The spear missed.
Ren spun once more through the air, flipping cleanly over the mercenary's head. And as he twisted in the air, his hand dipped into his pouch.
With a flick of his wrist, dozens of silver coins scattered into the air, clinking as they spread across the stone ground like stars in orbit.
They spun and landed around the mercenary, embedding themselves into walls, floor, and sealing, covering every direction the mercenary might take.
The mercenary hesitated. Just for a second.
Too long.
Ren teleported.
He vanished from above, reappearing behind the mercenary, and stabbed.
But again, the outcome warped. The spearhead passed through a space where the mercenary no longer existed.
Only now, Ren wasn't aiming to hit.
He was herding.
Another teleport, and Ren appeared at the far side, slashing horizontally.
Blocked.
He vanished again, this time appearing above, slamming downward with kinetic momentum that cracked the floor beneath them.
The mercenary dodged, just barely.
Ren teleported behind the mercenary, thrusting forward. The man used his power to orient himself in the right direction, parrying.
But Ren was grinning.
He teleported again. Mid-lunge. This time to a coin at the mercenary's left flank.
Thrust.
The mercenary twisted... right into the trap.
Ren's foot slammed into the mercenary's back, staggering him forward, and Ren teleported directly above him.
A final coin glowed, and Ren emerged in a storm of lightning and momentum, spear raised.
"End of the road!" He roared into the silence.
He drove the spear downward, amplified by five stacked Push bursts, his momentum unnatural, his weapon radiating death.
The mercenary tried to shift again, eyes wide, but it was too late.
Reality couldn't catch up.
The spear hit.
It sank through the man's skull, down into his torso, and with a howl of force, Ren released the full charge.
The silence shattered.
A purple explosion of kinetic energy detonated outward, vaporizing a chunk of the mercenary's body in a flash of heat and pressure.
The force didn't stop.
It continued, obliterating the far wall of the hallway and tearing through the building beyond.
Stone, wood, and steel were ripped apart, wiped away by the storm of concentrated force. A gaping crater stretched through what had once been the rest of the building.
The dust hung heavy in the air.
Ren stood, breathing hard, smoke rising from his spear arm.
The body at his feet was unrecognizable, the warping of reality finally catching up with the mercenary, only to find there was no path left that didn't end in death.
Ren wiped sweat from his brow, the grin still etched on his face.
"One down."