Aurelius tried his best to look scary as he peered into the narrow eyes of the thief. "What's it to me? Does that matter? I'm just doing what's right."

"Tch." Without wasting a single second, the narrow-eyed man aimed a kick at Aurelius' head, forcing Aurelius to let go of the bag in order to block.

The kick didn't come, however, and the man instead switched stances and kicked Aurelius in the stomach. Aurelius managed to block the blow with his arms, but despite his enhancement and reinforcement, he was launched back by the unprecedentedly powerful kick.

'Isn't he supposed to be just a thief?' Aurelius thought as he recovered and gave chase to the man who had already gotten far.

The young man had used the pipes in the alley to get around quicker, but Aurelius was worried about the durability of the pipes and didn't want to cause any issues, so he stayed low while running behind the thief.

After making it through the packed alley, Aurelius and the thief found themselves in a kind of intersection of alleys. The thief jumped to the right, hopping from a pipe to the wall of the building a couple meters from the ground. He then hopped from one side of the wall to the other, getting higher with each jump.

Aurelius wasn't going to let him get to the roof, however, and loaded up his legs before taking a leap, which led him within hand's reach of the thief. He then reached his hand out and tried grasping the thief, but got his own hand grabbed instead, as the thief managed to notice him and turn his body while airborne.

The thief was about to kick him, but his plan of grabbing Aurelius backfired immediately as Aurelius grabbed him and held on tight as they plummeted to the ground.

The thief's eyes went to Aurelius' hand and then to his eyes. Then Aurelius felt the thief's grip lose all strength.

'He stopped enhancement?' Aurelius thought, not sure if he should be confused or impressed.

They then fell onto the moist stone street, with the thief taking most of the impact since he was on the bottom. The thief's expression didn't change much at the impact, however.

Aurelius now knew to be impressed. The thief realized the situation in an instant. He didn't try struggling pointlessly, and he shut off his enhancement, putting all his essence into reinforcement to avoid any real damage.

Aurelius' slight respect for the thief then exploded as the thief's grip regained its strength, with no sign of setups.

'Motionless magic!'

Seeing the shock on Aurelius' face, the thief smiled widely enough for it to be seen through the mask and was quick to push Aurelius off of him. He then rolled backward before jumping to his feet and throwing.

Aurelius was expecting the thief to run, but to his surprise, he threw the bag into a trash pile on the side and took an awkward-looking fighting stance.

"Fuck the bag. Let's just fight."

Aurelius tapped his forehead, and the blue in his eyes got deeper. He hadn't expected to need anything besides enhancement and reinforcement, but now he did. He entered a wide but centered stance from which he could quickly dash forward and suppressed a smile.

Then the pair engaged, both dashing forward with their own strikes, but surprisingly, the thief's strikes had no power, as if every strike were a faint. Aurelius' strikes weren't really working either, as they were all either taken to highly durable areas by redirection or avoided completely.

Aurelius instantly realized the battle was not going anywhere in this manner, so he stretched one of his steps, stepping his right leg in between the thief's legs, and tried grabbing the wrist of the thief in an attempt to make the fight more rough and less technical.

As expected, the thief avoided it like the plague, but to the extent he did, it was certainly unexpected. The unexpected didn't stop there. Aurelius went to grab him by the throat with his other hand, extending himself even further. Right then, he was met with a furiously sharp counter in the form of the thief's right fist hooking right into his face.

At the exact same moment, Aurelius sensed something from his fingertips. He couldn't linger on that feeling for long, though, as his consciousness jumped, and he fell to his side.

"My opponent extends, I contract. My opponent contracts, I extend," the thief said with a chuckle as he stood over Aurelius.

Aurelius was still dazed and could just barely make out the words. He was mesmerized by something he saw. On the thief's neck were scratch marks.

Then the thief loaded up a kick. Aurelius put his hand up to block the kick, which was aimed at his head. He just needed a bit of time to recover before he could get back to fighting.

He didn't have to block anything, however, as in the next instant, the thief was engaged by Aurelius' trusty partner.

