Piere darted forward, boots sinking into the melting soil. His coat hissed as acid droplets burned through it.
He didn't dare look back. He could feel Albert closing in distance again. That stubborn bastard wouldn't stop. His lungs stung, his veins ached but his focus was iron.
Hah.... hhhk.... hah.... hhhk....
Piere's eyes narrowed. Watching what was Albert trying to do, the "Reverse breathing".
He had only heard of it once. A forbidden meditation used by assassins and monks before the age of 3rd Holy War of Crusaber. Instead of exhaling weakness and inhaling calm, you do the opposite — inhale tension, exhale strength. It poisoned the blood with control. It made their muscles and mind calm and physique more versatile.
"Scumbag." Piere muttered to himself, glancing back through the acid haze.
Albert was running differently now. His shoulders didn't rise with breath; his ribs hardly moved. The air around him shimmered like glass bending. Every time he inhaled, the acid hissed off his skin as if scared to touch him.
Piere could sense it. Albert wasn't running with his body anymore. He was forcing it like a machine. Breathes twisted his organs, every inhale scraped through his bones. But it worked. His pace was faster, too fast, almost unreal.
It increases intra-abdominal pressure and deep core stability, which in turn optimizes lower limb muscle activity and joint stiffness, leading to improved posture control and balance. During reverse breathing, physical attacks become 20-30% more forceful, staggering victims.
As you know. Everything has dude effects. It will cause him numbness, blood pressure and fatigue the more he reverses breath.
Piere muttered under his breath. "You conjured a Pacific realm inside yourself to catch me? Appreciable."
Albert didn't reply. He kept running forward breathing calmly with measured movements.
For a fragment of a minute, Piere caught Albert's eyes through the rain. They weren't normal anymore. Under the broken moon their both eyes glowed like two predators about to clash for their pride.
Piere felt something in his nerves. That was the kind of madness only two survivors in the corpse ward carried.
He twisted his plasma gun, priming another shot but didn't fire. There was no locked point yet. "You will collapse before you reach it." he said softly. "Or worse, your body will forget how to stop breathing."
Albert didn't even blink. Every inhale made the rain bend around him.
He's not surviving the calamity anymore, Piere thought grimly. He's becoming part of it.
The "Hour of Fold" card shimmered between Piere's fingers like a fragment of starlight. He whispered to himself, "Three seconds is all I need to fix what I miscalculated."
He flicked the card forward. Space trembled.
The world rewounded acid raindrops shot back into the clouds. Albert's last step reversed mid-motion. Time folded backward, neat and sharp like the crease of a page.
Piere grinned. "Let's redo that explosion, shall we?"
Albert's eyes narrowed. He could feel the distortion, the way the air shimmered like heat waves over iron. He's using something temporal, he thought, then I'll make him choke on it.
In those rewound seconds, Albert twisted his fingers in reverse. His katana "Kuga", drawing static from the still air. He plants a false step, dropping a small energy residue exactly where he stood a moment ago. Then he leaps aside.
The time-fold snapped back to normal.
Piere fired his plasma gun. The shot curved beautifully through the fog, hitting the exact place where Albert had been.
A detonation roared. White light tearing through trees, flame spiraling upward like mushroom.
But this time, the smoke didn't clear. The plasma blast collided with Albert's energy residue. It expanded unnaturally feeding on itself. Turning into a chain reaction.
Piere's expression vanished.
Albert whispered from behind him, voice calm, cold. "Welcome to your own explosion."
The blast detonated again, swallowing Piere whole. He barely raised his card in time, flinging a second "Fold" backward. The shockwave looped on itself, throwing him sideways across the field. His gun flew into the acid mud, sizzling.
Albert marched through the haze, unshaken. His steps were mechanical, rhythmic. He didn't even flinch at the rain anymore.
Piere coughed smoke, forcing a laugh. "You're really going to turn your lungs to ballons just to win this?"
Albert's tone was flat. "I've lost worse things than lungs, gramps."
Piere reached for another card but Albert was already made his next move. Reverse breathing turned him into an unstoppable machine. Each step in sync with his pulse, every exhale powering his physique.
Kuga's dark edge met Piere's plasma gun in a burst of white and black sparks. They traded blows artistically.
Piere fought like painters. Strike controlled, deliberate, brushstrokes meant to tell a story. Albert fought like a craftsman. Methodical, each movement designed to dismantle his opponent piece by piece.
