NOVEL NEXT Chapter 78 - Turnabout (III)
[Volume 2 | Chapter 78: Turnabout (III)]
Acacia reached the stairwell and vaulted over the railing. He aimed to drop directly to the second floor to gain distance. But mid-leap, his brain registered a whistling sound cutting through the roar of flames.
Instinct took over.
As if possessed by a demon, the Irregular contorted his body in midair, twisting at such an absurd angle that even surprised himself. The dagger Alaric had thrown sliced through the space where his spine had been milliseconds earlier and entrenched itself in the far wall with a dull thunk. The unnatural evasion saved his life but cost him his landing. He crashed onto the second-floor landing on his side, rolling a few times to bleed off the excess momentum before scrambling back to his feet. A flash of pain radiated from his bruised hip and shoulder, but he pushed it aside and focused on the task at hand.
Too long.
When he looked up, Alaric stood before him, right hand extended in a rigid knifehand position. Purple light crackled along the edge of his fingers and coalesced into a vibrating blade of pure prana.
"En garde, bastard!"
Acacia scrambled backward as his eyes darted to the door leading to the second-floor hallway. He lunged for it, slamming it shut just as Alaric thrust forward. The [Prana Edge] tore through the wood like it was paper, yet missed Acacia's face by centimeters.
The wood around the blade began to smolder, then disintegrate. Alaric carved a rough circle through the door, wrenching it out of its hinges with a brutal kick.
"Haha! You can't run forever, so why not just accept your fate? A worthless Wallachian refugee, dying in an abandoned building. It's almost poetic!"
Acacia ignored him, backed away, and moved deeper into the second-floor corridor. He made sure to track every possible thing—the broken light fixtures dangling from the ceiling, the exposed pipes running along the walls, and the puddles of stagnant water from leaking joints.
All elements that could be weaponized.
Without even looking, he ducked Alaric's horizontal slash; the blade passed over his head close enough that he felt the heat of its passage. He could clearly sense that Alaric was well taught, but it was clear that he lacked experience in an actual fight.
His form was sloppy, his strikes predictable, and his follow-throughs left him vulnerable. He was used to sparring matches and duels, not the chaos of real combat.
In other words, he was fighting an amateur. Someone who was playing around with his newfound power, thinking he was invincible.
It was time for him to learn the hard lesson of the world.
Acacia's hand brushed against the cylindrical device in his pocket—Leila's "gift," as she called it. His fingers traced its contours as to confirm his suspicion. But in its current state, against a Thaumaturge of Alaric's caliber, it would barely register as more than an annoyance if he used [Fließen] to increase his defenses.
Unless amplified.
He needed water. He also needed to get Alaric to the first floor, where the main water lines ran.
He slipped on a puddle, an apparent mistake that caused him to stumble, but the "accidental" fall allowed him to narrowly avoid another slash that would have opened his throat.
"Sloppy footwork, Belmont! This the best that ape of an Inquisitor's pet can do?"
He wanted to rip his head off for calling Pandora an ape, but he stayed his anger. It wasn't time. He needed to be patient, so he regained his footing. Just ahead, a large section of pipe ran vertically along the wall, visibly corroded where amateur modifications had been made. It was a viable weak point.
"At least I'm not the one who got manipulated by a damn book! Can't even live your life without being a pathetic puppet?!"
"YOU—"
The taunt hit its mark. Alaric's face contorted in rage, and he lunged forward.
Exactly as Acacia had anticipated.
Acacia pivoted at the last possible moment, allowing Alaric's momentum to carry him forward. As the noble stumbled past, Acacia slammed his elbow into the corroded pipe section with all his strength. Metal shrieked as the weakened joint gave way. The water sprayed out in a high-pressure jet, drenching Alaric and the floor around him.
"What the—!?" Alaric sputtered, momentarily caught off guard.
Acacia didn't waste any time. He bolted down the hallway, ignoring his drenched shoes through the widening puddles as water continued to gush from the broken pipe.
The Ptolemy scion continued his pursuit.
Acacia darted around a corner. The second floor was rapidly flooding with water flowing toward the staircase leading down. Perfect.
The first stage of his plan was underway.
He needed to keep moving, to stay just ahead of Alaric while ensuring the noble followed him precisely where he wanted him to go.
But even if he was smarter than the noble, it didn't mean that Alaric was stupid.
A flash of purple light was his only warning as a bullet of prana sliced through the wall beside him, showering him with plaster and debris. Alaric had switched tactics, firing ranged attacks rather than pursuing directly.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"[Prana Burst]!" Alaric shouted, launching another compressed bolt of energy at him.
The second attack missed too, but only because Acacia had already anticipated it. He'd weaved into a doorway and back out just in time, using the frame as temporary cover. The shot blasted through another wall, leaving a smoking crater in its wake. The Irregular then dropped into a baseball slide across the wet floor, with another projectile passing overhead and blasting a hole in the wall ahead. The impact destroyed another section of piping and sent more water cascading onto the floor.
Rising to his feet, Acacia found himself at a junction.
Left led deeper into the second floor.
Right led to the staircase down to the first floor, where the main water lines ran... and where his trap would work best.
"I thought Wallachians were supposed to be warriors," Alaric taunted once more, turning the corner with [Prana Edge] still humming around his hand. "But all you're doing is running away. Is that what you call 'strategy'? Are you actually just scared instead?"
"I'm not sure why the blueblooded idiot who put all his faith in a stupid book is trying to lecture me!"
