Chapter 44: King Tier Clash
The battlefield no longer felt like an ambush. Instead, it felt like a collapse in slow motion...
What began as a coordinated strike had fractured under the weight of blood and steel. The assassins, once confident in their numbers and precision, had already lost five of their own.
Their advantage had turned brittle as it was no longer dominance, but desperation sharpened into aggression...
Yet even then, the knights did not fully regain control as they still struggled to handle the remaining killers.
Somewhere within the warped darkness ahead of the convoy, Commander Dren was still fighting...
His presence flickered in and out of perception while silver flashes of sword light sliced through a dense, expanding void of black mist.
Everytime his blade struck, the darkness trembled, but it refused to disperse completely, as though something inside it actively resisted being torn apart.
That clash had become a sealed world of it’s own; unfinished, unresolved, and likely to remain so for a long time.
Outside that collapsing sphere of darkness, the battlefield had narrowed...
The knights now stood in greater numbers than the assassins; but victory did not come with numbers alone, because every assassin left was worth more than three ordinary fighters.
And at the center of it all stood Maverick Valehart. The young noble did not move or speak like a commander; he simply stood, armour unmoving, with crimson cape trailing behind him like a silent verdict.
Before him stood the only King Tier assassin amongst the Shadow Shard operatives.
The air between the duo felt... Compressed; as though space itself had difficulty existing properly in their presence.
Like two predators, the duo assessed one another. Maverick’s golden eyes was fixed on the assassin and for the first time since the battle began, his expression had sharpened beyond indifference...
There was no fear in his gaze, neither was there concern nor caution; if anything, there was something far more dangerous lurking in his eyes... Interest.
The assassin tilted his head slightly beneath the hood. His mask concealed most of his face, but his eyes were visible; they were cold, precise, and utterly devoid of emotion.
The assassin was a middle-stage Rank Two Etheryean, which was a realm above Maverick who was only a middle-stage Rank One Etheryean...
This disparity in strength alone would have meant death for others but Maverick only grinned savagely. The young noble might be indifferent to other things, but when it comes to a challenging battle, he was a maniac.
There were no words between the two as they stood still for a few moments, then... The assassin moved first.
He didn’t rush forward visibly, instead... He vanished.
His Cloak fluttered as he channelled Aether into it and activated his Essence Rune "Shadow Step."
Maverick didn’t hesitate, the young noble reacted instantly and activated his own Rune "Golden Bulwark."
A circular barrier of compressed force expanded outward from his Armour in a half-second pulse. Then...
CLANG!
The impact came from his left shoulder; the assassin reformed mid-strike, twin Katanas already angled for a joint rupture point between Maverick’s Armour plates...
"Golden Bulwark" absorbed the initial force... Before dispersing others outward in fractured ripples...
The assassin disengaged immediately after this as he dissolved again into shadow without delay...
Maverick rotated his stance for a fraction, as he recalibrated his weight distribution. The snow beneath his boots compressed as he anticipated the second later.
Not long after, the assassin reappeared from above, his twin blades aligned in a cross formation as he descended...
Energy was condensed along both edges as the assassin activated another of his Essence Rune "Twin Severance."
Maverick responded by raising his War Hammer and activated another Rune "Titanbreaker."
BOOM!
The collision between the duo detonated midair...
Shockwaves blasted outward in a dome, flattening snow for several meters. Frostwood branches bent violently as compressed force spread through the air in a violent wave...
The runes along the Hammer brightened considerably as it absorbed the impact energy rather than negating it.
The assassin was pushed back, but not fully repelled; he rotated midair before landing on the snow without breaking his stance. He observed Maverick for a heartbeat... Then he vanished again
This time... Three shadow points formed simultaneously as he attacked the left flank, right flank, and the rear center...
The strikes were not random; instead, they were aimed at the Armour’s structural weaknesses which inclusive joints, visor edges, and exposed hinge seams.
The Armour glimmered as "Golden Bulwark" reactivated in segmented bursts to defend those targeted areas...
CLANG! CLANG!! CLANG!!!
Two strikes were deflected outward but the last one managed to cut through.
A shallow mark appeared on the Armour near the shoulder seam; the city was not deep, but it was unnatural as the blade’s effect lingered.
Somehow, the cut felt incorrect, as though the space around the pauldron had been slightly displaced around it; clearly, this was the lingering effect of the assassin’s Rune "Void Edge."
Maverick’s gaze narrowed beneath the helm immediately. Just what kind of Rune was that?
But he was not given time to ponder because the assassin moved once more. This time, he initiated a momentum chain, using layered "Shadow Steps."
