Chapter 47: Stand Off

Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Stand Off

"I was starting to think you would never show up." the man said, appearing right at where Seris was.

Allan’s voice came out raw, untethered. "One more finger on them and you’re done and gone."

The man did not answer with words. He simply turned his attention to Seris and applied a light, precise pressure on her shattered arm. Bone ground against bone.

"Nooo..." Seris choked on a scream she tried to swallow. Her good hand clawed at the stone until her nails split.

"I will kill you!" Allan’s restraint snapped clean.

He launched forward with everything he had. The remnants of the Berserker effect still huffing off his skin. His sword came in low and fast, aimed to take the hand that had just hurt her. The white-haired man met it with calm, almost delighted precision.

Tang!

The force of the clash cracked the stone under their feet. Sparks jumped and died. Allan’s second cut forced the man a half-step back. The third scored a thin line across the man’s sleeve but still no blood yet.

The Hero’s counter landed like a hammer, open palm to Allan’s ribs. Air left Allan’s lungs in a wet grunt. He staggered, caught himself on the edge of a broken pillar, and drove forward again without waiting for the pain to settle.

"Why are you here? You should be somewhere in a dungeon, leveling up to defeat the demon king or some other bullshit."

"Why? So players like you can take advantage of it?" he replied.

The three women refused to stay down.

Seris dragged herself sideways on one arm and a ruined leg, trying to put her body between the fight and the other two. Lira forced a curse outward that cost her visibly. Shadows tore free from the air and slammed into the Hero’s side but they shredded on contact like wet paper.

Amelia, thighs still bleeding from her own redirected arrows, laughed once through bloody teeth and threw the last of her strength into a blood construct. It formed, flew, and began to dissolve before it reached him.

The Hero noticed.

"Quite a party you have gathered, all useless like you, like your unique skill."

He angled the next exchange so every shockwave and near-miss threatened the women. Allan had to split focus, cut, shield, cut again. A backhand from the Hero sent a pressure wave that would have crushed Seris’s chest if Allan had not taken it on his shoulder. With a crack of sound, his bone shifted but he kept moving.

"Tell me why the fuck are you here?"

The white-haired man’s voice stayed calm even while they traded blows.

"Because you are still soft. Because you spent your time building a house instead of tempering yourself."

Allan answered with the edge of his blade. The fight tightened. Closer. Harder. Allan activated his Berserker once more as heat flared brighter, white smoke rising thicker from his arms and neck.

The Hero’s calm never broke, but something sharper showed in his eyes. Personal. Like a debt being collected.

"You want to die using that lame skill of yours?" he asked.

"Oh, you wish!"

Allan knew what he was talking about, but that did not matter now. What mattered was his family’s safety. Allan’s next combination came in a tight sequence: high feint, low cut, reverse grip thrust. The Hero parried the first two and caught the third on his forearm. The blade bit cloth and skin this time. A thin line of red appeared. The Hero looked at it the way a man looks at rain.

"There," he said softly. "You can still touch me. Finally."

He stepped in and drove an elbow into Allan’s collarbone. Allan’s vision flickered white. He answered by slamming his forehead into the Hero’s face. Cartilage cracked. The Hero laughed once, short and genuine, and shoved him back three full meters with a palm strike that left Allan’s sternum ringing.

The women kept trying.

Seris had reached Lira and was trying to drag her farther from the kill-zone even though her own leg would not hold weight.

Allan felt every failure as if it were his own.

He closed the distance again. Sword work became shorter, uglier. Elbows. Knees. The Berserker heat started to eat at the edges of his control. He could feel the old hunger trying to rise, the part of him that wanted to stop protecting and just simply end everything in the room. He crushed it down. Not yet. Not while the women were still in range.

The Hero read the hesitation and punished it. A low kick took Allan’s knee. Allan dropped, rolled, came up cutting. The blade scored the Hero’s ribs this time. Deeper. Real blood now. The Hero’s smile widened.

"Better. More, give me more!"

"Yeah, yeah, you sadistic shit." he said, as he looked around, seeing the distance between him and the girls. "Diva! It is time to repay your debt!"

Then the side doors blew inward.

