Even though he was still hurting from his injury, Cain decided to fight with full power. He allowed magic to course through his veins, heightening his body capability.

Cain dashed forward, the initial step made the wooden floor crack. In a flash, he appeared in front of Demetrus and swung his sword down in the fullness of his physical might.

Anticipating close quarter combat, Demetrus also strengthened his body with magic before meeting Cain’s overhead slash with both of his daggers.

The impact was heavier than he thought. His arms felt numb as if they were struck with a metal bat. One of his knees touched the floor, fracturing the rundown wooden floor.

“What!?”

Demetrus was once again taken aback. His opponent was stronger than he expected. He coughed a mouthful of blood, a hole in his lung made breathing difficult. He already applied magical first-aid but it didn't heal him completely.

“You’re a Level 1! Shit!!”

Still in locked weapons, Demetrus cursed Cain in the face.

This bugger hid his true strength. Hells and Damnations!

Cain proved harder to kill than he thought so the assassin felt the need to adjust his strategy.

They were both Level 1 and both had water elemental affinity. Fighting another with the same element was inefficient. They both were resistant against each other’s attack which could lead to a drawn-out fight and every Pathseeker worth their salt wisely avoided such a thing.

One way to solve this dilemma was to use non-elemental Artes or physical attacks. They both had the means. Steel in their hands could kill a man, whether said steel was magical or not.

Pathseekers were, in the end, still mortals.

But is it wise to continue the battle?

Demetrus weighted the merit and demerit in his head.

He didn't know how Cain was still alive, and fighting well, despite his heart being stabbed less than two minutes ago. Meanwhile, his own injury needed tending immediately. The first aid allowed him to be temporarily in a fighting fit but it wouldn't last long. Should he get bogged down, he would simply die.

Demetrus realized this, which was why he changed his objective to retreat.

“Shredding Water Needles!” Demetrus gritted his teeth and cast a wide-effect Arte with considerable power. I will run while he is defending against the water needles, the assassin thought.

Just like the Arte’s name, a hundred liquid needles appeared near the caster. Each of them had the length and thickness of a pen. Demetrus had once killed a rhino monster famous for its thick hide with this Arte. He had full confidence Cain would be too busy defending himself which would give him the opening to retreat.

In response to Demetrus’ magical needles, Cain cast a defensive Arte of his own. His body was covered with a membrane of protective water from head to toe.

That is Water Barrier Arte, the most basic of basic. Such a flimsy barrier will not be able to guard against my Shredding Water Needles! Even with elemental resistance, the sheer force of the needles would severely injure him. Demetrus felt seventy percent assurance that he had won.

Demetrus noticed that Cain’s Water Barrier had a green shimmer on it but didn’t pay too much attention to such a minor thing.

After building his defenses, Cain charged forward like a rushing bull. His face was like stone which made reading his thoughts difficult.

“Die!” The assassin snarled. This fight was no longer about his pupil but about survival.

Demetrus willed his Arte to attack, the water needles rushed forward with the speed of a nail shot from a nail gun. A normal human would be reduced to shreds if such an Arte hit them. It was no different than a hundred crossbow bolts shooting at the same time, making a wall of piercing death.

Cain met such a wall head-on and the water needles burst apart in splashes of water. Cain was like a tank charging through a barricade of sharp wooden branches, not even a single needle managed to pierce his barrier.

“Impossible!” Demetrus had a face of half denial and half terror.

Cain had no regard whatsoever for Demetrus’ state. Riding the momentum of his rush, he tackled Demetrus with his shoulder.

“Aarrgghh!”

Cain’s charge was no ordinary one. Demetrus was hit with the force of a giant boulder rolling down a hill and was sent flying. The wooden wall of the beat-up shack was incapable of containing such force, so the man was thrown outside accompanied with a hundred broken wood splinters.

But Cain was not done.

After his shoulder made a satisfying contact, while Demetrus was getting thrown away, Cain grabbed Demetrus’ wrist with his left hand. A fierce glint flashed in Cain’s eyes and while Demetrus’ right hand was outstretched, Cain unleashed a savage downward slash.

Like a butcher’s cleaver cutting through bone, Cain split apart Demetrus’ arm near the elbow. As a parting gift, Cain kicked the man in the stomach, sending him out with even more force than before.

It all happened almost in the blink of an eye. After getting tackled, Demetrus rolled on the snow outside, creating trails of blood from his chest and the place where his arm used to be.

Most men would need some time to think, to make sense of what happened, of what they should do next. Demetrus, despite his spinning head and burning pain on his two major injuries, forced his battered body to move.

A wise decision, for Cain was not letting up his aggression. Now that he dealt major damage on Demetrus, Cain was no different than a predator aiming at its prey’s jugular, utterly merciless.

Cain followed Demetrus to the outside, jumping out from the newly created hole. His barrier of water was no longer active. Other than the first backstab, he had no other injury. Cain’s breathing was rough; he didn’t fight for long but it was intense, the wound had also taken its toll. He knew he couldn’t keep fighting for long and wanted to finish the fight as soon as possible.

He found the man down on a patch of snow not far from him, unarmed. Demetrus’ two daggers had fallen a while back, so Cain sprinted toward him with the intent of ending his life. He had no qualms about attacking a downed man or an unarmed one.

All the adrenaline from fighting made him have tunnel vision. In his intense desire to kill, unbeknownst to him, Cain had fallen into a state of bloodlust.

“Arggh,” Demetrus grunted. The bruises from the tackle made his muscles ache.

On the contrary to Cain, despite being on the back foot Demetrus remained cool-headed. Using his only good arm, the assassin took something from inside his clothes and threw the object to his enemy.