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Aurelius lowered his hands to see before it was over.

Cade ducked the thief's first strike, and tried to grasp his wrist, but the thief was quick. The movement of his arms seemed almost unnaturally quick when compared to every other movement of his.

Cade noticed this and adapted.

She switched her stance, kicked the thief's front leg in a way that forced his stance to widen, and in the split second, the thief's was put into an unnatural position for him where his movements couldn't rely on familiarity. Cade twisted her body, delivering a swift blow to the thief's chin.

The thief's eyes rolled back, as he limply turned according to the momentum of the blow, and the movement that happened next as the thief fell to the ground could best be described as him folding in two.

Cade averted her attention from the thief and looked down at Aurelius with disapproval. "Don't just throw your bag in my face and rush off." Then she revealed a slight smile and offered Aurelius a hand. "And if you do, don't get your ass beat right after. It makes you look embarrassing."

Aurelius closed his eyes and shook his head before grinning sheepishly. "Sorry about that. But this guy was special," Aurelius said as he took Cade's hand and pulled himself up.

Cade glanced at the unconscious thief lying with his face in a dirty puddle, then looked back at Aurelius. "Doesn't seem very special to me?"

"He did motionless magic," Aurelius said with a deeper tone than usual.

Cade frowned. "Seriously?"

Aurelius nodded.

"Well, he did beat you, so he's obviously strong, and his hand movements were quick. He seemed to have decent combat experience as well," Cade said as she walked over to the thief and turned him around. "But let's see." She pulled the mask off the thief's face. Immediately afterward, she frowned and turned to Aurelius. "Are you sure? Motionless magic? This guy is about your age. Maybe younger. And he's a petty thief. Although he's clearly an overqualified one, I don't know if he would have the opportunity to learn motionless magic."

Aurelius tilted his head. "Well, he didn't use any setups. Is it possible that he's self-taught?"

Cade's sighed. "No, there's no way."

Aurelius shrugged. "Well, I'll go return the bag."

"What about this guy?" Cade asked. "Are we going to deliver him to the authorities?"

Aurelius took the bag and headed back. "Let me think about it."

He then sprinted back to the intersection with the bag in hand before turning to the pipe-filled dumpster alley and maneuvering his way through it.

'Those scratches. He turned his reinforcement off completely to maximize his power. Either the amount of essence he can control at once is miniscule by nature, or he just wanted to get all the power behind his punch he could and decided to say goodbye to reinforcement because he was so confident,' Aurelius thought, figuring out the depth of his observations with his head now clear enough to think.

'So, in order to maximize his battle prowess, he turns different usages on and off depending on when exactly he needs them. Awesome,' he thought with a smile, but then his face dropped as he realized something. 'What if he wasn't doing motionless magic? The scratches weren't bleeding. Oh, why didn't I think of that before?' jumbled thoughts flew around Aurelius' head.

He didn't have any more time to think about that just then, as he reached the place where the owner of the purse still was. The man she was with was currently curled up, apparently still suffering from the kick he had endured earlier. It seemed he hadn't used reinforcement and had received an enhanced kick, so it was no wonder he would be in pain for a long while.

The man suddenly regained his vigor once he saw Aurelius with the bag in his hand.

He postured himself properly and walked up to Aurelius with an intention Aurelius couldn't quite figure out.

"Give the—"

Aurelius looked down into the man's eyes with a friendly smile. "Oh, you're shorter than you look from afar."

The man was left speechless, and Aurelius quickly walked past him to the woman behind him. "I think this is yours," Aurelius said, extending the hand holding the bag towards the woman.

The woman smiled and took the bag before covering her mouth and saying with a light laugh, "It certainly is." The woman curtsied. "Thank you for getting it back to me."

Aurelius smiled. "No problem, I'm always happy to help."

The woman raised her brows and said with a tilt of her head, "Ah, did you, by any chance, manage to apprehend the thief?"

Aurelius paused for a while, and then scratched the back of his head and looked at his feet. "I'm sorry, he got away."