Chapter 47: The Unequalizer

The way he spoke almost made him look like an arrogant bastard, especially for someone of his social standing and classification. But this situation was different. Rho was the better one here.

The giant man didn’t respond to his words, he merely looked down on the red haired young man.

A response didn’t seem to be coming, so he followed up with;

"... I’m looking for an odd looking little girl with white hair and red horns. If you know where she’s being kept, tell me and we can end this without either of us having to lose anything"

By then, the giant had stood fully upright, his masked face remaining pointed toward Rhos. Even after his followup, not a single word came from him.

Rhos waited a little bit, but there was still nothing. He sighed internally and narrowed his eyes.

’This guy’s really committed to the silent, mysterious act isn’t he?’

People like that were always troublesome, annoying and exhausting to deal with. He honestly didn’t understand why they acted like that, did they think they were better or something?

"Right. Negotiations are off the table"

Rhos said when he saw his opponent charging at him again. The fist came swinging down again. It was the same predictable move he used the first time. It looks like he didn’t learn from their first exchange.

With a flat expression, he stepped to the side to allow the giant to rush past him before driving his palm into the man’s back.

Unlike with the kick, this time he put real strength behind his attack. Not with spiritual energy, just the strength he cultivated from his body.

The result was just as surprising as the kick, but not as surprising since he intended it this time. The force of his palm sent the giant stumbling several meters forward and crashed against the wall hard enough to leave cracks in the stone.

Rhos stood there with his hand still raised.

"Last chance"

Without responding to him again, he pushed himself away from the wall and stood upright. Instead of charging aimlessly again, the giant seemed to have changed tactics.

That’s what he thought anyways since there was something different about his posture now. It looked like he was angry.

He watched as the man reached beneath his brown cloak and pulled something from behind his back.

Rhos’s eyebrows rose when he saw the weapon of his choice.

It looked like a massive buzzsaw with a circular blade and metal teeth catching the dim light of the corridor. The giant gripped the handle tightly and took on a different posture.

Well, if one wielded a weapon their fighting style would change dramatically. This was reflected in the giant as his body language had completely changed.

The careless confidence of his previous attacks was gone, replaced by a more focused hostility. Had he finally realized that simply throwing punches at him wasn’t enough anymore?

Apparently, being tossed around had convinced him to take him seriously. Rhos stared at the weapon for a moment before a cautious grin appeared across his face.

He raised both hands and dropped into a defensive stance.

"Now we’re getting somewhere"

The buzzsaw began to spin, its circular teeth whining as the giant charged once again. The weapon didn’t seem to be made from spiritech nor did it possess the strange presence of an Otherworldly Treasure. As far as he could tell, it was simply a crude but deadly tool with a sharpened metal blade.

That meant he had to pay even closer attention to the man wielding it.

The giant’s abundance of spiritual energy was still a great mystery. Rhos had yet to see him display anything resembling a supernatural ability, and that made him wonder whether the man even possessed a Patron Spirit. If he did, what was it? More importantly, what Class was he?

The government monitored the people living inside the Biomes through the Class system, using spirit evaluations to determine the potential and danger of their citizens. While there were rare cases of people slipping through its evaluation process or cheating the system, those cases were exceptionally uncommon.

Someone with this much spiritual energy shouldn’t have been able to remain completely ordinary without someone noticing.

Those thoughts vanished when the buzzsaw came down, forcing the young man to quickly leap back. The blade tore through the space where he had been standing, biting into the stone floor and sending fragments of glint across the corridor.

His skin was not made of metal. A sharp enough mundane weapon would still cut him just as easily as it would anyone else. Spiritual energy could reinforce the body, but that didn’t mean every part of him had become indestructible.

Meaning he couldn’t afford to become careless.

Rhos had never been particularly fond of relying on weapons. His body was the one weapon he could always rely on.

Nobody could knock his fists out of his hands, nobody could disarm his legs and nobody could suddenly steal his skill to fight.

He had spent most of his free time studying different forms of martial arts, practicing everything the Academy had taught him and then expanding upon it whenever he had the opportunity. He wasn’t arrogant enough to claim that he was unrivaled in the craft, especially after everything he had encountered since leaving the Biome, but he liked to think he was pretty damn good.

The giant swung again and Rhos stepped sideways. The buzzsaw passed dangerously close to his torso before the giant followed with another wild swing. He ducked beneath it and felt the wind from the spinning weapon brush against his hair before moving away as another attack came crashing down.

Just like before, there was no real technique. The masked man was simply swinging the weapon as hard as possible, allowing his anger to dictate every movement. He wasn’t trying to force Rhos into a particular position, he wasn’t setting up attacks and he wasn’t protecting himself properly after each swing.

He was just trying to kill him.

"You’re making this really easy for me, you know that, right?"

They say people blinded by anger become careless. That wasn’t entirely true.

Angry opponents were careless, but their unpredictability could make them even more troublesome. The giant wasn’t following any sensible pattern anymore, which meant Rhos couldn’t rely on his ability to read him anymore.

Every attack was crude, but there was no telling exactly how the man would swing next.

Well, he couldn’t keep defending forever. So he decided to take the initiative.

As the giant brought the buzzsaw down again, Rhos stepped inside its arc and shot his fist forward.

"What?"

The punch struck the man’s torso with the force to send a heavy impact through the corridor, but he barely moved. There was no indication that the blow had seriously hurt him.

The difference from before was immediate and Rhos understood it.

The giant’s body was overflowing with spiritual energy, and perhaps his sudden rage had caused his instincts to reinforce his body automatically. Without conscious refinement or proper technique, he was still capable of pouring that enormous reserve into his physical form whenever he felt threatened.

That was incredible. It seems as though he had underestimated his opponent.

It was already too late though. The buzzsaw came screaming toward his head.

So that’s how it is. Another one of his nasty habits was starting to rear its ugly head. He always unconsciously began to behave arrogantly whenever he had the edge in a fight and that sometimes made him careless.

Against someone stronger and more experienced, that mistake could have cost him his life.

"Good to know"

When the blade reached him, he raised his hand and struck the flat side of the weapon. This worked in redirecting the spinning blade away from his body rather than trying to stop it. His palm stung from the impact, but he quickly used the opening created by the deflection.

His other hand balled into a fist and scarlet spiritual energy condensed around it. Rhos jumped forward and drove the punch directly into the giant’s face.

The wooden mask was the first to get shattered by the force. It didn’t stop there though.

The giant’s head exploded at Rhos’s fist as flesh and fragments of bone burst outward. Pieces of meat and brain matter splattered across the corridor.