The thin lines of SP snap, cutting through flesh and bone in an instant. Ronin's grip around the massive man's ankle didn't need to fully wrap around the massive leg to deal significant damage, severing arteries and muscle all the way to nearly halfway through his leg. His grip vanishes along with the cut flesh, pulling away and stripping the finely cut pieces as the bandit falls onto the ground.

Compared to the deadleg before, this time he screams. Ronin doesn't fault any man that would, though, in the face of practically losing their foot. No healers associate with bandits and the few who get sent here certainly aren't going to be kept by bandits. No one can save his foot out here; even if Ronin loses, the exiled tribesman will never walk again without a prosthetic like a peg leg or a heavily damaged body. Ronin drops the meaty section still in his hold, feeling exhaustion even as his adrenaline pushes him to crawl after the man. The camp's gore isn't even a comparison to such fine cuts; all his sword kills were pristine but ultimately made with a less-than-ideal blade.

Right now, Ronin's wire isn't gone. And his opponent is still breathing.

He grabs the man's ankle again, completely severing the foot and making him scream louder. Ronin's injured arm is hard to move but in this situation he doesn't need to move fast; all he needs to do is keep moving while fear and pain keep his opponent crippled. Without his sword, his sword arm's iron-tight grip squeezes the bastard's belt and drags Ronin onto his flailing corpse.

"Shut up," he whispers, his voice failing him from the pain-exhaustion cocktail dulling his senses.

The big bastard's fearful gaze finds him and the tears of agony give way to a sinister, vengeful snarl.

"SHUT UP!? FUCK YOU!"

One of his big fists strikes Ronin in the left side of his face, immediately making Ronin's left eye go dark. The strike immediately causes swelling, yet the smell of blood merely cascades into the scent of death all around them. The man's new stump even kicks against Ronin out of instinct, catching in one of the stab holes in the sack and simultaneously sends the bandit into another shaking breakdown of pain.

The Londer's breath is shallow but his grip on the belt pulls harder, pulling himself up to the man's crotch and lower stomach. Ronin isn't thinking of how it looks or how suggestive it might be, instead focusing purely on the bastard's face.

That wolfman will owe me.

Ronin's injured arm grabs at the man's hip, cutting through his breastplate's waist strapping and deep into his side. Even if he has only one eye working, his body is telling him one thing: keep going. The pullback of his hand this time even has a fine mix of guts in the meat.

[Notification]

Body reaching point of permanent damage.

Performing CON check: Passed.

The system's window blurs and glitches out of Ronin's vision. He can't even read most of it besides permanent damage.

Fatal wound. Permanent. Keep going.

The man's struggling is growing more desperate but weaker, flailing in a way that beats and bludgeons the smaller stagnante.

"No," his voice bubbles, blood in his mouth as he grabs Ronin's hair and tries to push him away. "No! I'm not like you stagnante!"

Keep going.

Ronin's hand reaches up and grabs the man's wrist, snapping the wire taught through it. His dwindling SP makes the cut jagged and unstable as the wire dulls, yet that elicits an almost pleasant collapse of the big bandit. The stagnante reaches up and grabs the man's breastplate, ignoring the hand death-gripping his hair, and pulls it aside.

Keep going.

He drags himself further up the man's body using his armor straps and the collar of his jacket. The bandit grits his teeth through tears as a look settles into his eyes not too different from Ronin's own red gaze.

Both of their eyes stare back in hatred and with a single motive: kill.

A surge of pain snaps at Ronin from behind. A glance back in his good eye spots the man running a dagger into his previously injured side, cleanly sinking into the wound that he'd only partially healed from the beach. Ronin's HP sinks lower when he twists the weapon deeper. The swordsman grits his teeth and faces the bandit, smacking him with the wire-bound hand. A slap's shape normally might cut and pass through the face but his own SP flutters in for a guard, stopping Ronin's palm against his face so the wires leave cuts.

