'Looks like it will go as expected,' Trafalgar thought.
That ant force had finally entered the room.
Selara lifted her gun first. Mana threaded through the weapon, sank into the special round already waiting inside the chamber, and the shot tore across Matteo's reinforced room toward Esmond before anyone bothered pretending this could remain a conversation.
The bullet never reached him.
A compact shield of mana unfolded in front of its path, pale and dense, appearing with such speed that the air cracked around it. The bullet struck the barrier, flattened against the surface, and dropped to the floor with a hiss of spent power. The shield faded almost at once, leaving Esmond untouched, his expression carrying that soft disappointnt only truly rotten teachers could use without sha.
He turned toward Selara. "Truly, my little one? You shoot your master?"
Selara's arm did not lower.
Esmond moved one finger.
The homunculus saw it.
The elven vessel launched toward Selara with no wasted motion. Her bare feet struck the floor once, and her body crossed the room with chanical violence, pale hands curving into claw-like grips ant to disarm, break, or tear away whatever stood in her path.
Trafalgar used [Severance Step].
Dark mana curved around his body, and he reappeared between Selara and the homunculus as Maledicta rose in his hand. The girl-shaped weapon crashed against his blade, fingers grinding over the edge with enough force to make the reinforced floor groan beneath them. For sothing built with such a fragile fra, she struck like a siege hamr wrapped in skin.
Trafalgar's boots dragged back half a step before he stopped her.
Mana answered his next command at once. Pressure folded inward over his body, and a dark shimr rippled across his skin as the Obsidian Wings ford around him. Black obsidian plates wrapped his fra, locking over his shoulders, chest, arms, and legs. The armor swallowed the room's light, heavy in appearance yet fluid with his movent, and the helt sealed last with its winged, predatory silhouette.
He had no intention of receiving a careless wound from Esmond's little miracle.
The fight had to be brief. Matteo had promised the room was soundproofed and reinforced, but promises were thinner than stone once people with real power began throwing attacks indoors. Trafalgar and Caelum were not mild forces. A proper exchange from either of them could scar a mountain face if they stopped caring about restraint. Trafalgar could not yet split the sky like Valttair or cleave a mountain with one cut, but each battle dragged him a little closer to that absurd territory.
This room was a cage pretending to be a eting place.
Trafalgar twisted Maledicta and forced the homunculus's hands away. The motion shoved her back, though she recovered with eerie precision, her expression empty and her arms lowering as if the exchange had only corrected her position.
Across the room, a bladed weapon took shape in Esmond's hand.
It was narrow, elegant, and unpleasantly suited to him, the weapon of a man who preferred cutting through weak points rather than trading strength. His borrowed old body should have made him seem fragile, but nobody in that room had survived this long by trusting appearances.
Matteo, unfortunately, was the weakest body present once violence beca the chosen language.
He was a great researcher, a respected alchemist, a man who could dismantle argunts and formulas with the sa dry contempt. None of that helped much when blades ca out. Matteo had spent his life building wards, papers, rooms, and reputations, not training for the day an old enemy walked into his ho with a living weapon and murder in his hands.
Esmond understood that imdiately.
He went for Matteo first.
The old scholar barely had ti to turn before Esmond crossed the distance, blade angled toward his chest. Caelum appeared in the path with twin daggers drawn, his movent quiet enough to feel like the room had misplaced him. Steel t steel in a short, ugly clash, and Esmond's route toward Matteo vanished.
Matteo froze behind him.
Caelum handled that problem with brutal practicality. Without turning fully, he drove a kick backward into Matteo's side and sent him crashing toward the wall. Matteo struck the reinforced surface with a pained grunt and crumpled near it, stunned and furious, but no longer standing in the direct line of death.
Esmond's mouth twitched. "Moving him away from danger? This room is not large enough for that to keep working."
Caelum did not answer.
He preferred useful things.
Three more Caelums appeared around Esmond, forming a narrow ring with the original. Each one carried the sa twin daggers, the sa cold focus, the sa lack of hesitation. They did not announce themselves or waste the room's air. They occupied angles, cut off paths, and turned Esmond's first attempt at escape into a problem with knives on every side.
Esmond clicked his tongue, irritation breaking through his refined amusent.
"Help ."
The homunculus obeyed.
Trafalgar moved to intercept her, but pale mana rushed through her artificial channels with frightening discipline. Her fist ca in faster than he expected, the angle tight, the acceleration wrong for a body that size. The blow slamd into his armored side with a hollow boom, driving him away from her path. The armor absorbed much of the impact, yet the force rattled through his ribs and carved his boots across the floor.
The homunculus appeared behind one of Caelum's clones almost imdiately.
Her fist struck its back and hurled it across the room. The clone smashed through a table and burst into dark fragnts of mana. The real Caelum staggered, one shoulder dipping before he recovered. The damage carried through enough to punish him, which ant every clone lost carelessly would cost him sothing.
Esmond noticed.
"Interesting skill," he said, curiosity warming his voice in the worst possible way. "I do not know who you are, but you are fascinating. Would you care to work for ? Soone like you would be useful."
Caelum's daggers shifted in his hands. "I apologize. I only work for the young master."
Selara fired again.
The round tore toward Esmond, and another shield unfolded between them. This one ca from the homunculus without her turning fully, a fast crescent of condensed mana that caught the bullet and cracked under the pressure. It held long enough to save Esmond, which was the only purpose he cared about.
Trafalgar pushed himself upright, the armor over his side marked where the punch had struck.
'That thing is going to be more troubleso than we thought,' he judged. 'Her strength is above Pri Core. This cannot be only alchemy. He used sothing from the Void Creatures in her. He had access to that research through Icarus, so of course he used it.'
His grip tightened around Maledicta.
He moved.
Mana surged along the sword, dark and heavy, and his stance shifted into [Morgain's Requiem]. The technique wanted space, but the room refused to give it, so Trafalgar forced the sequence to compress around the chamber rather than tear the walls apart outright. Six curved slashes of dark mana blood from Maledicta in rapid order, each one cutting toward the homunculus from a different angle.
The first slash swept low toward her legs. The second carved diagonally for her shoulder. The third dragged across the line of her ribs. The fourth rose toward her throat. The last two crossed from opposing sides, forcing her barriers to choose which wound would be allowed to exist.
The homunculus reacted with chilling speed. Mana shields ford around her in broken fragnts, catching two slashes and weakening another. She shifted away from the fourth with a precision that felt engineered rather than learned. The fifth cut opened a dark line across the gray garnt and the pale skin beneath it, while the sixth struck one of her barriers hard enough to make Matteo's wards hum through the walls.
Damage appeared on her body for the first ti, thin and dark beneath the chamber light, and the sight stole the satisfaction from Esmond's face before he could hide it.
Trafalgar lowered Maledicta slightly, his voice calm behind the obsidian visor.
"She doesn't look much like a masterpiece."
The insult reached Esmond exactly where Trafalgar aid it. A vein rose at the old man's temple, faint but visible, and his fingers curled around the blade in his hand as the homunculus's mana gathered with a denser pressure than before. The walls humd, the floor trembled, and the pale lines beneath her skin brightened until the air tasted tallic.
Esmond's smile returned, thinner and uglier.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Let us see if you still think that now.
User Comments
0 comments from readers