Chapter 699: Haze

Derek appeared behind the trio, instantly causing them to go into action. A sphere of darkness surrounded the woman, and she disappeared. The man jumped back to dodge, and when he did, it left the healer alone, with no way to escape. The healer tried to get out of the way, but just as they sidestepped, they were hit by a charging Silvi in the back.

That threw the healer toward Derek and Harbinger. Derek raised his glaive, and the healer was impaled on the blade. With it lodged into the healer's sternum, Derek once again activated Material Drain. Not long after, the healer slid off the glaive and slumped to the ground, dead.

Derek looked up at the retreating man, then over to where the woman had appeared after vanishing. With a grin on his face, he held up two fingers and mouthed, "Two."

Silvi landed back on Derek's shoulder, and they let the aunt and her nephew regroup. Derek stood still and waited to see what they decided to do next.

"Aunt..." the man turned and looked at the woman. "It's just us."

"I already know that! You don't have to tell me," the woman replied to her nephew as they both kept an eye on Derek and Silvi.

"What about... the elders?" he asked once they saw Derek wasn't attacking again. "They'll be okay, right? The Grinning Maniac... he's..."

"There are two of them, and as far as we know, there is only one of him. I haven't heard that Ascendant's name mentioned in decades. Their levels and affinity should be similar. Our elders will have the advantage. We need not worry about them," the woman replied.

"Then... if we fight long enough... they..." the man started, but his aunt cut him off.

"Don't count on them coming to help anytime soon. They likely will not lose, but it won't be an easy fight—not if the rumors about Sheen Loomis are true," the woman said. "This is something we have to do on our own."

"But... he beat Nikolai," the man said.

"Maybe so," the woman replied. "But I'm not much weaker than that man was, and you're not too much weaker than me. If we do this right... we should be able to take this man out, then capture Alex once he is ejected from this man's space."

"What about his backing?"

"First, there is no way to know if what he is saying is true... even if he has that maniac for an escort," the woman said. "And second, we gave him a chance to leave the boy and be on his way. He chose to fight instead. If he dies, it is on him."

"You know," Derek said, getting their attention. "I'm right here. I can hear you. But you're right. If I die, then that's on me. Just like, when you die, that's on you. My 'backer'... probably won't do anything."

"When we die?" the woman scoffed. "You're pretty cocky for someone who only took out a few lowly guards. We'll see if you were really able to beat Nikolai, or if you're all talk."

"Good," Derek said. "I've been itching for a good fight for a while now since I haven't had one since Nikolai. Why don't the two of you show us what you've got?" After that, Derek sent to Silvi, 'Be careful with your void skills. Right now, they don't know that's what we use. Once they find out, we have to make sure they die.'

'Kay!' Silvi sent back. 'Will make sure they die. Easy.'

'Easy peasy,' Derek chuckled. 'You take the man, I'll take the woman. She seems like she's going to have more tricks.'

Like that, Silvi disappeared from Derek's shoulder again. She'd been pretty smart during the fight already. Without Derek even mentioning it before, she'd avoided using any of her void skills—opting mostly for head-butting. Of course, so far, none of the guards nor the healer had been strong enough that she even needed to consider using her void-based skills.

Hovering above Derek on a pot lid, Silvi summoned her cleaver from her storage ring. The weapon then split into two and began its rotation around her. Soon enough, the blades were rotating so quickly that they could barely be seen.

Suddenly, Silvi shot towards the man. That's my cue, Derek thought as he used Active Void Shift and appeared behind the two. Just as Silvi arrived, a tendril of darkness shot up from the man's feet and blocked her approach. The spinning cleavers quickly ate through the dark energy, but the delay also gave the man plenty of time to move out of the way.

The author shares this chapter through NovelPhoenix; its presence here resulted from copying without permission.

On Derek's end, he swung Harbinger down at an angle. The woman brought her hand up to block. Derek thought she'd made a mistake for a moment until an outline of dark energy formed a claw of darkness around her blocking hand. It smashed into the bladed end of his glaive, then sent Derek sliding backward.

When he regained his footing, Derek gave the woman another look. She had her arms out to her sides, and instead of her hands, there were two shield-sized claws attached to the ends. So, she's a close-range fighter? Derek wondered. There had been a lot of strength behind her blocking.

While he was in the middle of thinking, the woman made her move. Instead of diving in to attack like he would expect a close-ranged fighter to do, she jumped backward, then slashed out into the air.

Four claw marks appeared and shot at Derek. He blocked the first set with Harbinger, but another set followed directly behind—which he blocked with the armor on his forearm. But the attacks kept coming. Every time the woman swiped one of her massive claws through the air, another set of attacks came flying.

