Martial Demons Ascension

Nero was thoroughly impressed

The sharp smirk tugging at the corner of his lips wasn't arrogance this time it was recognition Rhyka had lived up to the expectations set before him The boy's instincts his footwork his ability to read through traps and maneuvers this wasn't the raw aggression of a child swinging blindly This was a master of combat in motion

Rhyka didn't let the expression distract him The golden web of Martial Vision blazed in his eyes as he moved dashing sharply to the side boots grinding into the dirt He had no intention of closing into the fog of glass or stepping directly into Nero's line The fog was too dangerous too many unseen paths too many ways Nero could twist it into something lethal And as for Nero himself Rhyka wasn't foolish enough to walk straight into the core of his control

Distance Angles That was where he could fight

His gaze flicked quickly across the ruined yard Debris littered the ground broken beams from the dojo's roof shattered planks and branches scattered from the earlier storm They weren't weapons in the traditional sense but in Rhyka's hands with his precision and absolute control over his body they would serve just as well

Thoughts flickered in rapid succession Traps Possible But unlikely

If Nero had hidden glass among this debris he would have used it already Nero wasn't sloppy he was insidious deliberate He didn't waste opportunities and he didn't trigger traps when an opponent could easily dodge and minimize the effect No Nero used layers misdirection and inevitability The kind of fighter who concealed his deadliest cards for the moment they couldn't be avoided

Those calculations raced through Rhyka's mind in an instant His lips curved faintly as he moved

"Interesting" Nero muttered under his breath His slate gray eyes tracked Rhyka's golden gaze as the martial artist slipped to the side putting distance between them careful to never drift into the swirling fog of glass that hung in the air like a glittering stormcloud

Rhyka's mind was running hot calculations firing as he analyzed the shifting web of Martial Vision He didn't want to risk the fog Too many unknowns One breath of it in his lungs and the fight would end before it began And charging Nero directly meant opening himself to whatever insidious counters the noble had hidden

I can't go through it Rhyka thought feet planting in the dirt But I can go around

His golden eyes flicked toward the ruined dojo and collapsed roof beams scattered across the training yard Shards of wood branches snapped from the mountain wind and broken tiles lay all around His lips curved faintly

Perfect

In one sharp motion he scooped up a branch Then another Then another His movements blurred each throw snapping with whip like precision

The branches became missiles each one hurling toward Nero at speeds no ordinary arm could produce They weren't crude projectiles they curved spun staggered in angles designed to limit options Rhyka's mastery over his body showed in every flick of his wrist every shift of his shoulder

And yet none of them struck Nero

They struck the dirt the stone the shattered glass around him Some embedded themselves in the ground a few feet off Others struck broken tiles bouncing aside To the untrained eye it looked messy like Rhyka was desperately fishing for an opening

But Nero wasn't untrained

His smirk widened slightly as his eyes narrowed tracking every branch

He's probing for traps Nero realized He thinks I've layered more spikes in the ground He thinks those pillars earlier weren't manually triggered That I was stretched thin focusing on the fog leaving the rest on autopilot

He remembered deliberately exaggerating his focus earlier narrowing his eyes controlling his breathing twitching his fingers more dramatically just to make it look like shaping the fog demanded everything he had

It had worked

He's testing me Nero thought to see if more spikes will fire automatically But he's wrong I control every fragment deliberately If I had more traps laid he would've been dead already

Nero's smirk sharpened arrogance flashing in his eyes He shifted his stance cloak swaying and let the branches crash harmlessly around him

"Clever" he said softly almost to himself "But not clever enough"

What he didn't notice what not even his sharp eyes caught was the slight of hand hidden in Rhyka's barrage

Among the dozens of branches two weren't discarded His hands had blurred so quickly in the chaos of motion that no one would've noticed he'd tucked them against his body Two slim shards of broken wood concealed under the folds of his arm and sash

While Nero thought he'd dismantled Rhyka's strategy Rhyka had already layered another one

