In the first era of the Faceless Soldiers, there were many rebels who doubted the effectiveness of these newly conjured beings. After all, they hardly used any Axiom abilities. Their skills were limited, confined merely to the basics, while other masters knew tens, if not hundreds, of Axiom abilities.
The majority of these rebels were annihilated immediately.
One name that the Faceless Soldiers acquired from their battles was the Knights of Fate. Put simply, when you entered combat with a Soldier it was as if you had already been led toward defeat from the very beginning. The ordinary chaos of battle, where both sides moved, assessed, panted, and stared into each other's eyes, was absent when facing a Faceless Soldier.
The only feeling that came from them was the certainty of death, like a ceiling descending to crush its victim.
The battle began at the entrance, where a Shadow Clan member launched a long-range Axiom Flame explosion toward the Faceless Soldier blocking the path. The flames whirled around the Soldier, who used his energy to disperse the force outward before sending it back toward the Clan member.
At the exact moment the attack was returned, another Clan member engaged with an Axiom blade, using a specialised stance focused on quick, fencing-like strikes meant to land several cuts and slow the Soldier's movements. The slashes were too fast for the eye to see.
Yet the Soldier dodged every single one flawlessly.
From one of the towers, two users of Axiom electricity and lightning launched a coordinated assault. First they electrified the surfaces the Soldier moved upon, and then followed with a direct lightning strike.
The Soldier evaded without difficulty.
Several times, when the Soldiers moved between towers and switched positions, a Clan member fired a long-range Axiom bullet from afar. The attack was silent and impossible to detect, but the instant the bullet approached a Soldier's cheek, it tilted its head so the projectile skimmed harmlessly past.
Throughout all of this, two warriors moved constantly around the battlefield.
One was Ryo, who quietly planted strands of his Axiom Rope in every place he had seen the Soldiers pass through.
The other was a thin man wrapped entirely in bandages, with only his eyes visible. He moved through the battlefield setting up attacks of his own, though Bethryl, watching from a distance, could not understand the intention behind them.
So many exchanges had taken place, and yet the Shadow Clan had not landed a single blow.
The Faceless Soldiers dodged every attack, remained on the defensive, and observed.
This was the difference in level between them.
It was said that those who passed through the Abrahamic Path did not merely learn its secrets—they had its system implanted directly into their soul. This was why many believed that the Faceless Soldiers did not behave as other beings did, nor did they think as other beings thought.
The Shadow Clan had studied them.
They believed the Soldiers' combat thought process functioned something like this: the Soldier would gather information from the battle around it. The Abrahamic system would then convert that information into a course of action. The Soldier would act upon that decision, and the resulting consequences would be fed back into the system, creating a never-ending cycle of learning and improvement.
By now, with every movement a Faceless Soldier made, it assessed thousands of possibilities, drawing upon the accumulated battle knowledge of the world. These possibilities branched into a vast tree of actions extending all the way to the death of the opponent.
The system would rank those outcomes.
Then it would choose the path with the highest probability of victory.
Sometimes this meant that when a Faceless Soldier moved to attack, it would do so in a way that appeared utterly incomprehensible.
And once a fight reached a certain stage, the conclusion became inevitable.
The Soldiers could solve the puzzle of battle perfectly. At that point, it was no longer a struggle.
The fight had already been decided.
This was why, back at the altar, Ashar had chosen to surrender. From a single exchange he realised that they had been completely seen through, and instead chose to begin a psychological battle.
But that option did not exist here.
Bethryl watched, though she refused to look ahead into the future anymore. There could be no ending except for a total victory for the Faceless Soldiers.
Nothing struck them.
Nothing even grazed them.
They were completely flawless, unlike anyone she had seen back in the forests when she had been kidnapped by Vaelor.
And yet, Bethryl thought, something was not right.
Although the Clan members' attacks were easily evaded, Bethryl eventually realised that the Soldiers themselves had not landed a single blow either.
How could that be?
These were merely First Tier abilities. Surely, within their vast understanding of combat, the Soldiers could see the simple counters required to win. Even without the Abrahamic system, they were still Second Tier beings. Brute force alone should have ended the fight.
So why had the battle stalled for so long, with neither side landing a strike?
No matter how many times the Soldiers attacked with their blades, no matter how often they attempted to halt their opponents with the Arrestment technique, they failed.
What was it about the Shadow Clan's movements that caused them such difficulty?
It was not speed.
So what was it?
And then Bethryl realised.
It was the rhythm.
There was something about the rhythm of the Clan members' movements, something so subtle that it made them different.
From afar, Ryo continued laying traps alongside his bandaged ally as he observed the battle. Everything was progressing exactly as planned. Five Faceless Soldiers were now attacking them, and yet not a single one of their strikes had succeeded.
This was proof of what Shenric had taught them.
This was the power of Drunken Rhythm.
There are infinite possibilities for attack, Shenric had once said during a lesson. What the Faceless Soldiers know are the primary routes of combat, along with their variations. To attack them using those methods is suicide.
Therefore, what we must do is push them toward the extremities—toward movements and exchanges they have never encountered before.
If we can do that, then what happens when a Faceless Soldier is confronted with something it does not understand?
Will it remain perfect?
No.
At that point, you will see that even these monsters can bleed.
Drunken Rhythm, a Second Tier movement technique, was the realisation of that theory. Shenric taught them to summon energy and transform their movements into irregular patterns, like notes absent from traditional musical theory, from which an entirely new style of music could be created.
Used subtly, this style would cause the Soldiers to misinterpret their actions as standard attacks, only to fail when attempting to predict the outcome.
That was what was happening now.
And now it was their turn to attack.
"Raizo, now!" Ryo shouted.
Using the Drunken Rhythm, the bandaged man slipped beneath the blade of a Faceless Soldier.
"Hand of God!" he cried.