When The System Spoi Chapter 87 - Eighty Seven

Chapter 87: Chapter Eighty Seven

"Before we begin, I have to inform you."

Kenshin’s smile faded. The shift was small—the corners of his mouth lowering, the light behind his eyes dimming—but it changed him. The playful energy drained out of his posture, replaced by sothing heavier. Sothing final.

"There’s no reality where I lose to both of you. This fight is a fight where you would lose."

He let the silence sit.

"Badly."

He stared at Kai and Jude—not challenging, not threatening. Stating. The way you stated the weather or the direction of the wind. Things that simply were.

"That just makes it all the more exciting."

Jude’s smile didn’t waver. If anything, it sharpened.

"Imagine the look on your face when we beat you."

Kai smiled as well.

Kenshin released a sigh of relief. His shoulders dropped. The tension that had gathered around him dissipated like morning mist.

"I did not overestimate you guys."

He clapped his hands once. The sound was sharp, final—a period at the end of a sentence.

"Yosh, let’s have a hot youth boiling battle!"

His voice carried across the training ground, bright and eager, the weight of the previous mont already forgotten.

"On one side—the most interesting battle the strongest has ever fought, from weaklings."

He turned to Jude and Kai, his grin returning.

"And on the other—a fight against a force they know they cannot overco. But they’ll try anyway."

A great rush of aura erupted from Kenshin. It wasn’t the controlled pressure of soone demonstrating power. It was the exhalation of sothing that had been held back, the release of a restraint that had been worn thin. The air around him shimred. Dust lifted from the ground in a widening circle, pushed outward by nothing visible.

"’Strongest’?"

Kai laughed. He looked to Jude.

Jude t his eyes and smiled as well.

"We can’t quite agree to that."

As Jude turned to look at Kenshin, he found a fist waiting for him.

BOOM!

The impact was not a crack—it was a detonation, the sound of sothing moving faster than sound should be allowed to move. Jude flew backward like a rag doll, his body tumbling end over end, his arms flailing for control. He hit the ground, rolled once, twice—and conjured a rod with [Fla Weaponry], driving it into the stone to arrest his montum.

The rod gouged a trench in the ground, stone fragnts spraying outward, before he held his ground.

Blergh.

He coughed out blood. The taste of copper flooded his mouth, hot and imdiate. His ribs ached. His vision swam for a mont, then cleared.

"I knew you could take it."

Kenshin’s voice was cheerful, almost affectionate. He was already moving.

He was in front of Kai now.

Kai’s eyes widened. He hadn’t seen the transition—hadn’t seen Kenshin close the distance between Jude’s landing and his own position. The space between them had simply... collapsed.

Kenshin flashed a smile at Kai.

A golden blade erupted from a small portal at high speed—[Sky Fracture], compressed, refined, nothing like the grand displays Kai had used in the Expanse. This was a knife where there had once been a lance. A whisper where there had once been a shout.

But Kenshin had already moved from his position.

The blade passed through empty air, its tip scoring a thin line across the stone floor where it struck—not a crater, not a gouge, just a mark, a reminder that sothing had been there and was gone.

Kai had mastered his ability over the past year. He could now shoot weapons at high speed, and unlike the grand, obvious way it was usually applied, he had learned to make smaller portals. Discreet ones.

The plan had been simple: the first portal would be the mark. Once that shot landed and stunned the opponent, he would fire at will.

He had used eighty percent of its speed and lethality—this was a spar, after all, and he believed Kenshin could take it. But he had not expected Kenshin to be this fast.

"Sneaky sneaky."

Kenshin’s voice ca from behind him.

BOOM!

He slamd Kai to the ground.

The impact drove the air from Kai’s lungs. His face struck the stone—not the flat of it, but the edge of a crack, a ridge that split his eyebrow open. Blood welled imdiately, hot and slick, running into his eye. The world blurred on one side.

Kenshin had an eighty percent boost to all stats except Magic Power thanks to [Heavenly Restriction]. That placed his physical stats at SSS-Rank—far above Jude’s S-Rank, far above Kai’s A-Rank ceiling. His Endurance was the exception, sitting at S-Rank. But Kenshin didn’t need Endurance.

The reason for that was shown in the next mont.

A lance of light—Kai’s, conjured while Kenshin was focused on slamming him—stabbed through Kenshin’s right chest, erging from his back.

"Tsk."

Kenshin grabbed Kai by the head—his hand still there, still gripping from the slam—and threw him.

Kai flew backward, arms pinwheeling, blood from his brow trailing behind him in a thin arc. He slamd into Jude, who had just regained his footing, and they tumbled backward together, a tangle of limbs and montum, finally coming to rest in a heap.

Kenshin reached across his body with his other hand. His fingers closed around the lance of light. He pulled.

The lance ca free. The wound it left behind was already closing—flesh knitting, skin smoothing, the only evidence a tear in his clothing and a dark stain of blood that was already drying.

"Oh, c’mon."

Jude groaned as he pushed Kai off his body. The movent was careful—Kai’s weight had landed directly on his injured ribs, and the pain flared white-hot before settling back to a dull, insistent ache.

The groan partly because of Kai slamming into him, which had aggravated the damage from Kenshin’s first blow. Partly because of Kenshin’s regeneration, which was frankly insulting.

"It seems the Tower likes recycling the sa trait."

Kai raised Jude up by his arm. His grip was steady, but his face was pale beneath the blood.

"You good?"

Kai asked.

"He hits hard."

