A large surge of darkness was coming and it meant that our deadline was coming up. The sun was about to set and we still hadn't stolen Marine’s hat. If we failed, we wouldn’t be able to reach our destination.

“What’s wrong?” Marine grinned

Despite having multiple Marines all over the place, she couldn’t hide her darkness from me. That’s why even though one Marine blocked my way and swung her hammer, I simply let her phase through me as I charged towards the real one.

And without warning, explosions happened around me when I got close to her. Thanks to Synchronicity and the previous master’s guidance, I managed to command my shadow in time to form a protective wall but Marine put some distance between the two of us again.

“You can sense which one is the real among the fakes. But can you pinpoint the things I’ve hidden?” she asked.

Dang. She got ya, Noir said.

It was easy to find the darkness of living creatures. As for non-living things, I had trouble. I could only identify Roboco’s darkness because we traveled together. If Marine hid things I didn’t know she had like those bombs, it would be difficult. After all, if I focused my senses to feel every single darkness inside me, I would be overexerting my human body.

I looked at Ayame who was lying on the ground. Marine’s attack earlier brought her to that state and it was up to me to fulfill our mission by finding an opening. This game was annoyingly hard.

“I can see it. You’re doubting yourself, aren’t you?” Marine asked.

She pointed at me and smirked. Her yellow eye glowed as I felt it staring deep inside me. It was like I was put in the center of attention and had to do a presentation.

“You’re wondering how you can steal my hat without killing me. How sweet of you to hold back against me”, she said.

Wow. She sees right through ya, huh? Noir chuckled.

Not now. Noir, I told him

“Heh. Your anxiety is showing. You’re not even thinking like how you used to think, right? It’s as if you’re a different person already”, Marine asked.

…

My shadow turned into several spikes and scattered all over the field. It attacked the ground indiscriminately in order to destroy whatever bombs she hid and I destroyed the crates on the docks to make sure she has no obstacles to use against me.

Mikage! What are you doing?! Anya shouted.

It was understandable for her to be concerned. After all, one wrong move and I could impale Marine and fatally injure her. In my defense, I could just use Ars’ healing magic to save Marine if she did get hit. And that was assuming I could actually hit her.

“Yikes! You’re being bold, Mikage!” Marine giggled.

She calmly evaded my shadow with her other eye closed. My attacks only had near misses while she dodged with minimal movements. Even my surprise attacks couldn’t touch her hair as she calmly sidestepped.

“I see…” I said.

Marine moved her body even before my shadow did. She jumped away before I could command my shadow to stab her from behind.

This is a tricky opponent, Yoclesh said.

Her illusions might not be as good as the Mist of Deceit but that prediction ability is dangerous, Anya agreed.

No. That’s not a prediction ability. She’s merely looking at Mikage deeply, Ars told them.

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Oh? The shorty understood it already? Noir snickered.

…. It’s simple. She looks at Mikage from his mana to resolve and image. That includes the subconscious image he is telling his body to do. His shadow is part of himself so Marine can see a fraction of a second of Mikage’s future actions.

“Are those people behind you paying the rent? Or is discussing whatever stuff during battle is the payment for letting them stay in your mind?” Marine asked.

If she could see Ars and Yoclesh’s bodies behind me, she really was looking intently at me. That’s why I had to keep her attention on me and create an opening for Ayame.

I lunged at her and used Yoclesh’s Oni Rush. But just as I expected, she easily dodged them. No matter how fast I tried to swing my sword while aiming at her vitals, she moved away before I could land a hit.

After switching Leo’s Wild Sword Style, I managed to surprise. her. My sudden switch to using my knees and arms almost made my attacks reach her. However, it only took her a few seconds before she went back to predicting the next moves of Leo’s Wild Sword Style.

Even using two swords while having magic support me didn’t have much effect on her. I tried to do binding magic and surprise her with attack magic but Marine simply smirked while dancing around. Also, she didn’t attempt to attack me so she knew that I was capable of defending from her attacks. Marine was simply buying time for the sun to set.

