Chapter 25

  Singular Breath (I)

The four remaining shadows standing on top of a tall cliff loomed over in silence for a moment before one of them stepped out and leisurely dropped down, landing silently.

Cain frowned, noting a familiar sensation that swelled out of the newcomer, almost like a bottled tsunami of Mana waiting to erupt into abrupt chaos.

She was a woman, he quickly realized -- or, at the very least, had feminine features. No taller than six feet, faintly muscular, draped in skin-tight robes of black and silver, with long, curly, milky-white hair and a pair of silver-stained eyes. Appearing expressionless, she glanced up at Cain’s party for a moment before turning her attention back onto him.

"... we'll settle it with this one," she said, suddenly weaving her finger up and around, casually, causing streaky shadows to swell out as though the whole platform exploded. Though alarmed for a moment, Cain quickly realized it was a harmless skill -- one that was often employed by many superstar-level Conquerors in the past -- sealing-off space. "Despite only being an Initiate, your control of elements is outstanding." her voice was crisp, clean, and even slightly melodic, though, with a complete lack of emotions present in it, she sounded extremely robotic.

“... thanks for the praise.” Cain replied, looking around curiously while the darkness swallowed the ‘bridge’ and the two of them in the process, hiding them from the rest.

“You can’t defeat me,” she said, resting her hand down as the sealing completed. “Even if you were ten times stronger than you currently are. I was never supposed to step out for this challenge, but if you fought any of my companions, it would be a free ride for you. That would defeat the purpose of the challenge.”

“... are you sure I can’t defeat you, though?” Cain crackled, once again confirming that nearly all ante-Humans were arrogant to the bones.

“... see for yourself.” she replied in the same, expressionless tone as a screen flashed in front of her, denoting her stats. Cain nearly choked on the air he was breathing when he saw it, blood in his veins freezing as though he’d been dipped into Antarctic’s waters completely naked.

// Lillia S’yonel Age: 26 Race: Prime Ante-Human

Class: Reaping Sear Level: 253

Strength: 633 Vitality: 1280 Agility: 1923 Stamina: 960

Intelligence: 3959 Wisdom: 3340 Health: 280,493 Mana: 566,458

Traits: Intelligent(SSS-), Calculating(SSS), Cautious(SS+), Talented(SSS-), Pioneer(S+), Undefeated(?), Tenacious(S+), Hardworking(SS), Emotionless(S+), Proud(SSS+)

Skills: ???

Created Spells: ???

Items: ???

Titles: ???

Achievements: ??? //

"... what in the God's fuck..." Cain gasped for breath, finding himself weak in the knees. It wasn't that he'd never seen stats like these before, but that these were floor 60 and up sort of stats, and no monster beneath those floors ever had them. This was especially true since she had a full-blown Status Screen rather than just an abridged version, signaling that she was supposed to be one of the Floor Bosses. However, even among those with stats similar to hers, her Traits made her stand out. No wonder the chick’s this diabolical while still being six years younger than me... holy shit...

“Do you still think you could defeat me?” she asked with the faintest of smirks on her face.

“... yeah, sure, in about twelve years, give or take. Might happen even sooner, who knows?” Cain replied with a sigh, wondering just who in his party had such shit luck as to invoke this woman’s appearance.

“... perhaps if I stayed rooted in who I am today,” she replied. “But I don’t plan on doing that.”

“... what do you propose, then, for the ‘challenge’? A fight would be pointless.”

"... no," she shook her head. "You might not know it, but I am, technically, one-step-removed from being an Elementalist myself." You're an 'Elementalist' who gave up the majority of her elements to become dual-Reaper class... Cain, naturally, was very familiar with the combination of her classes as it was extremely popular in his past life, and even he was tempted to go after it during the Second Awakening. In part, it was because it truly was a powerful class, a mage of sorts with the agility and quickness of the assassin-style classes, but it was mostly just because the class had some of the coolest gear in the whole Tower.

