Klein watched from his position, unable to fully process what he was seeing.
Ren had been in front of them just a second ago. Standing right there with the group, analyzing the ambush formation, clearly aware of the danger but seemingly contained by it.
’How...?’
"Ah!"
Understanding clicked. Klein thought of Luna.
A shadow jump.
Ren had used the tunnel’s dim lighting and his own darkness manipulation to simply relocate without bothering with the physical space between.
His huge bag was now resting in the ground, so big and fluffy it had made no sound in its small fall to the ground...
♢♢♢♢
Ren’s thoughts flowed with the cold clarity of soone rembering sothing unpleasant but not particularly threatening.
Jin Strahlfang.
The textbook bully... The idiot with a superiority complex who thought that having a ’superior beast’ automatically made him superior as a person. Who’d built his entire identity around an accident of birth, being born into a house with good wealth and ’knowledge’ of spirit beast cultivation.
One of those that never developed actual personality or skills beyond that single fortunate circumstance.
Ren rembered perfectly every "encounter" with Jin during his first year at the academy.
The taunts about his weak spore, the threats delivered, the pathetic attempts at intimidation that never worked because Jin was, fundantally and completely, a moron who telegraphed every move and thought volu of nuisances could substitute for actual nace.
’But I never felt truly threatened,’ Ren pondered while watching Jin try uselessly to move under the pressure of his darkness mana. ’Because the group was led by an idiot. And idiots are predictable.’
Jin and his group had always been his particular punching bag during that first year.
When the taunts ca, Ren returned them with interest, turning insults back on their creators with ease that left them sputtering. When they tried pranks, Ren reversed them and left them looking like fools. Every plan they made was so obvious, so telegraphed, that he could see the moves coming from kiloters away.
It had almost been fun in a tedious sort of way. Like solving the sa easy puzzle repeatedly, never particularly challenged but occasionally mildly entertained by new variations of the sa basic stupidity.
’Almost,’ Ren admitted internally.
The key word being "almost". Because beneath the entertainnt value, there had always been the underlying annoyance of dealing with soone too stupid to recognize when they were outmatched, soone whose ego wouldn’t let them accept reality no matter how many tis it was demonstrated.
Jin finally managed to make his right arm move.
With a roar of pure effort, spiritual energy burning together with corruption to force his muscles into motion, he spun completely. His hand swept through the air in a blow aid at where Ren’s head had been.
But Ren was no longer there.
He’d ducked, anticipating this kind of attack before Jin even thought to execute it.
Always the head first... The beast dictating the pace instead of its tar.
No need of reading body language and mana flow like with any other opponents who’d be far more dangerous than an academy bully hopped up on cheap copied corruption.
And then, from below, Ren struck upward.
The punch connected with Jin’s jaw with a satisfying crack that resonated through the tunnel.
It was the sa blow Ren had used before, from back in their first confrontation. The signature strike that had left Jin knocked out on the ground, waking hours later with only a headache thanks to the healers and the humiliation of an instant defeat that so of his classmates wouldn’t let him forget.
That punch had beco part of the legend running among certain academy circles. One of the monts when the "weakest" student had demolished the tiger heir in a single hit, proving that raw beast quality ant nothing against actual skill and preparation. One of his many achievents in his rise.
But this ti...
This ti Jin didn’t fall unconscious.
The blow lifted him off the ground, his body rising with the impact’s force. And while he ascended, Ren grabbed Jin’s leg with his other hand before gravity could take control, arresting the montum and maintaining connection.
"I didn’t knock you out on purpose," Ren said, his voice calm while holding Jin suspended by one leg.
His grip tightened deliberately. Jin felt the bones in his leg creak under the pressure, stress fractures forming in his corrupted skeleton.
"This ti," Ren continued, his expression completely neutral as he rapidly brought his arm downward in a brutal arc, "this ti you deserve to suffer more than that."
Jin hit the ground hard.
The impact drove almost all the air from his lungs in a explosive gasp. His corrupted body absorbed so of the damage, but pain still exploded through every nerve, bright and sharp and impossible to ignore.
"This ti you need to see your defeat better," Ren said, standing over him with the casual posture of soone who’d already won and was just explaining why. "Every second of it. Let’s see if it finally sticks in your small head that you’re not on my level."
Ren’s voice had the tone of soone stating obvious facts rather than delivering taunts.
"That you never were."
Jin tried to speak. Tried to spit so threat, so declaration of vengeance, so final defiant words that would prove he hadn’t been completely crushed.
All that ca out was blood from where he’d bitten his tongue with the impact of the initial blow. The tallic taste filled his mouth.
"And that you never will be."
Ren observed him with sothing that might have been pity but then it just looked like contempt for wasted potential and stupid choices.
"Your equally dumb brother I rember well," Ren said softly, his voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty, "And again... he was not one that deserves "justice" nor was he my first death... But he was the first up close and personal, that I’ll give you."
The words settled into the tunnel like stones sinking in water.
"And never, ever, will I regret it."
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