Karval’s body shot backward through the air at a speed that completely exceeded anything he had ever experienced himself. The force behind that single punch hadn’t only thrown him away, it had continued carrying his body without showing any sign of weakening.
Even as he flew farther away from the Rosaria Household, he couldn’t decide what demanded more of his attention ─ The pain spreading through his jaw or the speed at which he was being sent backward that made it impossible for him to regain control over his own body.
His thoughts became disordered for a brief moment.
He tried to focus on stabilizing himself first, but before he could arrive at any conclusion, the same cold voice echoed directly inside his mind once again.
"I asked you...who sent you, you damn rat?"
The words entered his mind directly again without passing through his ears.
The moment that voice reached him again, Karval immediately felt his heart tighten.
THUMP.
His heartbeat beat once again in the same way it had, and at the same time every instinct inside his body screamed of danger once more. The warning spreading throughout him became even stronger than before, every nerve in his body seemed to tell him the same thing.
Danger.
His eyes widened instinctively.
Before he could even react to that feeling, he sensed him ─
Dravenson.
He was already behind him.
Karval’s pupils contracted as he realized the distance between them had disappeared once again. He had just been launched away with enough force to cross a tremendous distance in almost no time, yet Dravenson had somehow reached him before he even managed to stabilize himself.
Karval couldn’t understand how, perception followed Dravenson as much as it could.
Time itself almost seemed to slow inside his perception.
His own body still continued flying backward, while Dravenson remained perfectly calm behind him. There wasn’t even the slightest change in his expression as he slowly raised his right hand.
At least...It looked slow.
Dravenson lifted his right hand in that seemingly slow moment but even then... the Hand moved with a speed that was Visible, yet seemed ridiculous, because if it was that much while time seemed slowed, the thought of it being in normal resumed time would send shiver down anyone’s spine.
Just as he lifted the Hand completely, he opened up his Index and Thumb finger, spirit seemed to fluctuate at the top of the Index finger, it didn’t gather at that tip at this moment, no - it was already there and the atmospheric spirit was what fluctuated.
Karval sensed it, that fluctuation...it was too powerful. He didn’t know what it was, nor could he see anything at all, but his instincts screamed even louder than before. Just as they did, he instinctively tried to move his body, attempting to stop himself by creating a field of the Fundamental Force Gravity behind and below himself, but...the moment he tried, he felt a Flick.
Yes... he felt a Flick on his back the very moment he attempted to use Gravity. The instant he felt it, his already wide eyes widened even further as his whole face turned pale. He couldn’t understand what had just touched him, but every instinct inside him screamed so much it seemed to say something terrible just happened to him.
The next moment, a tremendous force erupted outward from inside Karval’s chest.
Why his chest specifically? because that Flick, it hadn’t simply struck his back, it had directly reached the inside of his body through that point of contact. The instant it landed, his heart, ribs, and lungs all shuddered violently from that invisible force and then...the force erupted outward.
SHHHHHNNNGGGG
It didn’t explode with a BOOM sound or anything close to that. Instead, it erupted with that strange sound as a massive flux of Spirit itself dispersed through the air from that point, that much was the force contained within just that single Flick.
Karval’s body didn’t move at all, one would normally expect him to be sent flying forward after receiving such an attack, but nothing like that happened. Instead, his body remained completely locked in that very position. The reason behind it wasn’t difficult to understand, even though the force had struck his back with unbelievable power, the technique itself wasn’t meant to launch the target away.
It was simply one of Dravenson’s Techniques. It wasn’t an Ability or a Unique Ability at all, it was a Technique he had developed and perfected through years of training, battles against monsters, and... against people as well.
The Technique was named by Dravenson himself since he was its creator, and he simply called it "Spirit Flick." The name sounded simple, but the mechanics behind it were anything but simple.
To use Spirit Flick, Dravenson first had to condense a Domain of the Fundamental Force, Gravity, around the tip of his finger. It wasn’t just Gravity gathering there, the entire Domain condensed into that tiny point, making the weight within that small area so heavy that it shouldn’t have been possible...but it was.