More than that, after just three blocks, Harbinger started chipping, and his armor even began to show signs of wear. This isn't working, Derek thought. He sent a command to Harbinger to use some of the stored material from Material Drain to repair itself, then he started dodging the claw attacks by quickly shifting in and out of the void.

To anyone else close to his level, it looked like Derek was teleporting a short distance away from the attacks each time. Only someone like Sheen or maybe the Patriarch of the Loomis Clan would think of the void upon seeing it—especially since Derek had only really shown spatial attacks other than a very quick hit with his draconic void flame.

"Damn spatial affinity users," the woman clicked her tongue. "Such bullshit!" she shouted. Then the whites of her eyes went dark, the hood from the cowl she was wearing lifted to show pitch-black hair, and black vein-like lines started growing on her pale face.

Then Derek felt it before he saw it. His vision grew blurry, then a dark haziness settled over the two of them and a large portion of the surrounding area. Is this a skill, a domain, or a domain-like skill? Derek wondered. Dave said that domain skills were rare, even in the Origin System, but that didn't mean that the woman's affinity couldn't be high enough to create her own.

It was actually very achievable from what he knew. She may have only been able to get to legendary for her last class upgrade, but it was quite possible that she'd grown her affinity quite a bit since then and was only looking for a lucky break to upgrade to Mythical rarity. There wasn't really a way to know without her explicitly saying it, but if she put a domain up, it would certainly be a sign.

"Ugh!" Derek was suddenly hit in the back by an attack. I didn't even see her move, he thought. Even with his eyes blurry from the skill she was using, he could still see her. She must be able to attack through all this haziness. As soon as the thought ran through his mind, he raised his arm to block an incoming attack, but he was too slow, and part of the attack landed on the back of his head. "Ow!" he shouted.

Derek reached to the back of his head and felt a dampness. When he brought his hand to his eyes, he winced at the blood. She's strong enough to get through my body's natural defenses... at least through the skin and probably muscle... I don't know about bone, and I don't plan on finding out.

It had taken two attacks, but he'd already started to understand what was going on inside the haze. His reaction time was slower, and his perception was hindered. His body still moved just as fast as it always did, so there weren't any actual physical debuffs, but the speed at which his mind was processing things had slowed a tiny amount. That was enough to cause the fight to become ever so slightly more annoying for Derek.

I do know that she is releasing all the aura that she can, Derek thought. That was one thing that was easy to see and feel. It also eliminated the possibility that they were inside a natural domain. I bet it's just like Nikolai's, he thought. That man had a high mana consumption skill that acted like a domain without being one. It seemed to be one of the more common skills for those who didn't have natural domains or real domain skills.

Derek felt something amiss, then quickly used Active Void Shift to teleport away. Each time he reappeared, an attack came moments later. Being inside the skill's range must have increased the woman's awareness by multiple times.

"Screw this," Derek said, then shifted high above the battlefield. When he came out of the void, his eyes widened, as the haze had appeared in the same place with him. Derek looked down and saw the woman standing there, staring up at him with a smile on her face.

Definitely not a domain! He thought rapidly. It's attached to me somewhere... somehow. As he thought, the wind blew, and the woman below him turned into what looked like ash being blown away by the wind, but as soon as it happened, she reformed directly in front of Derek.

"How do you like my Umbral Haze?" the woman said while licking her lips. "There is no escaping the haze. I have designated you as the central point of the skill. Most users designate themselves as the central point, but I find that in a one-on-one battle, having it always around my enemy gives even more of an advantage."

"So that is what this is?" Derek muttered, then nodded. "That's pretty much what I was thinking. And I take it you can control this 'haze' and use it to attack?"

"Hmm..." the woman rubbed her chin, then said, "Who knows?" Finally, she did what Derek had expected from the very beginning. She kicked off a piece of darkness floating under her, then charged at Derek.

Derek had used Void Steps without thinking before, but any void that may have been visible was covered up by the haze. The woman also hadn't seemed surprised or anything, so she obviously hadn't felt his use of the skill. Derek felt the void ripple with his foot, then kicked off to charge back at her.

The two clashed again. This time, neither of them gave an inch. Just as Derek was thinking that they were about equal in terms of strength, he was hit with a glancing blow to the head from an attack within the haze that he was barely able to dodge most of. Derek created some distance, then reached up and felt just beside his eyebrow as the cut quickly knitted itself back together.

"You have some neat tricks," Derek said. "I have a couple of tricks of my own. Do you want to see?" With a smile on his face, he sent to Silvi, 'Keep your aura in check, but stop holding back. Finish him.'