Chapter 429: Chapter 429- Festival 160- The Sun Cot 9
Without much resistance, Nicho collapsed on the tal foothold.
A stifled groan escaped his lips as a loud thud echoed from the impact.
His gaze trailed the pathway of the dagger as a shimring thin line ca into view just as Louis caught the end of the black dagger.
Nicho frowned on recognition.
Glancing around to further confirm his suspicions.
From the top corners of the walls to the lower Pipelines, the telltale mark of Louis’s setup glimred.
Thin, nearly invisible lines ca into view.
Vibrating in silence. Its reflective surface bounced off the very colours that surrounded them.
Aqua blue.
These weren’t just re lines, these were instrunts of destruction that would set the tone of their battle in a different direction if used differently.
Strings.
‘When did he set these up?’ He wondered as his gaze landed on Louis’s.
Silence hung in the air as he stood to his feet.
His actions were laced with precautions and hesitation.
Just as it had since the beginning of the fight.
He may have lost his Miasma and even mana, and was reduced to what he was now.
The fact remained that he was still Nicho Mayuri, an executive of the Red Peacemakers.
His stats were far in the triple digits. A monster in physical attributes in his own way.
But that wasn’t enough…
Passive skills remained active. Abilities that didn’t entirely require mana to activate, but rather existed on their own as a part of an individual.
These skills varied, and only a few were actually useful in situations like this.
But that variety didn’t affect Nicho. Neither would it have affected Mila or anyone from the Red Peacemakers.
Because everything from them, skills and abilities included, was a ans for fighting their opponents.
The world they lived in demanded such.
A battle of the fittest.
While his thoughts lingered on the next set of actions, Louis seed preoccupied with sothing of his own.
At the mont, he seed to be…hesitant about what to do.
After all, this was far from what he had expected.
The confrontation, nor its derivatives that affected the world around them.
None of this had ever crossed his mind, and understandably so.
His hesitation began with a question that seed to replay itself in a loop.
‘Why?’
He paused. Eyes open.
A deep, crimson hue cascaded in its depths while he stared at Nicho.
‘Why?’
‘Why?’
‘How?’ ‘It can’t be.’
His body tensed. His arms curled into a tight fist while his daggers were tipped downwards.
The reflecting nature of his iron threads cos into view with the cascading lights of the Pipelines.
‘He’s weak. No ounce of mana within him. He can’t even use Miasma which he’s so proud of! So why won’t he fucking die?!’
It irked him. Bothered him.
Like a crawling sensation creeping up the skin, only for the individual to observe and find out that nothing caused it.
But the sensation persisted.
Spontaneously. Increasing.
Spreading until you begin to scratch your brains out.
Confusion laced with hallucinations.
The persistent questions led to a conclusion that he simply didn’t want to recognise.
He persisted against it.
Refuted it until it beca a black ichor that spread like poison.
Shuddering a deep resentnt within him.
He could almost hear it. A whisper– then, he did.
‘You can’t kill him.’ A voice claid.
It was a familiar voice.
One that he heard on multiple occasions in the past during his special training.
Again and again.
The monotonous life of an Assassin Cadet.
The mories ca fresh, then the unbearable rage ca fast.
“Impossible!”
An outburst of emotions.
It whipped the air with a torrent of crimson energy.
Murderous Intent, in its primal form, grew with the storm of thoughts within him.
It startled Nicho, who took a step back.
His expression quickly shifted to confusion as he stood guarded.
Louis ignored as he breathed calmly.
Whisking the frustration that stacked into sothing bitter, away.
He let the anger subside with it.
But that visceral voice ca again.
A slap to the face.
‘Be honest, you’ve grown weak.’
He bit his lips– Hard.
Blood trickled imdiately on contact with his sharp canines.
It dribbled down his lips, reaching his chin while the voice continued.
‘Hah!’ It scoffed. ‘You can’t even kill a weakened man.’
‘How much you’ve fallen, Louis.’
‘Shut it!’ he cried out in rage.
‘No, seriously. You’re supposed to protect that bitch right? Mariam was it?’
“Quiet!” He muttered.
‘Hah, yes, Mariam.’ A loud, maniacally infused cackle followed before its voice dropped to a near-zero temperature.
‘What a fool. Weak. Useless. Incapable of emotions.
