"What do you mean a hotdog is a sandwich?" Nyata yelled in frustration. "A hotdog is a hotdog!"
"But a hotdog is in between two pieces of bread! That means it's a sandwich!" Aberrane yelled back, her voice rising.
"It doesn't count because the bread is one piece, not two!"
"It doesn't matter! It's still a sandwi-"
"Will you two lovebirds cut it out?! You've been arguing for thirty minutes!" Atos finally roared, his voice booming across the trail.
Both Nyata and Aberrane went red. They froze, glaring at each other.
"What the hell are you saying?!" Nyata shouted, pointing at her. "I'd never even think of dating her!"
"Like I'd lower myself to his level!" Aberrane snapped, her hands on her hips.
"Lower yourself to my level? Please! I'd be a great boyfriend!"
"Really? Yesterday you burned the chicken we were supposed to eat!"
"That's only because you thought it'd be funny to set my bag on fire!"
"SHUT UP!" Atos bellowed again, his patience gone. "Just. Shut. Up!"
Silence fell for a brief, blessed moment.
"…Anyway," Nyata started, awkwardly clearing his throat, "what mana technique do you use? I didn't sense anything coming from you."
Atos exhaled. "I use an internal mana technique."
"A what now?"
"An internal mana technique. It draws mana into the body instead of around it, enhancing your strength, speed, and endurance."
"Ohhh. So it's like instead of wrapping mana around your body, you pump it inside to supercharge yourself."
"Exactly," Atos replied. "I could teach you."
Nyata's eyes lit up like fire. "YES! Please!"
"Then start with your breathing," Atos said calmly. "Normal pace. We'll fix it."
Nyata inhaled deeply. His breathing was rhythmic, but off. Too ambitious, like a child trying to lift a sword too heavy to wield.
Atos watched him carefully. "You're reaching for what you can't touch yet. Breathe shallower. Shorter. Pull from inside."
The moment Nyata adjusted, the air shimmered faintly around him. Mana pulsed in slow, gentle waves. A thin mist rose and then folded inward, vanishing beneath his skin.
"Now," Atos instructed, "visualize the energy filling you. Let it flow into your limbs. Imagine it raising a bar marked 'Speed.'"
Nyata did. A warmth spread through his veins. His heartbeat slowed, then quickened, steady as a drumbeat. His body felt lighter, sharper. When he took a step, the earth blurred beneath his feet.
He was fast. Faster than he had ever been.
But when he reached the next hilltop, his exhilaration turned to horror.
The man stood motionless amid the carnage, his silver hair drifting in the wind. His boots were half-buried in the dust, yet every small shift of his stance sent shivers through the ground. It wasn't power that Nyata felt, it was precision, a quiet rhythm in the air itself.
Nyata's jaw tightened. "You did this, didn't you?"
The man gave no answer, only turned his head slightly, beckoning them forward with a small motion of his hand. His eyes were calm. Cold.
Nyata charged, the wind bursting around him as his mana surged. A chain shot past him, Atos' attack, its metal links whistling through the air. The man pivoted a foot to the side. The moment his heel scraped the dirt, the air itself fractured. The chain split apart mid-flight, diced into a dozen perfect segments that fell harmlessly at his feet.
"What-" Atos started, but before he could finish, Nyata was already upon the stranger.
He swung hard, his fist glowing faintly with mana. The man slid his left foot forward, smooth as a dancer's glide. The ground between them shimmered and then cracked apart in thin, perfect lines.
Nyata's punch met nothing. His footing vanished beneath him, diced into countless floating fragments. He stumbled, barely managing to leap off one of the falling chunks before it collapsed into dust.
The man's right foot shifted again, no kick, no stomp, just a subtle pivot. The air around Nyata sliced open in a cross pattern.
He twisted sideways, the cuts grazing his jacket, leaving four burning slashes on his arm. He landed, breath sharp, heart pounding. "What the hell are you?!"
The man's voice was low, smooth. "Someone who doesn't miss."
Atos swung another chain, aiming for his neck. The man sidestepped, tracing a slow semicircle with his foot. The ground rippled, then diced.
The chain was severed in midair, the metal links clattering to the ground. The end of it lashed back violently, hitting Atos in the shoulder with a sickening crunch. He dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth.
Nyata's rage boiled over. "You bastard!"
He darted forward again, pushing his speed to the limit. The air blurred. His fist connected this time, just barely grazing the man's cheek. A thin line of blood formed.
The man didn't flinch. Instead, his right foot slid back, and with that motion, everything behind Nyata, grass, stones, even the mist in the air, sliced into tiny squares.
The shockwave struck an instant later. The world behind him came apart, diced cleanly as if by invisible blades.
Nyata dropped low, narrowly avoiding the cross-pattern that carved through the space where his head had been. He rolled, sprang to his feet, and lunged in again.
This time he faked high and kicked low, aiming for the man's legs. The man moved his left foot half an inch, and the ground below Nyata shattered into floating cubes. His kick met nothing but air, and he crashed into the dirt face-first.
"Damn it!" he spat, scrambling up. His skin stung where the diced fragments had nicked him. "How do you even fight that?"
The old man tilted his head slightly. "You don't."
Before Nyata could blink, the man spun on his heel. The rotation carved concentric rings into the ground that expanded outward like ripples on water. Each ring sliced whatever it touched. Trees, rocks, even the corpses around them, into smooth, eerie grids.
Nyata barely managed to leap over the nearest ring. It grazed his boot, cutting it cleanly in half. He stumbled mid-air, but landed running, aura flaring.
Atos, clutching his wounded shoulder, threw his last chain. It snaked through the air, the spiked end catching the man's wrist. For the first time, the old man's rhythm broke.
"Now!" Nyata roared.
He dashed forward in a blur, mana streaming behind him like fire. His punches came in a flurry, each strike faster than the last. The first missed, the second grazed the man's jaw, the third landed in his ribs. The fourth shattered the air itself as his mana overflowed.
The old man staggered. His calm expression shifted, just barely. A flash of irritation crossed his eyes.
Then he stomped.
The world screamed.
A lattice of invisible cuts spread outward in all directions. The earth, the trees, even the air diced into microscopic shards. The very sound of the world broke apart.
Nyata froze. Pain lanced through his body as thin, shallow cuts opened across his arms and neck. He fell to one knee, gasping, blood dripping into the dust.
Atos tried to pull him back, but the diced chain fragments scattered uselessly around them. A single spark of movement from the old man's foot, and one of those fragments shot forward like a bullet, impaling Atos through the abdomen.
He went down hard.
Nyata looked up, vision swimming. His breath hitched. He tried to stand, but his body trembled. The old man walked toward him, each step precise and deliberate. Each footfall sent tiny grids spiderwebbing across the ground, cutting through whatever lay within reach.
"You move too loud," the man said, his voice almost a whisper. "Too clumsy."
Then he raised one foot, dragging it through the dust. The faint hum of cutting filled the silence.
A soft blue light burst across the horizon. Aberrane appeared at the edge of the carnage, her cloak snapping in the wind. Her eyes fell on Nyata and Atos. bleeding, broken, still.
Her entire body went cold.
Her voice cracked as she screamed, "What did you do to my friends?!"
The air trembled around her. Mana pulsed like a heartbeat. The light in her eyes changed, deep and violent.