"Fucking... kill me?" The man's question is mocking, pulling the dagger out when he breathes between the words. Ronin draws his hand back and the blade sticks him again. "A fucking nobody... from the outside... like you?"

Ronin's swelling eye is completely shut and won't open anymore. The exhaustion in him is too big to fight off, feeling more and more sluggish with every passing moment. Everything is cold and heavy, even the very air in his lungs feeling like they'd keep him pinned to the man's chest. Only his brother's voice in his mind snaps him from the call of sleep and death.

Keep going, Ronin.

His sight blurs and the bandit's ugly mug morphs, shifting to that of a blood-faced and grinning Sunai.

"That's it. Just like that. You wanted the bloodline, didn't you?"

His red eyes flood with hate at seeing that bastard's ghost, yet it still beckons tears seeing his brother. Ronin feels his wire finally give out with another stab, the bandit finally throwing him off him and onto the hard ground of the camp. Even with only one foot and one hand, the leader of the camp's strength lets him sit upright. Weight knocks the air out of Ronin as he shifts to straddle the man, bringing his good hand down into a hammerfist that bludgeons the energy back into Ronin.

But still Sunai's grinning blood-covered face stares back at him.

"You killed me," he drones, hitting Ronin hard enough that his hands go limp and fall to his sides. "This is it!? This is what you wanted to use our legacy for!? To die nameless!? You should've been the one dead, Ronin!"

Another punch knocks the hearing out of Ronin, deafening the crackle of the fire and the strikes on his face but making it easier to hear his own weakening heartbeat.

Keep going.

Ronin can't feel anything else except each hit striking him. The vision he has left sinks into darkness and the face of his brother starts to shift back to the bandit lord's. All the tricks in the Land of Stagnation couldn't be as deadly as the guilt trying to lull him into giving up. Sunai's yelling isn't real, after all. Sunai died over a year ago in a duel between the brothers, ended by Ronin cutting him down. Each punch that hits him stirs those buried memories back out, reminding him of just how it felt to take his first life.

It reminds him of exactly how it felt to be forced to kill someone.

Ronin's voice betrays him but his remaining SP is enough to still attack. In his current condition, there's no more chances if he fucks up. His opponent will surely die but Ronin's body can use magic when he sleeps to self-cast Body of Gaia. Passing out while under attack will spell his death but if he kills him then it'll allow him to survive despite how badly damaged he is right now.

Sunai... maybe this time... I'll join you.

Another blow hits Ronin and activates the very last specks of energy and adrenaline left in him; the Londer Butcher spits blood at the bandit, making him close his eyes and buying the smallest window to counter. Beaten, bruised, and swollen in a way that is horrifying, Ronin shouldn't be alive.

Yet he is. And his healthier eye opens, its crimson glare falling on the bandit. His sword hand weakly tilts, facing its grip toward his back.

Sunai's Sword.

Raw skill power explodes from his grip, skewering through the man's back and out the side of his torso. He spews more blood from his mouth in confusion and tries to turn, the blade dissipating from its tip back to Ronin's hand. Of all the skills Ronin had, the one he didn't want to use the most was created by his dead brother precisely for this moment. In battle, anything can happen... but those with the most skills are often the ones victorious. Sunai's Sword isn't like any of his other skills, however, as the necessary SP to use it is so immense that without a high bonding level it has a guaranteed outcome.

The bandit slumps off him, letting Ronin look up at the sky as a single notification window blinks into view.

[Notification]

User Ronin currently lacks Bonding Level 1.

Initiating blowback now.

Ronin's eye rolls back in his head and his body spasms, rising off the ground and slowly into the air. The mana follicles over his body lance out in pain, spikes of sickly black magic boiling out of his veins. It's a pain that can't be described any better in his condition, burning him from the inside-out with Necromancy elemental mana. Mana that doesn't belong in your body isn't meant to go inside you, yet the lack of the Death element makes it akin to summoning poison into his body.