You lived in your delusions for far too long, Louis.
Did you seriously think that soone like her would want to be with you?
Hah…what stupidity.’
“Enough…!” He muttered weakly.
A sudden gasp in between his sentences.
Nicho, who had been watching, found this intriguing.
His head tilted to the side while he spun his odachi.
‘Is he having an identity crisis at the mont?’
He didn’t wait for the question to settle– He acted first.
With a slight grunt, he burst forward in a fit of raw power.
Closing the distance in quick ti.
His odachi whistled through the air as it headed towards the boy’s neck.
Not a mont to waste.
As for Louis….he remained passive.
Standing idly by while he let himself succumb to the voices that quarried him.
‘Give up, Louis, or she dies because of you.’
The boy stood silent, a sudden silhouette hovering over his body as Nicho ca into view.
Sword descending like a guillotine crying for an execution.
It ca swiftly with precision.
A mont in the air, and in the next, closing in on flesh.
But just when he thought he had him– Louis snapped.
“ENOUGH!”
The voice rose like a storm, and with it ca a sudden blast of murderous Intent that blasted Nicho like a tumbleweed.
He grunted as the energy picked him up, and resisted as he could before he was sent to the other end.
His teeth bared in protest as his body struggled to regain control in the wake of the torrent of energy.
Just as he was slamd against all of the tallic pipes.
A loud clang projected into the air from the collision.
He groaned further, but resisted anyway.
Glancing back and forth as the energy dissipated.
‘Where is he?’
He wondered.
‘He snapped out of it just as I was about to attack. Was that planned?’
Perhaps, but he would find out anyway.
Just then, his control quickly strewn back together and he jumped off the wall, slowly reaching for the next platform to land.
His attention had been drawn to the nearby foothold when he appeared.
In a blur, Louis revealed himself above him.
Daggers stretched and strings dangling.
As quietly as silence could get.
His eyes cast iridescent shades of red as they locked gazes with Nicho, who snapped his head upwards.
‘Shit.’
He thought as he raised his odachi in defence.
Too late.
The daggers ca straight to his chest with Louis slamming his body further downwards.
The strike caused a slight tremor in the air, just before a louder one erupted from their crash into the foothold.
Silence followed.
Then groaning.
It was followed by a sort of temporary darkness that took root, just before it was replaced with vision as his eyes snapped open.
‘Hah…that hurts.’
His thoughts ca reeling in as he sat up, bones protesting as he did so.
His body scread at him. Pain throbbing through his vessels, as his clothes soaked with blood.
He held them. Felt it, then groaned yet again as he turned to the side.
There, his opponent stood.
Just as stoic, emotionless and completely unfazed by their fall.
It had seed like a height he would easily tread, but after the conclusion.
He began to think twice.
‘Is this the human body without mana?’ He wondered as he struggled to regain his footing.
Slowly rising to his feet.
‘How uselessly weak.’
Louis watched as he did so.
Eyes staring straight at Nicho who seed evidently out of options.
Especially after that last collision.
Still, that didn’t bother him.
What did, was sothing entirely else.
‘he’s not dead.’
His gaze shifted to the stab wounds on his chest.
‘I stabbed his heart. He should have died.’
An Assassin who couldn’t kill.
Hah….it left a bad taste in the back of his throat.
Nicho felt his stare and turned to the wounds.
“Hah, this?” He said with a tone of amusent.
“There’s this technique in the North, where I ca from…”
Louis looked up at him in surprise, and a bit of curiosity.
“We call it BoDa. Body Dance….shifting our organs to avoid certain deaths…”
He said with a smirk.
“You aid for my heart, left and right lung, and all I needed to do to survive was move it.”
Louis remained silent. His daggers were held firmly in his grasp.
For a mont, he seed to be lost in thought, but not really.
What he was doing was a review.
Quick andnts to his fighting style before he attacked again.
‘This ti for sure. I will have his head.’
But, Nicho had a different plan in mind.
“Enough.” He said as he raised his hands in the air. “I give up. You win.”
Louis paused. Both physically and ntally.
A sudden reboot of his thoughts ca into play as he blinked and shook his head.
“What?” He asked.
Nicho sighed heavily as he dropped his odachi.
“Did you not hear ?” His lips twisted into a small smirk.
“I give up.”
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