Saulo saw only darkness around him.

Within moments, the darkness of the fog was replaced by an even more threatening one.

Immediately, his sight became dark before the face of the criminal who was leaving.

It was all over for him.

...

…

...

An eternal silence took hold of the Oyogue Path.

The two young men known as Don and Ryder were speechless as they watched what had just happened. Their eyes explained their emotions as well as the silence that reigned. Of course they expected a victory from their leader. But... this person was a young man like them.

Aaron moved away from the inert body.

It didn't make sense for him to fight a dead man.

Even the old man with crystalline eyes would understand.

However, ...

…

... suddenly, he hit the air.

What appeared to be a blow to the emptiness was heard equal to a clash of metals.

A halberd collided with his sword.

Out of nowhere, a boy with his halberd had emerged.

With no visible signs of blood or a cut on his chest, this person had attacked him from a side where there was nothing before.

For a moment, there were two Saulos on either side of Aaron. One lay on the ground wounded to death and the other pressed hard on his halberd. But after what was a second, the boy with the wound on his chest faded into a gray color, leaving the ground without a trace of his existence.

"Do you hear me? I'm speaking to you, the boy that is the real one."

Saulo Delanova is a shadow user.

By summoning his weapon, he is able to fight using the power of that element. Because of his halberd, Aaron instantly recognized that Saulo had that elemental power that now saved his life.

This didn't mean that the boy controlled his own shadow or that of others at will. Instead, he used the power of the shadow to fight. The same applied to the rest of the users.

Every living being had the power of one of the elements.

And Aaron knew this very well.

"You now understand that a supporting object for combat, such as a throwing knife or hand grenade, wouldn't have saved you from being pierced. If it weren't for your ability used, you'd already be dead. It's precisely a shadow ability that a user can use after summoning a weapon what has saved you from dying... and not your supporting objects."

That ability that Aaron referred to was known as [Gray Silhouette].

It was an ability that made the boy invisible while abandoning a shadow substitute in the same place where he disappeared. This 'copy' took his place, attacking after a brief moment a single enemy. The copy couldn't launch any abilities and only made a basic attack. But if received a very strong attack, it would vanish without doing anything.

"Let me tell you something."

Aaron's will felt firm, but the seriousness with which he transmitted his words was distorted for a second into an expression that his face didn't cover.

"I'm also going to use my abilities."

With those words, Saulo realized that both were about to enter a moment of confrontation that wasn't just one of fighting with the summoned weapons.

It was time to fight with the elements at war.

Saulo Delanova is a bearer of a halberd.

Whether out of a desire to attack or just to defend himself, he had the capacity to summon that weapon to fight. But besides that, another characteristic defined him.

He is a user of the shadow.

By summoning his weapon, he had the ability to use abilities based on that element.

One of those abilities was [Gray Silhouette].

By using [Gray Silhouette], both his body and his weapon instantly became invisible for a few seconds, leaving in his place a perfect replica of itself as if it was the real one.

Thanks to the shadow copy he left in his place, his organism was still intact.

However, what disturbed him was that Aaron was right in telling him that if it wasn't for the ability he activated, he would already be dead.

Even avoiding this deadly cut, what Saulo couldn't escape was the fright of seeing his stomach pierced by a powerful frontal attack.

Safe with his invisibility, he witnessed with horror as his copy succumbed to the edge of the sword that pierced his stomach. With an arcade of imaginary pain that paralyzed him, Saulo knew that death almost embraced him.

"Did you feel it? How close you were to your last breath."

"You could have killed me with that attack! How can you take someone's life so lightly?!"

"It's because I don't do it."

Such an immediate response caught Saulo off guard.

He didn't expect such a direct response to such a controversial subject as taking a life.

"Because of my old job, I had to face many enemies to fulfill the job assigned to me. Some lived and some died. Whether they deserved it or not, didn't cross my mind. What I knew was that if I continued with these ramblings, my performance in my mission would eventually be affected."