“... and?”

“And your control over the Elements impressed me,” she said. “Which is what we’ll be competing in. I’ll seal away my strength and use stats identical to yours. We’ll compete in Control, Coalescing, Attunement, and Design.” Ah, a CCAD duel... Cain groaned inwardly, PTSD-like flashbacks surging through his mind. It was a popular style of fighting amongst people as it truly depicted the skill-gap once the levels, stats, items, and such were removed from the equation.

“... what’s the victory condition?” he asked.

“Suppression,” she added. “I have no intention of harming you.”

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“... mighty nice of you.”

"I would also like it if we could place an additional condition on the challenge."

“... what?” Cain asked, a bad feeling about it surging within him.

"Should I emerge victoriously," Lillia said. "Instead of being imprisoned for two years, you will become my sparring partner for the same length of time. As a further extension, your friends would not need to be imprisoned, and will, instead, simply be kicked out of the City and barred further entrance."

“... and if I win?” Cain asked tentatively.

“I will ascribe a Talent on you.”

“... huh?! You... you can fuckin’ do that?!” Cain cried out in shock.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I am the Matriarch of my Clan, after all.”

"Yes, yes, let's fuckin' duel. I agree to your conditions. Come on, should we begin immediately?! I want to begin immediately!" Cain's feelings about the whole ordeal underwent a complete 180-degree turn in the span of a single sentence. After all, ascribing a Talent was something so rare and monumentally difficult to achieve that only a few other people have managed to do it in his previous life.

As a matter of fact, it was the only reward for clearing the Tower’s 90th floor, and there was only one -- which led to a dog-like slaughter of eight superstar-level Conquerors, all televised nationally at that.

“... very well,” she nodded. “Time limit will be an hour -- if neither one of us can suppress the other within that limit, the conditions will be cleared, and you and your party will merely be allowed the passage without any rewards.”

“A’right,” Cain nodded, taking a deep breath and settling his nerves. Though he let the excitement get the better of him for a moment, he knew now was not the time. While he had incredible confidence that nobody in the world at the moment could duel in a CCAD fashion quite like him, that didn’t necessarily extend to the Tower-borne creatures. Feel her out first? Or try to go all out and take her by surprise?

His thinking was cut short as he saw thirty blistering, crimson scythes appear above Lillia, each rippling and trembling, shooting off at him right at the very next moment. Right behind them was a surge of torrential darkness, almost shaped like a thousand hands reaching out toward him.

Taking a deep breath, he settled his rippling Mana and rapidly charged Blood and Water into his right foot, kicking out in a curved fashion and blasting off a membrane-seeming cloud of red. Right before his foot hit the ground, he charged Earth and Fire, digging his leg into the dirt and ripping through it, summoning a torrential blaze intermingled with large chunks of earth that shot off like the falling stars.

Two simultaneous collisions shook the world of shadows as Cain retreated fifty feet by Blinking, already having charged Fire and Frost in his hands, slamming them together violently. A violent explosion blew out of his hands, tossing him further back as the surge of coral and cyan rippled forward, meeting a shadow-infused blade of the earth that Lillia had tossed.

She raised her arms toward the sky immediately after, charging to globes of darkness on top of her hands before weaving them together into a conical shield that swallowed up the sea of infernal fire that blew through her. Right after, she slammed her Frost-charged foot into the ground and summoned a coiling dragon of ice, spiking him toward Cain at the speed nearing the sound.

He instinctively blew his left arm to the side, charged with Earth and Fire, ripping out a wall of earth nearly fifty feet tall, blocking the strike. The collapsed chunks of ice on fire smashed into the Elemental Shield that he barely used in time, forcing him over twenty feet back. He immediately rolled to the side, avoiding a darkness-infused spike of frost that shot from underneath the ground at the place he landed.

