POV: Sullivan Prentiss Morteuxe
The reprieve from the Sunken Archipelago's manipulated kelp lasted all of three minutes. Sullivan felt the pressing weight of the terrain and his own internal distribution.
His 35\% Mind allocation, which had successfully shattered the enemy's concentration in the previous clash, now felt like a heavy, strategic flaw. It left his Defense and Reflex terrifyingly exposed.
A novice's mistake, Sullivan silently condemned himself, the old, arrogant certainty crumbling under the pressure of real combat.
Over-indexing on a temporary advantage always leaves a fatal vulnerability for the inevitable counter.
They located the two remaining Manipulators—gaunt, scarred siblings named Rellis and Torvin—in the heart of a crumbling, waterlogged temple. The air here was not mist, but a visible, sickly green Aura. The siblings had merged their collective Nen with the environment's inherent sickness, creating a localized, slow-acting poison.
"This temple is now dedicated to Contagion," one brother, Rellis, hissed, his voice echoing wetly. "Every breath you take drains your life force."
Sullivan instantly recognized the Hatsu: a sophisticated Emission/Manipulation technique that turned the temple's environment into a corrosive attack, draining the victims' vitality to fuel the attackers.
Sullivan knew direct engagement was suicide. He needed to leave the area immediately, but first, he had to survive the initial exposure.
He initiated a frantic, emergency King Engine Shift, stripping his oversized Mind attribute and surging the Aura back into survival attributes to counter the area-of-effect threat.
He ruthlessly dropped his Mind to 5\%, his Reflex to 10\%, and his Perception to 20\%, funneling the remaining power into a core Defense of 30\%.
The rest was split into 20\% Speed and 5\% each for Strength, Instinct, and Focus. The resulting 30\% Defense attribute immediately hardened his internal body, mitigating the worst of the life-drain, but the corrosive Aura was still seeping in—a constant, low-grade assault that no defense could entirely halt.
Kaelin urged they flee, but as they turned, Rellis completed an invisible Contagion Barrier across the exit, and Torvin launched a terrifying, focused beam of corrosive Nen directly at Sullivan.
Sullivan's 20\% Speed allowed him to dodge the core of the attack, but the edge of the corrosive aura clipped his left shoulder. SCREECH. The sound was his 30\% Defense barrier fracturing.
A searing, white-hot agony ripped through his nerves. He felt his Nen flow momentarily shatter—a catastrophic interruption that left him physically weak and terrified. The pain was a devastating, crippling reality that forced him to his knees. We cannot pass the barrier. We cannot stay here. The failure was absolute, and the cost was his own flesh.
The Reckless Sacrifice of Strength
The emotional roller coaster plunged. Sullivan felt the devastating combination of physical agony and strategic guilt. He had gambled on balance and lost. He realized the barrier, as an Emitter technique, required pure, focused, disruptive power to break, something his current defensive allocation couldn't provide.
He had to sacrifice everything for a single, focused blast. He stripped his already minimal Mind, Perception, Reflex, and Focus down to the bare minimum (5\% each), and reduced Defense to a suicidal 5\%. He jammed the resultant Aura into Strength and Speed, aiming for raw momentum.
His new allocation spiked Strength to 40\% and Speed to 30\%. He charged the barrier, condensing all the 40\% Strength into a single, kinetic punch—a terrifying, primal force utterly devoid of logic.
BOOM! The impact was deafening. The barrier groaned but held, and Sullivan stumbled back, his fist throbbing, his lungs burning. The 5\% Defense was useless. He fell, his vision blurring. He had gambled on force and lost, once again treating a non-physical problem with a primitive, physical solution.
"The life-drain is too fast!" Torvin screamed gleefully. "He's decaying!"
Kaelin screamed, but quickly seized the initiative. She shouted a distraction, deliberately exposing herself to draw the Manipulators' fire.
Sullivan, despite being at 5\% Mind, saw the opportunity. They are diverting their focus. Their concentration on the barrier must be tied to the foci.
He executed the most desperate, lightning-fast shift of the fight: he stripped the useless 40\% Strength and funneled it instantly into Mind (from 5\% to 40\%).
He unleashed the 40\% Mind power, not as a punch, but as a precise, invisible Psychokinetic shove against the two ornate Nen foci the brothers were using to amplify the contagion. The foci shattered.
The Contagion dissolved into harmless mist.
The Manipulators were neutralized, their ability gone. Kaelin secured them with sealing nets.
Sullivan lay on the floor, breathless, his shoulder searing. He had won, but only by surviving pain, accepting vulnerability, and exploiting a single moment of distraction. He hadn't mastered the King Engine; the King Engine had barely allowed him to survive his own poor calculation. The taste of failure was bitter, but the lesson was now ingrained in his damaged flesh: recklessness demands suffering.