Chapter 45: The Hidden Blade

Sebastian gave a slight nod, signaling Nathan could enter the passage.

Today, though, Nathan didn't dive in as black light like usual. He stepped back a few paces, edged closer to Sebastian, seemed to hesitate—and finally gritted his teeth and said: "I actually found the Phantomveil Vine's trail yesterday. I just... failed when I went to capture it."

Sebastian smiled faintly. "Are you asking me for help?"

Nathan handed over the quest scroll, deflated: "I can't subdue the Phantomveil Vine at all. I threw every last one of those little thunder-struck rowan seeds you gave me, just to barely escape with my life."

Sebastian showed no surprise. He took the quest scroll, didn't mind Nathan drifting closer alongside, gave it a scan, and smiled: "The Drunken Saint's Draught isn't hard to brew. I could spend a day making you a batch..."

Nathan's face shifted slightly, joy seeming to bloom—and then Sebastian suddenly caught a thread of danger. He barked out and dropped his elbow hard, but all he caught was something incredibly slick; his force erupted and still failed to drive it off.

The move landed—Nathan immediately squeezed hard, burst the liquor bottle in his hand, and yanked his hand right back. He was afraid of accidentally getting even a fleck of Drunken Saint's Draught on himself; that would be very, very bad.

Sebastian failed to stop him, but his reactions were lightning fast: his elbow swung across into Nathan's chest, chained forces erupting, shoving the already-black-light Nathan bodily away. But a violent pain tore through his own chest and gut—the feeling of the crushed bottle's razor edges stabbed deep into his organs.

Sebastian spat out a mouthful of bloody froth, gave a low bark, a dangerous snarl surfacing on his face as he sneered: "That trick still doesn't work on me!"

Channeling his power in silence, he forced every shard of glass out of his body; his energy dipped a shade, but he threw himself into the fight immediately.

He knew Nathan's black-light vitae, through who knows what method, could devour the black beetles—so he didn't unleash that trump card. Instead he slapped out a palm, force layering like waves, actually putting a set of ascendant-path palm techniques into play.

Nathan didn't fight him at all—he backed away again and again, until he'd put ten-odd meters between them; then his hands flipped, two vitae whips flew out, and snaked for Sebastian's arms.

A strange look crossed Sebastian's face, and he said with a dash of mockery: "Never imagined you'd picked up the Nine Shadowlashes inside the Hourbound Grove. But did you know the Nine Shadowlashes is my Order of the Deathless's true transmission—and that this very whip art is the ascendant-path martial art I'm best at?"

Sebastian flicked his fingers, and a streak of white light shot out, folding and twisting a thousand times in midair—unraveling Nathan's vitae whips and then lashing around the boy's body like lightning, binding him fast.

Sebastian gave a cold laugh: "This move—the Warden's Bond—I doubt you've ever tasted it. How's it feel? You dare turn on me? Not afraid of your mother being tortured to death?"

Nathan said nothing. With a low shout, the ink-green the Comet-Gem Mantis rose behind him, and two high-frequency electromagnetic blade-forces fired at a thought—slashing into Sebastian's arcane whip without damaging it in the slightest.

Nathan's face changed on the spot. Only now did he learn just how terrifying Sebastian's true strength really was.

Sebastian made a vague clawing grab with five fingers, and the arcane whip kept cinching tighter. Nathan tried to turn into black light and slip free—but Sebastian's arcane whip seemed to carry a special locking power, and he found himself unable to transform at all.

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Sebastian let out a dark chuckle: "Told you already—stop assuming the Yggdrasil Line is invincible. There are plenty of ways to counter your inborn gift. This Warden's Bond of mine specializes in sealing aether transformations. Even if your bloodline reached its mature stage, you still couldn't break free of this one spiritual rope."

Just as Sebastian cinched the arcane whip ever tighter, a wave of dizziness hit his head without warning; his arcane spells collapsed and scattered, no longer able to hold Nathan.

One light push of the Star-Swallowing Form burst Sebastian's arcane whip apart. Both hands swept—two more high-frequency electromagnetic blade-forces flew. Of all the ascendant-path arts he'd mastered, only the Comet-Gem Mantis Style's killing edge cut this sharp.

Sebastian raised an arm to block, but no matter what, he couldn't summon a thread of spiritual power. The high-frequency electromagnetic blade-force chopped hard into that arm—and took it clean off.

With that strike landed, how could Nathan not know—the Drunken Saint's Draught he'd slipped into Sebastian's body had taken effect. He had no idea whether the Order of the Deathless acolyte had a way to neutralize it, so he refused to slacken one sliver: he meant to kill the dirty snake while the serum still ran in him.

Affected as he was by the draught, Sebastian was no ordinary bloodborn beast. He dredged up the last scrap of his spiritual power, bodily crushed the draught's effects down, and fought back with everything left. Hare-up, falcon-down, the two exchanged a dozen-plus moves—and for the moment, Nathan actually couldn't finish off the Order of the Deathless acolyte who was poisoned and down an arm.

Nathan thought darkly: "Looks like I have to use the last card after all. Lose this fight and I'm dead—no point holding anything back now."

Nathan opened his mouth and spat—a streak of black aether jetted out. Sebastian didn't think much of it: "A vitae whip, nothing more. What's the difference between launching it from your hands or your mouth? You think I'm going to get careless and eat a cheap shot?"

Sebastian flicked his fingers, sent out an arcane whip of his own—one coil and Nathan's spat-out black aether was shredded to nothing. He was even mildly puzzled: why was that move so weak, unable to take even his light counter?

But the instant the vitae whip scattered, an emerald vine flew out of the black light—curling freely through the air, whipping Sebastian's arcane whip to pieces, and coiling around his neck.

A vitae whip, after all, is vitae condensed—its quality depends on the individual's Art.

Nathan's vitae was ferocious and its quality fine, but he hadn't practiced long—the vitae whip's make wasn't solid. The Phantomveil Vine's tendrils were another story entirely. That bloodborn creature was Blood Lord-tier, its vines hard as iron. A Sebastian at full strength wouldn't have feared a single Phantomveil Vine—but right now he couldn't quite hold.

With the Phantomveil Vine wound around Sebastian's neck, Nathan started pouring it on, flooding his whole body's vitae into the vitae whip—strangling Sebastian's neck a full size thinner, his cervical vertebrae going crack-crack-crack, like they could snap at any second.

Sebastian's face flushed deep red—couldn't tell if he couldn't draw breath, or was choking on rage at getting bushwhacked by a rookie like Nathan.

One thought, and one thought only, filled Nathan's mind: kill Sebastian!