CHAPTER 76: ITERATION OF THE THREAD

For an entire day, Caius remained within his Crown Core, abandoning all outside distractions to refine the raw concept he had stolen from the entities.

From their respective circles beyond the courtyard, the flame demon and the Arachne princess watched him continuously. They were no longer simple memories of dead beasts; their refined spirits possessed an instinctual understanding of combat, and both saw the new techniques taking shape in real time.

The process was far from seamless.

Caius's first attempt focused entirely on mass production. Channeling his Crown Core intent, he tried to manifest six tethered black blades at once, attempting to mirror the flame demon's four floating darts while adding his own multi-arm variant.

The moment he tried to steer all six, a violent wave of cognitive exhaustion hit him. His focus shattered, his head throbbed as if struck by a hammer, and all six blades dissolved into useless wisps of dark mana.

The flame demon snorted, a plume of dark smoke rising from its fiery nostrils in quiet disdain. The Arachne princess tilted her upper frame, her two humanoid legs planted firmly on the stone as her four extra chitinous arms twitched in silent evaluation.

Caius ignored them, breathing heavily as he analyzed the flaw.

Maintaining continuous, active intent tethers to floating blades requires constant calculation, he realized, rubbing his temples. The human mind isn't built to steer six independent weapons in real-time while fighting. It burns through core reserves faster than Fate Sight.

He needed to split the technique into two distinct principles.

Sitting back down on the temple steps, Caius began his second trial: Stage 1, Projectile Shadow Blades.

This time, rather than keeping the blades linked to his core, he formed a razor-sharp shadow blade, locked onto a stone pillar across the courtyard, and severed the intent tether the exact instant he released the energy.

Swirf!

The dark blade tore through the ambient mana, a streak of absolute blackness that carved through the air with a high-pitched scream. It struck the stone pillar full-force with a deafening, metallic detonation, blowing a deep, spiderwebbed crater into the ancient masonry before shattering into a shower of harmless embers.

Caius's eyes brightened. No continuous drain. It costs a single burst of energy upfront, just like firing an arrow.

He tested it repeatedly, firing single shots and rapid-fire bursts that rattled off the temple pillars like a localized hail of dark iron. The pro was immediate: extreme power efficiency and total freedom from cognitive strain. The con was equally clear: once launched, the projectile traveled on a fixed, straight trajectory. If an opponent dodged the initial path, the blade could not adjust mid-flight.

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With the offensive projectile phase mastered, Caius turned to Stage 2: Tethered Phase.

He focused his Crown Core intent once more, but this time he restricted the tethered blades strictly to two. He anchored the intent threads directly to the space just behind his shoulders, manifesting two curved, pitch-black blades that hovered like a pair of extra, autonomous limbs.

He moved his arms in a basic dual-blade routine, testing the coordination. The two shadow blades mirrored his intent effortlessly, floating behind his back much like the upper set of the Arachne's four extra arms.

When he imagined a strike coming from his left blind spot, one of the shadow blades swept around instantly with a fierce whip-like crack to block the imaginary line. When he imagined a front parry, the second blade crossed in front of his chest in an impenetrable dark cross, leaving his physical hands entirely free to strike with Nightdancer.

Two tethered arms is the limit, Caius concluded. Zero cognitive fatigue, minimal mana drain, and it turns a dual-blade style into a four-limbed guard.

The flame demon shifted its weight, its burning eyes widening slightly as it recognized how Caius had refined its wild technique into something far more structured. The Arachne princess let out a low, approving hiss, flexed the four upper arms extending from her back, and shifted her balance on her humanoid legs, recognizing her own multi-limbed combat philosophy woven into the human's stance.

Caius stood up, two floating shadow arms hovering behind his shoulders, his lead hand resting on the hilt of Nightdancer.

He turned his gaze toward the first circle.

"You," Caius said, pointing a finger at the Arachne princess. "Let's test the complete system."

The barrier surrounding the Arachne circle dissolved with a quiet chime.

The princess didn't hesitate. Recognizing the threat, she bounded forward on her humanoid legs with explosive speed, the stone floor ringing beneath her heels. Her four upper arms blurred into a shimmering lattice as she wove a dense, razor-wire web of physical intent threads to trap and shred him.

Caius didn't move his feet.

With a flick of his mind, he triggered Stage 1. Four condensed shadow blades manifested in the air before him with sharp thrumming hums and shot forward like siege bolts on fixed trajectories.

Thwack! Thwack!

The projectiles cut cleanly through her incoming thread web with deafening snaps, shattering her intricate net, severing her forward momentum, and forcing the princess to plant her feet and dive sideways into a rolling recovery to avoid being impaled.

Before she could fully regain her footing, Caius closed the distance using Vel'drin Step, his figure blurring across the courtyard stone in a fraction of a heartbeat.

The princess snapped upward and lashed out with two of her upper arms, razor-sharp intent condensing at her fingertips like deadly chitin talons as she targeted his exposed neck. Caius didn't bother parrying with his steel. Instead, Stage 2 activated automatically—one of the tethered shadow arms behind his shoulder swept upward with a sharp whistle, its dark blade intercepting the claw strike and binding it with a heavy metallic clang that threw sparks across the stone.

With her primary upper limbs trapped by his extra arm and her balance broken, the Arachne princess was left completely defenseless.

Caius stepped smoothly inside her guard, drawing Nightdancer in a single, blinding stroke that cut through the displaced air, and stopped the cold steel a hair's breadth from her throat.

The Arachne princess froze, standing tall on her two legs as her four upper limbs went slack. She stared down at the blade, then up at the two shadow arms hovering over the boy's shoulders like a silent guardian.

Caius held the stance for a long moment, feeling the perfect harmony of his new subskill, before slowly sheathing his blade.