Chapter 109: Victory demands the total submission of the enemy

A torrent of fire fifty meters wide surged toward them. But Kristian moved even before the incandescent wave could spread. His way of fighting had completely changed: his movements no longer held the nobility of the House of Spring, but the terrifying fluidity of a blade guided by the pure instinct of war.

Instead of retreating or emitting a Chi shield, Kristian projected himself directly into the furnace. He executed a low sliding motion across the hot stone, passing under the arc of the greatsword a fraction of a millimeter from the glowing metal. The white vapor emanating from his body surrounded his silhouette, completely blurring the thermal signature that Tegan was trying to read with his Heat Vision.

‘What!? I can no longer predict his position!?’ Tegan exclaimed inwardly, his red eyes widening in surprise.

Kristian reappeared instantly in the Master’s blind spot. Without the slightest sound, his right blade described an upward thrust of blinding speed, aiming for the exposed armpit of the colossus.

*CRACK*

The silver steel sank beneath the leather armor, slicing through the latissimus dorsi and the ligaments of Tegan’s shoulder. Hot blood sprayed out in a scarlet fountain that vaporized immediately upon contact with Kristian’s vapor. Tegan tried to retaliate with a backward elbow strike.

But Kristian had already anticipated the movement even before Tegan’s muscles contracted. He tilted his head two centimeters to the left and followed up with his left blade, carving a deep gash behind Tegan’s knee.

Taking advantage of the opening created by his cousin’s inhuman precision, Daemon leapt from the heights.

Lancelot’s katana, surrounded by a dense film of Chi, came down in a two-handed vertical strike on Tegan’s other shoulder. The impact was so violent that it shattered the Fire Master’s collarbone, forcing the giant to buckle under the weight of the pain.

“RAAAAGGH! BASTARDS!” Tegan howled.

The Fourth Sense Master exploded his Chi to trigger a circular wave of fire capable of destroying everything around him.

Tegan brutally seized Kristian’s right arm, enveloping it in flames.

The flesh of Kristian’s wrist began to sizzle immediately under the extreme heat.

Instead of struggling against the Master’s colossal grip, Kristian used the inertia of the attack. He deliberately dislocated his own arm, pivoting in the air with an unreal acrobatic contortion that disoriented Tegan.

At the exact moment his body performed a spin above Tegan’s head, Kristian spat a handful of rock dust and hot ashes that he had deliberately kept in his mouth since the previous explosion.

The volley of earth and silica shot directly into the eyes of the Fire Master.

“Argh! Fuck!” Tegan roared as he violently shut his eyelids, his Heat Vision disrupted by the direct physical assault.

Overwhelming Tegan during that fraction of a second of blindness, Kristian extended his left leg and delivered a devastating kick straight into the sternum.

The kinetic shockwave sank into Tegan’s chest, forcing him to take three steps backward to keep his balance. Kristian landed heavily on his feet in the dust and, with a brutal strike to his own shoulder, reset his joint.

‘WTF, what kind of fighting style is this!?’

Immediately taking advantage of the opening created by his cousin, Daemon launched himself at a dizzying speed.

Daemon dove onto Tegan’s exposed flank.

The katana traced a vertical arc toward the shoulder, followed by a vicious thrust to the side and a horizontal cut aimed at the ribs.

The blows chained together, leaving a few trails of black blood, but the wounds were not deep enough.

“Too superficial, kid!” Tegan growled as he swept the air with his glowing greatsword.

Instinctively, Tegan executed a torso dodge downward to free himself from Daemon’s pressure. Having anticipated the Master’s reaction thanks to his perception of Chi flows, Daemon did the same, diving his body toward the ground. But at the same instant, Kristian, who had realigned himself, unleashed a transversal strike of colossal power aimed at Tegan’s throat.

Kristian’s silver blade shot forward at blinding speed.

It grazed Daemon’s head by mere millimeters, cutting several locks of his black hair and deeply slicing his right cheek. A trickle of hot blood immediately sprayed onto Daemon’s collar.

“Dude, you’re going to kill me, fuck!” Daemon shouted as he sprang back up, his hand pressed to his bleeding cheek.

“Stop complaining and focus,” Kristian replied in a voice completely devoid of emotion, his white eyes fixed on Tegan.

Tegan, having wiped the blood from his face, let his fire aura explode. The ambient temperature soared once again.

“Me, a Master, I can’t kill some little shit!?”

A circular wave of fire burst from Tegan’s body, surging in every direction. Kristian advanced directly into the furnace, crossing his two silver swords in front of him to trigger his own technique.

A storm of white and glacial energy emanated from Kristian’s body, slicing through Tegan’s flames into a multitude of dying showers of sparks. The clash between the fire of the Fourth Sense and the illness of Conquest produced a dull detonation that made the ground tremble.

Daemon circled the shockwave from the left, sliding across the ground to reach the level of Tegan’s legs.

He executed a low cut aimed at Tegan’s tendons, forcing the Master to leap backward.

But while the combat raged, the successive explosions of fire magic began to impact the environment.

The dwellings of the district started to collapse under the thermal waves. The battle was gradually leaving the wasteland to push deeper into the quarters of the Magic Clan.

In the middle of the smoke, Daemon heard screams of terror. Civilians, surprised by the brutality of the battle, were running in every direction trying to take cover. Women clutching their children to them desperately sought to flee the incandescent debris falling from the sky.

Daemon, recalling his own years spent among the simple people of the Thirteenth District, felt his heart tighten.

He pivoted toward Kristian while parrying a reverse strike from the greatsword.

“Kris! Listen to me! You have to try to deflect Tegan’s blows upward or toward the plain! At this rate it’s going to destroy the civilian quarter!” Daemon shouted, pointing at the burning houses.

But Kristian did not even turn his head. Under the total grip of , his mind processed only the tactical variables leading to the absolute destruction of his opponent.

The lives of civilians or the preservation of buildings entered nowhere into his equation.

He continued to attack with violence, forcing Tegan to retaliate with even wider discharges of flame that pulverized everything in their path.

“Victory demands the total submission of the enemy. The rest is nothing but futility..” Kristian murmured.

“Shit, Kris, you could make an effort!” Daemon roared.

Tegan, a keen observer of the battlefield, immediately noticed the change in Daemon’s behavior. He saw the golden eyes of the young Dagon regularly settling on the houses occupied by the inhabitants. A cruel smile stretched his lips.

“Imbecile!” Tegan spat.