Despite escaping death's jaws, Cassius's mana was nearly drained. The first thing he did was look for the source of that strike because he knew for a fact he couldn't survive another.
He honed his senses on his Domain to trace back, searching for the same mana signature now scarred into his memory.
'There.'
He didn't have to look long. The target itself was approaching his position. What was even more perplexing was that the power he sensed from it was totally disproportionate to the might of the strike it had just unleashed.
'Fifth step at most.'
But he didn't need to overthink. He fixed the Astrologer on the man and dived in.
Ashen, who'd seen his strike being resisted and moved to deal a finishing blow just in case, was shockingly met face-to-face with an unscathed Cassius.
Even under the lens of the Conversionalist, he only saw a blur.
Riven State - 100%
His mana compressed and started reinforcing his every move in hopes of catching up to that unfathomable speed. It barely worked. His head moved aside just in time to let a flaming sword go past his temple.
He instantly retaliated with the butt of his spear, but that was blocked by a knee. The next thing Ashen felt was burning at his side, followed by the cracking of his ribs as a fist found his flank.
He flew sideways, but even in that state, he swiped his spear to the right as his enhanced eyes caught the following figure.
The spear met a sword. The two blades held a stalemate for a fraction of a second before the spear lost the contest and its wielder was flung aside. The sword morphed and elongated, its blade chasing its prey's back.
Ashen felt the temperature spike on his back and knew he was moments away from getting skewered.
{Path Skill Activated: Trance}
Before his mind could catch up, his body moved first. He took the momentum to roll forward, which allowed him to escape with only a graze.
Regardless, he wasn't out of danger. You never were when a second-step pathwalker who wanted you dead was this close. Low on mana or otherwise.
The elongated sword retracted as its holder seamlessly transitioned into a spear throw position, planning to make the man get a taste of his own medicine.
Fwhoooshh—
Ashen's body was still awkwardly positioned from rolling forward, unable to dodge in time. He narrowly managed to move sideways to make the spear's trajectory avoid his heart.
That was until he felt his body move on its own, and it wasn't Trance's doing this time. His shadow moved first, and his body followed automatically, angling in a position impossible to replicate with human joints, but barely enough to dodge the spear.
Next, he felt the heat recede in favor of biting cold that manifested as icicles.
Cassius's hand burned for an instant and swiped the sharp ice away as if they were merely snowflakes. This ice was magic invoked from mana. As long as it wasn't imbued with a concept, it didn't hold a threat to him aside from annoyance.
A man and a woman appeared before Ashen, allowing him to catch his bearings and get a good look at his saviors.
'Miss Sabrina and Professor Wiseman.'
The two didn't bother asking Ashen what he was doing here or how he'd survived a clash with a Step Two. At this point, they'd accept anyone willing to help. And it wasn't like Cassius would allow them time to chat.
Step—
Boom—
He launched himself once more at the now three adversaries, but the target was still that man. No matter how weak he seemed, his Astrologer screamed that he was the most dangerous, despite not having enough time to read him beyond his attack patterns.
A shield met his attacks from the grey-eyed, lanky man. He felt his shadow become alive and root him for a moment, and almost simultaneously, a sharp spear like a vicious snake burst from the side of the shield, aiming at his neck.
He forcibly broke his shadow's hold, dove sideways to avoid the spear at the last moment, and followed his own momentum to deliver a spinning roundhouse, crashing his heel on the shield and hurling it and its wielder aside.
Now face-to-face with the golden-eyed man, he didn't stand on ceremony and delivered a straight. The man predictably dodged it, but was met with a flaming hook.
Cassius's eyes widened as Ashen's dodging trajectory seemed to have predicted and accounted for that hook, letting him dive under it and retaliate with one of his own.
He felt his neck snap sideways, but the strike barely stung. The spinning spear heading straight for the back of his neck as Ashen spun alongside it would do more than just sting, however.
He ducked aside and retaliated with a conjured dagger. The shadow of the rocks and debris came alive and held his hand just before he could cut off the arm before him.
Ashen took the opportunity to retreat and regroup with the other two.
A lull took hold as the two sides eyed each other.
Dash—
The peace didn't last. Another clash unfolded, this time with Ashen's side starting—with him at the head.
The other two stayed back since they recognized that, against all odds, their new companion was actually reading and predicting not only their foe's moves, but also theirs.
With each clash, his predictions got more accurate, and even his spear thrusts were eerily efficient, as if they were skipping frames of reality to reach their mark faster.
Everyone understood their roles instantly, even without a word being exchanged. Sabrina was relegated to control when Ashen faltered, Wiseman to guarding her and moving forward when Cassius retaliated with big attacks.
And Ashen became their spearhead.
Crash—
BAM—
Tackle—STRIKE—!
