Chapter 32: Chapter 32: Azriel’s Weapon
The weapon resting on the top shelf was a masterpiece of lethal artistry, a Kusarigama, a long, heavy chain forged from a dark, light-absorbing metal, at the end of which hung a wicked, crescent-shaped black sickle.
The blade gleamed with a faint, obsidian sheen, looking less like a standard tool of war and more like a manifestation of death itself.
In the martial hierarchy of Tartarus, this was widely considered a cursed, impractical weapon.
It was notoriously backbreaking to master, requiring a flawless, microscopic calculation of kinetic momentum and trajectory.
One wrong swing, and an amateur would easily slice their own throat open before the enemy could even step forward.
But to Azriel, a man driven by the primal urge to pull off the coolest shit imaginable, it was love at first sight.
Unlike the generic, overused swords and basic spears that every basic protagonist wielded, this chain-sickle screamed main-character energy.
He didn’t care in the slightest that he had absolutely zero experience using it.
He didn’t care that he would probably look like an idiot trying to swing it for the first time.
All his brain could process was the sheer, unadulterated aesthetic value.
In a split second, his mind raced into a full-blown, chuunibyou-tier fantasy.
He imagined himself standing alone on a jagged, black volcanic terrain under a pitch-black sky.
The rain is pouring down, washing the blood off his face.
He is completely surrounded by thousands of elite, roaring enemies.
He stands there entirely unbothered, looking down at them with cold, dead violet eyes.
He lets out a lazy, devastatingly cool ass line of dialogue like ’Don’t worry. I’m going to use the sharp edge,’ and then, with a sharp snap of his wrist, he sends the black sickle tearing through the downpour.
Whoosh!
The chain rattles, the blade flashes, and in a single, fluid orbit, the severed heads of all his enemies go rolling onto the mud simultaneously.
’That would be so fucking cool,’ he muttered to himself, his inner edgelord practically vibrating with excitement.
But this time, the painful throbbing in his abdomen served as an excellent reality check.
He had learned his lesson.
Azriel violently locked down his facial muscles, forcing his expression to remain completely neutral.
He breathed through his nose, biting the inside of his cheek to suppress the manic grin that was threatening to break across his face as he envisioned his future legendary plays.
He absolutely could not let Rosalind think he was laughing at her again.
Up in the corner of his vision, the stream chat was already noticing his fixation.
[Goddess_of_the_West] (Golden): Wait, what is he staring at? Don’t tell me he’s looking at the chain-sickle at the top?!
[Crimson_Fury] (White): Pfft! He is! The idiot is actually going to pick the most difficult, self-harming weapon in the entire archive! I can’t wait to watch him accidentally strangle himself live on screen!
[ThoughtAngel_404] (Red): An interesting psychological trait. The host prioritizes visual performance and aesthetic impact over practical combat efficiency. Highly entertaining for a broadcast, but highly fatal in a real duel.
Ignoring the chat’s mockery, Azriel reached up with his black-gauntleted hands, his fingers wrapping around the heavy, cold iron links of the chain.
He pulled the weapon down, the metallic rattle echoing sharply through the quiet, tense atmosphere of the GrandMaster’s training ground.
Azriel coiled the heavy black chain around his forearm, letting the wicked crescent sickle dangle by his hip.
The dark metal clinked rhythmically against his gauntlets, sending a sharp, cold thrill straight up his spine.
He spun the sickle in a small, tentative circle. Clink. Clink. It looked magnificent. It felt magnificent.
[Lusty_Sera] (Golden): Oh my, a chain-sickle? Az, darling, you look like a beautiful god of death holding that. My heart is pounding!
[Crimson_Fury] (White): Look at him trying to pose! He doesn’t even know how to balance the weight. Five Karma Points says he slices his own ear off in the first thirty seconds!
[Moon_Priestess_99] (Cyan): Be careful, Azriel! That weapon looks really dangerous... Please don’t hurt yourself!
’Don’t worry, ladies,’ Azriel broadcasted his thoughts smoothly over the stream, keeping his physical face as stoic as a stone statue.
’A real master doesn’t need to know how to use a weapon. He just needs to make the weapon look like it belongs to him.’
"Are you finished choosing your toys?"
Rosalind’s voice rolled across the platform, heavy and resonant.
She hadn’t moved an inch, but the white Aether surrounding her had condensed into a thick, visible shroud that made the air blurry around her silhouette.
Her gaze dropped to the black gauntlets on his hands, then drifted to the heavy chain coiled around his arm.
Her eyebrows twitched slightly.
For a brief second, the coldness in her eyes fractured, replaced by pure, unadulterated bewilderment.
"A Kusarigama?" she asked, her voice tinged with genuine disbelief.
"Azriel, that is a weapon meant for high-tier stealth executioners and master tacticians who have spent centuries calculating kinetic trajectories. You have never even held a proper blade, yet you choose a weapon that is more likely to decapitate you than me?"
Azriel stepped away from the weapons rack, his boots hitting the volcanic stone floor with a firm, deliberate thud.
He didn’t let a single trace of his inner embarrassment show.
"Generic weapons are for generic people, Rose," Azriel said, his voice smooth, steady, and dripping with a calm, unbothered confidence.
"I prefer something with a bit more... personality."
Hearing his reply, the chat went into another absolute meltdown of laughter and facepalms.
The viewer count aggressively surged past 25,000 concurrents.
He was a baseline mortal talking back to a GrandMaster with the swagger of an immortal emperor, all while holding a weapon he had no clue how to swing.
Rosalind stared at him for a long, quiet moment.
Then, a slow, incredibly dangerous smirk spread across her beautiful face, her golden eyes flaring with a predatory light.
"Personality my ass," she muttered softly, the syllables rolling off her tongue like a death sentence.
"Obviously yours, it’s so soft," he murmured under his breath, his Playboy instincts firing entirely without his permission.
Rosalind’s eyebrows twitched, a sudden flush of irritated color hitting her cheeks before her expression turned entirely lethal.
"I see. Let’s see how much personality you can maintain when I drag you across this floor!"
SHING!
"I am sor-"
With a terrifying, instantaneous flex of her aura, Rosalind vanished.
There was no sound of footsteps, no rushing wind, just a sudden, violent distortion in the air right in front of him.
Azriel’s enhanced cognition screamed in pure panic as his instincts registered a massive, crushing weight descending upon him from above.
He didn’t have time to think. He didn’t have time to aim.
Harnessing the raw terror coursing through his veins, Azriel violently swung his right arm forward, letting the heavy black chain uncoil from his gauntlet.
He threw the sickle out blindly, hoping to at least create a barrier of kinetic force between himself and the incoming GrandMaster.
The chain rattled violently, and the black crescent blade tore through the air, completely missing the mark and flying wild toward the ceiling.
’Oh, shit,’ Azriel thought as he realized his ultimate weapon was completely out of position, leaving his entire front completely exposed.
Right through the messy trajectory of his failed swing, Rosalind materialized in mid-air, her hand curved into a flawless, terrifying claw formation, pointing directly at his chest.

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