Chapter 102: The Vulnerable Spot

The young man opened his eyes. Whether it was due to a lack of oxygen to the brain or poor circulation, what appeared before him was a world of gray and white. Vaguely, he could make out something indescribable, like tadpoles, drifting here and there—since he couldn’t be sure if they were living creatures, he could only refer to them as “things.” Yet, before his slowly awakening consciousness could muster any curiosity, his vision returned to its vivid brightness.

His head spun slightly.

Perhaps it was a side effect of his earlier feigned death, but Ami felt utterly devoid of strength. After several attempts, he managed to crawl from the ground, then gave up and slumped into a half-sitting position. Unhurried, he lifted his head and met the old man’s emerald gaze.

“Aren’t you going to make a move?”

He asked, the darkness in his eyes betraying no emotion.

“There’s no need,” Ignatius replied. Though he looked down at the boy from above, there was not a trace of arrogance on his face. “You have already proven with your actions that you possess the right to choose.”

“Then?” The Bringer of Glory nodded knowingly, and as blood began to flow anew, the pallor of his face gradually gave way to a flush of color. “End your wicked plan and relinquish control of Obadiah.”

“Ami Ulysses,” the old man’s lips curled into the faintest of smiles, his voice low and hoarse, “you seem to misunderstand something. All you possess is the right to choose. Do you think to bargain with me at the table of negotiation and decide the outcome with words alone? One as weak as you should not harbor such naive illusions.”

“So there’s no way for us to reach an agreement?”

“It seems so.”

After their brief exchange, the air between them grew tense again.

Then, the silence was broken by the sound of dust being slapped from a coat. With no attempt to hide from the nearby Ignatius, the youth brushed his tattered coat clean, glanced at the old man, and idly twirled his short sword.

“I’m coming—”

With those words, Ami shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

But in the very next moment, his advance came to an abrupt halt. The inscrutable old man before him neither dodged nor raised a defense, not even moving his feet. He simply watched Ami with chillingly calm eyes, and then… The scab over his left chest burst open. Crimson blood oozed from the unfathomable cavity, twisting into tendrils that floated in the air. Like hyenas drawn to a corpse, or sharks scenting blood, they swarmed upon the youth.

Dodge? Impossible.

Block? Equally futile.

All Ami could do was retreat. After slicing through several tendrils that came too close, he stopped a short distance away.

“A power over blood?” he raised an eyebrow, his gaze lingering on the tendrils that seemed almost fused with the old man. Then he shook his head. “No, this is far from simple blood manipulation.”

If it were merely control over a liquid, it would be impossible to create such terrifying force and precision, let alone this chilling tableau.

He would have to proceed with caution.

But caution did not mean hesitation. In the absence of more information, indulging in endless speculation would solve nothing. To truly grasp the nature of his opponent’s power and turn the tide, he would need the resolve to risk his life.

So, the youth moved forward.

One step. Two steps. Three steps. His pace was light, even slow.

After several encounters, Ami had come to understand the vast gulf between himself and Ignatius—a chasm that even the specter of death could not bridge. Unless he could see through his opponent's abilities and just happened to have the perfect counter, the odds of killing him alone were nearly nonexistent. But that was no reason to give up. To despair after so few encounters with death would be meaningless!

Since there was a sliver of hope, Ami would not retreat.

Forward! Strike!

He had barely set foot into the old man’s sphere of attack when the drifting tendrils lashed out. Four, in the space of a heartbeat, awoke from their slumber. As though endowed with human cunning, they wielded the essentials of swordsmanship in concert, hemming Ami in, leaving him as if beset by several skilled swordsmen, with no avenue of escape.

But that was all.

Battle was always a process of gathering information. Low-intensity combat suited his aims. Despite the tendrils’ ability to bend and twist in ways no human could, and to attack from angles one would never anticipate, they were, at their core, products of a power—thus possessed their own weaknesses.

Their weakness was in the transitions.

Ignatius made no effort to conceal his abilities. Each time he manipulated the bloodlines, there was a marked pause as they shifted or reconnected. Perhaps among hundreds of tendrils, such a flaw was insignificant. But now, with only a handful engaged, once Ami identified this weakness, he need only seize the moment of transition to sever them all.

So he thought, but did not act. There was more to be learned.