They endlessly clashed, and with each clash, the Conversionalist kept logging every twitch of his enemy's moves and cataloging it until he knew every action before it occurred.
He dodged everything in a trance, blocked the undodgeable, and then—
Daydream—
The dreamscape superimposed upon reality, and another Cassius was built from the countless pieces of information gleaned and buried in his unconsciousness.
The one in the dream showed him his next moves with even more clarity. He taught him when to avoid, when to strike, and when to block, and Ashen just followed his instructions.
To reach this state, he sustained countless wounds, but nothing that the Hourvault's vitality and Somatic Autonomy couldn't fix.
Ssshlk—
A spear finally found its mark on Cassius's shoulder, followed by a front kick that sent him flying, disallowing him from retaliating.
Sabrina and Wiseman finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, thinking victory was within reach. But Ashen never let his guard down. He knew the horrors of the Astrologer and didn't think for a second he could forever hold the advantage.
"Ah… finally done. That took a while."
And he was right. Cassius didn't even acknowledge the wound on his shoulder. Finally having the complete map of their patterns, the Astrologer focused on reading their thoughts next.
And when thoughts and patterns are exposed, surprises cease to exist.
The same happened to the two clashing men. Before, Ashen was able to construct several layered attacks for a final sneaky one to land, or set a trap to ambush him, but now, everything had become obsolete.
As for what happens when two men who could predict each other's every move fought...
Sabrina and Wiseman bore witness as the fight transformed from a heated exchange to a telegraphed one.
The two kept reaching the same points and struck at the same time. When one seemed to outdo the other, another hit from an unexpected angle would restore the balance.
Now they looked less like fighters doing their best to kill each other, and more like two performers showing off their moves.
But of course, the stalemate was never destined to hold, even with Sabrina and Wiseman in the picture. Because when skill is equal, it all comes down to raw might. And Cassius was clearly superior, despite Ashen's tempered body functioning with Riven State.
BAM—
A fist made him stagger.
CRACK—
A staff to his flank lifted him from the ground.
Cough—
An overhead hammer strike made him spurt blood despite perfectly blocking.
Ashen knew that at this rate, he would die. The only thing still sustaining him was Vital Drift's reservoir of vitality. But the moment it ran out, so would his time.
What was even more despairing was that Cassius must also know this since he was actively reading his thoughts.
But Ashen had forgotten to account for one thing. He was never alone.
Suddenly—
Another spear joined the fray, aiming to strike at Cassius's unprotected back, but he easily sidestepped it since he'd long noticed the ambusher under his domain.
It was just that he'd never thought a mere sixth-step bug would dare step up before him.
Ashen glanced at Alice, but his expression barely changed under the trance state. His action did the talking nonetheless.
Alice, who'd positioned herself to his side, saw him lift his hand, and she instinctively reached hers in return. The moment they touched, her eyes widened as she felt herself get pulled into Ashen's dreamscape.
But against all odds, she could still move her body normally, as well as every sense.
She at first didn't understand the use of doing this, but when she saw Cassius in the dream abruptly move, followed by his real version moving in the same exact manner, she knew what she had to do.
From Cassius's perspective, it was as if he'd just encountered an inferior version of the man he was fighting. She moved exactly the same, save for those beastly instincts he seemed to possess. Instead, she seemed to react first before acting.
Then, he noticed the same white point of mana appeared on the woman's body, massively enhancing her.
A spear from the man halted his thoughts. He could never let his guard down when a thrust came from the golden-eyed man since they seemed to be imbued with some kind of concept that bizarrely increased their speed.
His dark flames materialized once more to condense into a shield that blocked the tip, but the woman seemed to read his move.
She ran from the back until she reached her companion, stepped once on his back and once on his shoulder to jump overhead, right over his shield, and plunged her spear right into his right eye.
At the last moment, he lifted his head to catch the spear tip with his teeth instead, and with one snap of his neck, he flung her aside, spear and all.
Despite her skill, the woman seemed to lack too much in the department of physicality, even with the mana enhancement that he now knew was being sustained by the control of the man.
"Mana Authority… How nostalgic."
He muttered under his breath, remembering a certain man who'd stood against him two hundred years ago.
Though he didn't have time to reminisce when two spear wielders who could predict his every move were trying their hardest to kill him, and two third-step pathwalkers were watching his every move like hawks.
Thrust—
One spear came from the flank while the other aimed at his blind spot. Cassius dodged and targeted the woman first, but she seemed to predict his move and hide behind the man before he got the chance.
He pushed forward, whip suddenly in his hand to catch her, but it was met with a spear shaft that let it coil around instead, followed by an elbow to his jaw that missed by a hair's breadth but made him release his hold on his weapon.
The next two exchanges passed in the same manner. The woman only acted as support to disturb him, and when he forced his way at the cost of injuries, the shield bearer was there to stop him.
