Chapter 174: Clash of the Riftmakers

Frank descended onto the battlefield wreathed in his green aura, his green hair streaming behind him.

His feet struck the ground, sending cracks spreading through the soil, while the aura surged around his arms and transformed into two massive, translucent arms that projected beyond his body as the remaining aura encased him like a second skin.

Caesar arrived moments later, sliding down the rocky slope before planting his feet beside Frank; his longsword was already drawn, but he left his shield on his back and relied solely on the gleaming metal armor he wore.

Viera’s soldiers retreated to clear an area for the two faction commanders.

On the opposite side, the Rassasian wielding the two curved swords smiled.

"He sent two faction commanders in his place? Isn’t he afraid you’ll both die?"

"We’re here to fight, not to worry about one another," Frank said, his two longswords wreathed in his green aura. "Besides, you aren’t worthy of facing the company commander. In fact, you should consider it an honor to face us instead of Eighth-Rank soldiers."

Frank spoke without the slightest emotion, as though he were merely reciting facts.

The Rassasian man’s smile gradually disappeared as he listened.

Caesar, meanwhile, twirled his sword once before holding it in front of his body in a combat stance.

"You asked for a duel," Caesar said coldly. "Now you have two opponents of your own rank. Don’t complain simply because the company commander didn’t consider you worth coming down himself."

The four ice spears shifted around the female Rassasian commander, who had remained silent until now, but whose eyes had visibly reddened.

At the same moment, two crescent-shaped blades of aura manifested behind her partner, separate from the real swords in his hands yet similar in shape.

Those abilities were merely manifestations of Eighth-Rank power, a stage all four of them had already surpassed.

What distinguished them as Seventh-Rank fighters was the faint distortion that began appearing in the space around them with every surge of emotion emanating from their bodies.

They could not tear through space as they pleased or open stable passageways through which entire armies could travel, but they could create limited rifts that lasted only a few moments and shift an attack’s position or trajectory across a short distance. Some could even use those rifts as direct attacks.

That was why the Seventh Rank bore the name Riftmaker.

The Rassasian wielding the two swords raised one hand in a forward gesture.

The two crescent blades shot toward Frank, one from the front and the other from the side.

Frank did not move as he watched the two blades approach at tremendous speed.

One of the arms formed from his green aura rose and intercepted the first blade, causing violent pressure to erupt between the two powers.

The second blade vanished into a narrow rift before it could reach him.

Frank sensed the distortion behind his back and turned at that very instant.

The crescent blade emerged from another rift less than a meter from his neck.

The second green hand caught it before it could reach him.

Frank closed the aura hand’s fingers around the blade and crushed it.

His opponent’s expression stiffened.

"Your aura..."

"Strange?" Frank finished for him. "I know."

He then shot forward while returning the two swords in his hands to the sheaths at his waist.

Frank no longer wielded a weapon, apparently having decided that he did not need one.

Green aura coated his real fist, while the two manifested arms moved independently around him, one guarding his flank as the other struck from a different angle.

The Rassasian crossed his swords in an X before his chest and blocked Frank’s first punch, but the massive green arm came crashing down from above.

The Rassasian opened a small rift before his feet, and his legs vanished into it before the rest of his body followed; he then emerged from another rift several meters away.

It was neither a complete nor a stable spatial transfer.

He emerged stumbling, a thin wound appearing across his thigh where the rift’s edges had resisted his passage, but he had avoided the blow.

This was the effect of spatial resistance.

Frank’s aura fist struck the ground where the Rassasian had disappeared, gouging a wide crater into it.

On the other side, the female Rassasian commander sent three of her ice spears flying toward Caesar with a gesture, while the fourth remained beside her for protection.

Caesar moved before they could reach him, leaning aside to let the first spear pass close to his shoulder before striking the second with his aura-coated sword.

The third vanished into a small rift midway through its flight.

It was a routine maneuver in battles between Seventh-Rank fighters, so Caesar did not wait for it to reappear and continued running.

He opened a narrow rift beside his sword and thrust the blade’s tip through it without slowing his charge toward the female Rassasian commander.

The sword’s tip emerged from a second rift behind his back at the exact moment the ice spear emerged from another rift behind him.

The blade struck the spear and knocked it away from his spine.

Then both rifts closed.

Everything had taken less than a second.

The female Rassasian commander charged toward him while his attention was divided and thrust her real spear toward his chest.

Caesar raised his sword and deflected the thrust, then closed the distance instead of retreating.

His armored shoulder slammed into her chest and forced her two steps backward before the butt of her spear swung toward his side.

He blocked the blow with his armored forearm, then drove his sword toward her neck as the commander raised her spear to intercept it.

However, a rift suddenly opened before the blade an instant before it could collide with her spear.

The sword’s tip emerged from distorted space on the other side of her spear, bypassing her defense completely as the woman’s eyes widened.

She retreated at the last possible moment, yet the blade still sliced across her cheek and left a thin purple line upon her gray skin.

While all of this unfolded, the armies did not pause out of respect for the faction commanders’ battle.

The humans and Rassasians continued killing one another around the four fighters, although everyone kept beyond the range of the rifts that appeared and vanished from one moment to the next.

At the center of the battlefield, Malrik’s real axe clashed against his opponent’s spear, while the manifested aura axe moved behind the Rassasian and shattered one of his independent spears.

His opponent, like Malrik, was an Eighth-Rank fighter.

That was why their battle remained limited to manifested power, without any of the small spatial rifts surrounding the clashes between the faction commanders.

Malrik drove his axe forward and forced the Rassasian to retreat.

"Darius!" he shouted without looking behind him.

On the right flank, Darius was leading the Death Squad’s soldiers and the human lines that had joined them.

A half-Rassasian lunged toward one of the soldiers, attempting to sink his teeth into the man’s neck, but Darius’s massive sword tore through him from one side to the other, separating his upper body from his lower half before he could reach his target.

The aura remained connected to the blade and Darius’s arms throughout the entire motion.

He could not manifest a separate weapon as Malrik had done with his axe, nor could he open a rift as Frank and Caesar had, but the power of the Ninth Rank within his body was enough to let him effortlessly tear apart every ordinary fighter or Awakened who stood before him.

Such was the vast difference between the spiritual ranks.