Diva came through at full speed, Berserker state barely held in check. Red light smoked off her skin in thicker curls than Allan’s. She did not look at the two of them. Her eyes locked on the three women and nothing else.

She moved with ruthless efficiency, hauled Seris up by the good arm, ignoring the fresh scream that tore out of the archer’s throat, half-dragged Lira whose power still thrashed and tried to lash out at anything nearby, and braced Amelia before her legs gave out completely.

The Hero flicked a pressure pulse toward the extraction.

Allan intercepted it with his own body. The impact drove him to one knee hard enough to split the stone. Blood ran fresh from his mouth and down his chin. He stayed there long enough for Diva to clear the kill-zone, sword still raised, body acting as the only shield left.

"I have got them," Diva snarled without looking back. "Do not die, you bastard."

She pulled the three women out of the ruined hall, leaving only Allan and the white-haired man among the bodies and wreckage.

Allan rose. The residual Berserker heat settled in, colder and more precise. No more divided attention. No more women to shield. The air around him tightened. White smoke still rose from his skin, but it no longer felt uncontrolled.

The Hero’s smile widened into something almost fond.

"There you are. The real scoundrel."

Allan wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. The sword came up again, tip steady.

"You came into my house. You put your hands on them."

The white-haired man’s pale blue eyes brightened with something old and personal.

"I came to deliver a lesson. The player who arrives late always pays more."

Allan stepped forward. The Hero raised his hand.

The ruined hall of Oakwood became the first true battlefield between the Scoundrel and the original Hero of Yggdrasil.

Allan did not wait for the next word. He closed the last meters in a single explosive step and cut for the throat. The Hero met the blade with an open palm that rang like struck metal. The force of the block sent a shockwave through the floor that toppled what little stone still stood upright.

Allan reversed the cut immediately, aiming for the same thin line he had already drawn across the Hero’s ribs. The Hero twisted, let the edge pass close enough to open cloth again, and answered with a straight punch that Allan barely slipped. The air pressure alone left a bruise across his cheek.

They circled once. Debris crunched under boots. The only light came from the broken ceiling and the thin white smoke still rising from Allan’s arms.

The Hero spoke without breathlessness. "This strength, you could have used it for good, to make a better world. Instead, you focused on your damn harem."

Allan did not answer. He stepped in again. High cut. Low thrust. Elbow. The sequence was tighter than before, no wasted motion. The Hero blocked the first, redirected the second, and took the elbow on the shoulder. The impact made him rock half a step.

Allan followed with a rising knee that the Hero caught on his thigh. They broke apart for a fraction of a second, then crashed together again.

Allan’s ribs ground with every breath. Something in his left knee clicked on every pivot. None of it mattered.

The Hero’s style never changed. Calm. Efficient. Almost playful. Every block and counter carried the weight of someone who had fought this exact opponent before and already knew the outcome. But the thin lines of blood on his sleeve and ribs said otherwise, and Allan kept adding to them.

A low sweep forced the Hero to hop. Allan rose into the motion and drove the pommel of the sword into the man’s solar plexus. Air left the Hero’s lungs in a sharp grunt, the first real sound of impact he had made. Allan pressed the advantage, cutting for the neck again.

The Hero caught the blade between both hands, twisted, and nearly tore the sword free. Allan released and re-gripped in the same motion, using the momentum to slam his shoulder into the Hero’s chest. They went down together among the broken stone.

Allan landed on top and drove a fist into the Hero’s face. Once. Twice. The third time the Hero’s head snapped to the side and blood sprayed from his mouth. Then the Hero’s knee came up hard into Allan’s side and the world tilted. Allan rolled free before the follow-up strike could crush his spine.

Both men rose at the same time.

Blood ran freely from Allan’s mouth now. The Hero’s lip was split. The pale blue eyes no longer looked amused. They looked focused.

"I do not even know why the cult praises cunts like you," the Hero said quietly. "This world, this is not yours to complete. It is not something to speed run!"

"I see. You are just trauma dumping. Fucking loser."

The Hero raised both hands this time, fingers open, posture shifting into something Allan recognized. An AOE skill.