Upon hearing my words, Adam revealed a toothy grin before taking a couple of steps to wind up before taking a huge leap.

I snorted at his idiotic actions before flipping my dagger back into a regular grip and throwing it with full strength at the airborne Adam. The dagger cut through the air fiercely before arriving right in front of Adam, who then timed a deflection perfectly with his blade, evading injury but losing a lot of momentum in the process.

It was all according to my expectations until, with some extreme luck, he managed to just barely make it onto the head of the woman and rushed at me instantly after gaining his footing.

My dagger was gone for now, but it would be back in a few seconds, so I just had to maneuver a little before that happened. My hands were free, though, so it wasn't a problem.

I did a back handspring, avoiding Adam's first swing, and grabbed onto the wave shapes of the headscarf the woman was wearing and swung my body with my legs, leaping onto the left shoulder of the statue.

It was then that I could summon my dagger again and block the blade that was flying at me before jumping back onto the head, where Adam stood with a balanced stance. Right when I managed to land, Adam caught the handle of his weapon and attempted to rush at me before I got into a proper stance, but he was too slow.

What followed was a series of clashes between our blades as we tried grabbing each other and switched positions constantly.

It seemed like Adam thought that since I was running, I was so inferior to him that he could win even if he fought me in my preferred area at my preferred range. However, he couldn't be more wrong.

The series of clashes eventually ended after just under 10 clashes when I redirected a strike of his downward and attempted to stab his face. The attempt was dodged, and as always, Adam moved to the right, which made it easy to make my attack in rapid succession and turn from a thrusting motion into a sweeping motion that forced Adam to duck.

During our exchanges, I had seen just how sharp his senses were, so I had to develop something a little unorthodox to get a hit in.

That's why the sweeping dagger motion was never meant as an attack but instead a concealing motion for the left elbow that was fluidly and precisely delivered to Adam's chin after he ducked.

Adam was shaken by the blow he hadn't seen coming at all and fell to his left side. It was expected. After all, my attack had been a complete masterpiece.

Not only had the opponent been so focused on my unprecedentedly fast attack with my dagger that he momentarily forgot about other striking possibilities, he also couldn't even see my left elbow since it was blocked by my right arm. Then there was the fact that he couldn't have expected there to be another strike since the rotation of my torso was explained by the swing, so there was no telegraphing he could have used to figure out another strike was coming.

My heart felt warm from the pleasant feeling of things going as expected.

The feeling only lasted a split second, though, since there was a sting in my right thigh, and I looked down to see a long wound running down my thigh caused by Adam's blade that was still stuck in my flesh.

I tried grabbing Adam's hand in a hurry, but he unsummoned his weapon and rolled down from the head of the statue onto its shoulder. I was going to jump after him even with my injured leg, but then he jumped at the closest pillar and off of the statue.

He left my sight as he fell, and then there was a sound of stone being stabbed and crushed.

Adam had summoned his weapon and shoved the blade into the wall to make his descent slower and not suffer any fall damage.

The first real encounter ended in a draw.

I inspected the wound, which had already leaked blood everywhere but was already showing signs of healing. It wasn't as deep as I thought at first, but even with my current healing abilities, which had evolved quite a bit by now, it would take a while for the muscles to be completely functional again.

I was afraid it wouldn't take Adam that long to recover. The hit had landed straight on his chin, but I was afraid his durability was good enough for him to be able to recover much sooner than me. He could still move properly after receiving the hit, so it was very possible. If he knew this and got me into a battle while my thigh wasn't healed, I would just get more severely damaged.

'I have to hide somewhere,' I thought and looked around the structure hurriedly. 'Wait... I don't need to hide.'

I realized what the best course of action was and didn't waste a second.

"Who's the one running now?! I thought me and you were going to fight!" I yelled, and as I expected, there was no answer.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Even when hit with a hard blow, one could still survive by relying on instincts for the moment they were half-conscious. However, he likely had no idea of the extent of the damage he had done to me.

In other words, if I just kept acting like I was provoking him to come fight me, he would think I had sustained only a minor injury compared to his, but I didn't want to chase him into an area that was preferable to him.

"Come and fight me!" I shouted, feigning aggressiveness, and when there was no response, I exhaled in relief.

I thought of my next steps as I watched the wound on my thigh gradually heal, and once it did, I hopped to my feet in an instant.

I then leapt down onto the shoulder of the woman and took a couple of running steps before jumping at the pillar opposite the one Adam had jumped at.

I wasn't aiming to get down, though.

I shoved my dagger into the pillar as soon as I was in range and put my weight on the blade that I dug down into the smooth stone with. I came to a dead stop very quickly and was able to relax again.

I then got my waist closer to the pillar before taking my dagger out, quickly stabbing it onto the left side of the pillar, and changing position. I repeated the process a couple of times before I was on the side of the other statue and adjusted my body a little before launching myself at the statue.

I landed on the statue's shoulder, which was easier to balance on since it was a series of flat surfaces instead of round like the other state's shoulder.

The statue I was standing on was one of an armored knight standing bravely with both hands in the hilt of a sword that had its tip shallowly emerging from the ground. The statue radiated a feeling I was all too familiar with. It was the twisted feeling of ruthlessness that you had right before doing something so horrible that you couldn't help but fill your mind with all kinds of dark things to convince yourself that the world was at fault.

I shifted my focus so as not to get too enveloped in my thoughts and jumped up onto its head before looking around in the hopes of seeing Adam hiding in a blind spot of the other statue.

However, I couldn't find him anywhere.

'What happened to him? How long is he planning to hide? Wait a second. What happens if he doesn't come out of hiding at all?' I thought, just now coming to the realization that he could get us both killed just by finding a really good hiding spot. 'Did he actually get so scared from getting hit that he's going to kill us both?'

'If only the armor had more uses than one,' I entertained such a useless thought.

I turned my head to the center of focus in the structure. To the magnificent statue carved into the wall.

The statue was one of a man with no face dressed in elegant robes, clasping his hands together as if praying. Just looking at the thing made me feel bewitched. The greatness it radiated felt simply unfathomable.

I quickly snapped out of my delusional feeling of admiration and came to a realization, "That's him! He's the Creator!"

Then something occurred to me, and I looked back at the statue behind me and noticed the baby the woman was holding had no face either. I looked below me, but the knight was wearing a mask, so I couldn't see his face.

I looked back up at all the statues on the other side. Opposite the statue of the woman and baby, there was a statue of a child with no face on a pedestal with slumped shoulders. Loneliness.

I turned my head and looked towards the statue opposite the one I was on, and what I saw was a man with no face, his tilted head up towards the skies while his nails dug into his eyes. Hopelessness.

A single exhale escaped my mouth before I shifted my gaze a little more to the left and took in the depiction of a faceless man covered in blood with his hands squeezed into fists. Hatred.

Lastly, I directed my gaze to my left and saw a statue depicting a faceless man with his head tilted down, walking with his hand over the shoulder of a man whose facial features were awfully familiar to me. Shame.

'Desperation, loneliness, ruthlessness, hopelessness, shame, hatred, and lastly, greatness?' I recapped in my mind. 'That was the correct order, right? Left to right, looking from the entrance.'

I had figured out the meaning behind the statues, but something was bothering me.

I looked at the statue on my left one more time and squinted. Then my eyes went wide. 'Angus. That's who he reminds me of. He's Angus's great-grandfather!' I thought and all the memories from the fourth ruin came flooding in.

However, I couldn't process any of it at that moment as Adam showed himself again, and my expression grew terrified as I noticed a single detail.

The red markings on his weapon had changed and were now glowing more vibrantly than ever.