Kasper Brunner gripped the short axe in his hand and moved slowly along the base of the wall.
Snow fell onto the blade, lting faster than usual.
This was because the surface of the short axe still held a high temperature—more accurately, it retained the residual heat generated after being infused with the Way of Strength.
A faint, almost invisible ghostly blue shimr emanated from the edge of the blade, like a semi-finished product a blacksmith had just pulled from the furnace.
His gaze was fixed intently on the darkness at the corner of the alleyway.
Three minutes ago, their heavy hamr wielder had chased into that dead end.
He was the largest mber of their hunting operation, standing over six feet tall, wielding an iron hamr with both hands, and belonging to sequence III of the Way of Strength.
In a direct confrontation, his explosive power was much stronger than Kasper's.
Then, Kasper heard a dull thud.
Only one.
By the ti he arrived, the heavy hamr wielder was lying face down in the snow, a fragnt of a brick embedded in the back of his head.
Both the angle and depth of the fragnt indicated it had been driven in with incredible force and precision.
His iron hamr was still gripped in his hand.
He hadn't even had ti to swing a single blow.
anwhile, the figure in the grey cloak had already vaulted over the low wall at the end of the dead end and vanished into another alleyway.
From start to finish, it hadn't taken more than four seconds.
Kasper knelt down to check his teammate's condition.
He was still breathing, but he wouldn't be waking up anyti soon.
The brick fragnt had precisely struck the spot between the back of the head and the cervical spine—a centiter off would have been fatal, but it hit just right.
She had held back.
This realization made Kasper start to sweat.
Holding back ant that even under such speed and pressure, the opponent still had the leeway to control their force and angle.
It ant that knocking down the heavy hamr wielder wasn't an action that required her full effort; it was just a step completed in passing.
As if she were rely dealing with a trivial matter.
Kasper stood up, holding his short axe across his chest.
He had been participating in such hunts for two years now.
Two years.
From mining towns in the southern empire to snowfield outposts on the northern border, from black market boxing rings in tavern back alleys ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) to the depths of slums where even the Gendarrie dared not tread.
The number of people he had killed wasn't huge, but it certainly wasn't small either.
But he had never seen such a unique prey.
It wasn't that there were no troubleso opponents, but none could remain this difficult to handle while so heavily injured.
The snow was falling harder and harder.
Visibility was compressed to less than twenty paces, and the halos of the gas streetlights turned into blurred orange-yellow spots in the curtain of snow.
The alleyways of the Old District were intricate; in narrow places, two people walking side-by-side felt cramped, and even the wide parts were only the width of a carriage.
This terrain was extrely disadvantageous for the pursuers.
But for the pursued—especially one skilled at utilizing the environnt—
it was a natural sanctuary.
Kasper's ears caught the sound of footsteps on the roof to his right.
That was the position of Greta the archer.
She was responsible for suppressing the target's movent routes from high ground, using arrows imbued with the power of The Way Back to block key nodes.
Greta's archery was ranked in the top three within the Society.
But so far, not a single one of her arrows had hit.
This wasn't Greta's fault.
It was that the grey-cloaked figure's movent was too bizarre.
She never moved in a straight line.
Every turn occurred before the arrow left the string, as if she could anticipate the vibration of the bowstring.
Her speed fluctuated and her rhythm was completely irregular—sotis she ran frantically like a startled rabbit, and sotis she suddenly slowed down, so slow that it made one think she was exhausted, only to burst into a desperate acceleration the mont a pursuer closed the distance.
She was wearing them down.
Every seemingly pathetic flight and every seemingly forced dodge was straining the pursuers' stamina and attention.
She forced them to constantly accelerate, decelerate, turn, and pause, making their muscles repeatedly switch between the infusion of the Way of Strength and their natural state.
This switching ca at a price.
The core of the Way of Strength was the taming of instinct and savagery.
Every ti power was called upon, it was awakening a primal impulse deep within the soul, which then had to be suppressed again after use.
