"Kill me?" Marcus pulled a mocking face. "Do you really think you can pull off what Muzan couldn't?"
Akaza was stunned for a moment, but soon a smile began to form on his face.
"What a bold mouth."
Swish
!
Marcus's pupils shrank.
Akaza had disappeared!
He only made out a residual blur that grew at a terrifying speed until it became a fist right in front of his eyes. With no time to process it, he reacted immediately and jerked his head to the side.
The wind of the punch grazed his ear, and the force of the impact stung his skin.
At the same time, his feet moved.
'Fox Step'
Moving with the agility of a fox, he dodged the punch while raising his blade in an upward slash…
Swish!
His blade sliced across Akaza's back, tracing a deep wound from the shoulder blade down to the side of his waist.
But Akaza didn't even flinch.
Turning around, he looked at Marcus, who had already pulled back to five meters away.
He turned his head and looked at the wound… it had already closed.
"That footwork's pretty nimble."
"..."
Marcus stayed quiet while his panting filled the air, although that agitation wasn't from physical exhaustion.
In that instant, his heart rate shot through the roof.
'He's really fast…'
Akaza's speed was absurd, beyond that of any opponent he had ever faced.
If his eyes and his speed hadn't been enhanced, that blow would have landed.
But, even though he managed to barely dodge it this time, he wasn't planning on keeping the fight up like this.
HE WAS BEING WAY TOO PASSIVE!
Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh
Without an ounce of hesitation, he began to move at high speed around the area while chaining slash after slash with his swords.
He wasn't aiming at anyone. He was cutting the air.
One slash.
Two.
Three.
…
Ten…
Twenty…
Each cut left behind a pink "thread," suspended motionless in the air.
[Field of Threads]
A domain that would normally take him five or six seconds to fully deploy, but now that he had Divine Speed, he completed it in two seconds.
Once over a hundred pink filaments had woven a net within a thirty-meter radius, Marcus stopped and, with a sharp motion, sheathed his swords.
Akaza had stayed put.
He didn't try to interrupt him, just stood there watching with curiosity.
"Done getting ready?" A smile formed on his face. "Then let's keep going!"
Swish
He launched into the attack with a speed that made his previous pace look like child's play. His words were barely floating in the air when his fist was already on top of him.
But this time, Marcus didn't have the urgency from before. With just a slight tilt of his torso, he let the fist sail past, brushing his chest.
At the same time, he unsheathed his left sword in a swift cut.
Swoosh!
Yanking his fist back violently, Akaza pulled back.
The blade sliced across his chest, kicking up a fine spray of blood. But he didn't even look at the wound; with genuine awe, he stretched out his fingers to try to touch the threads floating around him.
"What a marvelous technique… Can you sense my movements through them?" His eyes shone with a maniacal fervor as he looked at Marcus. "Become a demon, Marcus! An ability like this shouldn't wither with time!"
Marcus's eye twitched.
Akaza, the recruiter… A guy who had never managed to convince a single person, but who seemed to enjoy trying over and over again.
Without a word, he shook his head. Now it was his turn.
"Breath of Desire, Second Form: Fox Step!"
His second Form boosted with Divine Speed… was so fast that not even his footsteps made a sound.
Transforming into a flickering shadow that glided around Akaza.
The flashes came from every angle.
Left.
Right.
Above.
Below.
Behind.
Each slash left a wound on Akaza's body. A new wound sprouted up just as the previous one was finishing closing.
Akaza stayed motionless, with his hands protecting his neck, while his eyes searched for an opening to counterattack, but his fists only struck air.
Every time he thought he had him, Marcus slipped away at an impossible angle.
"Hahahaha!" Akaza suddenly burst into laughter. "What excellent footwork!"
Ignoring him completely, Marcus kept moving, turned into a whirlwind of slashes. However, Akaza soon stopped responding and, with a single leap, propelled himself backward, escaping the Domain's range entirely.
Marcus's brow furrowed.
Outside his territory, his advantage evaporated.
Blinking, his green eyes transformed into golden pupils with red arrows inside, and immediately invisible vectors snapped out from his gaze, coiling violently around Akaza.
Ankles.
Wrists.
Waist.
Neck.
Akaza's backward retreat stopped dead. He was anchored to the ground.
He glanced down, baffled, inspecting his own body. He couldn't see anything… but the pressure was real. He felt something invisible suffocating his movements.
"What is this...?"
Lifting his head, he met Marcus's eyes.
That pair of golden pupils with tiny red arrows inside cut through the darkness of the night with a supernatural intensity.
"Demon Blood Art?!" Akaza's eyes opened wide. "How can you use it?!"
Without answering, Marcus poured all his will into the vectors, trying to drag Akaza by force back into his domain.
Akaza dug his heels into the ground, resisting with every fiber of his being, but it was useless. Inch by inch, his body began to be dragged.
"How wonderful! A human capable of manifesting a Blood Demon Art! Marcus, you really are someone who deserves to be a demon!"
"However..."
Suddenly, his hands clenched in the empty air, catching the invisible arrows surrounding him.
"I don't need to see them. As long as they're energy, I can crush them."
Boom
Clenching his fists tightly, the arrows shattered into a thousand pieces, turning into specks of red light that dissolved into nothing.
Marcus's pupils contracted until they became two tiny dots.
He'd crushed them?!
Something like this had never happened to him before. No one had ever been able to touch his arrows, let alone catch what was invisible and shatter it between their hands.
Seeing his expression of astonishment, Akaza laughed happily, while his fists turned into a gale.
In the blink of an eye, more than ten invisible arrows were pulverized, exploding in the air like glass.
"Your technique is fascinating, Marcus. But I've seen more abilities in my lifetime than meals you've tasted."
He took a step forward.
"What intrigues me is... how?" His eyes locked onto the fluorescent patterns glowing on Marcus's neck. "A human using Blood Demon Arts... and two completely different styles, at that."
"What are you really?"
"..."
Marcus stayed silent. Two seconds passed in which only the wind could be heard before he smiled bitterly.
"Take a guess."
Akaza froze for an instant. Then, his smile widened until his fangs showed.
"All right! I won't guess! I'll defeat you first!"
He was about to charge forward when, suddenly, he halted his steps and pointed at the pink filaments suspended in the air.
"This thing of yours..." His gaze ran over the invisible web Marcus had woven. "It's fixed in one spot, isn't it?"
Used to Akaza figuring everything out, Marcus didn't answer. He wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of confirmation.
"What's the matter? Are you going to hide inside your web?" Akaza taunted him. "Or are you coming for me?"
"I thought you wanted to kill me. If you don't cross the line, this is going to be one hell of a long night."
"..."
Akaza stayed silent for a moment.
"... You're right! I'm coming in!"
__________
Throw your stones, drop them ALL! 💎
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