Ability Wielders - Chapter 166 Hayden vs Daniel

They were all wearing regular clothes that made them look unassuming. The one on the rightmost of the group was a woman with pink hair, her beautiful features covered by sunglasses and a facemask.

The one next to her was Liang. The one in the middle was a tomboyish woman with colorful short hair on the violet spectrum. Her beautiful blue eyes were the sole feature that was exposed as she was wearing a black beret.

The one adjacent to her left was a tall woman with bulky muscles. She looked like a bodybuilder. Her hair was long and she was blonde. Her face cannot be seen though as it was similarly covered by a facemask and sunglasses.

The man to the leftmost part of the group was a short man that has a Japanese-style pompadour. It was rather conspicuous, people giving him glances especially with the mask on.

“I told you to remove that stupid pompadour whenever we fly. This is how we are always compromised.” The beret-wearing woman adjacent to him quietly reprimanded.

“As I told you! If you’re unhappy with my beautiful hairstyle, stop traveling with me!” Pompadour didn’t give her a single glance. “You can always travel a day late or early!”

“Huh?” The beret-wearing woman looked at him with disgust. “Why are we the ones that should adjust to your stupid hairstyle?”

“It’s not stupid!” Pompadour’s eyes contained rage and annoyance. “Why are you so against my glorious pompadour, you fucking slut?

“I’m the slut? You’re the one sleeping around with all those men!” The beret-wearing woman shouted, incurring the curious eyes of everybody on the airport.

Liang, the muscular woman, and the pink-haired woman all ignored them, increasing their pace. These two always cause a scene at the airport. One way or another. It was hard splitting them up once they get going.

They pretended as if they didn’t know the two.

“Hey, so where are we going?” The muscular woman queried. “And why did we have to learn Filipino within two days? That was exhausting.”

“We are tasked to assassinate two people. Hayden and Daniel.” The pink-haired woman stated nonchalantly. “To accomplish that, we will help bolster the ranks of an organization called Kamay ng Lagim, the main enemy of the Puting Araw.”

“What about Pangkat Anino? They scout talents. What if they scouted Hayden?” Liang questioned. He naturally knew of Pangkat Anino as he is a Filipino before he was recruited by the Dark Union. In fact, his previous identity was part of Puting Araw.

“I heard that the previous leader of Kamay ng Lagim died in the hands of the leader of Puting Araw. A Level 4 dual wielder.” Liang said.

“I guess we should take care of that woman as well.” The muscular woman seemed to be rearing to go on a rampage. “I’ll kill her with my Ability.”

“No, we can’t.” The pink-haired woman glared at the muscular woman. “Remember that we are here to subdue the two potential threats. You know The Missus, she hates people who breaks a leg and does more than what they’re asked for. She views it as showing off and needless. We can be executed.”

“I don’t get her.” Liang muttered. “Why does she not want people to perform objectives outside of her own orders? Is it about discipline?”

“Perhaps.” The pink-haired woman spoke. “Anyhow, we’ve been given enough manpower to face all manner of situation. The Philippines’ world of wielders is underdeveloped and is equivalent to a poor country. All we have to do is assist the Kamay ng Lagim to kill those two. I’ve been informed that Hayden has been hunted down personally by the leader, a Level 4 wielder with the power of manipulating space. Under unknown circumstances, the leader’s skirmish failed.”

“It seems that he’s incompetent.” The muscular woman commented. “He can’t kill a mere Level 2 wielder with the power to manipulate space?”

“What can we do? It’s a backward country.” Liang shrugged. “Anyhow, we’ll complete this as fast as possible, right?”

“Needless to say.” The pink-haired woman expressionlessly agreed. “This is but a small obstacle for The Missus. If we can’t even kill a puny Level 2 wielder, then our organization is doomed.”

…..

Back to the present.

Hayden of course limited his physique to about 70% of his true peak Level 2 physique. He then shifted to his original fighting stance. His right fist was slightly open, forming a partial fist, positioned on the level of his chin. His left hand was likewise halfway open into a fist, oriented parallel to his waist akin to the hitman style of boxing.

His left foot was on the front, and his right foot was in the back, angled to the right. His knees were bent slightly and was tensed up to prepare moving at any direction. He observed Daniel’s eyes without looking directly at it to avoid being blinded by the maroon color.