"You're too rigid." Piere taunted, deflecting a downward slash. "Machines are hopeless."
Albert parried and pressed his blade against Piere's throat, voice steady. "And artists bleed brush in crimson."
They clashed again, wind howling around them. Piere ducked low, drew a hidden card, and muttered, "Frame 23.... undo pain." The wound sealed instantly but unstabled body, as if struggling to remember where it belonged.
Albert lunged through the shimmer, slicing through the remnants of Piere's fading illusion. Acid rain hissed around them, vanishing before touching Albert's skin.
For a moment, their blades locked. Two philosophies grinding against each other, precision versus inevitability.
Albert whispered, "How many of them do you have?"
Piere smirked faintly. "How many is needed to defeat you!"
Then both swung their weapons and exploded apart in opposite directions.
Piere's eyes flicked toward the looming horizon where the second checkpoint's glow burned faintly through the acid haze. He's close, Piere thought.
He slid two cards between his fingers. Sleek, metallic paper with runic circuits along the edges. "Let's play something more.... misleading," he whispered.
Both cards fluttered into the air, twisting like silver leaves before embedding themselves in the ground. The forest dimmed. A faint emerald aura rose from the soil, swirling upward into a majestic illusion of light.
To the untrained eye, it was flawless, an identical imitation of a Checkpoint Tree's sanctuary barrier, complete with its radiant pulse and 20-meter safe radius. Even the acid rain shimmered harmlessly as it touched the illusion's surface, reflecting golden ripples.
Piere smirked. "Let's see if you chase salvation of lies or sense the lies."
Albert stopped a hundred meters away. His white shirt steamed. The acid hissed on his sleeves, burning small holes that revealed scarred skin underneath. His gaze fixed on the glowing mirage ahead. He could feel something wrong.
He wiped his cheek with the back of his wrist and muttered, "Thinking you're clever again?"
Inside the illusion, Piere crouched in low. Hand on his plasma blade, whispering to himself like a gambler betting the last chip. "He won't resist safety. No one does. Even beasts run for shade when the storm bites."
Albert didn't approach. Instead, he reached for his rifle—Pallbearer. The weapon hummed like a dying star, its black surface rippling faintly as its charge built up.
The audience, watching through aerial projections, murmured. The commentators stuttered.
"What is he aiming at?"
"He's not.… he's not even pointing at Piere—he's pointing away!"
Albert didn't blink. His focus was elsewhere above Piere.
There, barely visible through the fog, hung a massive acid-soaked boulder lodged in a cliffside, its underbelly melting slowly with the rain.
Albert whispered, "You forgot gravity exists, magician."
BAAM!!!
The bullet screamed upward. A flash of black plasma tearing through the storm. When it struck, the world lit up. The entire cliff convulsed and molten stone rained downward in a brilliant, burning avalanche.
Piere's eyes widened. He saw the cascading inferno too late. The fake checkpoint aura shattered like glass around him as molten debris smashed through the illusion, swallowing the ground in corrosive light.
The acid mist exploded, throwing Piere backward. He spun midair, his jacket burning at the edges, barely regaining balance as he rolled across the mud.
He gasped, "He—he used the environment as bait!?"
From his position, Piere caught sight of Albert. Standing amid chaos, calm as a shadow. The rifle's barrel still smoked. The explosion's shockwave rippled outward, tearing trees from their roots.
Albert didn't dodge. He stepped into the wave, twisting his body, using the kinetic blast as propulsion. His boots left the ground and he soared forward like a bullet made of willpower.
Acid and ash swirled around him. The momentum ripped his shirt apart, but he didn't slow down.
Piere tried to chase, coughing through the toxic fog but his footing slipped again. Two seconds—only two—it is enough.
When he steadied himself, Albert was gone.
The next instant, a sound scattered. A blade cutting not flesh or air but space itself.
Kuga sliced forward and reality fell down like shattered glass. The rain froze midair for a breath. Then, Albert stepped out of nothingness.
He was standing beneath the second checkpoint's glow. His hand rested on his katana's hilt. Behind him, the forest's acid storm thundered like applause.
Piere stopped running, staring from afar in disbelief.
The announcer's voice broke through the chaos, trembling with awe. "Albert Newton.… has reached the third checkpoint first!"
Albert turned slightly, the faintest smirk curving his lips. "You tried to trick me with a false sun" he said softly to no one but the rain. "But I was already living in the dark."