Frequent awakening and suppression would make this process increasingly unstable, like a wire being repeatedly bent—it would eventually snap at so point.
Kasper didn't know if the opponent understood this.
But such a heavily injured target, being hunted by seven people, was now actually wearing down the hunters in reverse.
Kasper licked his dry, cracked lips.
A short, sharp scream ca from the other end of the alley.
Followed by the sound of bones shattering.
Kasper's pupils constricted suddenly.
That was the direction of the left-wing flanking maneuver.
He took off running.
When he arrived, the teammate responsible for the left wing was already unconscious in the snow.
His right wrist was bent at an angle that shouldn't exist.
On the ground was a steam pipe pulled from the wall, lying at ankle height, covered in a layer of snow and almost blending into the ground.
A tripwire.
She had pulled out a steam pipe on her way and set up a tripwire.
Then, the mont her enemy fell, she had stepped on his wrist from the darkness.
Precise.
Efficient.
The grey-cloaked figure had already vanished.
Only a string of shallow footprints remained on the ground, ending at the next corner.
There were seven of them participating in this hunt.
Now, only five were still capable of fighting.
And the opponent—
they hadn't even managed to touch her yet.
Kasper's palms were now completely covered in sweat.
The handle of the short axe beca slippery, and he had to wipe it on his trouser leg.
Then he heard an extrely light footstep in the alley ahead.
It wasn't a teammate's.
A teammate's footsteps carried the characteristic heaviness after being infused with the Way of Strength; the soles of their boots would make a dull, compacting sound on the snow.
This footstep was as light as a cat treading on cotton.
Kasper's body reacted before his brain did.
He lunged out from behind the wall, swinging his short axe horizontally.
With the Way of Strength fully infused, the axe blade pulled a ghostly blue arc through the air, heading straight for the grey figure's shoulder.
The distance between them was less than three paces.
He caught a glimpse of a chin peeking out from under the cloak.
It was small.
With soft lines.
The skin was pale to an almost sickly degree.
There was a dried bloodstain at the corner of the mouth.
The opponent seed to be in very poor condition now.
Her breathing was rapid and irregular, there was an extrely subtle stumble in her step, and her right arm under the cloak hung uselessly at her side.
And she was still bleeding.
A strong, fresh scent of blood seeped from under the cloak, mixing with the sll of lted snow and sweat.
It's possible!
Kasper could almost see his future, bathed in blood and successfully promoted in the Way of Strength.
However, he missed.
She sidestepped.
The movent was minimal, so small that Kasper's axe blade almost grazed the fabric of her cloak as it flew past.
Vast montum carried Kasper's body forward, and the ghostly blue short axe embedded itself deeply into the adjacent brick wall with a 'thud'.
The blade was embedded about three fingers deep into the brickwork.
In the mont just after his old force was spent and before new force could be generated, her left hand appeared in his field of vision.
Five fingers spread, palm forward, as if she were going to give him a push.
But she didn't push.
Her palm stopped less than an inch from his chest.
But Kasper's body had already made an instinctive reaction in that mont—he stepped back, trying to pull out the short axe to defend, his left arm instinctively rising to block.
It was a feint.
She used a feint to bait out his defensive reaction, and in the fraction of a second while his center of gravity shifted back, she slid past his right side.
Like a snake passing through a crack in the rocks.
Her shoulder brushed his elbow, the hem of her cloak swept across his knee, and her footsteps were as light as a cat treading on cotton.
The speed at which Kasper turned was already the limit of what he could achieve.
But when he turned around, he only saw a grey back disappearing around the corner of the alleyway.
And his belt had been cut.
He hadn't felt the dagger strike at all.
The water flask and spare short axe hanging from his belt fell to the ground with a clatter, making several small pits in the snow.
Kasper stood in place, feeling the chill from his waist and the cold sweat seeping from his entire body.
If the opponent hadn't been in a hurry to escape, he would already be dead.
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