Chapter 34: Frightening Fighter

The first Grave Gnawer reached Frey before the others.

It came from his left, crossing the final few meters on all fours before suddenly pushing off the cobblestones and launching itself toward his upper body.

Its long arms spread wide, black claws aimed for his shoulders while its mouth opened far enough to expose several rows of triangular teeth.

Jet saw the attack from the corner of his eye and instinctively prepared to move, but Frey was already reacting.

Instead of meeting the creature’s momentum with brute force, he shifted his left foot half a step backward and turned his body just enough for the claws to pass beside his chest.

His left blade came underneath the Gnawer’s arm and redirected it farther off course while the curved sword in his right hand swept upward in the same movement.

The edge entered beneath the creature’s jaw and exited through the side of its skull. Frey allowed the corpse’s momentum to carry it past him, pulled his blade free, and immediately stepped forward to intercept the next monster without wasting a single movement.

Jet had no more time to watch. Two Grave Gnawers were already coming toward him from opposite sides, one racing directly across the street while the other descended from a building with its claws digging into the stone. He pushed forward instead of allowing them to surround him, meeting the first creature halfway.

The Gnawer swiped toward his throat, but warmth spread across Jet’s back as Asura Physique responded to the threat.

His body shifted before the claws completed their path. He leaned outside the attack, brought the Vorpal Blade across the creature’s torso, and felt almost no resistance as the Relic sliced through grey flesh.

Blood sprayed across the cobblestones, but the second Gnawer dropped from above before he could finish the first.

Jet twisted and raised his sword, catching one claw against the flat of the blade. The impact pushed his arm downward. Instead of trying to overpower the creature, he stepped inside its reach and drove his shoulder into its chest, knocking it backward before the Vorpal Blade flashed across its throat.

The street immediately descended into chaos as the rest of the pack reached them. Grave Gnawers poured from every direction, scrambling over one another and attacking without any concern for the bodies falling beneath their feet.

Jet moved through the first wave with the Vorpal Blade held close to his body, avoiding the mistake of making wide swings while enemies surrounded him.

A claw passed inches from his cheek. He ducked, slashed through a thigh, stepped around the collapsing creature and drove his blade through the chest of another Gnawer approaching from behind it. Yet even while fighting his own opponents, part of his attention remained fixed on Frey, and the longer he watched, the more obvious the difference between them became.

Frey could actually fight.

There was no other way to describe it. His movements weren’t perfect, and Jet had watched enough truly powerful Raiders in his previous life to know Frey wasn’t anywhere close to an elite swordsman, but the foundations were there.

His feet rarely crossed unnecessarily. He maintained enough distance to use the reach of his curved blades without allowing the Gnawers inside his guard, and whenever one of the monsters attacked, Frey’s first instinct wasn’t always to meet force with force.

He redirected claws with one sword while the other attacked. He used small changes in angle to make enemies miss rather than wasting energy jumping backward. Most importantly, the two blades didn’t behave like separate weapons in his hands.

When his right blade finished an attack, the left was already positioned to protect the opening he’d created. When the left forced an enemy away, the right followed through with the killing strike.

Frey had started learning martial arts and swordsmanship years before the Second Red Moon, back when neither of them had any reason to believe another Awakening would ever happen.

There was nothing especially mysterious about it. They had grown up in a world where professional Awakeners were celebrities, Guild competitions were broadcast internationally, and weapons training had become an entire industry.

Frey came from a family wealthy enough to hire professional instructors, and unlike Jet, he’d actually developed an interest in learning. What had once been an expensive hobby suddenly became extremely useful after awakening a Divine Rune.

Jet’s own starting point had been considerably worse.

He had entered the Beyond with knowledge accumulated from ten years of watching other people fight, but knowing what good footwork looked like and having good footwork were very different things.

The Black-Fang Hyena had taught him that lesson immediately. The Myriapod Caterpillar had reinforced it, and the Vorpal Bunny had nearly carved the lesson directly into his corpse.

Jet had survived because Asura Physique continuously forced his body to improve under combat pressure. Without it, his first expedition into the Beyond would probably have ended with him being killed by a fucking rabbit.

Another Gnawer rushed him. Jet watched its shoulder shift and stepped away before the claws extended, but his attention briefly moved toward Frey’s feet again.

Frey had just avoided an attack by turning on the ball of his rear foot rather than moving his entire body backward. The movement preserved his balance and left him close enough to counterattack immediately.

Jet understood the principle the moment he saw it. When the next Gnawer attacked, he tried the same adjustment not copying Frey’s swordsmanship, but applying the idea to his own body. His rear foot turned.

His hips followed. The claws missed his chest by centimeters, yet unlike before, Jet remained inside striking distance. His Vorpal Blade passed through the Gnawer’s neck before it could recover.

That felt better.

Asura Physique reacted immediately.

His stance adjusted by a fraction. The tension in his knees changed. The next time he moved, his weight transferred more smoothly between his legs.

Jet saw Frey rotate his hips before delivering a powerful diagonal cut and incorporated the same principle into his next swing, allowing his waist and shoulder to contribute instead of relying primarily on his arm.

The Vorpal Blade accelerated through the air and opened a Gnawer from shoulder to ribs. He watched how Frey maintained distance with the tips of his blades, then began correcting his own tendency to let enemies come unnecessarily close.

None of it magically implanted years of swordsmanship into his head.

Jet still lacked Frey’s trained habits and technical vocabulary, but Asura Physique was frighteningly good at identifying inefficient movement and forcing his body toward something better.

Frey noticed.