Alaric's face twisted in rage.
"You know nothing! Nothing about what I've endured!"
"I know enough. I know you're weak. You crumbled under pressure, and you let yourself be led on because you couldn't handle being second-best to Elias and Leila!"
"SHUT UP!"
[Prana Edge] extended like a knight's lance. He charged like a bull.
Acacia waited until the last possible moment before spinning away from the attack, using Alaric's momentum against him once more. The noble's extended arm slammed into the wall beside the stairwell while his blade sliced through the final major pipe junction on the second floor.
Brace it…!
Another burst of water exploded out, a deluge that knocked both boys off their feet and sent them tumbling down the stairs in a chaotic cascade. Acacia rolled with the fall, minimizing the impact, but Alaric hit each step awkwardly and ended up crying out as his shoulder slammed against the concrete.
They landed in a heap at the bottom, soaked and battered, with water continuing to pour down the stairwell like a miniature waterfall. The first floor was already ankle-deep, and the water level was rising fast.
Acacia was the first to recover. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the main corridor.
Alaric wasn't far behind, though his steps were noticeably more sluggish. He'd taken a beating in the fall, but his anger and desperation pushed him forward.
"You're going to pay for that, Belmont!"
No... not this part... not this either...
Alaric, drenched from head to toe, stumbled through the doorway into the first floor's chamber, where Acacia was already standing. The room was massive, with exposed piping and a large pool of water that was quickly spreading outward.
He swung his hand in a horizontal cut, and a violet arc of prana sliced through the air towards Acacia.
With the deftness of a professional martial artist, Acacia ducked under it.
NOW!
He braced himself against his teeth. This was going to hurt.
After all, he too, was drenched from head to toe.
He pulled out Leila's cylinder and brandished it with all of his might, pressing a red button that transformed it into—
"—A stun gun?!"
The prongs latched onto Alaric like a serpent.
And the rest was history.
50,000 volts surged through the device, magnified exponentially by the ankle-deep water surrounding them both. The laws of conductivity were merciless and absolute. Electricity followed the path of least resistance, and so it coursed through the water to envelop both boys in a blinding flash of blueish-white light. Alaric's body spasmed uncontrollably as the current ravaged him from head to toe, overloading his nerves, and robbing his muscles of all control. The agony was indescribable, a searing pain that seemed to set every cell in his body aflame.
Alaric's eyes rolled back, showing only whites as his teeth clenched so hard that one cracked audibly. His blue hair stood on end. It mixed with the electricity in a crude sight.
In that very moment, he was stripped of all dignity. The mighty heir of the House of Ptolemy was reduced to a twitching, convulsing puppet on a string. The electricity didn't care who or what he was—it respected neither wealth nor lineage, punishing him with the same impartial cruelty that it inflicted upon Acacia. It was a force of nature that cared nothing for the ambitions or failures of men.
It was a fitting punishment for someone whose arrogance and self-importance had blinded him to the suffering of those he considered beneath him. Now, he knew what it meant to be powerless, to have no control over one's own body or fate.
Acacia wasn't spared.
The current traveled through the water to him as well, sending jolts of agony up his legs and through his torso.
But unlike Alaric, he'd been prepared. He had minutes to brace for the pain and expect it.
After all, with years of enduring Gio's beatings, Pierce's [Sturm]-enhanced punches, Todd's torments—blue-blooded bastards cut from the same cloth as Alaric Ptolemy—they had forged in him a pain tolerance that bordered on supernatural.
The Irregular remained standing, teeth gritted, as Alaric collapsed to his knees.
"H-how...? How are you... still standing?"
Alaric looked at Acacia, and... he felt fear. The kind of fear that comes from realizing that you've underestimated your opponent, that you've made a fatal mistake, and that there is no turning back.
Acacia Belmont, the Wallachian refugee, Pandora Kircheisen's ward, the boy who was thwarted to his Birthright, defeated him without casting a single spell, and deduced his plans to sacrifice those children... wasn't normal.
"If this is 'pain' to you, it's just another day for me."
Those words struck deep into Alaric's soul.
He'd never suffered in his entire life. Everything had been handed to him on a silver platter, and when that wasn't enough, he'd grasped at straws like the Modern Tome.
But Acacia... how much had he endured to reach this point?
Alaric couldn't even imagine it.
And that scared him.
"You've never had to fight for anything. Everything was handed to you. Wealth, status, education, opportunity. And the one time you faced real adversity—the one time you weren't immediately the best at something—you broke. You reached for forbidden power instead of putting in the work."
"DAMN YOU, ACACIA BELMONT! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! YOU COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND!"
But he wouldn't accept it.
Because that would mean he was wrong.
Acacia saw through all of his excuses, saw the weakness at the core of Alaric's character.
"I understand what it means to truly struggle. To be denied every opportunity. To be told you're worthless every single day of your life... And yet... I never gave up. I never stopped believing in myself. I never resorted to sacrificing innocent lives just to get ahead. I never blamed others for my own shortcomings. I fought for everything I have, every scrap of respect, every small victory, and I did it without sacrificing who I am!"
He clenched his right fist and stepped towards the nigh-catatonic Alaric.
"So what's your excuse, ALARIC PTOLEMY?!"
Acacia Belmont's fist plowed into Alaric Ptolemy's face.
The blueblood's slender, pale body slammed down into the shallow water, with his arms and legs violently flailing.