Affinities were foundational and every martial artist awakened one upon stepping into the Apprentice rank, afterall without an affinity, martial spirit manifestation was impossible and without manifestation, techniques were inaccessible.
Affinities originated from the soul.
But like the testicles that descend into the scrotum from the abdon during developnt, affinities form in the soul but stabilize within the genetic structure of a martial artist and over ti they are anchored, stored and integrated fully into the martial artist.
However Adam was an outlier since he had two.
Wind and Death.
Wind was his regular affinity.
It was the one tied to his Profound technique, Wind Carnage Requiem and the Yellow technique Wind Cyclone Rendering.
Death, however, was a primary affinity.
It was rare and uncommon and because of that he had no technique for it.
That was normal.
Primary affinities weren’t widely docunted.
But even without techniques, primary affinities had passive properties and the affinity Death did not only increase one’s killing intent it also acted as a warning.
Simply put it let Adam sense his imminent termination and right now, that pressure was overwhelming.
William rose again and his star power had risen to nineteen, one point below Adam.
The gap was almost gone.
Yet Adam didn’t fixate on the number.
He focused on the sensation.
He stopped forcing dominance and chasing strikes, instead he let the feeling guide his rhythm.
William lunged again and Adam stepped forward not to intercept the center, but to align with the pressure’s vector.
Judgent rose and this ti, he didn’t use wind.
He let sothing else move through the blade.
A subtle, cold and dark glow ignited along the edge, as he slashed vertically severing William’s right arm from the shoulder.
They both paused for a fraction of a second and the regeneration that should have triggered didn’t.
Adam’s eyes sharpened behind the mask while William staggered, his star power fluctuating violently.
Adam didn’t hesitate.
The mont the arm failed to regenerate, he stepped in.
Judgent descended in a killing arc, intending to reduce the corpse to fragnts before it could adapt.
But for the first ti since its star power began to rise, William dodged cleanly, but Adam followed imdiately, as the dark glow of Death intensified along Judgent’s edge and wind gathered around it as he unleashed Wind Carnage Requiem, now layered with that green-black sheen.
The slash tore through the air but William still managed to slip past it again.
Its movent pattern had returned to that earlier drunken unpredictability.
Analyze flickered and the star power had gone up again.
[Star Power: 20]
It was now equal, however it was still climbing and if it reached twenty-one...
The advantage would flip.
Adam swung in a wide horizontal arc but William leaped backward; there was no extra maneuver this ti because its star power trembled on the verge of rising again.
If it still had a head, it would be smiling at Adam for it knew it had won.
But behind Adam’s bone mask, he smiled first.
His hands remained steady, as Judgent’s shaft split open at the center and a concealed chanism of chains burst outward.
Adam shifted his grip instantly, releasing the lower shaft and catching the chain instead.
He didn’t slow the swing.
He let montum carry it and the scythe elongated violently mid-arc, the chain extending the blade’s reach far beyond expected range.
William reacted but it was already too late.
The extended blade cleanly caught him at the waist and the upper torso flew back, as the lower half collapsed.
The Star power that had spiked erratically suddenly destabilized as Adam activated Rapid Charge.
Lightning surged around Adam and with that boost he yanked the chain downward and Judgent’s blade plunged through the torso mid-air and pinned the corpse to the ground, piercing through the chest cavity and anchoring it into the rock beneath.
The violet aura convulsed.
Then ruptured, as a notification appeared in Adam’s retina.
[You have Gained 21 Existence]
Adam stood still for a mont, chain taut in his grip.
The oppressive sensation of imminent death faded.
He had won
****
Adam released the chain and let Judgent dissolve back into the BODY slot.
The battlefield was quiet, as Adam pulled up his panel.
╭───────────╮
〖Na: Adam〗
〖Rank: Profound Apprentice〗
〖Cultivation Talent: G〗
〖Special Talent: Equip ❖ Connect ❖
Analyze ❖ Fuse〗
〖Affinity: Wind ❖ Death 〗
〖SLOT〗
↳ SOUL (5): Rapid Charge D ❖
Cryogen D ❖ Cultivation D ❖
Mind Control E ❖ Bone Generation D
↳ BODY (6): JUDGENT
╰───────────╯
[Star Power: 42 ]
[Existence: 3858]
[Martial Spirit: Profound 3 Star]
He exhaled slowly with relief.
As he suspected, his star power was restored after William’s true death and the suppression was finally gone.
His star power of Thirty-one plus had returned and Judgent added another ten.
That should have totaled forty-one.
But it read forty-two.
His eyes then shifted upward to his affinities.
Death .
The plus sign hadn’t been there before, so understanding ford imdiately.
It was Aura.
Primary affinities granted access to aura upon deeper awakening.
Death wasn’t a regular affinity, it was a primary one and the aura it granted wasn’t about decay.
It was about finality.
William had been a corpse defying termination.
Death aura simply corrected that, giving him the ability to force sothing that should not persist to end.
His star power increase by one was not random.
It was an acknowledgnt.
Adam stood in silence for a mont, as relief passed through him.
But it wasn’t comfort.
There were too many anomalies to dissect and analyze, but that would be inefficient.
He had access to a regressor.
There was no need to burn cognitive cycles guessing when he could extract answers directly.
He walked to the corpse.
Calmly placed it into his storage ring.
Before leaving the area.
A few ters away, the severed head lay where it had rolled earlier.
Adam stepped back toward it.
"I almost forgot this part."
He picked it up and placed it into the ring as well.
Then he finally left the battlefield.
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