It was a familiar thing, following a death line. His body moved perfectly, and Aren wondered if following the death line somehow increased his abilities, like Unity did. Even under the effects of Unity, Aren felt a change in the way he moved and attacked, the way he planned and challenged. It was not quite the same, but it was similar enough to draw a comparison to. If Aren had to put his finger down on it, he would say that, when following the death line, he used the abilities he had to their utmost potential.

Without the death line, [Flash] was difficult to use. He could not easily turn, or see his surroundings — in general, he could only move in straight lines. Had someone seen Aren’s [Flash] this time around, they would know that something interesting was going on.

He was a bolt of lightning heading down the streets, turning and changing directions while remaining perfectly in the middle of the street. Unerring and flexible, his path never diverged from the center. He was like a guided missile, a comparison that was closer to fact than fantasy. In the real world, possession of AGMI was equivalent to possessing nuclear weapons. Even development of AGMI was considered a crime of similar category. It was as outlawed as it could be. So yes, technically, Aren was a guided, nuclear missile.

Lightning discharged in his wake, and thunder rumbled through the streets loud enough to wake the dead from their eternal sleep. The buildings around him rumbled, roof tiles fell off, damaged furniture fell apart. For those whom he was coming for, his approach was like the inevitability of death and ruin. They would hear and see the effects of his approach just briefly before they would see Aren himself.

His body relaxed, and the change of momentum and the excess inertia carried him forward in a manner that felt as if he had jumped into a pool of water. He was slower, suddenly, and heavier. It was more difficult to move.

“Human!!” Aren heard the orc’s familiar voice, and he opened his eyes.

The first thing Aren saw was Cassandra’s head. It was detached from her body which lay several meters behind the orc. Not far from Cassandra’s remains were Fang’s remains. Fang was missing his lower right arm, just like the orc, and his body had several long gashes on it. The blow that did him in was the mangled flesh around his throat, from a chop that almost decapitated him.

“Aren…” Estella’s voice reached him. She seemed to be in terrible shape. Her white dress was stained with her blood, and there was a large hole in the chest area of her dress that had almost made her appear indecent. Although, Aren was less surprised by her exposing wardrobe, and more by the fact that the flesh underneath was pristine and unmarred — where she sported a giant hole, until recently, there was nothing now. Even if Cassandra were a High Priest, she would not be able to resurrect someone without a trace of the wound that killed them. It would require hours, if not days of effort — depending on the magnitude of the wound — to completely erase all signs of the fatal injury. And yet, Estella appeared as if she had never suffered a fatal blow.

However, the good news for Estella ended there. Her left wrist was slashed, and it hung uselessly against the pommel of her blade. Her balance was off, thanks to a gash that no doubt also cut her hamstring, on her left leg. Her armor was broken, both the shoulder plates and the plates lining her skirt, had deflected far too many blows, and Aren could see bruises and welts on her left arm, where she had completely lost her armor and sleeve.

All the other orcs were either dead or too injured to fight. The only one that remained was Rider, the orc that not only survived his battle against Aren, but nearly killed him in the process too. If anyone survived that battle, it was Aren.

But this time, it would be different. This time, Aren would not fall for the fatal negation.

Aren stepped forward, stomping with his foot as if he was a conqueror, almost as if emulating Leviathan. His confidence rolled off of him in waves. It was enough to make Rider tilt his head slightly. Even Estella seemed a bit dumbfounded.

Why wouldn’t they be? Fang was a multiple time champion of the Junior Arena and he was dead. Even Aren admitted to himself once that in a fight against Estella, he would stand no chance, and she was standing on the precipice of death.

So why would Aren exude such confidence? In terms of the group’s combat power, he was closer to Cassandra than Fang. He absolutely had no right to be so confident. And yet…

The orc threw Fang’s head at Aren, and the lightning blade side-stepped. In fact, he was changing directions moments before the orc even made a motion. The death line never made a mistake. It guided him perfectly. His body moved almost as if he was a marionette with agency; he was both the one holding the strings and being guided.

He turned his body sideways, showing his left side to the orc, while concealing his right arm behind his form. He was smaller than the orc by at least three heads. The height difference was completely unfair; add to that the fact that the orc had a large, one meter-long cleaver, and the reach difference made this battle not just impossible but pointless even as formalities go.

And yet, when the orc swung the cleaver, which appeared to glimmer like liquid silver in the moonlight, he could not reach Aren. It was as if he misjudged the distance each one of the three times that he utilized the weapon to slay the lightning blade. Perhaps it was because the orc was not used to using his left arm to wield the weapon.

Electricity crawled along Aren’s form, discharging into the ground and sometimes even into the orc’s weapon, though the latter was more difficult to see.