"Have you reached that point? To kill... Kill for stealing money, a watch, a phone. Is that the price of a life for you?"

Saulo put a hand to his chest trying to calm his growing accumulated pain.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

His chest had no wounds.

"You're wrong."

"How am I wrong? You yourself have admitted that for months you have been stealing with your companions!"yelled Saulo, caught in the growing indignation he felt in his body.

"It's true that we have been stealing possessions for some months from travelers who pass through this path. But you are wrong about what we do. We don't steal. What my two comrades and I do is known as another crime under the penal code."

The moment Saulo's brain processed the information, the answer he was about to say reached his ears in a calmer tone than the discomfort with which he would have expressed it.

"Theft."

A simple word that carried a different reality of two worlds.

In Saulo's eyes, the values that any citizen in general or the members of his community possessed would guide them to reject that fault and sin. In Aaron's eyes, the look of tranquility that appeared on his face reflected that he had no doubts about the values he believed in.

"A fight is a clash of wills. By stealing, we prevent the affected party from becoming unnecessarily involved compared to how it would be in a robbery. Because our victims don't realize they were stripped of their belongings, we don't need to resort to violence. That's what a scenario like the Oyogue Path has given us."

Saulo looked fiercely at Aaron, no longer trying to hide his indignation. For his part, the man bearer of the sword looked calm, as if he knew that the fog would be there to hide his actions.

"If you hadn't tried to dodge my sword, you'd ruin the disposition you showed when you attacked me with that hand grenade."

"But what are you saying?! A man trying to kill a young man for a disagreement shouldn't have any discussion to justify such a crime!"

Saulo's anger erupted in an instant. The fact that this person could almost have killed him wouldn't be erased by justified words. But for some strange reason...

... Saulo felt a little guilty about what had happened.

Thus, under this environment, the accumulated tension of not understanding the thoughts of those in front of him was broken by the movement of a weapon.

A display of lead power, like that of a cloud, surrounded Aaron's sword.

"[Sword Dance!]"

Smoke.

Aaron Escalante is a user of smoke.

He can use the power of that element to fight after summoning his weapon. Therefore, his abilities were based on smoke.

Aaron approached Saulo assuming a combat posture, carrying with him the danger of using an ability.

A rapid succession of abilities occurred between the two.

"[Sword Dance!]"

"[Shadow Cutter!]"

With the first ability mentioned, Aaron's sword was completely covered with a cloud of smoke. Behind the elemental power that the sword's edge contained around it, the weapon couldn't hide the destruction that brought with it.

Then, Aaron attacked.

The first cut forced Saulo in a hurry to make a jump backwards.

However, due to the closeness with which Aaron made the lateral cut, the sword grazed his stomach. Not only that was a concern. The sword's attack range had increased thanks to the smoke that enveloped it and, although the cut was very slight, the elemental power summoned increased the damage Saulo received.

And then...

A thrust came directly at him, with a longer range than would normally result from a frontal sword attack. Being a head-on attack, Saulo had to roll to one side to dodge it.

He knew what he was up against with that ability.

[Sword Dance] was an ability that allowed a smoke user to perform a sequence of two attacks in a row enhanced with smoke power. One lateral and one in lunge. Immediately, as he dodged the last sequence, Saulo took advantage of the impulse with which he rolled and responded with a gray flash.

He also had to respond at the same level:

With an ability.

At that time, Saulo's halberd began to be covered with a shadowy edge.

Behind the elemental power that the halberd's edge contained around it, the weapon couldn't hide behind itself the distortions of shadow that light and darkness brought with them as they converged.

Thus, the ability known as [Shadow Cutter] covered his halberd with the power of the shadow on the three blades that made up his weapon

An ability very much like Aaron's [Sword Dance].

Approaching with the determination that the situation warranted, his halberd struck a helpless Aaron. The fact that the man was unprotected was due to the fact that, after launching the second sequence of his ability, his guard was unprotected caused by the frontal attack he made with the last sequence of [Sword Dance].

And by the time Aaron returned his sword at full speed to block the imminent attack, the halberd was already next to the side of his body.

It was a direct strike to the rib area.

However, a flash of uneasiness in Saulo's heart let him know that not everything was fine.

The blood that should have come out after the cut was replaced by the sound of a metallic object being impacted.

"!"

A shield blocked the place where Saulo had hit with his halberd.

A look of anguish appeared on Saulo's face as he understood what had happened.

Aaron had just summoned his shield. A golden piece sized enough to balance the weight of his sword with the right arm and the shield with the left arm.

But he not only summoned the shield to defend himself from the ability that Saulo used. In turn, by blocking, Aaron activated a perfect ability for the predicament in which he was found.

[Vanguard Defense] was an ability that allowed to defend and attack at the same time.

Aaron, in a movement that demonstrated his experience in battle, patiently waited for the right moment to summon his shield and counterattack with that ability.

Feeling the danger of staying so close, Saulo stepped back quickly; while in turn, the shadow traces of [Shadow Cutter] disappeared from Aaron's shield.

All damage that his [Shadow Cutter] ability could have done was denied by the shield.

As Saulo retreated to stay away from his opponent's attack range, a lead color aura, like that of a sharp blade and very different from the attacks Aaron had made so far, received him in full motion.

"Gaahh!"

Saulo had just been impacted by a basic potentiated attack. Due to the speed with which Aaron counterattacked, this time Saulo was hit. A lunge attack had penetrated his left shoulder causing him an intense pain that spread to the rest of his arm.

This was also due to [Vanguard Defense].

[Vanguard Defense] was an ability that allowed the user to defend against a basic attack or a single target ability to immediately counterattack, as Aaron had just done with his sword, with a basic attack that was stronger than normal.

A perfect ability to counteract a single target ability like [Shadow Cutter].

From Saulo's body, blood immediately sprouted from the wound site.

It was a cut deep enough to ignore and try to be strong. Saulo, resisting his urge to cry out in pain, watched with dismay as some green particles appeared and disappeared around Aaron.

And in the twinkling of an eye, the wound the man had above his eyebrow closed.

This is bad. That healing speed was very fast.

Saulo had to accept with regret what had happened.

Aaron had just recovered from the damage he had caused him with the hand grenade at the start of the fight.

This healing was directly due to Saulo's recent carelessness of what was capable of doing a passive ability.

The passive ability of a smoke user, [Lead Devourer], allowed him to recover life each time he effectively connected with an ability. So Aaron, by hitting Saulo directly with [Vanguard Defense], managed to regain life.

And so it would happen every time because a passive ability was always active.

Unlike a passive ability, a user's other abilities needed mana to activate. An individual who wanted to use his abilities would be unable to activate them no matter how hard he tried if he didn't have the resources to do so. That was called mana.

Mana was a cost to activate a user's abilities.

However, passive abilities were different. They didn't need mana to activate, so the cost of activating a passive ability was zero.

I mustn't let it hit me with more abilities. He'll be cured every time he manages to cut me with his sword!

Regretting for not being quicker to dodge, it was clear who had the advantage of the fight. Saulo was wounded while, on the contrary, Aaron was healed.

Likewise, by this point in the fight, Saulo had spent almost half of his mana. Over time, his mana would recover, but he couldn't afford to wait for that to happen.

"Well, let's even things out."

Aaron, in an empty expression, seemed not to understand what Saulo meant, but immediately regained his senses. Seeing him, he knew that the boy wasn't referring to trying to force him to waste mana with his sword.

By the time he realized it, a wake of gray lines was coming out of the young man's hands.

"I, too, can apply that same desperation."

Saulo approached Aaron with the reflection of his words equaling that of his face. The boy's passive ability had just been activated, but Aaron recognized a behavior that he had made his own so as not to be tied to moral dilemmas after snatching belongings from travelers.

The boy had gone into villain mode.