Though it was possible the old man was hiding his true strength, the information so far suggested that this traveler—one who had traversed the Deepest Night—could manipulate blood, not only controlling the fluids within his body, but also imbuing his blood with special properties. Take hardness, for example: if Ami’s guess was correct, the reason the tendrils could clash with his short sword, and why he had not pierced Ignatius’s heart before, was that, in an instant, Ignatius had made his blood as hard as steel.

From any angle, it was a formidable power.

Yet, for all its strength, what had been shown was not invincible. There was a glaring weakness: it seemed impossible to bestow multiple properties on the blood simultaneously. Whether by design or by unavoidable flaw, the tendrils always stalled momentarily during transitions—a fact undeniable and worth testing.

So… Should he press the attack with this knowledge and probe further?

The youth narrowed his eyes.

Advance steadily, lull his enemy’s vigilance, then strike suddenly? Theoretically sound, but in practice, difficult. First, it was uncertain whether the inability to assign multiple properties was a ruse by Ignatius himself. Second, even a steady advance to the old man’s side would not be easy, let alone doing so without raising suspicion. Against a traveler who had braved the Deepest Night alone, Ami dared not underestimate his foe, nor presume to deceive him with petty tricks.

But… he did not intend to rely on cunning. The Bringer of Glory’s battle must draw on his own powers.

So, forgive me—but next time, I will kill you.

—Ignatius.

Without hesitation, Ami abruptly accelerated in the midst of his deadlock with the tendrils.

Giving the old man no time to react, he seized on the instant of transition amid a flurry of fierce attacks, and with a flash of his sword, sliced through several bloodlines with ease. The severed ends fell to the ground without resistance, while the portions still anchored to the source recoiled, returning to Ignatius’s side to join the mass of writhing tendrils.

“Interesting,” the youth remarked, glancing at the blood on the ground.

And then he advanced!

“I can’t decide whether to praise your persistence or criticize your foolishness.” The demonic traveler was unfazed by the oncoming Bringer of Glory. Raising his hand, tendrils straightened like javelins. “If your only hope is that I will not kill you, let me disappoint you: I’ve changed my mind. Fools who know neither caution nor retreat are unworthy of the blood of glory.”

As soon as he finished speaking, dozens—no, perhaps hundreds—of blood-spears shot forth.

Words like “dozens” or “hundreds” alone could not capture the true sense of it. From Ami’s perspective, only a direct description could convey the suffocating menace—a suffocation that, beneath the overwhelming rain of blood-spears, left him with nothing else but the feeling of death itself closing in.

He would die. He would be killed.

His instinct, sharpened by countless brushes with death, screamed of the danger. But sometimes, danger could not be avoided merely by sensing it. Faced with the relentless onslaught that sealed off every avenue of escape, Ami Ulysses did not hesitate for a moment. At this critical juncture, he did not even think to dodge. He simply charged forward—forward!

Sword flashing—

Each blood-spear, hardened beyond belief, fell like meteors. The pale, flawless earth shattered in an instant. Amidst the drifting dust, the Bringer of Glory, his body pierced through by several spears, pressed on. Bathed in blood, with an unstoppable momentum, he broke through the last barriers. In the white-bright world, his black eyes were limpid and serene, and the short sword in his hand shone with a chilling, deadly radiance.

But in the next moment, time seemed to freeze, as if captured in an alchemist’s memory crystal.

Even though only a few meters separated him from Ignatius, the youth could not take another step. He was locked in place, caught in a grotesque pose like a marble statue, unable to move an inch.

He was trapped.

Bound by a ring of thorny vines wrought from the blood-spears that had pierced his body.

“You seem to have forgotten,” the old man approached, his expression free of mockery toward the defeated, “that I can alter the properties of blood at any moment.”

“Yes, I did forget.” Ami, bound fast, lifted his head. His black eyes were deep and void as the night sky, and his lips curved in a faint smile. “It’s an unforgivable mistake, the most fatal one of all. You may not remember, but still, I wish to thank you for all the care you’ve given me.”

He paused, letting that rare smile fade.

“And—farewell.”

Then, heedless of the thorns that bound him from within, he forced his body to move.

Before Ignatius could react, with the sound of flesh tearing, the Bringer of Glory, whose internal organs were now utterly destroyed, closed his eyes forever.

He was dead.