Aurafall: Fragments Of Power-Chapter 43: Countless Colors [8]

Boom!

Fang Rui ducked a large fireball that dragged multiple fighters in its wake before exploding against a building.

His robe was now torn and matted with sweat and dirt. Bruises covered his body, and a large slash ran down his back.

The red giant swung his sword, making the air shiver and giving Fang Rui no chance to breathe. He hopped back and stared at the red giant with indifference, but inwardly, he knew things weren’t going his way.

Luckily, he had been able to save many civilians by sending a mental message to the soldiers. The invasion problem had been dealt with, and now the soldiers were fighting with all they had.

’I’ve got problems of my own.’

Of course, he had known from the beginning that portals would appear. He knew Vikings would invade the city, and he also knew he was going to battle this specific Viking.

He didn’t really know why he was able to predict the future so flawlessly. It was a sort of déjà vu on a whole new level—as if he had lived this life before.

If he had actually lived this life before, why was he not able to kill a mere Gemini Viking? He was a Cancer, for crying out loud, which was a rank above Gemini.

He was the Demon of Shadows! The first human to awaken an Advent Volume! The first human to awaken a Skill Tree and a Skill Grass! So why?

Discarding those thoughts, he gripped the odachi tighter and charged forward, the tip of the blade touching the ground and creating a screeching sound as he closed the distance.

The giant didn’t give him any chance to get closer; it spun and slashed its sword diagonally. Fang Rui took advantage of having a smaller body than the giant and used the momentum to jump onto the blade, running along its length for a few seconds.

He reached the grip in a shadow blur and moved even faster, his body swirling around the giant’s gauntlet like a glitch in a split second.

Normally, he would have retreated after using that attack style, but he didn’t. For some reason, he had been holding back on using his Skill Tree.

He saw no more reason to hold back. His aura essence was nearly exhausted, which was why he had avoided using his abilities to maintain his reserves. Now that only a few drops remained in his Living Seed, it was time to show the damn Viking why a Cancer is stronger than a Gemini.

The red giant’s blade descended like a falling mountain. Fang Rui didn’t move. He stood his ground as the shadow beneath him boiled.

At the moment of impact, the giant’s blade slammed into Fang Rui’s shoulder—or at least, it appeared to. The "Fang Rui" hit by the steel shattered into a thousand shards of obsidian ink. The real Fang Rui was already six feet to the left, his feet skidding across the cracked pavement.

The giant roared, confused by the lack of resistance. He swung again, a horizontal cleave that should have cut Fang Rui in half. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Instead of dodging, Fang Rui slammed his palm into the ground. Five thick, whip-like lashes of solidified darkness erupted from the giant’s own shadow, wrapping around the massive sword’s hilt and the giant’s thick forearms. The momentum of the swing died instantly, the air screaming as the shadow-ropes strained against the giant’s brute strength.

Fang Rui’s odachi began to smoke with dark energy, the blade extending as a second, ethereal edge of pure shadow fused with the steel. It made the sword feel weightless.

He lunged.

The giant tried to kick him away, but Fang Rui used one of his shadow skills, dipping into the shadow cast by the giant’s leg and reappearing instantly behind his knee. With a surgical flick of the Shadow Armory blade, he sliced through the giant’s reinforced hamstring.

The red giant collapsed to one knee, the sound of his armored joint hitting the asphalt like a mortar shell.

’I’m burning through my Seed too fast,’ Fang Rui thought, his vision blurring for a split second. The fires of the burning city were so bright they were actively eroding his constructs.

His umbral abilities were already starting to fray and smoke under the orange glow of the nearby inferno.

He had to end this with a physical strike. No more tricks.

"Die in the dark," Fang Rui whispered.

He leaped into the air, his Shadow Decoy reappearing beside him to mirror his movement, making it impossible for the giant to tell which blade was real.

The air around the red giant ignited. As Fang Rui dived through the air, the Viking commander let out a guttural roar. He didn’t try to track which Fang Rui was real; instead, he slammed his free palm into the flat of his own massive blade.

A shockwave of orange flame erupted from the contact point, expanding in a perfect sphere that incinerated the shadow decoy instantly. The light hit Fang Rui like a physical wall, the sheer brightness of the explosion erasing the shadows.

Fang Rui felt his shadow constructs snap and hiss into nothingness. He was forced to twist mid-air, using the flat of his odachi to catch a blast of heat that singed the hair off his arms. He hit the pavement hard, rolling through the soot and shattered glass as a fireball the size of a carriage whistled over his head.

The red giant struggled to stand, his hamstring wound cauterized by the heat radiating from his own skin. He gripped his sword with both hands, the metal turning a translucent, molten white.

"Enough tricks, little rat!" the giant rumbled.

He lunged. The molten sword came down in an overhead strike that split the street open. Fang Rui used his last drop of essence to slip into the thin sliver of shade cast by a falling piece of masonry, reappearing behind the giant’s back.

He didn’t use a skill. He used raw, filtered hate.

Fang Rui drove the odachi upward, aiming for the soft seal at the base of the giant’s helmet. The blade sank deep, piercing through the neck and into the brain.

The giant’s scream was cut short. The molten light in his eyes flickered and died. The massive body tilted forward, hitting the asphalt with the weight of a collapsing building.

Fang Rui stood over the corpse, his chest heaving.

[You’ve Slain a Gemini, Born From Flames]

’Tch.’