His golden eyes flickered faintly Martial Vision adjusting mapping the noble's stance and the very moment his arrogance would crystallize into overconfidence

Rhyka's chest rose slowly controlling his breath his body perfectly still after the storm of throws

The golden lattice in his mind blazed showing him where to move next

Nero thinks I'm testing him Good Let him believe it By the time he sees the real strike

His fingers flexed around the concealed shards

…it'll already be too late

Rhyka's body snapped forward, boots grinding against the dirt as he dashed straight at Nero His movements looked committed, as though he was putting everything into closing the distance But in truth, every muscle in his frame was coiled, his balance finely tuned, prepared to shift, twist, or roll at a single moment's notice

The wood barrage earlier hadn't been random It had been a test He needed to know whether Nero's traps were automatic or controlled, and his Martial Vision had confirmed what his instincts already suspected: the noble's magic wasn't autonomous It was deliberate, calculated, every piece moved under Nero's direct will

Good, Rhyka thought, eyes narrowing, that means I can push him into gaps, force him to choose

As he closed the distance, his golden vision caught it, the faintest curl at the edge of Nero's lips, a smirk

A trap?

Rhyka's senses sharpened instantly His body didn't slow, didn't flinch, but his hand snapped forward, one of the concealed shards of wood flashing out like a spear The throw was vicious, faster than an arrow, every ounce of precision poured into its angle

Nero's eyes widened in that instant, his thoughts cut sharp and cold, he saw through it

He had expected the boy to barrel straight into his layered snare Instead, the sudden projectile forced him to react He twisted hard, cloak snapping as the shard whistled past, close enough to brush his ribs

For a split second his concentration fractured

The fog of glass behind Rhyka shimmered, then stuttered, losing cohesion, its perfect lattice breaking into loose motes The edges dulled, the precision scattered It hadn't collapsed completely, but it wasn't the razor storm it had been before

Rhyka's smirk deepened, he didn't waste the opening

Even as Nero recovered from his dodge, Rhyka's other hand snapped forward, hurling the second concealed piece of wood

Nero's instincts flared, his teeth clenching, two?

He immediately abandoned the fog altogether, mana surging as he forced a glass pillar to spike upward from the ground to intercept It rose fast, a gleaming spear of crystal cutting the air between him and the oncoming shard

But what happened next left him frozen

The wooden piece never struck the pillar

Rhyka's hand lashed out instead, slicing through the rising glass with terrifying precision His palm, hardened by countless hours of tempered martial essence, struck the weak point of the construct, and the pillar didn't just crack, it was severed cleanly

The glass split in two with a ringing shriek, fragments scattering across the dirt

But there were no shards left for Nero to manipulate, no splinters to control, no fragments to turn against his opponent Rhyka's strike had destroyed the pillar so cleanly that its remnants were nothing but harmless dust

Nero's eyes went wide Impossible? He broke it without injury? He shattered my construct without leaving me a single weapon to reclaim?

That hadn't been the plan He had wanted Rhyka to strike it, wanted to bait him into breaking the pillar recklessly so that he could hide fragments within his own body, implanting them invisibly for later control He hadn't expected Rhyka to read him so precisely, and dismantle the spell in a way that denied him entirely

And before he could reset, before he could draw on the fog again—

Rhyka was already there

His fist drove into Nero's gut with explosive force

The impact boomed like a drum, the air shuddering as the blow folded Nero in half His breath ripped out of his lungs, his eyes bulging for an instant before his body was sent flying backward He skidded across the dirt, his boots tearing trenches into the ground before his back slammed into one of the scarred wooden posts at the edge of the yard

The post cracked under the impact, dust and splinters raining down as Nero slumped forward, teeth gritted, his body screaming in pain

And above him, Rhyka stood tall, golden eyes gleaming with lethal focus, his hand still raised from the strike

He hadn't drawn his blade He hadn't needed mana He had dismantled every trick and landed the cleanest of blows

Nero, clutching his stomach, felt it clear as day

This wasn't some reckless village boy

This was a predator who had read him like an open book