But at least her attention was focused on me.

Thanks to my attacks, she was now getting nearer to Ayame. I know that Ayame wasn’t the type to be knocked out like that and she was just pretending to be unconscious. All I needed to do was to make Marine focus on me so Ayame could steal the hat with the opening I’ll make.

“Take this!” I made a large downward swing.

“That’s no good! Do you think you can get me like that?” Marine asked after she jumped backwards.

However, she was exactly in the spot I wanted her to be. Without wasting any second, Ayame swiftly got up and reached out her hand towards Marine’s hat. With her focusing too much on me, she wouldn’t expect Ayame to do a surprise attack like that.

But our hopes were smashed when Marine easily sidestepped. I commanded both my shadow and Ayame’s and tried to attack her but she dropped a few smoke bombs. Ayame’s slashes couldn’t connect thanks to the smoke and even though I knew where Marine was, there was still a huge chance that she was going to evade once again.

“Four”, Marine waved her finger, “That’s the number of times you glanced at Ayame while we were fighting. I’m focusing my All-Seeing Eye on you, Mikage. Did you really think that little detail can slip past me?’”

“Sorry, Ayame”, I told her.

“Don’t mind it”, she replied.

“I’ll ask you again. Did you think you could get me like that?” Marine asked.

Ayame stood beside me and a woman’s silhouette made from purple flames appeared above her. Marine just chuckled as she swung her hammer. But I noticed that she was sweating heavily. She was also panting irregularly.

“This is so fun. Looking at the Primordial Dark and predicting its future actions is taking a lot of my mana. Will I run out of mana or will the sun set first? This thrill of pushing myself to the limits…”

It was a surprise to see Ayame flinch. I could understand her though. If anyone else saw Marine’s ecstatic face, their fight or flight instincts would activate. Her dangerous grin and the eerie glow of her yellow eye was enough to make me consider running away too.

“This is what gets my heart racing every time! This is why I can’t quit this fun life of being a pirate!” she panted.

This wasn’t good. The sky’s color already turned deep orange and the sun was almost down. Her All-Seeing Eye was too annoying and I couldn’t find a good way to disable it. Why were the Five Great Abilities annoying to counter?

Wait a minute… Didn’t I defeat the Silver Tongue? I thought.

Are you thinking that you should make the entire surroundings dark and blind her? Anya asked.

I don’t recommend that. From what I know, the All-Seeing Eyes can see another creature’s mana signatures even if it’s covered up. She can see your future actions so seeing your essence in the dark is easy, Ars said.

I have a plan, I told them.

After explaining things, Ars and Anya agreed that it could work. Marine might be able to see them debating but she most likely couldn’t hear them. She was even busy fighting Ayame and she didn’t show any reaction to what we were planning to do.

And thus, I gathered my resolve and power to release darkness from my body. Marine frowned when she saw what kind of plan I was doing but it was already too late. My darkness was faster than how she could run because it wasn’t solid like my shadow manipulation ability.

The darkness disappeared after a few seconds and when the light of the setting sun shone down on us, my hand was holding her hat which was stolen by Ayame’s shadow.

“Alright! That was creative! You got me!” Marine sat down on the ground and made a deep sigh.

“How did you blind the All-Seeing Eye?” Ayame asked.

“I scattered myself all over the place”, I answered.

It was a simple trick. Marine said that she could see my mana signature and even my essence as the Primordial Dark. And so, I imbued my darkness with my mana and essence and she could see only me. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly where I was and what I was doing so it was easy to steal her hat.

“Wow! You were literally everywhere. I thought I was seeing nothing!” Marine laughed.

“We got your hat. The game’s over”, I told her.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a woman of my word.”

She fired a blue flare towards the sky which signaled her defeat. At least we somehow managed to secure a boat to head to our destination.

And that flare was the signal of my journey’s approaching end.