Each "Shadow Step" now carried partial residual velocity from previous movement points and within moments, the battlefield began to feel fragmented, as if multiple versions of the assassin were attacking in overlapping timelines...
Maverick wasn’t confused; instead, he planted his feet and activated "King’s Momentum" and used his War Hammer to meet the assassin’s attacks.
BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!!
The ground beneath him cracked outward in widening radial fractures as each incoming strike met increasing counterforce upon contact...
Clearly, the impacts was adding to his durability...
And yet, despite this, the assassin didn’t relent. If anything, he also activated another Essence Rune "Moonsplit Fang" which made every clash add stores kinetic force to his Katanas....
In a few moments, the Katanas edges began emitting a faint crescent distortion as compressed energy folded inward repeatedly with every blocked exchange...
And with that, the battlefield between the duo transformed into a mechanical rhythm of violence.
There was a strike... Then a block... Then a shift in position...
Each impact and rebound fed one system or the other as...
Maverick’s Hammer grew heavier with accumulated force...
The assassin’s blades grew denser with stored momentum...
Neither side was weakening. In fact, instead of faltering under the collisions, they were both escalating, which caused a temporary stalemate between the two...
Suddenly, the assassin changed tempo. He no longer repositioned himself with "Shadow Step", instead, he confronted Maverick directly in successive chains.
Five rapid displacement points activated in succession, forming a closer loop around Maverick.
The attacks were not singular; instead, they were a continuous rotating kill ring as the assassin started releasing the energy stored by his Katanas in short bursts...
Maverick responded with another controlled rotation of his Hammer as he also activated "Titanbreaker", releasing his accumulated force outward in timed intervals...
BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!!
Each contact released partial stored force back into the environment as steel met steel.
Snow erupted upward in violent plumes while frostwood bark shattered from the pressure waves. Despite all this, the assassin persisted...
The crescent energy around his blade stabilized as "Moonsplit Fang" reached a critical charge threshold.
The blades glowed with compressed force, affecting the space around them as the assassin prepared to unleash his ultimate strikes...
Seeing this, Maverick’s stance lowered; runes lit up on his golden Armour as "Golden Bulwark" shifted into an adaptive defense layering rather than a full dome form...
Then... The next strike came; this time, it was not from a shadow point, but from above Maverick’s center axis...
There was a direct drop as the fully charged Katanas released a crescent silver wave...
BOOOM!
A wide arc of compressed force slammed downward, carving the snow surface into a deep trench and sending shockwaves through the forest ground.
Immediately, Maverick engaged "Titanbreaker" as he raised his Hammer to block...
The Soul Essence managed to absorb everything but the pressure exceeded the equilibrium threshold and for the first time... Maverick’s boots sank half a step into the frozen ground.
The assassin landed at a distance after the strike and immediately after, for a fraction of a second, there was silence.
Then... Maverick burst forward as his own Essence Rune "King’s Momentum" peaked.
Each of his steps carried amplified mass projection as the snow beneath his movement cracked in delayed reaction patterns...
The assassin activated "Shadow Step" once more to evade. But this time... Maverick did not wait for reappearance.
Without hesitation, the young noble swung his Hammer while activating another Essence Rune "Tyrant’s Echo" simultaneously.
A faint golden trail followed the Hammer’s path as it released a delayed arc of force...
The impact registered in an empty space but then, a second detonation triggered a fraction later...
BOOOM!
Immediately, the assassin was forced out of the shadows mid-transition as he staggered slightly upon landing.
The next second, he adjusted his stance as he moved to attack once more... But by now, the battlefield conditions had already changed.
Around them, the Valehart knights had begun pushing forward, breaking through the remaining assassin formations.
Commander Dren’s shadow sphere flickered violently as silver light tore through its structure repeated from within...
And just like that, the battlefield was beginning to collapse against the assassins’ control.
The King Tier assassin sensed this incongruity and without hesitation, he gave a subtle one hand motion to the other operatives.
Instantly, the six remaining assassins across the battlefield sectors channelled Aether into the runic talismans in their palms and crushed them simultaneously...
A dense black smoke erupted violently from each of them, disrupting the space and vision across the battlefield in seconds.
Maverick realized what they were about to do and shouted. "Don’t let them escape!"
Instantly, he surged forward towards the King Tier assassin, Hammer raised, golden aura flaring...
But within the smoke... Movement dissolved until there was only disappearance left.
When the smoke cleared, there were no bodies or signatures, only fragmented residual Aether patterns that dissipated into the cold air moments later.
And just like that... The battlefield was still again.