Sure, he can ‘see’ without his eyes. Nonetheless, he has stated before that Hayden disliked his sense of vision being robbed from him.

Hayden then discovered that Daniel’s eyes shifted to silver. Hayden took advantage of the situation and moved towards Daniel in a zigzag fashion.

Hayden moved to avoid Daniel’s line of sight, moving just right to not give Daniel time to focus on Hayden. That is the one weakness of the silver eyes. If Daniel can’t focus on his target, then the restraining effect won’t activate.

Daniel expected this and he reacted fast to solve the situation. He did so by switching to teleportation, glancing behind him, and teleporting. In an instant, he changed his eyes to water and heat, firing a concentrated jet of boiling water at Hayden.

Hayden twisted to the side and swiftly tumbled to the side, eluding the redirected the concentrated jet of water. Daniel ceased his attack, an organic armor swallowing him whole. ‘Organic armor, huh?’

Hayden continued advancing, conjuring up an essence energy zweihander with blunt edges. Discreetly, Hayden infused it with life force, reinforcing it. Hayden swung the zweihander at the armored Daniel.

All Daniel could do was block with both of his arms. Thankfully, his organic armor blocked most of the damage, though as the edge of the sword was blunt, he did receive some damage. ‘Shit, he’s using essence energy shaping, huh?’

From all of his battles, nobody has ever utilized essence energy materialization. Hayden was the sole one. As such, Daniel shifted to flight and flew. Daniel was aware of Hayden’s Divine Perception’s Heavenly Sense, thus, he didn’t even think of utilizing his invisibility. Flying would give him more time to think than invisibility.

‘No matter what I do, he’ll counter it.’ Daniel thought, flying high as he watched Hayden watching him. ‘I guess my only option here is barrage him with ranged attacks.’

Converting his left eye to red, and his right eye to gray, he hovered by maintaining fiery thrusters on his foot. Daniel then threw spheres of heated air at Hayden.

Hayden skillfully dodged the supposedly imperceptible heated air balls. It was rather easy for him to sense the movement of the air with his sense of touch. Hayden dissipated the sword and when he dodged ten times, Hayden did an unbelievable thing for all the wielders in the arena.

It was that Hayden jumped extremely high, shaped a small essence energy platform under his feet, and hopped to the side, evading another sphere in the process. The platform fell down when Hayden leapt off of it.

You see, all essence energy solidified objects has a mass. Each one cubic centimeter of a solidified object is one decigram (0.1 grams). This is fixed, though one can always increase it by making the essence energy object shaped denser.

On top of this, the shaped essence energy wouldn’t stick to the air alike those seen in anime when the energy object is shaped. In truth, nobody knows that essence energy shaping can be used in this manner, including the Walong Sinag ng Araw and branch directors.

So, how did Hayden do it? He did this by shaping the essence energy into a small platform and then jumping on it while it is being shaped. There was a fixed rate of solidification for essence energy, and that was one centimeter per millisecond to all directions from the point of materialization. While essence energy is being shaped, it is indeed affixed to the air. Based from the reactions of the people, it seems that Hayden was the sole person that knew of this fact.

Hayden continuously did this in seemingly random directions. Jumping to the right. To the left. And to the left again. However, it did have one trend, which was that it was angled to inch closer and closer to Daniel.

“Damn.” Daniel whistled. They have never fought as Level 2 wielders, so Daniel couldn’t believe that Hayden’s combat strength has matured this much regardless of him not initializing his second Ability. “How powerful exactly are you?”

“Talking while fighting is pretty anime-like. Stop that. In a battle, there’s no room for talking.” Hayden didn’t entertain Daniel, conjuring up a dense shield of essence energy in front of him and bounding straight towards Daniel.

The shield withstood two attacks and bashed Daniel in the face. Whilst that was happening, Hayden let go of the shield, rotated his body, dissolved the shield, and kicked Daniel in the chest.

Daniel flew backwards, coughing from the force that Hayden’s kick inflicted on him. He crashed on the ground. Opening his eyes, he saw Hayden’s fist going towards his face. Daniel’s reaction was to look at the side and teleport himself. Without delaying, Daniel transformed the color of his irises to purple, healing himself.

Hayden wouldn’t allow him to do all these easily, charging at him. Sometimes, offense is the best defense. By not allowing your opponent a moment of rest and not letting them catch their breath, you can burden them with an extreme mental strain, thereby lowering their combat capability.

Needless to say, there were a few exemptions to this, such as battle-hardened experienced people, people who gained confidence from training madly, and people with Abilities like Hayden’s Divine Perception. In the case of Hayden, with his Empyrean Power’s increased talent on everything and Divine Perception’s mental power, Hayden was both an experienced person and someone with an Ability like Hayden.

Daniel wasn’t that someone, having a mere six months of experience in the battlefield. He may have killed a person, but he has killed only one person. He didn’t have much heart when it comes to fighting. That’s the problem of Daniel. Furthermore…

‘He’s panicking. He regards me way too high to be able to think of a quick solution in his fiasco.’ Daniel has suffered countless defeats in Hayden’s hand. It was without a doubt that Daniel had an inferiority complex against Hayden. ‘Well, even if you were an exemption, I won’t allow you to beat me that easily.’

Hayden punched Daniel’s abdomen. It looked as if Hayden inputted all of his strength into this one punch. Seeing this, Daniel instinctively used his fire and was going to blast it at Hayden when Hayden stopped and did a front flip.

Hayden threw a flipping axe kick at Daniel’s head. Witnessing this, Daniel quickly shifted his right eye to brown and raised the ground to block Hayden’s attack. Daniel retreated. The ground shattered at the force of Hayden’s kick.

‘Nice defense. You improved.’ Hayden landed and stared straight at Daniel. ‘But it’s not good enough.’

Hayden rushed at Daniel, stretching his arm and conjuring a shield. Daniel shot fireballs at Hayden whilst healing himself. By the time Hayden arrived, he has healed himself completely, swapping to a light blue eye and amber.

Hayden was going to punch but changed his mind, tumbling to his right side to dodge the hand of Daniel. Hayden didn’t know if Daniel can freeze him with his frostbite whilst in that armor. He didn’t want to risk it.

Daniel followed up with his left hand, though Hayden was able to push himself upwards whilst tumbling. Mid-air, Hayden materialized essence energy to flip backwards.

‘It’s my time to win, Hayden.’ Daniel locked on Hayden and switched to silver. He thought that he can restrain Hayden, yet, he ‘felt’ the shackles shattering with a single movement from Hayden. ‘What? How strong is he?’

Daniel has never measured his own physical strength against Hayden even when they were Level 1. Sure, he knew that Hayden was physically, monstrously strong, exercising vehemently and all that, but he couldn’t believe how brawny Hayden truly was.

‘Is this the effect of exercising as a Level 1 wielder?’ Daniel teleported away and jumped backwards. ‘How can I beat him?’

Daniel had an idea. He converted his left eye to yellow, his right eye remaining indigo-colored. He mustered one ampere of electricity at 1,000,000 volts all around his body. This was not lethal at all to wielders and is analogous to a stun gun for a Level 2 wielder.

Subsequently, Daniel charged at Hayden, shooting arcs of electricity here and there. Hayden dodged these arcs of electricity with ease by endlessly vaulting around. In time, Hayden was backed in a corner.

Hayden stared at Daniel’s eyes. Daniel’s eyes conveyed his thoughts. ‘You won’t beat me this time around, Hayden.’

‘Unfortunately, this is what I’m aiming for.’ Hayden’s impassive expression unsettled Daniel. Abruptly, a sphere of essence energy engulfed Hayden, stopping Daniel from touching or attacking him.

Daniel touched the sphere, freezing it. Once the frostbite spread enough, Daniel punched it to shatter it. What was waiting for him was Hayden, winding up for a haymaker, whose hands was clad in an essence energy gauntlet. Hayden’s arm disappeared in Daniel’s sight. An extreme force hit the left side of Daniel’s face.

Despite his hulking constitution in his armor, he was thrown to the direction of the punch. If Daniel wasn’t in an armor, he definitely would’ve had his head snapped by the punch.

Of course, Hayden wasn’t done, following it up with an axe kick at the abdomen. Unexpectedly, Daniel twisted his body mid-air, and teleported some ways away from Hayden.

