Chapter 1150. So Why Does My Body Recognize His Rhythm?

Chapter 1150: 1150. So Why Does My Body Recognize His Rhythm?

The violence along the rest of the line did not cease all at once; it died by degrees, hemorrhaging momentum as the primal terror of the duel consumed everything else.

It began at the fringes nearest the epicenter. The soldiers there, demons who had been howling for blood, and Aethelgard spearmen who had been fighting for their lives found that their rage had simply evaporated.

Continuing to swing an axe at a comrade while a cataclysm was unfolding twenty meters away felt increasingly absurd, almost pathetic. Then, the stillness spread outward like a spreading rumor, a cold shiver running through the ranks.

Demon soldiers lowered their serrated blades. Aethelgard spearmen let their points drift toward the blood-slicked stone.

Within ninety seconds, the northern corridor, a space that had held the largest, most desperate engagement Erosyne had witnessed in four decades, had fallen into a deathly, ringing quiet.

The only sounds left were the wet thud of impacts, the grinding of bone, and the explosive tearing sounds that each collision ripped from the air.

Without a single command being issued, a boundary formed.

The soldiers of both armies, enemies who moments ago would have killed each other without hesitation, simply backed away from the center. They retreated in a synchronized, instinctual withdrawal until a rough circle of open ground had formed around the duel, creating a makeshift arena of devastation.

Then, because armies are made of frightened, desperate people who cannot witness something this transcendent in silence for long, the noise began.

"APOLLO!"

The chant erupted like a controlled explosion somewhere in the Aethelgard third rank. Within seconds, it tore through the entire formation.

Thousands of voices hammered the name into the stone walls, each syllable vibrating in the lungs of every soldier present. ℴ

Men who had been retreating in genuine, soul-crushing panic ten minutes earlier were now pressed against the invisible boundary of the fight, their faces streaked with blood and tears, fists pumping the air in a desperate bid to give their champion strength.

"APOLLO! APOLLO! APOLLO!"

The response from the opposing side came not as a shout, but as something darker, a low, guttural rumble that shook the floorboards of reality.

THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.

Orcs began beating their weapon hafts against the corridor floor in a slow, building rhythm that sounded like the heartbeat of a dying god. Demons roared a name that most Aethelgard soldiers had only heard in nightmares less than an hour ago.

The sound was alien, terrifying, and utterly devoted.

Cassandra stood at the very front of the demonic line. Her arms were folded across her chest, her transformation still burning like banked embers, a dark, crimson aura that writhed around her shoulders like living smoke.

She did not join the chanting. She simply watched, her lips pressed into a thin line, but the expression on her face carried something dangerously close to pride.

She watched her chosen instrument tear through the world.

Beside her, Gorvasha stood like a statue carved from granite, her massive warhammer planted head down on the stone.

She watched the duel with the grim, terrifying satisfaction of a commander whose faith in her leader had not just been met but had been violently, publicly validated in front of every soldier under her command.

In the center of the circle, the two combatants ignored the thousands of screaming voices.

To them, there was no army. There was no war.

There was only the taste of copper in their mouths, the searing pain of cracked ribs, and the endless, beautiful cycle of violence between them.

Elliot Von Starlight stood at the precipice of the Aethelgard crowd, his body coiled like a spring under immense tension. His hands were clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles had gone bloodless and white, the tendons in his forearms standing out like steel cables.

His mind was a storm of memories. He had fought shoulder to shoulder with Apollo since they were sixteen-year-old novices.

He had been there when Apollo had stood alone against a rampaging rank three drake during their third year at the Academy, blood streaming down his face as he claimed victory.

On more than one occasion, in the quiet hours between training sessions, Elliot had privately believed that his friend was the apex, the strongest combatant their generation would ever produce.

And now, he was watching that apex being systematically dismantled. He was watching Apollo get outclassed by a shadow, a masked figure who had not yet shown even the slightest sign of exhaustion or strain.

"I should be in there," Elliot rasped, his voice cracking with raw desperation. "I can’t just stand here while he gets slaughtered."

"You shouldn’t." Evelyn’s hand clamped around his forearm like a vice, anchoring him to the spot.

Her grip was painful, but he barely noticed.

"Evelyn, look at him!" Elliot turned to her, his eyes wild with panic. "He’s losing... He’s being broken apart right in front of us!"

"He’s not losing yet," she said, though her voice lacked its usual conviction. "And if you rush in there, you won’t just die... you’ll die in approximately four seconds!"

"And then Apollo will have to watch his friend die while he’s already fighting for his own life!"

"Do you want that burden on him?!"

She didn’t look at him. Her gaze remained locked on the masked figure, her pupils dilated, her eyes narrowing into something hard, analytical, and deeply unhappy.

"There’s something wrong with this, Elliot. Something fundamentally wrong."

"There’s a lot wrong," he spat, glancing back at the dust clouds and the flashes of light. "The power levels alone are insane."

"No." She shook her head slowly, a frown deepening between her brows. "Not the power."

"The power is something alien, something I don’t recognize... It’s the geometry of it. The way he moves, I’ve seen it before."

Elliot blinked, momentarily distracted from his own terror. "What are you talking about?"

"The way he shifts his weight a microsecond before he commits a strike..."

"The way he rotates his hips to absorb momentum... that specific, lethal timing on the counterattack." Her voice dropped to a whisper, laced with genuine unease. "I’ve seen someone move like that, and I cannot place where, and it is driving me insane."

"You think you know him?" Elliot asked, a cold dread pooling in his stomach.

Evelyn finally tore her eyes away from the carnage to look at him properly. Her face was pale.

"I think I’ve watched him fight before... And that should be impossible, because until sixty minutes ago, nobody in Aethelgard had ever seen this man’s face, heard his name, or witnessed his style."

"So why does my body recognize his rhythm?"

Ten meters away, embedded within the front ranks of the Aethelgard soldiers who were pressed against the edge of the killing circle, Rex Rexilion stood in deceptive stillness.

His face was a masterpiece of deception; he wore an expression of tightly controlled alarm that would have convinced any veteran soldier that he was witnessing a tragedy.

’I have to change the flow,’ Rex thought, his inner mind cold and calculating even as his pulse remained steady. ’I need to break their concentration, break his rhythm, and give myself the opening to end this without suspicion.’

He took two deliberate steps forward, breaking past the front line. Two soldiers instinctively reached out, their hands grasping at his cloak to pull him back from the invisible boundary of the duel. Rex ignored them, cupping a hand beside his mouth.

"APOLLO!" The shout tore across the open ground, carrying the perfect, jagged edge of genuine terror. "APOLLO, LOOK OUT!"

"LET ME HELP YOU!"

The lie landed like a stone in a still pond. He took another step forward, his body angled toward the fight, his weight shifting onto his front foot in the precise, heroic posture of a man about to commit himself to a suicidal rescue.

To every soldier watching, he looked like a hero willing to throw his life away for a brother in arms.

"Stay back, soldier!" a Nightwing captain roared, recognizing the breach of protocol.

Three more soldiers grabbed Rex’s shoulders, physically hauling him back into formation, their faces grim with the belief that they were saving a brave man from a mad death.

Rex allowed himself to be pulled back, his eyes never leaving Apollo’s back. Beneath the mask, his lips curled into something predatory.

The stage was set.