Sighing again, Adrian clarified.
"In our short stay at Trios, I have killed you 8 times...and yet today, all the spells and the techniques I see you using right now are all superior. It feels more real. Am I right to assume whatever technology you have been using to arrive here had been suppressing them?"
Her jaws clenched and her eyes looked as if asking 'You realised it?'
He continued,"Now that could only mean you are right now not using the technology like the others. You are in fact using your mental realm to fight me. And that means...you can die just like how my mental realm has already been destroyed."
Her eyebrows shot up. "For someone who has already faced death in his mental realm, you are quite casual about it. I have heard of how people become unhinged once they die there....you don't look like you are affected?"
To her words, Adrian had no answer. He simply smiled and then...
Pulled out two sharp jians seemingly out of empty space.
Relaxing his muscles, he felt lighter but stronger.
'No need to hold back...'
The battle resumed. Adrian rushed for the 14 players still left while Nyx turned to Housten.
Few minutes later, two humans faced each other - Adrian, calm, composed and without an ounce of fear on his features; Nyx, glaring and covered in blood but not of her own.
She made the first move.
Marking him as the target she activated [Death Mark]. Instantly there was a looking presence over the battlefield.
However this time Adrian was prepared.
Taking a stance, he whispered.
[Ether Breathing: Contagious Whispers]
Nyx's eyes twitched at the mention of Ether Breathing. It was the most difficult to learn out of the five Breathing techniques and also challenging to counterattack it.
She rushed closer to him, only to withdraw when he suddenly vanished into thin air. Even her Death Mark couldn't locate him, making her go extremely alert.
She stood still. Her breathing and her heartbeat were the only things she could hear.
Suddenly she heard a whisper. A mixture of incoherent words, indescribable and unrecognisable. Turning towards the source she slashed at it, only to cut through empty space.
There was nothing there. She then heard another whisper as she quickly slashed at it before turning back again. She feared her exposed back would be attacked had she not turned.
But nothing. There was simply no one around her. It was as if Adrian had vanished forever. But she knew that couldn't have been the case.
She heard another whisper. As she turned towards it, another mixture of incoherent words followed from another direction. She kept on turning and slashing.
She dashed forward, not wanting to get surrounded by the eerily spoken words in hushed tones.
Nyx suddenly noticed something peculiar. It seemed as if her speed has...decreased?
There was suddenly a sonic boom from the exact place she had just dashed from. Then as if the very air had split, a sharp wheezle approached her.
It was fast, too fast as she turned and blocked it.
The sword in her hands clanged heavily as she was suddenly pushed backwards. The whispers followed as well, her head turning dizzy.
Jumping backwards and wobbling for balance, she thrust her sword deep into the ground as she screamed, "[Wind Breathing: Howling Turrets]"
Out of the blue, wind gathered around her in massive amounts. Within seconds, lots of air formed a tower like structure surrounding her. The whispers faded into the screaming wind.
Then twisting her sword and pulling it out, she directed it at a particular direction. The entire turret like structure broke into a cacophony of particles and gushed towards Adrian, who had suddenly appeared as his technique deactivated.
"Tsk, that's strong" Cursing under this breath, he activated another technique.
[Wind Breathing: Gentle Breeze]
It was considered as one of the most useless branches in the Wind Breathing Technique and yet he used it. He raised the Jian in his right hand and the howling winds approaching him suddenly lost its speed.
Adrian guided the winds around him and gently, he dispersed it.
Before Nyx could even react, he whispered.
[Wind Breathing: Bullseye]
As if summoned from the depths of the ocean, torrents of wind arose all around Nyx, making her the epicentre, making her the target, the only place that looked...calm but that was for moment.
In a second, the entirety of the winds collapsed on her as she took the attack head on.
Her knees buckled, her body shivered and her hands shook as she almost fell down on her back.
Shivering both from the aftereffects of the attack and from sheer anger, she raised her sword once again.
The fight continued. Grounds cracked slightly under their devastating strikes. Surprisingly the weren't even harmed. It withstood all the strikes without a single scratch on it.
The fight soon came to a stalemate. Adrian's injury making him much weaker than he cared to admit. As a lvl 58, Nyx naturally had much more stamina than Adrian did at his lvl 0.
Add to that the several growing injuries on him, the odds didn't look much in his favour.
Crack...
With a loud ring, his left jian broke off right in the middle as the broken pieces fell off to the ground. His hands trembled from the sudden impact. Looking up, he saw Nyx dive straight to him,her sword drawn taut.
To anyone else, it might have looked as if Adrian was in grave danger. But Adrian...he was laughing internally at such a bad display of tactics.
He let the left Jian fall to the ground, leaned forward and taking advantage of his height, he stretched his palm and with a violent pressure clamped down on her wrist before her sword could reach him.
Nyx let out a small growl when she felt her wrist twist under the pressure and threw back her head, trying to pull her hand back.
Taking complete hold of the situation, he pushed the right Jian straight through her chest; his classic strike.
Her heart was cleanly sliced through. No matter how many times he did it, it was addicting to Adrian.
Perforating the very core of a human, detaching their connection to life itself and watching as the lights dimmed in their eyes, brought him a sense of
immense gratification...at that moment he couldn't explain the feeling of euphoria within him in mere words.
'There goes her mental realm' Adrian lightly chuckled as he felt the weight of victory settle in. He never imagined he would actually win thi---
Squirt...Splash...
Adrian felt all of his breath blown away. Looking down, he saw his chest sliced,his stomach almost blown followed by a sickening sqeulch as he his insides burst out of his own body, its gooey mashed form utterly horrifying.
His mind stopped working for a moment.
How?
Why?
He looked behind him and impossibly, there she was ...Nyx, standing calmly and watching him.
He weekly turnes his head to see Nyx's head body still in his arms.
'She is dead. How is she there...wait!!!'
His eyes widened as he spoke, almost as if to himself, "Y-your physical body...you are here for real....how.... Entities and their people d-don't belong here."
His eyes bulged more as he guessed her approximate lvl. "Level 156!"
His body crumbled to the ground, barely holding onto his slipping consciousness.
"You sacrificed your mental realm just to kill me... what an insane monster."
He felt the familiar flow of the presence in his body, raging within, about to heal him when...
'No, not now. Just a few more seconds...my calculations shouldn't be wrong yet.' He whispered internally.
Oblivious to Adrian's thoughts, Nyx stood poised, looking even more beautiful and mature under the bright moonlight painting her figure.
The forest around her looked peaceful as it held its breath, waiting for the next course of actions.
Surprisingly, the moonlight didn't quite reach the area where the bloodbath had just taken place, rendering the place in darkness.
Nyx slightly smiled and said, "Hearing myself being called a monster by someone like you...I shall take that as a compliment."
She walked towards him, her blade gleaming in her hands.
Adrian felt the presence in him at full alert, ready to tear Nyx apart if she dared harm him.
She raised her sword, to deal him the final blow when...
"Stop."
'Just as I thought...'