Gunfire rushed like distant thunder but for a brief second it felt muted beneath Tubal Cain's voice.
He said softly, almost reflectively, as another blade shimmered into his palm, "I remember, you can wash the blood off your own hands a thousand times but you cannot wash someone else's dried blood out of your last name. They will still smell it on you when you walk by."
"They treated me like I was an inhuman." he continued. "Just because I was descendant of the First Murderer! As if blood were a confession. As if ancestry were intent!"
The sword in his hand dissolved into light, replaced by a narrow longsword etched with symbols of old covenant.
"All I ever wished to do was forge tools. To build. To refine. To let humanity advance!! But people see name, fames and names more than struggles."
Dust drifted through the broken corridor like ash from an unseen fire.
"I was taught," he said, stepping aside from a ricocheting round, "that humanity fears what mirrors its own capacity for violence. So they placed it on me. Easier to exile one man than confront the blade inside every heart."
Blyke's jaw tightened.
"Shut up!" he snapped, launching forward.
Tubal Cain's longsword clashed against Blyke's knives. Steel rang sharp and precisely. Blyke aimed low this time. Forcing Cain to change stance.
Cain rotated smoothly, dissolving the longsword mid-parry and manifesting a short saber to intercept Blyke's secondary strike.
"You mistook explanation for self-pity." Tubal Cain said calmly.
"I do not care about your tragedy." Blyke shot back, pivoting to strike from Tubal Cain's blind side. "We are not your absolution."
He slashed toward Cain's shoulder, then feinted into a downward thrust aimed at the knee.
Cain responded not with retreat but by closing distance, compressing space so Blyke's reach advantage collapsed.
A dagger-like blade appeared in Cain's hand for a split second, redirecting Blyke's knife just enough to destabilize his footing.
Both were predators of their own kingdom.
Blyke used debris as terrain, forcing unpredictable angles. Tubal Cain manipulated weapon manifestation timing, appearing to commit before dissolving steel mid-exchange to reset rhythm.
Blyke stopped reacting and began observing.
Almost seventy percent of manifestations were in Tubal Cain's right hand. The pattern was not random for sure. The Summon favored his dominant side for primary force projection, while the left stabilized stance and spacing. That imbalance was subtle but it existed.
Blyke formed the plan instantly.
If Cain manifested most weapons in the right hand, then pressure the left side consistently. It could force him to cross his body when striking. Crossing the body would narrow his guard alignment and momentarily expose the wrist during transition.
The moment of manifestation would be the fracture point.
Blyke advanced deliberately shifting his attack vector to Cain's left flank.
He slashed low, then high, then pivoted outward again, never allowing Cain to square his shoulders comfortably.
Tubal Cain adjusted with calm precision, manifesting short blades to parry and dissolve but Blyke continued circling.
Cain crossed his right arm over his torso to deliver a downward strike.
There...
Blyke stepped inside the arc instead of retreating. His left knife hooked the forming blade aside and his right knife flashed diagonally toward Cain's wrist during the cross-body transition.
Steel met something harder than flesh.
Sparks erupted like fireworks. The cut landed very clean.
Tubal Cain's right hand separated at the wrist and fell, dissolving into metallic fragments before hitting the floor.
Blyke pulled back, chest rising sharply. He had done it... He had disrupted the manifestation source... Without the dominant hand, weapon cycling efficiency would collapse...
He allowed himself one fraction of relief.
That was the mistake...
A fist struck his face with crushing force.
The impact was blunt and heavy, like being hit with forged hot steel rather than bone.
Blyke's vision exploded white as his body lifted and slammed into the corridor wall. The metal panel buckled behind him.
He slid down, stunned. The shock overtook calculation.
He had cut the hand. He was certain of it.
Tubal Cain stood calmly a few meters away.
Both hands intact.
He flexed his right fingers slowly as though testing new joints.
"You are observant." Tubal Cain said evenly. "Not going to laugh, your strategy was impressive enough."
He raised his hand slightly. The surface glinted unnaturally beneath the corridor lights.
"Unfortunately, my summon body is not organic. It is iron structured through Runic cohesion. I possess a skill named 'Substance Implementation'. It allows me to restructure metals within my manifested form and reproduce damaged components."
The air shimmered faintly around his wrist, subtle metallic lines weaving and solidifying as if memory itself were reforging matter.
"The hand you severed" he continued calmly, "was simply reconstituted."
Blyke's heartbeat pounded in his ears.
Tubal Cain stepped forward, composed and relentless.
"Now," he said gently, "let us see how you adapt this."
Pain sharpened Blyke's thoughts instead of dulling them.
He pushed himself off the fractured wall, tasting iron at the edge of his mouth. The shock of the punch still rang in his skull, but clarity began settling into place.
Cain's true advantage was not strength.
It was weapon cycling unpredictability after every hit. There was no lingering steel to read, no consistent weight to counter. Fighting him directly was like dueling a concept instead of a blade.
Blyke exhaled slowly. There were micro-delays, weren't? He had seen them, yes!
Between dissolution and reformation, there was a fractional pause. A structural recalibration as Runic Flow restructured iron into new form. It was brief—perhaps 0.2 to 0.5 seconds but it existed.That window was empty.
Blyke adjusted his stance. He knew he would not overpower Cain.
Tubal Cain stepped forward, a saber formed in his right hand. Blyke did not meet it head-on.
He provoked the swing deliberately, then withdrew at the last inch, forcing Cain to dissolve the blade mid-arc to reset positioning. The saber vanished.
Blyke lunged into the empty space before the next weapon completed manifestation. His knife drove toward Cain's shoulder joint, not to sever but to destabilize Runic cohesion.
Cain reacted, but instead of manifesting offensively, he was forced to reinforce structure defensively. Metallic ripples spread across his torso as Substance Implementation compensated.
Blyke pressed harder causing a strike withdraw.
From offense to tempo control. Cain summoned a broadsword. Blyke disengaged swiftly.
A dagger formed too late to fully intercept.
Steel scraped across iron skin.
They moved toe to toe now, inches apart, each reading the other's smallest adjustment. Cain's eyes sharpened with approval as Blyke refused to chase weapons and instead hunted absence.
The corridor rang with repeated clashes and controlled footwork.
The corridor could no longer contain them.
When Tubal Cain manifested a greatsword this time, it was not modest.
The blade materialized at nearly two meters long, dense iron layered with runic reinforcement. He brought it down with controlled fury.
The impact split the floor in half.
A shockwave blasted outward, shattering wall panels and sending guards flying like paper against concrete. The ceiling lights burst one by one, plunging sections of the hallway into flashing darkness.
Blyke did not retreat. He stepped into the collapse.
The moment the massive blade dissolved, he accelerated through the 0.3-second void. His knives struck with amplified precision, Runic Flow surging through his arms to increase cutting force beyond normal limits.
Tubal Cain answered with scale.
Three weapons manifested in rapid succession—spear, axe, curved blade—each larger than the last. Every strike cratered metal flooring. Every missed blow carved through reinforced walls as if they were thin clay.
The Arcology's second floor trembled under escalating force. Blyke pivoted across falling fragments, using collapsing terrain as launch points.
He drove forward again during a dissolution gap, slamming Cain through a support pillar.
Tubal Cain steadied himself amid the fractured steel and settling dust.
"Well done." he said sincerely. "You are really capable of going against half of my potential. And I could feel embarrassed using it."
A faint smile touched his face. "That is the mind of a true craftsman."