Not wanting to be put on the back foot, he charged Wind, Arcane, Fire, Earth, and Nature, startling Lillia who hadn't expected to see penta-attunement here of all places.

Mana surged like the world-ending winds as colors shot off from him, swelling into a giant, mile-wide halo of light that shot off a massive beam at her. Tumbling back, she charged Frost, Dark, Body, Shadow, and Creation, projecting her body into a half-a-mile tall avatar that pushed its arms out, meeting the beam head-on.

The ensuing explosion blew her back for a whole mile, forcing her to roll on the ground for a good while before managing to stabilize her position. Gritting her teeth, she jumped to her feet only to be met by a sea of burning spears falling toward her like a rain of arrows. Spitting out a low curse, she charged both her hands with Dark, Creation, Death, Body, and Earth, summoning a massive scythe coated in light-reflecting darkness. It completely swallowed all the spears of fire, disappearing them from the world, before crying out like a weeping ghost and slashing out, tearing up space in front of it and ripping through the avoid, arriving in front of Cain immediately.

Cain quickly activated one of the Crown of Flame's abilities, the shield, coating himself in the soft membrane of Fire. At the same time, he used Mana Burning and did something that he wanted to avoid doing before the First Awakening at the very least -- hexa-attunement.

Body, Nature, Fire, Frost, Water, and Wind surged from every pore in his body as blood began trickling out of his nose, a feeling of light-headedness nearly overwhelming him.

The scythe arrived inches away from him as he struck out with his right arm, grabbing its blade firmly within his fingers as the scythe’s drag began to push him back. Pain pushed his nerves to their tempering point, his mind screaming alarms at him repeatedly, but he persisted, anger swelling inside his heart.

Screaming out, and pushing his other arm against the soul-ripping effect of the surrounding gravity, he reached out and charged Body into it, clamping the scythe and slamming it down, shattering it into blistering shards that blew out into a torrent of darkness that swallowed the world.

On the other hand, Lillia stared wide-eyed at the incredible sight that left her gobsmacked -- even if she, too, could use hexa-attunement, that was under the condition she raised her strength at the very least to the Second Awakening. If she truly were to compare herself from the past when she was at his Level... this man, she realized, could have easily been her Master. No, she mused. He still could be...

The darkness cleared, revealing a blood-covered figure hunched forward slightly, the gleam in his lime-green, shining eyes growing dangerous, his breath’s smoke colored crimson.

Settling, Cain took a deep breath and looked at his remaining Mana. Thanks to his passive, Mana Surge, which occasionally restored 10% of his missing Mana, he still had just over 250 left, surprising him somewhat. She’s good, he mused, wiping his lips of blood. But she misuses the order of charging. Had she charged the scythe first with Creation and then augmented it with Death... boy, I woulda been a fuckin’ goner...

“... oi, aren’t you fucking cheating?!” he cried out angrily.

“... huh?” Lillia frowned, revealing a tinge of angered expression herself.

“You clearly used Creation there! I can forgive using Death since it’s part of you, but Creation is fuckin’ cheating and you know it!”

“How is it cheating?!” she asked with a slightly raised tone.

“Huh?! Because I can’t use it yet!! I had to do hexa-attunement just to counter it, you idiot! It nearly cost me my dear life!”

"... apologies," Lillia sighed, tempering her emotions. "You are right. I had simply become too engrossed in the battle and had instinctively used the element you had no access to yet. There are still nearly forty-five minutes left until the time limit is up. I shall afford you five minutes of rest as a form of apology for my blunder; rest assured, I myself will not be restoring my spent Mana or Stamina. You are, however, not allowed to use any external items. Only natural rest.”

“...” though Cain wanted to argue, he truly was almost spent. His pathetic Stamina really did do him good this time around. He collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily, and closed his eyes, slowly trying to control his breathing. I keep saying it... but this time, I swear, I won’t re-enter the Tower until my Stamina is at least 50... this is fucking pathetic...