If he overcommitted, he risked getting ensnared in shadows that would leave him vulnerable.
Cassius realized it didn't matter how inferior her physical stats were when she merely acted to break the stalemate.
Nevertheless, he kept the pressure, since he knew that sooner or later, their bodies wouldn't hold the massive mana running through them, especially that Sixth Step one.
But their next move overruled that prediction.
As they kept clashing with him, using everything to barely escape his strikes—even each other's bodies—they arbitrarily high-fived each other mid-transition, and the woman's breaking body seemed to receive a second breath as all her injuries healed swiftly.
Cassius understood that the man was transferring his vitality to her. And the Astrologer answered the impossibility of this act: 'An absurdly high affinity.'
And as they say, when it rained, it poured.
The group of nuns he'd been monitoring finally arrived, raining healing spells on his opponents from the back.
With their Saintess at the head of the group, they recovered every injury he'd caused, drawing a frown on his face.
Deciding to stop saving on mana, he lifted his hand and clicked his fingers together.
Ashen was the first to move.
{Path Skill Activated: Blindstep}
He had a 0.2-second window, but that was enough for the current him.
He grabbed the frozen Alice in his embrace in the first 0.05 seconds, pushed another 5% mana from the Vault into Riven State, and catapulted right into the nuns' direction.
0.1—
He reached for Seraphine and pulled her with his other hand.
0.15—
He moved to a position where Mana Authority didn't catch Cassius's mana.
0.2—
Fwoosh—
Fwooooosh—
Fssssh—
"AHHH—"
"Hhhhhaaaahhh—"
"Aaaahhh—nooo!"
A hundred nuns turned into black torches under everyone's sight. Seraphine, Ashen, and Alice's previous positions were also burning.
Sabrina had buried herself in her own shadow after sensing the imminent attack, while Wiseman seemed to tank the flame just fine.
Seraphine saw the nuns burn and die in agony, and her whole face lost all expression. She turned to the culprit, but he merely tilted his head.
Under the falling sun, his face sank in regret as he saw the survivors. "You keep clinging to life… How tedious…"
But then, he suddenly felt abnormally chilly. A cold that had been constantly, insidiously increasing since the start of the battle had finally been consciously recognized.
Looking down, he realized that most of his body had been frozen over. Even as he summoned his flames to melt the ice, his gaze, as well as his Astrologer, honed squarely on the maid.
'I focused too much on the anomaly and neglected her… This is my blunder.'
He thought so, but he also knew it was part of her plan to hide behind Ashen's shadow and wait for the right opportunity to strike.
And just as he read from her thoughts, his shadow halted him in place, long enough for another, much larger shadow to join it.
When the sun sets, it's a natural phenomenon for shadows to lengthen, including the wall's shadow. What wasn't natural, though, was its rise well above the bastion, as if a tsunami were about to engulf it.
The vast darkness converged on the frozen man in a mere moment, merging with the ice and halting its melting.
"Now—!!!" Sabrina screamed at the top of her lungs.
Ashen didn't need to be told twice.
{Path Skill Activated: Blindstep}
0.15—
Cassius blinked once, and in that time, Ashen appeared before him. Their gazes met for an instant, and he could almost feel the palpable desire to kill on his skin under the bright golden glow covering those eyes.
Crack—
Ashen thrust forward, and the mana dot transferred to the spear blade with the motion. It met the black ice but drove past it and penetrated the Astrologer's heart for the second time.
But Ashen didn't relent.
He pulled the spear back, and the dot got pulled along into his body, then slashed twice, and the mana ricocheted back into the blade.
"Die!"
Cassius saw his hands fall off.
"DIE!!!"
Then his legs.
"DIE—!!!"
And finally—his own body… No. It was his head that fell off, since the body he was seeing was headless.
THRUST—
"Stay…"
SLASH—
"...Fucking…"
STRIKE—
"...Dead!!!"
The wraith didn't obey, and the corpse burned once more in wrath.
{Path Skill Activated: Wrath Incarnate — Third Burning}
BOOM—
The detonation pushed Ashen away. He hurriedly backed off, and under his and everyone's despairing gaze, that man was alive once again.
"..."
"..."
"...As long as my will to live outweighs your desire to kill me, I will keep coming back. It's useless."
That was only half of the equation, with the second half being mana. 'But they don't need to know that.'
Cassius didn't have enough mana to come back for a fourth time. But seeing their faces, he didn't think he would need it.
'Especially with the biggest annoyance being out of the way.'
He cast a fleeting glance at the woman who'd made his second death possible.
Her legs had collapsed from mana exhaustion after her last move, now only able to helplessly look at him.
{Path Skill Activated: Geas of Confession}
"You know. Even if you defeat me, there's something even scarier waiting behind me. The Narkals are also under my control—sooner or later, they'll reach this place and swarm you."
