Michael’s grip tightened around the wolf core, his body aching but resolve burning hotter than ever. He locked eyes with David, who stood there with that same smug, predatory grin, like he already owned the place, and Michael was just another stepping stone.
"You want it? Come take it," Michael shot back, voice low but unwavering. He might be exhausted, but surrender was never an option.
David’s face twisted in annoyance. "Are you insane? Look at you, you can barely stand. Just hand it over, and maybe I’ll let you leave with your life."
Michael almost laughed at the absurdity. "You left me here to die, remember? Now you want to play the hero?" He forced himself to his full height, refusing to show weakness.
A tense silence stretched as they both stared each other down, both battered, both stubborn, one willing to betray, the other unwilling to break.
It was no longer just about a core; it was about respect, vengeance, and who would walk out the true survivor.
Each breath felt drawn out, thick with the weight of everything unsaid. Muscles tensed, eyes narrowed, both knowing the next move could end it all. In that charged stillness, David suddenly lunged, breaking the deadlock.
David Blackwood sighed and suddenly lunged, breaking the deadlock. And before Michael knew it,
David’s fist slammed into Michael’s stomach, driving the air from his lungs and hoisting him off the ground. Without hesitating, David used the momentum, leaped to meet Michael mid-air, chambered his knee, and snapped out a flying side kick that crashed into Michael’s chest, launching him backwards as both landed hard.
Michael crashed hard, the impact rattling his bones, but he refused to stay down. He coughed, wiped blood off his mouth, and glared at David, pure defiance in his eyes.
David approached, looking sure of his win, but Michael dragged himself to his feet, clutching the wolf core tighter, a wild fury sparking to life. "You don’t get to decide how this ends," Michael rasped.
David scoffed, circling like a predator. "You never learn, do you?" He lunged again, but this time Michael was ready, sidestepping at the last second and slamming an elbow into David’s ribs. Both men staggered, battered, breathing heavily, but neither willing to quit.
"Look at you, you can’t beat me even if you were in full strength, Michael," David said before punching him in the face, sending him flying again. This time, the impact was crushing, and Michael coughed out even more blood.
Michael knew that he couldn’t beat David, and worst of all, he was badly hurt from fighting the wolf and was even more hurt now. But even though he knew the strength David possessed, he couldn’t bring himself to hand over his cores.
Michael stayed on the ground as he was feeling very weak and couldn’t stand up. David Blackwood walked towards him, looking at him as he lay down there, his eyes judging him. David then stomped his foot on top of Michael’s face.
"You, piece of shit... you should have just died that day and gotten it over with; at least you didn’t need to suffer even more from me," David said with his foot still on Michael’s face. "I have to tell you, I didn’t have enough fun beating you back then, but now I could kill you by myself. Ethan was right; you are trash and you belong to a trash family," he said, spitting on Michael’s face.
Just as Michael couldn’t figure out what to do, his system appeared in front of him, displaying a notification task.
{Task: Kill David Blackwood before the end of today.
Punishment: System disabled. Reward:??}
Michael finally remembered he’d been given a task to kill this fool, and that made him smile. Before, he had been hesitating to complete this task, but now he thought it was only fair to kill someone who was trying to kill him.
"Why are you smiling, you piece of shit?" David said while pressing his foot harder down on Michael’s face.
Michael just uttered one word, "You... are... dead." Before David could react, Michael had already summoned his obsidian blade dagger and stabbed it right into David’s leg, thrusting it deep and drawing blood from him.
David immediately shouted and withdrew his leg from Michael’s face. Seeing his bleeding leg made him even angrier.
"You fool!" David Blackwood shouted, already lunging forward to grab Michael.
Michael was able to bend and avoid David while delivering a long cut to his side, drawing out more blood. David shouted even more immediately after Michael delivered the cut.
[Blackwood Penitentiary; Lockdown]
Immediately, David used that ability. Michael couldn’t move his body; it was as if he was caged—no, it felt like he was locked down by a force.
David summoned his war hammer and brought it down on Michael, ready to crush him with the hammer’s weight.
Michael could feel every fiber in his body begging him to dodge the attack, but even though he could move out of the way, he couldn’t control his body as he was locked down.
Michael had heard of a lot of skills and abilities, and he knew that there were some skills that were really broken, like the one David used right now. The ability to lock down your opponent was an ability no one would like to face, but Michael had to say, if there was an even more broken ability out there...
His shadow ability was at least at the top of the list.
Just before David’s war hammer came crashing down, Michael dissolved into the shadows, totally slipping away from the attack without dodging it. After all, if you can’t dodge an attack, you can just avoid it, right?
[House of Arden: Echoes of Phantom Slash]
This was one of the abilities Michael learned from the book given to him by Instructor Keal. But while trying out the skill, he got an idea to create another skill using the foundation of the phantom slash in the book, but he was never able to implement it or even tried it until now.
This skill relied on the user’s speed and how fast he could move and deliver each slash, as the ability required one to be so fast that his opponent would not be able to see or stop his attack but could only see a blur like a phantom. And for an opponent like David, that wasn’t a problem. The source of this content ɪs novelꞁire.net