The Universe is Innately Just - Chapter 134 Trial By Fire Part Five

“Fuck!?” he thought as he swiftly understood his mistake. With a disheveled head filled with dirty white hair, Fell tried to control his chaotic emotion while gazing at his bleeding hand. Although he had received damage during the attack, he had managed to block most of the skeleton boss’s attack and had come to learn a very important truth about his attack that traveled through space. Not only didn’t the weapon travel through the space as Fell had kept his sight locked on dark bony figure during the execution of attacks, what was truly traveling through space was the cut and the intent of the bladed weapon user.

What had damaged Fell’s hand wasn’t the cut, but the intent that inherently existed inside the attack. Even if the strike was parried or blocked, if the intent wasn’t handled correctly, it could alone deal severe damage to the opponent. A few drops of blood slid along Fell’s hand before landing on the ground, his eyes were locked on the skeleton figure, and he didn’t bat an eyelid as he looked for the skeleton’s next attack.

The skeleton boss moved again. His bony hand was softly grasping his blades as if he was a painter. And with a soft stance, he drew several strokes in a split second. The blood in Fell’s hand hit the ground in a rhythmic pattern; the sound from the drop hitting the dusty floor of the plaza resounded through the surrounding space as a deadly silence has taken over the world. As soon as he felt the space fluctuate around the skeleton boss, Fell moved to avoid being corned again and began running around the black bony figure of the boss. He dashed around the plaza with a fast pace while his bloodied hand kept dropping a few drops every second, the skeleton boss didn’t make him wait too as he began hurling one attack after the other towards him.

Fell executed Ghostly Stutter to turn himself unpredictable and spent the rest of his focus on analyzing the skeleton boss’s attack. Long streaks and gashes appeared on the ground around Fell. Some extended a few meters in length and were deep enough for a human to slide in. He calmly looked at the skeleton boss while gathering information about the specs of his spatial attack. He wanted to know the time it took for the cut to travel through space and appear, the speed at which it appeared, and finally, the different angles that could be changed when he executed strokes with his scimitar.

Numerous information were recorded in his mind, and he even used the dropping blood from his hand injury to acquire the rhythm of the skeleton’s attack. A few drops would hit the ground every few seconds, and he managed to use it to his advantage as a means to unveil more information about the mystical rhythm of his attack. The more time passed, the more brazen Fell turned as his senses got better at seeing through the spatial attack.

From having to senses the attack the moment it appeared, he began deducting the cut’s appearance based on the attack’s speed and the martial form that the skeleton boss used when executing it. And with time, his deduction grew more and more precise. Although the fight was taking much more time than he had anticipated, rushing in would end up with his death, and during his focused state in a battle that danced on the edge of life and death, being tired meant nothing. On top of that, being focused on his current action made all of the past fatigue disappear, as if it never existed.

Obviously, that wasn’t exactly true since as soon as his second wind would disappear, he would face impending doom. Thus as he grew used to the boss’s attacks, he began approaching it with the intent of dealing damage to it. Constantly running away would only elongate the fight, and definitely wouldn’t secure his victory. Thus the need to take a risk by approaching it. Even if he wasn’t aware of the rest of the boss’s skill set, he would rather take a shot at the boss and risk his chances that way than ending up tiring himself by waiting too long.

With a sword in his hand, he evaded several blows that were aimed at him and began tightening the invisible circle he was running around. If the spatial cut could be evaded, he would either slow down his pace or accelerate and rarely went for the option of blocking or parrying it. Even by growing used to it, he knew the danger of staying rooted in one place and had been using ghostly stutter ever since then. Although his will resources were reducing at a fast pace due to the constant usage of a movement technique, he knew that the trade had to be taken as it secured that he wouldn’t take damage during the approach.

Soon enough, after what seemed like a minute or two of trial, he finally stepped inside the range of the skeleton boss. As he stood in front, he felt the tremendous pressure that was suffusing from the skeleton’s body and couldn’t help but be impressed by its sheer size. Karukobi might have been bigger when it came to size, but the sheer pressure and aura that came out of the skeleton’s body were too different. One was calm like an unmoving sea, and his blade cut thinner than the line of water surface. Although dangerous, his swift attacks could still be seen with the naked eye. The skeleton boss, on the other hand, exuded an ominous slaughter aura, one that told Fell that many opponents had fallen to his technique and that one mistake meant that he would join the pile of bodies he stood upon.

“I’ve been cutting your kind for days!”, Thought Fell as his grip tightened around the sword in his bloodied hand. “Pay Back Time!” with that in his mind; he stepped forward with his sword following shortly after his step.