Dravenson had only reached that level after countless failures over many years. Once that Domain fully condensed around his fingertip...he poured Spirit into it. Yes, he used Spirit even though he was already consuming Spirit just to maintain the Domain and the enormous mass compressed within it.
That was simply how vast the Spirit Reserve of an SS-rank was, An S-rank already possessed an enormous amount of Spirit compared to the lower ranks, but an SS-rank stood on another level altogether, allowing Dravenson to maintain both the Domain and continuously supply Spirit into it without any difficulty.
As Karval’s body remained locked in that position, somehow suspended in the air, his head snapped upward as his pupils rolled back, and blood poured out of his mouth in large amounts while time seemed to return to its normal flow once again.
"Khrrkk! Cough...Cough!" Karval continued coughing blood as pain spread throughout his entire body. It was so overwhelming that his mind became completely disordered, and for a few moments he couldn’t even understand what had just happened to him.
The strength throughout his body had almost completely disappeared. Both of his arms hung loosely at his sides as his body remained suspended in the air for several long moments before Dravenson finally spoke.
This time he didn’t speak directly into Karval’s mind, his voice echoed through the surroundings instead.
"Now, you will tell me everything, or I will have to torture you to death. It’s just that simple, nothing else...hah, another headache for me. I thought you would have something hidden...perhaps a high-grade Relic or something similar, but I see-"
Before Dravenson could finish speaking, his eyes shifted toward Karval’s right hand... It had moved.
His ribs had suffered severe fractures, his internal organs had almost completely failed, and under normal circumstances he shouldn’t have been capable of making even the slightest movement. Yet his right hand slowly tightened around a small black object he had been holding.
’What is that?...More importantly...he shouldn’t even be able to-!’
Before the thought crossed Dravenson’s mind, he moved as he suspected something. Spirit surged outward from his body to capture Karval, while at the same time he manipulated the Fundamental Force, Gravity, to lock the surrounding space and prevent any possible escape. He used both methods together, leaving almost no opportunity for Karval to move, and yet...the very next moment the assassin vanished with a WHOOOOM.
There was no blur nor any movement at all.
His body didn’t travel away from that position.
It simply disappeared the instant Dravenson’s condensed Spirit reached him.
Dravenson narrowed his eyes as he looked at the now empty space before speaking quietly, "A teleportation Relic...? But...an S-rank shouldn’t have something like that. What’s going on here?"
- - -
While the assassin - Karval left Dravenson standing there thinking about what had just happened, somewhere else, somewhere completely isolated from the rest of the world, there existed another place. It wasn’t located on any of the known Continents, nor was it known to anyone living upon them, and... anyone who saw it even once would simply call it a beautiful place.
The place looked completely different from the blood-filled Continents. There were no Ruins, no destroyed lands, and nothing that resembled the places where Explorers constantly fought. Instead, an endless stretch of land extended toward the horizon in every direction without anything interrupting the view.
At the very center of that land stood a single small tree, surrounding it were countless purple flowers that covered the ground, spreading in every direction until they too disappeared beyond the horizon.
The tree itself looked slightly out of place. The reason was simple...its leaves carried the same purple color as the flowers below it, making it seem as though the entire place had naturally grown around that single color.
Apart from the tree and the endless field of flowers, four figures could be seen sitting beneath it on four simple seats. The seats themselves looked completely ordinary, something that seemed strangely out of place considering the people sitting upon them.
Looking more closely at the four figures, it became clear that each belonged to a different race. One was a Human, another was a beautiful Elven woman, the third was a Dwarf with a face covered by a thick beard and mustache, while the last was an Angelic woman.
All three quietly looked toward the Human as he spoke about something that caused faint smiles to appear on their faces, and if someone looked even more closely, they would recognize that Human immediately.
He was the same man...who had entered Velmira’s chamber that day.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter