-Vol 5: A New Life-

-Battle of Intents(1)-

Having now reservations pulling him down, Kenshin exploded with power. Although no change occurred on the outside, a formless aura did come out of him surrounded completely. It couldn’t be seen to the naked eye, but be felt by sensitive ones. The man felt it, and his smile widened as a result. He was now sure that his opponent not just strong physically but also on other aspects too, it made his blood tingle and fighting spirit exploding forth.

His WIL that formed an Intent came out of his body, painting the lonely tunnel in red light. When Kenshin felt the intent, he nearly vomited. Its filled with slaughter and bloodshed, so much so that even him with his extraordinary willpower was unable to block those side effects just now. The effect was bad to the point that he nearly saw an illusion of a thousand bloody hands coming from a bloody pool below his feet and proceeded to strangle him.

After feeling this illusion of bloody murder, it made Kenshin wonder how many people this man had killed to get an Intent like that! It could be noted that forming an Intent wasn’t an easy matter and neither could it be done by just anyone. To form an Intent, one’s desire must be aligned to that direction on which his intent was forming and should be strong enough to the point that it could somewhat manifest in the real world.

Kenshin’s love and his desire to protect his last remaining blood relation were very strong. With his knowledge and familiarity with swords and shields, which were the symbolic notation of protection, he formed his Intent in just one try. He also had a little help from his system. But this man’s Intent looks like he wanted to just kill every living organism in front of him, to achieve such an Intent, not only a strong desire to kill, but also a huge experience in the art of killing was needed. That too not just killing only monsters, but also other beings.

At this time Kenshin was sure of one thing, he was dealing with a lunatic killer who probably belongs to that special group of humans who eat their own species and kill for fun.

The dreaded Devil’s Kitchen Guild members.

The name may sound funky or bland, but it's as straightforward as it can be. Killing, assassinations, massacre, feeding on humans, they do all these kind of things. They were a bunch of people who lost all their reasoning and enjoyed killing so much that they became addicted to it. Sometime before, when they were being wanted by many powerful organizations including the DCB, they had to hide in a forest. It was from there they developed their habit of cannibalism. With many people searching them outside, they had no other way but to consume each other to remain alive.

While it was done out of desperation, the later generation kept this habit and even started to consume humans for fun. Some even developed some kind of perverted fetish to this kind of things. A few years later when the matter outside cooled down enough, they came out of their hiding and continued their habit by opening a guild and named it Devil’s Kitchen.

Now the problem was not them, but the people who secretly support them so that they could do their dirty work. It was because of those people that these kind people still existed or else they would have long been extinguished. Its, as they say, a coin always has two sides. If there were no evil, how can good exist?

Finally, the red light received into the man’s body. Then two bone spurs came out of his elbows. These spurs had a red hue to them, it was pretty evident that this man was very advanced in using one’s intent in battle. This kind of masterful use, even Kenshin could barely do. Seeing his opponent like this, Kenshin knew he could no longer take it lightly. With a flash, his body was enveloped in a smooth light silver light, the Blood Armour transformed into a skin fitting suit under his clothes, covering all his vitals.

He then removed his jacket and the sneakers, throwing them to his side. His open feet could be seen covered in a smoothly textured shock, it was the Blood Armour. Even his hands were covered by it up to his wrists. Kenshin also had a passive skill called Unarmed Combat expertise, with his newly acquired vibration skills, it would compliment each other quite good.

But he didn’t use his Intent. He didn’t want to reveal all his cards right off the bat.

“Here I come!” the man shouted loudly before speeding towards Kenshin with his hands raised high. His martial arts move was very weird, no matter how he moves, the bone spurs would always face towards Kenshin’s face or other vital organs. Kenshin knew his Blood Armour has a very high DEF so one or two strikes won't break it. But repeated strikes were fatal. Especially if it was done to one spot.

Kenshin immediately covered his hands in vibration energy and proceeded to block the erratic and random strikes of his opponent. Even while not using the skill itself, when a skill reaches a high enough level, a user could freely harness the property of the skill without much magic consumption. Like how Kenshin was doing now, he didn’t use the skill but only the vibration property of it to cover his hands and counter the upcoming strikes from his opponent. It was due to this reason a magic skill user was very versatile in their battle, they can be a long range as well as melee fighter according to their capability and magic mastery.

The vibrating energy formed a thin film of vibrating molecules a few centimetres above Kenshin’s hands. When the bone spur arrived, the vibrating molecules blocked it and helped Kenshin to offset all the penetrating energy in it, making it powerless. With his advanced martial skills, he swiped his opponent's hands and countered with a punch of his own.

But somehow his opponent had become agile like a snake, he avoided his punch as if he was expecting it and jumped back. Kenshin was on hot pursuit, he closed the distance and threw a kick to his face. But by bending an impossible angle, he avoided his kick. Kenshin was also no amateur, he somehow stopped his trajectory midway, pulled his leg back before continuing with a frontal kick. Seeing this, the man made a backflip to avoid it, but Kenshin gave him no time to relax, he continued to attack the back flipping man.

Suddenly the man stopped backflipping and using his hand as a pivot, he sent a rotating kick towards Kenshin’s head.

Seeing the approaching kick, Kenshin used his left hand to block it. But then suddenly a bone spur came out of his boots and headed towards Kenshin’s eyes. It was fast, very fast…but Kenshin wasn’t also slow. He abandoned grabbing into the leg and jumped back to avoid the spur.

“What, surprised? Haha! My whole body is a weapon. I can make these bone spurs appear from almost every part of my body.” the man gleefully said before jumping back to stand in a defensive position. During his last, he found that this person was strong, very much so. He couldn’t just defeat him with physical force alone.

He had to go all out. As the man thought of this, the red light that had receded into his body exploded forth again, this time the intensity was twice as before.