SSS- Rank Awakening: Soul Devourer

The anti-magic field was a suffocating, leaden blanket. A sudden, brutal amputation. The constant, low-level hum of the souls he carried, the whispers of his dagger, his heightened senses—all of it was gone. Replaced by a dull, terrifying silence. For the first time since the Crystal of Rejection, he was just a man. A simple, mortal man trapped in a dark, iron-walled box with another man who wanted him dead.

Chris looked transformed. Stripped of his flashy, S-Rank abilities and his legendary artifacts, he was something different. Harder. The arrogant, preening peacock of the academy was gone. Burned away in the crucible of his own humiliation. What was left was a lean, hungry wolf. His eyes burned with a singular, obsessive, and utterly dedicated hatred. He had clearly spent every waking moment since their last duel doing one thing. Training. Training for this single, final moment of retribution.

He held the simple, steel sword with a practiced, workmanlike grace. His stance was perfect. His balance absolute. He was no longer a nobleman playing at being a warrior. He was a killer.

"No more ghosts in your head to whisper my moves to you, Ross," Chris hissed. His voice was a low, confident rumble. "No more cursed, life-draining tricks. Just you. Me. And a piece of sharpened steel. Let's see what you're really made of."

He attacked.

No flashy lunge. No grand, telegraphed swing. A simple, brutally efficient thrust. Aimed directly at Edward's heart. A swordsman's move. A fencer's move. All business.

Edward reacted on a level deeper than skill. Deeper than magic. Deeper than the system itself. He reacted on pure, hard-won, bloody instinct. The instincts of a survivor.

He parried. His own, borrowed practice sword met Chris's in a sharp, ringing clang of pure, honest steel. The impact was jarring. A clean, physical shock. A world away from their previous duels. This was real. A fight of muscle, bone, and nerve.

The interior of the wagon became a blur of motion. A deadly, claustrophobic dance in the near-darkness. The only light came from the single, open doorway. The clang of steel was a frantic, percussive rhythm. A song of pure, unadulterated human violence.

Chris was good. Terrifyingly good. His swordsmanship was a masterpiece of classical, academy-taught technique. Refined and hardened by his obsessive, hateful training. Every parry was perfect. Every thrust was aimed at a vital point. He was fighting by the book. And the book was written in blood.

But Edward hadn't learned from a book. He had learned from a hundred life-or-death struggles in the dark. His style was not a style. It was a chaotic, unpredictable, and brutally pragmatic amalgam. He held his sword with the efficient grip of a knight. But he moved with the low, fluid grace of a street-brawling rogue. He would parry like a duelist, but follow it up with a savage, unexpected kick to the knee.

He was not a swordsman. He was a survivor who happened to be holding a sword.

The fight was a gritty, ugly, and utterly exhausting affair. The close confines of the wagon favored neither of them. Turning the duel into a grinding, close-quarters brawl. They slammed into the iron walls. The floor was slick with sweat.

Chris drew first blood. He executed a perfect feint. A high slash that forced Edward to block. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he brought the tip of his blade down. Tracing a thin, red, and exquisitely painful line across Edward's ribs.

Edward grunted in pain but didn't retreat. He used the moment of the strike to slam the pommel of his own sword into Chris's jaw. A dull, satisfying thud. Chris stumbled back. A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. A look of shocked surprise in his eyes. He had not expected a man he had just stabbed to respond with a move suited for a tavern brawl.

"You fight like a gutter rat!" Chris snarled. He spat a wad of blood onto the floor.

"I learned from the best," Edward replied. His voice was a low, breathless rasp. The first words he had spoken.

The fight grew more savage. They were no longer just duelists. They were two animals, trapped in a cage, tearing at each other. They used their fists. Their elbows. Their knees. Chris tried to use the heavy, mechanical brace on his arm as a bludgeun. But Edward was too quick.

They were both wounded now. A dozen shallow, bleeding cuts crisscrossed their arms and torsos. They were both breathing in ragged, desperate gasps. Their muscles screamed with the strain. They were, in this moment, stripped of all their power. All their titles. All their history. They had found a strange, brutal, and utterly perfect equality.

But it was an equality that could not last. Chris was driven by a single, powerful, but ultimately finite emotion. Hatred. It made him strong. But it also made him predictable.

Edward was driven by something else. Deeper. More enduring. The will to protect. He could see, in his mind's eye, the face of Sarah. The faces of Fenris and Selene. The faces of the hundred thousand innocent people in Silverstream. His will was not a fire that would burn itself out. It was a mountain. It was an ocean. It was absolute.

And in a war of attrition, will was the only thing that mattered.

Edward saw the shift. Chris was growing tired. His perfect, academy-honed form was beginning to falter. His parries were a fraction of a second slower. His thrusts were a little less precise. His hatred was a powerful fuel. But not an infinite one.

Edward, in contrast, seemed to find a new, deeper well of strength. His movements, born of desperate, reactive instinct, now became calmer. More efficient. More predatory. He was no longer just surviving. He was hunting.

He saw his opening. Chris, in a final, desperate, rage-fueled lunge, put all his remaining strength into a single, all-or-nothing thrust.

Edward did not meet it with a parry. He simply took a single, precise step to the side. The tip of Chris's sword scraped harmlessly against the iron wall. A high-pitched, grating shriek. For a single, fatal moment, Chris was overextended. His balance was compromised. His entire right side was exposed.

Edward moved. He dropped his own sword. The fight was over. He no longer needed it.

He stepped in. His right hand shot out to grab Chris's sword arm. His left hand clamped down on his shoulder. He twisted. Using Chris's own forward momentum against him. He slammed him bodily into the iron wall of the wagon.

The impact was a dull, final, and utterly definitive boom. Chris's head snapped back. The sword fell from his numb fingers.

Edward followed through with a brutal, dispassionate efficiency. He brought his knee up, hard, into Chris's stomach. Doubling him over. He then grabbed the back of Chris's head and slammed his face into the iron wall. Once. Twice.

Chris slumped to the floor. A broken, bleeding, and utterly defeated man. His arm was broken again. His face was a mask of blood. But he was alive.

Edward stood over him. His chest heaved. His body was a canvas of blood, sweat, and pain. He had won. He had won a fight as a man. With nothing but his own skill. His own grit. And his own indomitable will.

But as he turned to secure the real prize, the container of Plague Spores, a low, weak, and utterly insane sound reached his ears.

It was laughter.

He turned back. He saw Chris, pushing himself up with his one good arm. His face was a horrifying, bloody mask of pure, triumphant madness.

"You beat me…" Chris choked out. A bloody, gurgling laugh bubbled in his throat. "You actually beat me… man to man…" He looked up at Edward. His eyes, amidst the blood, were burning with a final, victorious, and utterly nihilistic light. "But if I can't have my revenge…"

His good hand fumbled inside his coat. He produced a small, metallic object. A hidden, remote detonator.

"...then this city can burn!" he snarled. His thumb slammed down on the single, large, red button.