Chapter 23: Rank Breakthrough (Part One)

For the next month and change, Nathan's life was taken up by two things: school basketball team activities, and special training with Sebastian.

The basketball stuff was one thing—with his fitness climbing by leaps every day, long since into inhuman territory, he handled it with room to spare, easy. Sebastian's special training, though, was nowhere near so easy to bluff through.

The man's training method was dead simple: summon some bloodborn beast or other out of the abandoned Between and throw Nathan at it for a duel.

On day one of training he'd nearly bought the farm. Because he'd used the black-light vitae to kill a Red Howl, Sebastian had ruled it a gimmick and summoned a Horned Bear beast on top of it. He got chased by that beast until he was bleeding all over—if he hadn't hit his deathbed power spike, gone on the desperate counterattack, flooded his palms with Mystic-Gold vitae, and driven them into the Horned Bear's eye sockets at the last possible instant, killing the beast at the final juncture, he might genuinely have died.

Every training session, Sebastian just stood around smiling, never once showing any intention of stepping in, utterly unworried about Nathan getting killed—which deepened the boy's distrust of the man by several more notches.

At the same time, though, Nathan's combat experience shot up fast. Dozens of life-and-death brawls with bloodborn beasts had forged him into a legitimate fighter.

Sebastian had pulled who knows what trick—living in that compound, not a single bloodborn ever gave him trouble. The Concord people and Elderrow residents alike all seemed not to notice he was a human magus. Nathan even saw him several times buying pastries at Wren's family's bakery, eating away happily, with Wren's parents greeting him with the same smiling faces, like he was some longtime regular from the block.

Neighborhood relations among the bloodborn of Elderrow ran far warmer than among modern-city neighbors; practically the whole street's bloodborn all knew each other. Get familiar with a few old residents, and soon every bloodborn on Elderrow would know you.

Coming around more often, Nathan gradually got familiar with plenty of the bloodborn residents of Elderrow too. Neighbors nearby were constantly greeting him, warm as could be, so much that he kept mistaking himself for someone who'd lived there for ages.

Nathan pushed the Comet-Gem Mantis Style into motion, war-beast Comet-Gem Mantis at full power, his whole body radiating vitae sharp as sword-blades, fighting spirit at max—deep down, he'd already cursed Sebastian six ways to Sunday in the filthiest terms there are, a hundred-plus times over.

Today's training item was seven Giant Fangs—completely past Nathan's limits.

These bloodborn beasts looked roughly like wolves, just several times bigger—nearly bulkier than an ordinary bull, with heads grotesquely oversized. Their maws hung open, four or five rows of fangs slicked with revolting black saliva, all radiating an "I could chomp straight through a car" swagger.

By Sebastian's account, every beast he tossed out for training was trash—not even worth feeding to his black beetles as snacks.

Nathan begged to differ. After a month-plus of life-or-death duels with at least forty or fifty bloodborn beasts, he knew exactly what these so-called trash beasts could do—any single one of them turned loose could wipe out a squad of American special forces.

Sebastian sipped fine wine and had even set up a B&O BeoPlay A2 Bluetooth speaker playing music—I'm sexy and I know it... drifting out of the speaker with uncommon taste, all leisure and ease.

He called out to Nathan in the dueling ring: "Your Comet-Gem Mantis Style is on the verge of an attainment, so tonight I've amped up the menu—seven Giant Fangs. Survive this, and you're guaranteed to break through the 'Comet Weave' level—just barely enough for you to go do that job for me."

Stolen novel; please report.

Nathan's mood right now was as dark as a smog day. He truly wanted to jab a finger in Sebastian's face and curse him out, loud and proud: "Sebastian, you old son of a bitch—fuck you and your whole damn family!"

Of course, he hadn't actually lost his mind—he just had to choke the rage down.

That Nathan survived training this brutal was half thanks to the war-beast Comet-Gem Mantis, and half thanks to the Titan Godslayer Canon and the Ennead Crucible. He'd long since forgotten his original reasoning and practiced both disciplines together. The two arts each had their own strengths; without taking in both, he'd never have made it through training this vicious!

His Art of the Titan Godslayer Canon was blazing fast!

Over that month-plus, he hadn't only opened all eight wandering bloodways—the twelve ordinal bloodways were long since opened through as well, bond-power coursing his whole body, one unbroken circuit from start to finish, occasionally even punching through the Comet-Gem Mantis's blockade on his source bond-power.

The Ennead Crucible's progress was much slower: the twelve ordinal bloodways alone had taken a full seven or eight days—actually behind the Titan Godslayer Canon—and the eight wandering bloodways went slower still. To this day he'd only opened the surge bloodway and the girdle bloodway.

But the art was tyrannical in the extreme—every scrap of progress showed straight on his body. Thanks to the Ennead Crucible's gains, Nathan's athletic ability had exploded. His sprinting speed had gone from ordinary middle schooler to cheetah class; his nerve reflexes were now at the point that if he dropped an eraser, he could touch it seven times before it hit the ground; his coordination and flexibility had reached the unbelievable stage, able to casually pull off moves only master yogis could manage; and his strength had surged nearly fivefold—almost enough to go toe-to-toe with some of the weaker bloodborn beasts.

Fast as Nathan's progress had been lately, his combat power climbing like crazy, taking on seven Giant Fangs in one go was definitely a serious problem. But he also knew that even kicking and screaming in protest wouldn't do half a cent's worth of good. All he could do was throw his life on the line and fight.

Once the seven Giant Fangs were released, they all seemed a bit dizzy, wandering the ring, shaking their heads.

Nathan wanted to grab the opening, but with the seven Giant Fangs bunched together, even if he darted in and wounded one, the rest would swarm him. He could only swallow the idea of an ambush and circle the ring hunting for an opening instead.

Under Sebastian's training, he'd been through who knew how many brushes with death, his combat experience climbing in a straight line—he knew that in this situation you had to stretch the battle line as wide as possible and avoid getting surrounded by a superior enemy.

One Giant Fang, the strongest of them, recovered faster than its kind; it shook its head, spotted Nathan, gave a great roar and sprang—huge maw gaping wide enough to crunch off half a family sedan, biting down through the air straight at the boy's head.

Nathan's whole body tensed—and he quietly rejoiced!

This Giant Fang had lunged alone, cut off from the rest—which amounted to handing Nathan a one-on-one. His body dipped slightly; instead of retreating he advanced, bursting forward at an angle picked with real cunning, diving through right beneath the beast's belly.

As boy and beast crossed past each other, Nathan swept his hand upward in a backhand—a Flower Hidden in the Leaves, vitae becoming a vacuum blade-wave, slashing savagely into the softest spot on the Giant Fang's belly...