For the second time since coming to the Land of Stagnation, Ronin loses consciousness... but this time, he isn't sure if he'll wake up again. The mana sustaining his flight ceases moments after his eyes close, letting the man slam back against the cold dirt in a pool of his and the bandit's blood.

The only sound in the camp is the gentle cracking of the fire.

A grunt comes from one of the nearby tents and isn't followed up with more whimpers and grunts until a minute later. Ronin's condition makes it impossible to hear, leaving it unanswered.

It's not long after that the wolfman returns... this time, however, his fur is marked with countless wounds that are cauterized closed. The crossbow he carries slings from his hip alongside the ears of the three who were able to give chase. As the only one alive in the camp besides the one whimpering and grunting, the beast ignores most of the corpses just long enough to approach and stomp the leader's neck for good measure.

Only after the end does his attention fall on Ronin. The wounded furball takes a long moment of thought before he ultimately leans down, grabbing the hand in the man's hair. The wolf retrieves a knife from his belt, cutting through the deathlocked fingers and hair to free it. The hand gets tossed over his shoulder and he grabs what remains of Ronin's hair, dragging him through the battleground to the nearby tent.

Ronin flinches in the middle of a tent before his unswollen eye opens, taking a deep and rapid sequence of breaths. His entire body refuses to respond, his eye darting around in panic before he sees the wolfman seated nearby with his knife and a few wooden sticks.

"Relax, human. We win."

The words are short but effective; Ronin in his current state feels his panic seize, quelling it as the exhaustion snuffs the energy from him. The canvas blanket over his body is something he can see but he can't feel. The memories of his brother are still fresh in his mind, one of them painfully more relevant now than ever. Ronin tries to muster his voice but fails many times, groaning and murmuring unintelligibly alongside the crackle of the fire outside the all-but-empty tent.

"I... died... didn't I?"

The words are hardly audible but the wolf's ears twitch and his gaze shifts back to the sticks. He shaves more of the wood away.

"Yes."

Ronin's eye closes, feeling his stomach uncomfortably turn. Ever since that day he wasn't quite sure how but he knew that Sunai did something. The swordsman's eyes had always been red but with his prior death, they grew darker and more blood-like than before. Now, he imagined that his eyes would probably be no different than a pool of crimson liquid.

Ronin opens his eye again, this time focusing the blurry images of his status into view. All his wounds filled out three pages of debuffs but none more painful to see than the one at the very bottom.

[Status] - Current Debuffs Necromantic-Gaian Revival Curse

"You... knew?"

The wolfman doesn't reply with words but sets his knife into the wood and nods. Ronin's eye opens again, trying to look beyond the tent ceiling at the stars above.

"And?"

A slip of his knife shaves at the wood, starting the point of a new bolt. "You... different. Danger... feel. Everything."

Ronin tries to laugh but instead merely shakes. His eye turns toward the wolf.

"Your friend... alive or-"

"Alive," the wolf interrupts. Ronin's eye watches him, including when the monstrous being turns that snarl toward him. "But need... fix. You fix."

In his current condition, there was no way for Ronin to help... but with his current MP regeneration and the Body of Gaia working in coordination, that'd eventually change. The ex-noble closes his eye again, merely breathing in-place of sighing.

"I need... two days, then. I won't be able to move... until then."

As if he heard what he needs, the canid savior nods and gets up. He walks out and leaves Ronin alone in the tent, all by himself as sleep beckons to him again. Consciousness even this long is a miracle given his current condition. A pair of energy-related debuffs flicker into his view as Ronin closes the menus and lets his mind drift back toward sleep.

Yet even now the only thing he can see is that same face he saw on the bandit: Sunai's grin and taunting face as he choked Ronin to death two years ago. The year that he cursed Ronin and doomed him to this path, ultimately culminating in the duel between the brothers that took Sunai's life. Even now after his death, Sunai still isn't ready to let him move on. Not until Ronin completes the final task Sunai gave him before the guards found them and branded him a traitor.

The final request of House Londer: restore their ancient bloodline.