Because Cain was charging, the object seemed faster than it was. When he could see it, the object was already in front of his face.

It was a bead with swirling yellow lightning inside it.

Then it exploded with the force of a hand grenade.

Lightning erupted in the area, enveloping Cain in the elemental wrath. Demetrus was not too far from the scene of detonation so the blinding flash and rumbling thunderclap reached him almost at the same time. The blast threw him backward along with snow and wind.

For a moment, the world seemed silent.

Got him! Demetrus heaved a sigh of relief. He ate a Thunder Bead to the face, no Level 1 can survive that.

His ears were ringing unpleasantly. Demetrus rapidly blinked his eyes in an effort to quickly recover his eyes from the flash blind. It wasn't perfect but in a few seconds, his eyes recovered enough to see his enemy.

He could only see the silhouette of Cain inside a cloud of smoke and snow. The shadow was unmoving and deathly still at first.

Then it moved.

Demetrus saw the shadow take a step forward and the sight filled him with dread. It was common sense that a Level 1 water Pathseeker would be dead if struck with the Thunder Bead head-on, but Cain wasn’t dead. That meant Cain wasn’t ordinary… and it was very bad news for him.

I must get out of here! He’s too strange! Demetrus renewed his desire to flee. Earlier, he wanted to run because the fight was unfavorable to him. Now, because in all his life, the threat of death was never more real.

Throwing all else to the wind, Demetrus bolted toward the trees. His posture was unseemly because he prioritized speed above all else. The crisis alarm in his head was blaring non-stop.

Like a death knell, Demetrus heard a sound from behind him.

“The Grudge…”

Demetrus felt a chill that traveled through his spine from the hips all the way to the back of his neck. It was a different coldness from the frost all around him, something more primal. His limbs felt heavy as if they turned to lead. He was already short of breath since earlier but somehow it gradually became harder to breathe.

Demetrus felt a tug on his foot. He looked down and saw a hand. A wispy hand, as if made of smoke. It came out from the ground, a hand made entirely of bones.

“What the fu–”

His surprise was cut short. Tens of skeletal hands burst out from the ground and grabbed his body. They gripped his foot, trousers, belt, cloak, anything they could latch their hands on. The hands didn’t disturb the snow or dirt from the ground, as if they were only illusions.

But Demetrus felt the skeletal touch of the hands and convinced he was not imagining things.

“Aaaahhh!!”

The assassin panicked and strode forward, breaking the smoke-like skeleton hands. To his surprise it wasn’t hard, the hands were fragile. As if they were between the state of gas and solid. Demetrus’ relief was short-lived for the bizarre hands kept sprouting out all around him. He flailed his remaining arm to resist but every time he broke two hands, three more soon took their place.

The skeletal bindings obstructed him greatly and lowered his speed, as if he was stuck in a bog of mud.

While Demetrus was doing his best clearing the obstacles, he witnessed something that made his blood freeze. Materializing from thin air right in front of him, were three figures.

The first was a man with no skin. Blood vessels, muscles, organs, and beating heart could be seen from outside. His lizard-like eyes were blood red and he had shark-like teeth. He had the gaze of a ravenous man after a week without food.

The second was a black-haired woman with her entrails hanging out from her stomach. Her face was hidden by her long hair; one could feel her icy gaze from behind the veil. The wound was still oozing with black blood and her black nails were very long.

The third was a woman with a white blouse reaching her knees. Frighteningly, her head from the lower mouth upward was gone. One could see the tongue, lower jaw, and teeth. From her throat flowed a gush of red blood, dyeing the white blouse red.

Demetrus’ mind was stopped by extreme fear.

O holy mother of mercy… save my soul. Demetrus pleaded the Goddess for salvation.

It didn’t come.

The ghosts attacked with a ghastly wail. Like a deer assaulted by a pack of wolves, Demetrus was scratched and bit all over his body. The ghosts shrieked madly while unleashing their attacks. Biting and gnashing and scratching. They seemed feral and crazy, consumed with severe hate of the living.

The assault went on for ten seconds, then the wraiths went into his body like mist sinking into a lake. For a moment nothing was happening, then there was a pulse of severe pain and Demetrus felt as if every bone in his body had been broken.

Demetrus lay unmoving as a mangled person. His body had lacerations everywhere and he had lost the ability to move. The man was certain that he would soon be dead.

Like the god of death, Cain approached him. The sound of rustling snow as he made his steps were very menacing to Demetrus’ ears. With his remaining eye, he looked at his would-be killer.

Cain’s face was burned quite badly. It would leave quite a scar even after the wound healed.

It was because of my retaliation, the realization made Demetrus feel a little bit better.

The fact that the Thunder Bead should have killed Cain instead of only burning his face’s skin didn’t even cross Demetrus’ thoughts at this point.

Heh, Demetrus smirked. He wanted to say something snarky but what he saw gave him pause.

Little by little, the wound on Cain’s face mended.

That… isn’t because of an Arte! Demetrus realized.

“What… are you?” Demetrus rasped his question with difficulty.

Cain didn’t answer. He silently approached Demetrus step by step. The blue sword on his right hand was akin to the reaper’s scythe.

“Say something, you bastard!” Demetrus screamed full of indignation.

Wordlessly, Cain swung his sword. Separating Demetrus’ head from the rest of his body.

The head rolled once and stopped near Cain’s foot. Demetrus' eternally frozen expression was of extreme injustice and unwillingness.

Snowy winds under the night closed the curtain of the battle.

Only then Cain spoke.

“You should have gone for the head.”