Then finally, it seemed like the orc would have the upper hand as his longer gait closed the distance to Aren, and he swung at the lightning blade.

It was with the lightest touch of Aren’s left palm that he diverted the orc’s blade, by striking the orc’s left wrist. This close, Aren could reach it, so he slowly, but surely, allowed the orc to get closer and closer; to provoke and frustrate the superior creature.

Aren was not stupid. He knew he stood no chance against the orc in a fair battle. Aren didn’t even have a weapon. What could he possibly do but sit there and accept his death?

First of all, he could reject death.

The cleaver passed over Aren’s head, close enough to almost give him a haircut. The gleaming, liquid-silver blade left a trail in its wake that was similar, if not identical to Aren’s [Fade], and he quickly withdrew his fingers before he lost them.

The orc seemed surprised. His sneer revealed two small, outward-pointing tusks. Fury burned in his eyes, tempered by panic. The orc’s misdirected overswing opened up his defenses, exposing his entire torso to the smaller Aren.

The moment Aren lowered his center of gravity, electricity flashed from the orc. Not even Estella could see Aren’s concealed right hand, but she could see the electrical flashes, and she could hear the high pitched hum.

Even though Aren knew that the orc would not die here — no, the orc’s demise would take place far beyond this place — he still swung his lightning shrouded hand at the orc as if this was going to be its final resting place.

Aren closed his eyes, just in time to avoid being blinded by the flash of light as the orc used his own version of [Flash] to avoid the [Lightning Cleaver]. There was nothing he could do about the sound, however. He was disoriented to the point of drunkenness. Even Estella, who was considerably farther away than Aren, clutched at her head helplessly, having dropped her longsword in the process.

When Aren opened his eyes again, he saw the orc standing considerably further away; at least ten meters separated them. Aren’s gambit to close the distance did not work, and it was unlikely that the orc would make the same mistake twice. Even though they were dumb creatures, when it came to fighting, their combat sense was exceptional. They might barely have the knowledge on how to bash two rocks together to produce a weapon, but when it came to fighting, they were pioneers and innovators.

Aren swung his left arm up, as if beckoning someone to stand up. Under the influence of [Magnetism], a dozen weapons floated off the ground and came to shroud Aren in a halo of steel and blades.

Aren pointed his finger at the orc, and channeled his energy into a [Lightning Driver] — a technique that was basically a fantasy railgun. A short sword burst with lightning energy, froze in mid-air, and then with a sonorous crash launched itself forward a moment later. The orc disappeared before the projectile could strike him, and he crashed through the wall of a nearby building.

The aftermath of Fang’s battle with the orcs was obvious. His plan was simple and effective. Draw the orcs in, deny access to the rooftops with Nissa’s covering fire, but intentionally become exposed to the windows and doorways. As a result, Cassandra had no doubt used her [Inferno] skill set to set the buildings on fire, and a large number of them now burned with purplish-red flames. In the end, Fang’s plan failed. More than half the buildings remained unignited — including the one the orc fled to.

As if answering his will, he heard Leviathan’s voice in his mind; this was exactly what Aren needed.

The arcane glow surrounding Aren burst into existence, and glittering dust cascaded off of it. Lightning sparked from it, as Aren wove together countless symbols for multiple instances of [Lightning Driver]. Even without his shadowblade, Aren could rely on Leviathan to help him with the sequences, and the AGMI did more than simply help.

[ You have unlocked a new Arcane Manipulation technique: Sequence Compression ]

The optimization that went into this large-scale sequence did not go unnoticed, even though Aren lacked the understanding to comprehend it. When Aren used his arcane abilities, he did so on instinct. But he recognized what looked like the technique he wanted, except that it was smaller and more compact.

As a result, more than half the weapons surrounding Aren burst with lightning, creating whips of electrical energy that carved into the ground and left behind molten slag. When they launched, it was with such overpowering sound that Aren was deaf to the point where he couldn’t even hear Estella’s frightened scream.

Each projectile carried enough kinetic energy to compare to being hit by a car, and they blasted into the building, reducing it to rubble in short order. The walls were blown open, and in the wake of the structural instability, they fell apart. The second story was the first to collapse on the floors below, and before long, the whole structure tipped forward and fell onto the street in a blissfully quiet manner thanks to Aren’s deafness.

Estella, for the lack of a better idea, threw herself on the ground, and covered her head, as debris from the collapsing building launched everywhere.

The orc tumbled into the street from the collapsed building, and although the barrage left him unharmed, the collapsing building did more than enough to bring the death line closer to its ultimate, unavoidable conclusion.

And perhaps the orc realized this too, because the fury in his eyes had disappeared; now there was only fear.

“Human!!!” the orc roared.

Aren could not hear him, but he knew what the orc had shouted.