Jude had a smile on his face as he dusted himself off—a dry, almost reflexive expression, the kind you wore when you were still standing and that was enough.

"Tell

about it. My head hurts."

"Recovery or might?"

"Might."

"Mm."

Kai nodded.

Recovery referred to a function of his ability, [Divine Blessing]. It granted C-Rank regeneration to whover he blessed. Might granted a boost to all stats—one full rank increase.

It could only be cast once an hour.

"I’ll manage. Recovery won’t close the stat gap."

"I hear you. Go put up a fight. I’ll snipe."

Kai pushed Jude forward playfully, casting Might as he did. The golden light of the blessing washed over Jude—brief, warm, there and gone.

"I’m not built to keep up with him."

"Jaa naa~"

Jude waved as he walked. The hand he used to wave conjured a double-headed axe, its blades wreathed in fla that hissed and crackled in the still air.

BOOM.

He planted his feet—one, then the other, the impact sending cracks spiderwebbing across the stone—and dashed toward Kenshin.

Kenshin had been stretching his right arm playfully as he watched them pick themselves up. Rotating his shoulder. Flexing his fingers. The picture of a man with nowhere to be and all the ti in the world to get there.

"Yosh. Round two."

He t Jude halfway. This ti, Jude was ready.

Might, when applied, boosted his stats to the peak of the next rank. For his non-Magic Power stat, that ant 1599—the threshold of SS-Rank. For Magic Power, already at SS-Rank, the boost pushed him to 5000, not necessarily the peak of the first tier saint—It was the number of the average total that marked the peak of the first tier saint.

Kenshin, by contrast, had 2835 Strength, 1890 Agility and Perception, and 945 Endurance. His physical stats were higher across the board. His Magic Power was stayed the sa, his ability did not boost it, and it was irrelevant anyway, for now.

The mont they t, Jude swung his axe.

The arc was wide, brutal, ant to cleave. Kenshin raised his right hand to block—the edge bit into his forearm, fla searing flesh, the axe stopping mid-swing not because it had lost montum but because Kenshin’s bones had refused to break.

He winded up his fist.

A spear made from fire—conjured from Jude’s other hand, ford in the space between one heartbeat and the next—stabbed into Kenshin’s side.

Kenshin looked down. The spear had entered just below his ribs, angled upward. He smiled.

Then he rocked Jude’s face into the ground.

The impact was not a punch. It was a placent—his fist driving Jude’s head down, redirecting his montum, using the weight of his own charge against him. Jude’s face struck the stone. The sound was wet and hard at the sa ti.

"Oh, an almost fifty percent increase in your endurance. Dope."

Kenshin’s voice was conversational, almost admiring.

"Doesn’t matter, though."

Jude’s head bounced as he hit the ground—once, twice, the second impact less severe than the first but still enough to send fresh blood spraying from his nose. His head throbbed. His vision doubled, then resolved.

"Hmm."

Kenshin looked to the side, where Kai had stood.

Lances of golden light were already in the air, streaking toward him—[Sky Fracture], rapid-fire, each one aid with the precision of soone who had been waiting for this exact mont.

Kenshin stamped his foot against the ground.

The stone cratered beneath him—not cracked, not fractured, but pulverized, the impact sending a shockwave outward in a visible ring. He launched himself sideways in a high-speed dash, evading the first volley. The lances struck the ground where he had been standing, each one carving a smoking crater, the golden light fading as the constructs dissipated.

The dodge continued.

When he tried to dodge one.

His body froze.

Not hesitation. Not indecision. His muscles simply refused to respond.

A lance impaled him—through the shoulder, this ti, the golden light burning as it passed through flesh.

"What’s going on?"

Kenshin looked around. His body was still locked, still frozen, the command from his brain arriving at muscles that would not obey.

Then he saw Jude get up.

A wide grin was spread across his face. Blood ran from his nose, from the split in his scalp, from the corner of his mouth where his teeth had cut the inside of his cheek. He looked like hell.

He looked delighted.

"Finally."

At that mont, swords of light impaled Kenshin.

[Swords of Revealing Light].

They struck not as projectiles but as judgnts—each one finding its target not through speed but through certainty. They pinned his limbs, his torso, the space between his shoulder blades. The golden light flared, then subsided, leaving only the weapons behind, their blades buried in his flesh.

"Ahh. Now your mana is sealed."

Kai walked up to Jude. His eyebrow was still bleeding, the blood tracing a thin line down the side of his face. His smile was small, tired, and satisfied.

"We should have fun for a while."

"What did you do?"

Kenshin tilted his head. The movent was restricted—the swords held him in place—but his curiosity was unfeigned. The mont he had frozen, Jude had stood up. The connection was obvious.

"Magic."

"Ever heard of it, brute?"

Jude held the bleeding part of his head, tilting his own head to the side. The grin was still plastered across his face—bloodied, crooked, entirely unrepentant.

"Oh."

Kenshin’s eyes lit up with understanding.

"You’re a mage."

"Doesn’t matter, though."

Kenshin swung his arms. The swords of light that had pinned them shattered—not one at a ti, but all at once, the golden fragnts dissolving into motes of light that drifted upward and faded. He rolled his shoulders, getting the feel of his body again.

The debuffs had worn off. Whatever magic Jude had used to freeze him, it had been temporary. A few seconds. Maybe less.

"Ah, yes."

He turned to Kai.

"You ntioned sothing about sealing my mana."

He appeared behind Kai in a blur—not a dash, not a teleport, just speed, pure and absolute. The air where he had been standing was still settling.

"Sorry, but I’m not using mana."

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