‘I got carried away.’ Daniel wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. ‘Backed in a corner and turning a defense into an offensive opportunity. What kind of monstrous combat is this?’

“That guy is mopping the floor with Daniel.” Juan laughed. “This is something that can be done exclusively if his opponent isn’t a transformation-type wielder.”

“That’s why he didn’t respond to Gerald’s provocation, huh?” Ace, Itim na Kabalyero (Black Knight), snorted. “He’s smart.”

“Yes, his combat style is rather graceful, yet rough at the same time.” Rose bobbed her head. “It’s a pity his Ability is a mental-enhancement and sensory-enhancement.”

“I want to see how he will fare against a transformation-type.” Bryant mumbled. “I wonder if he can beat a transformation-type wielder with his kind of Ability… If he did, then it will be an overhaul of the world of wielders as we know it. He may be the precursor of an era where Blue Agents can fight toe to toe against a Red Agent.”

Listening to Bryant’s words, everybody’s appetites were whetted. They were all now curious if Hayden could indeed beat a transformation-type wielder of the same Level with his Ability.

“Is that guy really a mental-enhancement and sensory-enhancement?” Noah was surprised of how good Hayden was coping even with the high firepower attacks of Daniel. “He’s winning.”

“He’s that good.” Scarlet hated to admit. “He was able to evade every single one of my previously 36 blades at full velocity. It’s practically impossible to do this.

Daniel healed himself again. Hayden was getting irked by that. Still, he couldn’t complain as Daniel’s strategy was the best one there was. Hayden didn’t give him a chance to fully recover, bolting at Daniel.

All Daniel could do in this situation was run. He couldn’t think up of a way to beat Hayden. Electricity? All essence energy shaped objects are inherently insulators. Fire? Water? Air? Hayden can dodge most of these. As for an omnidirectional air attack, it’d be less powerful, and with Hayden’s physique, he can definitely withstand it. Most of his ice and frost attacks are ranged. There’s no nature here. Darkness and light? What can that do? It’s not like his darkness and light manipulation was similar to those in anime that can solidify and touch enemies.

Teleportation was an escape tool. He couldn’t even follow his movements, and Hayden will not voluntarily look at his eyes, so blinding him was not an option. Besides, even if Hayden was blinded, he has a sensory-enhancement Ability. Hayden can break his manacles with a singular movement. Healing was a support power. Frostbite would be negated by Hayden’s essence energy shaping. Armor was bypassed by dull weapons. Invisibility… Just no. Phasing was practically useless here. His last option would be to fly as fast as possible to gain a breather.

‘Think, Daniel, think.’ Daniel flew away at full speed, retreating from Hayden. He was starting to panic. ‘Calm down. Calm down. All I have to do is touch him with my frostbite… That’s the best course of action. How will I be able to touch him? And how will I make physical contact with him?’

Hayden was closing in swiftly with his platform steps. ‘Think, Daniel. Think! You’ve suffered countless losses in Hayden’s hands. He doesn’t have an attack pattern, nor any habits. I can’t read people’s movements as well as him… How will you make contact with him?’

‘You’re the most versatile wielder in the world. Use everything in your kit, don’t waste it.’ Hayden’s words resounded in Daniel’s mind. ‘If I spoon feed you everything, then you won’t learn yourself. It’s best that you learn yourself. Bring out that creativity in you.’

‘Creativity… Ingenuity.’ Daniel shifted his right eye to gray and released a wide air attack that cannot be eluded by Hayden at all. As a result, Hayden was repelled.

‘I see, he’s buying time.’ Hayden recovered by flipping and materializing a platform below him to jump. ‘There are myriads of ways on beating me. If he discovers one, I’d be toast. Perhaps literally.’

Hayden jumped as high as possible. As for Daniel, he released another wide air attack. In preparation for the air attack, Hayden raised his hands in the direction of Daniel and generated an aerodynamic shield that surrounded him. It was shaped akin to a tear and with a seamlessly smooth surface.

‘Holy…’ Daniel couldn’t believe his eyes. Everybody couldn’t believe was stupefied by Hayden. What a freaking man! ‘I guess it’s another loss, huh?’