Aren then reached for one of the floating implements of war — a saber — and began advancing on the orc. He neither moved quickly nor took his time. He approached at the speed certainty of death did. The way every breath of oxygen guided one towards inevitable demise, so did every step Aren took shut every door of possibility in the orc’s face.

Then, only two doors remained open. Run or die.

With an exhausted buffer, the orc attempted to [Flash] again. Slower this time, lightning gathered around the orc, and his body disappeared. At the same time, utilizing the last remaining capacity of his own buffer, Aren used his own [Flash] to give chase.

They clashed on the rooftops, some fifty meters away from where they were previously. Immediately after stepping out of the movement technique, Aren swung his lightning shrouded sword at the similarly emerging orc. The orc parried the blow, but the shockwave of the imparted force rattled the orc to his bones. His sparse metal armor clattered as neighboring metal plates bumped into each other. The orc stumbled, swinging wildly more in an attempt to keep Aren away than to strike him.

Lightning once more gathered around the orc’s feet, slowly climbing up the trunk of his body.

The death line trembled. The thread shook violently, as if threatening to snap. Aren realized immediately what it meant. Perhaps the orc’s fate wasn’t as certain now as it was earlier. Maybe a third door existed for the orc.

No!

Aren stepped forward, recklessly placing his right arm into the path of the orc’s wild swing, and the blade embedded itself into Aren’s bones. Aren’s sword clattered onto the rooftop, and then slid down the tiles and fell on the streets below.

[ Injury sustained. Severity: Serious. Right arm unusable. ]

Terror overcame the orc. Seeing Aren nearly get his arm chopped off without so much as even batting an eyelid was possibly the most terrifying thing the orc had ever seen. As far as Aren was concerned, something like this could not even compare to a single moment of the pain he felt in the real world.

His left hand plunged into the orc’s torso, plowing through a lung and nearly cleaving the orc’s spine in twain. His lightning-shrouded hand emerged from the orc’s back, as the metal breastplate melted around Aren’s hand, burning him in the process.

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Critical.]

[Injury sustained. Severity: Moderate.]

The orc managed to free himself from the impalement — which Aren found to be rather disturbing and disgusting — by freeing his cleaver first, and swinging at Aren’s arm. Aren had no choice in the matter and had to free his remaining usable limb. Then, Aren reached into his halo of blades, and withdrew another weapon — a longsword this time — swinging it at the orc just as the creature used its movement technique. Aren felt an impact even as the orc disappeared into a mirage of light and sound bursts, and then a mist of blood exploded into the air. A moment later, the orc splattered against a stone building, leaving behind a splash of blood that could only be called modern art, as he dropped onto the streets below, broken and shattered.

Certainly, the orc did not intend to aim for the building made of stone, but Aren’s slash had caught the orc just before he disappeared, and caused him to miss his intended direction.

In the end, it was a minor severity injury that put the final nail into the orc’s coffin. A glancing blow from a weapon that Aren wasn’t even used to. In fact, during the swing, Aren nearly missed his footing and slipped off the roof himself.

Aren slowly walked towards the edge of the roof, and gracefully hopped down to the second floor balcony, and from there, onto the street below. His legs were numb from absorbing that much shock, but that was the least of his problems.

Adding and his legs were in pain to the long list of his injuries almost seemed like a joke.

Slowly, he approached the orc. The orc’s breaths were shallow. The orc was covered in blood from head to toe. His limbs were twisted unnaturally and it was a small miracle that his head was mostly unharmed.

“Human…” the orc spoke softly, and Aren could just barely hear him. “Thank… you…”

Aren pointed the tip of the longsword towards the orc’s throat and stabbed it through the orc’s neck.

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal.]

Berserk, Aren stabbed the corpse again, and then again, and then once more. Finally, letting go of his weapon, he reared his head back and roared as hard as he could, and the deserted town echoed with his fury.

[ You are a [Fate Devourer] Calamity. ]

[ You are a creature that devours the unbound fates of other creatures, preferably the calamitous destinies of other Calamities. For each thread you snap, yours is enhanced. You are an Apocalyptic-class Calamity, and if left untouched, you have the potential to initiate world-ending events. You passively generate events around you that have the potential to alter the world, creating new Local Threats, and Calamities, though they can not initially be ranked higher than you. ]

[ Your Calamity Rank has increased to I. ]

[ Forsaken Luna reveals her blessing to you: May fate be kind to those who walk in Her Favor, and may death be merciful. So long as the bearer of this blessing, and any Calamity in their group, remains in Forsaken Luna's favor, they may revive in Her temples. Furthermore, any obvious effects related to the nature of their status shall be concealed in Sanctuaries. However, should the bearer of this blessing fall out of Forsaken Luna's favor, their status and location, and those of their companions, shall be announced to the entire world. ]