Chapter 85: Mimic Vs The Iron Fist

A little while ago, on the other battlefield...

Clink! Clink! Clink!

Along a street in the imperial capital, two men are in the middle of their duel. Aamon, the empire's top adventurers, and Mors, a member of a large syndicate, are exchanging blows with their greatsword and gauntlets, respectively.

But it is Aamon who does most of the attacking while Mors just defends himself by blocking and parrying. In this fight, Mors is actually holding back the whole time, and he is just toying with his opponent.

He outclasses his opponent in different areas by miles, such as raw strength, mobility, defense, and mental speed. Mors is standing on another level of power.

Even though it has been a few minutes since they started their clash, Mors has dealt with most of the adventurers and knights, rendering them unable to fight. To make it look worse for them, a rogue adventurer singlehandedly handed them.

Dozens of people are either lying on the ground or leaning against a nearby wall after being beaten by Mors. For the ones who are still conscious, they have nothing to do but watch Aamon fight as they put their hopes on him.

"I don't know how you have gotten this strong, but I am letting you do as you please. Ha!"

After taking a short breather, Aamon lunges at Mors, who is standing still with his arms crossed, as he is swinging his large blade overhead. Aamon immediately brings his sword down as powerful and as fast as he can, forcing the tip of the blade to travel at supersonic speed.

However, Mors does not seem to be fazed by it, and he just smirks. With quick movements of his hands, Mors simply bends his knees before he claps his gauntlets and casually catches Aamon's sword midair.

Clank.

After catching the blade, all of its energy transfers to Mors, causing the brick floor beneath his feet to submerge and create a small crater.

"What?!"

Aamon is astonished by Mors' insane reaction and speed. The attack he just did is possibly the most powerful swing he could execute, but Mors catches it with his hands like it is an easy feat.

While the sword is still between his gauntlets, Mors grabs the blade before he tightens his grip on it and folds it like scrap metal, showcasing his superior strength. He then forcefully takes it from Aamon and uses it to hit him in the side of his head.

Thud.

Aamon drops to the ground, headside down, before Mors stomps his left foot on his head. Severely injured and exhausted from the fight, Aamon cannot do anything to fight back.

"What is the feeling of being overpowered, Aamon?" he mocks. "Do you like it? I have been waiting for this moment to take my vengeance."

"You are still into that? I kicked you out of the party because I realized that you were such a terrible person, Mors. I thought you had changed. I thought you had become a better person."

Years ago, Mors was once part of Aamon's party because they recognized his strength. But as time went by, Aamon started to notice that Mors might not be as decent as they knew.

Until one time, he caught Mors in an act sexually assaulting their female colleague. Aamon was driven by rage and beat the crap out of Mors in the middle of the street, witnessed by hundreds of eyes.

Aamon promptly removed him from the party, and Mors was left half-dead before a crowd with his pants missing, unveiling his not-so-great prominence to the public. Immediately acquired a bad image overnight, Mors was deeply humiliated, and he blamed all his misfortunes on Aamon.

He left the empire to recover and seek power for his revenge on Aamon. In his journey, he met a man who introduced him to an underground organization, where he found what he was looking for.

Mors just returned to the Siafran Empire a few years ago with his new party. They grinded to earn influence and reputation until their party grew to a clan, the Black Hounds. He became the clan leader while his partymates became leaders of their own party, which were working under the Black Hounds clan.

Aamon surely cannot ignore his arrival, but since he heard no issues around him, he thought that Mors might have changed and let them be. But deep down, Mors still cannot forget what he did to him, and he wants to take his revenge.

"I haven't changed, Aamon. My ambition to give you a painful death still lingers deep in my mind."

"Ahhh!"

Aamon screams in pain as Mors twists his foot back and forth as he is wearing a sadistic smile on his face.

Click. Clink.

Suddenly, Mors hears the footsteps of someone from behind. When he turns his head, he sees a young man with red hair and striking amber eyes walking in his direction. It is his target, Azrael.

With the coil of thick golden chain in his hand, Mors quickly concludes that Hald has been defeated. Mors then removes his foot from Aamon's head to face him.

"So Hald has failed, huh?" Mors mutters. "Nevertheless, his loss was beneficial to the boss."

"The knights did their job well, and now it's the time to do mine." He pauses his words for him to stretch his body. "This time, I won't be holding back."

"Don't get cocky, kid?"

Seizing the moment Azrael seemingly lets his guard down, Mors launches himself forward as fast as he can. Mors is aware of what he is capable of, so he gives his all just to end this early.

As he is about to land a powerful punch at his face, Azrael uses his left hand to fluidly parry the gauntlet before he counterattacks by punching Mors' chest with his right fist.

"Guh—!!"

Mors is knocked back by a few meters before he recovers his balance. His chest is in great pain. He can feel cracks on his sternum, and he temporarily remedies it by blasting mana on it to heal faster.

"Since you broke my sword, I'll use this instead."

After saying that, Azrael wraps the ends of the golden chain around his fist to make makeshift knuckles. The hanging length of the chain is long enough for him to skip rope with it.

"The boss trusted that thing to me. You better give it back!"

Boom.

Mors dashes so fast that he creates a sonic boom. Knowing the Mors cannot turn around easily at that speed, Azrael does a front flip ahead before Mors can make a punch, jumping over him.

In the air, Azrael violates the laws of physics and secretly uses the griffin's insane aerial mobility to quickly land on the ground. Mors is so focused on Azrael that he does not see the chain ahead of him before it chokes his neck.

"Ugh!"

Without looking back, Azrael yanks the chain forward, and Mors is slammed to the ground. Upon turning around, Azrael clasps his hands to turn his weapon from a jumping rope into a heavy and deadly whip.

Azrael waves the chain overhead twice to gain momentum before he slams it at the lying Mors. But Mors is able to react, and he reflexively rolls his body over inches before the hypersonic folded chain hits his body, and it hits the floor instead.

Crash.

The force is so powerful that the chain pulverizes those bricks and scatters off dust in the area. Even though Azrael is still holding back his strength despite saying that he won't hold back, his slam still creates a crater a few meters across.

"That was close."

As soon as Mors gets back to his feet, the golden chain comes out of the fog, and he barely manages to raise his gauntlets to cover his torso, where the chain should have hit him. Since it is weaker than earlier, he is dragged by a few feet from the impact.

After that, Azrael waves the chain overhead once more to hit the other side. This time, Mors has inspected his next move and gambles his body just to catch it. Like what he did earlier, Mors manages to catch another attack. Getting the grasp of the chain, Mors flashes a smirk.

"Come back to me!"

Mors tries to manipulate the golden chain, but there is no response from it. He cannot understand what is happening. He then immediately snaps back to realize that Azrael has swung the chain again and it is moving at extremely high speed at him.

Shit!

He instinctively raises his gauntlets over his head to block the chain. However, even though he endures the full force of the swing, the chain is long enough to whip his back.

"AHH!!"

Mors feels like a few of his vertebrae are damaged with this one. As he is writhing in pain, Azrael has moved behind him before he wraps the golden chain around his neck and starts choking him.

"Ack—! Let... me... go—!"

To make it more effective, Azrael jumps and kicks Mors back to pin him to the ground. After that, he coils the chain around his arms to make it shorter before placing his knees on his nape.

Azrael pulls the chain tighter, and Mors ultimately stops struggling. Suddenly, a voice reaches his ears from behind.