Chapter 128: Kritos vs Sirius (3)
Kritos sensed the danger.
Like last time, his chances of completely dodging this attack were close to zero.
Although Ygros Slash required a non-negligible preparation time, once unleashed, its speed and cutting power bordered on the absurd.
("This mist is disrupting my senses. I’m having great difficulty perceiving ether fluctuations. This can only be the work of the material composing it... it feels like a mixture, but I can’t tell of what exactly.")
Under different circumstances, Kritos might have been excited by the research possibilities this presented.
But here, his mind was analyzing faster than his body could react.
The fraction of a second between the moment Sirius launched his attack and the moment Kritos was struck was short.
Very short.
Yet, it was enough to attempt a gamble.
A gamble just as insane as Sirius’s.
---
The cut was clean, but executed with surgical precision.
It sliced through muscle and bone like a knife through butter.
Kritos saw his body come apart.
More precisely, his legs.
In a desperate leap, he had managed to minimize the damage by preserving his upper body.
His right leg had been cleanly severed.
The left, though deeply slashed and drenched in blood, still held.
A searing pain shot up his spine, immediately countered by reflex: his cellular regeneration kicked in, closing the wound.
In that regard, the first phase of his gamble had succeeded.
As for the second...
Now propelled upward by the last momentum his legs had given him, he gained a full view of the arena and the fog covering it.
From there, through the dense mist, he caught sight of a silhouette.
Sirius.
A mocking smile stretched across his lips.
("As expected, he no longer has enough time.")
Sirius’s earlier words had been meant to push Kritos into making a mistake.
He had threatened to make him suffer slowly and horribly, implying he had all the time in the world.
However, the truth was entirely different.
Containing Kritos’s Destructuration had exhausted both his sanity and his will.
His objective was therefore to end the fight before his mind collapsed.
In other words, if Kritos could hold out during this short window, he would most likely win.
At first glance, the plan seemed simple to execute.
Even though Kritos had lost several limbs, he had already stopped the bleeding, and pain was hardly a severe handicap for him compared to what Sirius was silently enduring.
Yet, two reasons made this plan risky.
The first: Sirius.
He was no fool. Tricking him was extremely difficult, and it would only take a single well-angled hit from Ygros Slash to instantly end the fight.
This was equally true in reverse: another Destructuration attack would immediately doom Sirius.
As for the second reason, it was deeper and shared by both duelists.
A simple thought, one only they could entertain:
("If I can’t go all out against an opponent like this, under such conditions... then when will I ever get another chance?")
---
His assumption confirmed, Kritos adjusted his center of inertia to increase his falling speed.
He dropped, and the moment he reentered the mist, just as he had anticipated, sharpened chains tipped with spear-like points shot toward him.
("The same trick won’t work on me twice.")
This time, Kritos did not attempt to dodge.
The chains pierced straight through him. However, he used them as footholds as levers.
His cellular regeneration activated once more, sealing his wounds at a blinding speed as he propelled himself toward Sirius.
"You won’t hide anymore."
It was only a thought.
The mist made pinpointing Sirius’s exact location difficult, especially since Sirius was using it to predict Kritos’s movements.
Yet, that very difficulty inspired Kritos.
There, on the ground, a red scalpel like something forged from coagulated blood slowly rose.
At first, Kritos struggled to control it, but recalling how Sirius manipulated his weapons from a distance, he persisted.
If Sirius could do it, why not him?
Thus, like an extension of his own body, the blade slipped silently through the mist toward what Kritos had predicted to be his opponent’s most likely trajectory.
"Hit."
A scream.
Raw.
The scalpel had struck.
Directly into the abdomen.
Where Sirius was concentrating all his will to contain his mutations.
That was the breaking point.
His concentration shattered.
The mist dissipated.
The chains fell.
Only his sword remained, slipping from his grasp.
---
("It’s over"), Kritos first thought as he saw him on his knees, agony consuming him, teeth clenched.
His victory seemed certain.
His gamble had paid off without even needing to use Destructuration a second time.
Sirius’s will had collapsed sooner than expected.
("He held on for less time than I anticipated. Did I miscalculate?")
("No... I cannot be mistaken to that extent. Which means...")
Before the thought could fully form, Kritos poured all the strength he had left into his remaining leg.
It swelled.
Veins bulged across the muscle, and like a compressed spring, he launched himself forward.
At the same instant, his hand ignited with scarlet sparks.
<< Destructuration >>
---
Sirius was on his knees.
His sword on the ground.
His body trembling.
His breathing erratic.
Everything pointed to the end.
At least, that was what he wanted to make others believe.
Because in reality, his sword was still vibrating.
Silently.
Accumulation.
Compression.
The sea...
Ready to explode the moment Kritos lowered his guard enough.
However—
("Damn... he figured it out.")
Sirius realized it the moment he saw him accelerate.
He immediately dropped the act—it had become useless.
His hand seized the hilt of his sword at the exact instant Kritos’s entered his range.
<< Ygros Slash >>
---
The world seemed to slow down.
The blade vanished.
In an arc.
Brutal.
Devastating.
Inevitable.
But
Kritos’s hand seemed to touch brush against Sirius before the blade cut through him.
To anyone who could perceive the scene in slow motion, both opponents appeared doomed at the same time.
No victor seemed destined to survive.
However, before both attacks could reach their conclusion within an instant shorter than a blink, Gramm appeared between them.
And before the outcome could be sealed.
He took both attacks.
Without flinching.
Then.
With a simple flick
He pushed them back.
Each to their own side.
"That’s enough."
The referee had decided the end of the match.