Everyone was confused why the ever-stoic man suddenly started talking, but not Ashen and Alice.
"Don't listen to him!!" Ashen warned and jumped back into the fray alongside Alice. Threads of mana latched onto both of them from behind as Seraphine got ready to heal.
Wiseman pulled Sabrina beside Seraphine and got into position to guard her alongside the healer.
Either way, they didn't know why Ashen was so adamant about not hearing potential information, but he'd gained enough trust from them to muffle their ears with mana.
Seraphine did it instantly when she heard the command. Of course, she never doubted him from the start.
But Cassius merely scoffed at their futile effort. As long as the information reached any of their senses, he could use it later to extort a price. Even if they couldn't hear him, couldn't they read his lips?
Even if they didn't immediately understand, it didn't matter. If it was in their memory, then it was theirs, and they would pay for it.
So even as spears kept thrusting at him from every angle from the pair, he kept talking.
"For two centuries, I've gathered humans and monsters alike to pray for Him. A real God…"
A spear braided through space, tip aiming for Cassius's throat. Alice slid under the arc, planted her foot on Ashen's thigh and sprang, vaulting him over a wall of flame that instantly hardened into a glaive.
She landed with a glancing spear-jar to his ribs. Cassius only grunted as the glaive snapped the shaft aside.
"...Every monster you've struggled against until now is merely a thrall for the real masterminds."
The glaive winked into a whip; the burning lash cracked, snagged Ashen's wrist and shrugged the spear away. Its tip boiled into a dagger. Ashen took it in the shoulder, staggered, then shoved the spear back into play and aimed low while Alice booted Cassius's kneecap to topple his balance.
Cassius laughed and flipped the dagger into a short axe. He swung. Alice ducked; Ashen half-spun and clipped the axe blade with his shaft before it could bite her skull.
"...And by summoning one of those Masterminds, I was granted control of His slaves… including Catastrophes that could end all of you on their own."
Cassius never paused. He hardened fire into a heavy gauntlet and punched. The blow glanced Alice's sternum and sent her stumbling. Ashen closed the space… two steps, spear forward, forcing Cassius to retract the gauntlet into a sword again.
Alice recovered on the run, slid behind Cassius, and raked the back of his knee with the butt of her shaft. Cassius pivoted, the sword now a serrated short blade that nicked her arm. She hissed in pain as she withdrew into Ashen's angle, creating the opening he needed.
"You see the countless Narkals pouring in from seemingly nowhere? They have an empire where they breed endlessly still!"
Cassius's hands were always busy… fire flicked between sword, staff, and hook. And whenever he got the chance, he attacked the healer and the helpless Sabrina from behind. But Wiseman was like an immovable shield. No strike went past him.
"No matter how many you kill, it won't end!! It's hopeless! They are relentless!!!"
Cassius's words came faster, slicing the air. He reshaped his flame into a jagged sword and slashed. Ashen didn't bother to parry; another spear traveled from his side to halt the strike, while his own spear went for that speaking mouth, hoping to silence it forever.
"The wars for the past thousand years, the deaths, and sacrifices… those were merely the byproduct of clashing against the nearest Narkal empire!"
Blood ran down Cassius's cheeks as he wasn't fast enough to move his head. But even then, he still spoke about the despair to come.
"And there are seven of such empires that you still don't know of!!"
The more they fought, the more synchronized the couple got. Their blows started combining to build into each other toward the next. Their parries started coming more for the other than themselves.
"Do you comprehend how futile your struggle is?! It's hopeless!!! Understand it—!"
A hook almost caught Alice, but Ashen had long predicted it, fed it to the dream, and she saw it in turn, allowing her to duck and avoid it by a hair's breadth.
Ashen's body moved on its own to deliver an uppercut, but Cassius wasn't in the trajectory. The man thought his foe had finally revealed an opening, but suddenly he felt himself coming down to meet the fist.
The one who'd just crouched delivered a low kick to the back of his knee, and the fist met his face just in time.
Bam—!
They both knew this might as well be their last chance, so they didn't let go.
Alice followed with an axe kick to the staggering man, finally pushing him to the ground despite the kick dealing little damage. But the part about dealing damage was left to her other half.
A spear was chasing the Astrologer even as he traveled downward from the kick and found his stomach. Ashen pulled back and struck once more. Cassius barely traced the trajectory of the second thrust to save his heart.
PHTT!—
A new hole appeared on his other shoulder.
SPLUTCH—
A second spear joined the first one, plunging into his stomach wound, and when the first spear pulled back once more to plunge into his chest, the second spear followed with a thrust of its own toward the newest wound, as if it were smelling fresh blood.
Each thrust was always accompanied by another, and when Cassius had six holes on his upper body, each inflicted twice, he finally stopped holding back and unleashed the curse.
"All of you… DIE!!!"
Crack—