Chapter 79: Disconnection [2]

A sudden, unnatural stillness washed over the clearing, drowning out the crackle of burning ironwood.

The humid air fractured into invisible, razor-thin ripples as Ser Damian Blacksun shifted his stance.

Around his broadsword, the atmosphere did not merely ripple.

It fractured.

Code 290 and Code 291 froze mid-step, the hair on the back of their necks standing up as a wave of cold dread washed over them.

Behind their bone-white masks, their eyes dilated in sheer, unadulterated shock.

They had spent years executing high-value targets across the continent, but the conceptual pressure emanating from the young First Dragonknight was something entirely alien.

It was not a standard spatial spell. It was a conceptual anomaly.

Unique-Grade Talent: Disconnection.

"What... is this?" Code 291 muttered, his voice trembling for the briefest fraction of a second.

Relying on his C-Grade Teleportation, he instantly kicked off the earth, attempting to blink through the spatial fabric to manifest directly behind Damian’s blind spot for a fatal decapitation.

SWOOSH!

Code 291 vanished into the void—but the moment his body entered the spatial pathway, Damian casually swept his blade through the air.

CSHHH!

Damian didn’t strike Code 291 physically; he severed the very spatial continuum Code 291 was traveling through!

AGHHH!

A horrific, bloody scream tore from Code 291’s throat as he was violently ripped out of mid-teleportation.

Space folded back in on itself like broken glass, forcibly ejecting the assassin twenty feet in the air.

His spatial trajectory had been completely disconnected mid-transit, shearing off his entire left arm at the shoulder in a grotesque spray of crimson blood.

He crashed heavily into the dirt, rolling in agonizing spasms as dark gore pooled around his shattered frame.

"Code 291!" Code 290 yelled in disbelief.

Panic seized his heart, but his ruthless combat training forced him forward.

Gritting his teeth, Code 290 poured every drop of his Sword Runner mana into his curved katana, lunging directly at Damian’s throat.

’It doesn’t matter how strong his attack is! My B-Grade Damage Transfer will reflect every bit of damage straight into his heart!’

Code 290 threw his weight behind a broad, reckless slash, abandoning all defense to force a mutual strike.

Damian’s dark eyes remained icy cold.

He didn’t bother parrying.

He simply stepped forward, his heavy long sword executing a simple, downward vertical arc.

LINE SEVERANCE.

Damian’s blade passed through Code 290’s neck and chest without meeting a single ounce of physical resistance.

It was as if the assassin’s steel armor and flesh didn’t even exist along that exact plane of space.

CSHHH!

Code 290’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.

A dark, reddish aura flared across his skin as his B-Grade Damage Transfer attempted to trigger, trying to construct a causal link to reflect the fatal blow onto Damian’s body.

However, Damian’s Disconnection severed the causal bridge before the feedback could even materialize!

The connection between cause and effect was cleanly sliced into non-existence.

"Impossible..." Code 290 choked out, a thin red line appearing across his neck and diagonal torso.

SLIP!

Before the assassin could complete another sentence, his top half slid smoothly off his lower body, spilling organs and dark blood across the scorched dirt in a sudden, brutal execution.

The B-Grade talent had failed completely—overridden and rendered obsolete by a Unique-Grade Talent.

Without missing a single beat, Damian turned his cold gaze toward the armless, writhing Code 291 on the ground.

SWOOSH!

With a crisp flick of his wrist, Damian sent a horizontal arc of spatial force gliding across the clearing.

CSHHH!

The spatial blade cleanly severed Code 291’s head from his shoulders, ending his life instantly.

The decapitated head rolled across the blood-soaked leaves, coming to a halt at the edge of the ironwood roots.

In less than three breaths, two elite Sword Runner Rankers had been utterly dismantled and slaughtered.

Silence descended upon the depths of the central area like a heavy iron vault.

Code 289 took an involuntary step back, his knuckles turning pale white around his katana hilt as his breath hitched behind his white mask.

Even the Sword Sage leader lost his calm composure; his aura flickered in shock as he stared at the gruesome remains of his two subordinates, his cold eyes locked onto Damian in total disbelief.

Beside Damian, Ser Hughway was equally stunned.

The veteran Sword Master held his heavy longsword mid-guard, his eyes wide as he looked at the young First Dragonknight.

He had known Damian was a talented young prodigy, but he had no idea the boy harbored a terrifying, Unique-Grade conceptual authority capable of bypassing high-tier Ranker defenses so effortlessly.

"A Unique-Grade huh?..." the Sword Sage leader whispered, his voice dropping into an icy, deadly register. "It seems the Seventh Successor didn’t just recruit a knight... he brought a monster."

Meanwhile, a few meters behind them, lying collapsed in his own pool of dried blood, Craig slowly lifted his head.

TH-THUMP! TH-THUMP!

Deep within his chest, the violent turmoil tearing through his stomach began to subside.

The intense shock of the battle and the brief respite provided by Damian’s intervention had given his core the precious seconds it needed to stabilize.

Ding!

[ DIGESTION MODE COMPLETED ]

[ YOU HAVE AWAKENED A UNIQUE-GRADE TALENT ]

[ CONGRATULATION... ]

[ YOU HAVE ASCENDED ]

Warm, golden-crimson light flared softly beneath Craig’s skin.

The fractured bones in his ribs began to knit together with visible speed, his shattered nerve pathways reconstructing themselves as his Divine Draconic Physique finally broke through its previous healing ceiling, fueled by his newly solidified Initial-Stage Sword Runner class.

His mana reserves was tripled.

His golden eyes, once dimmed and bleeding, ignited with a vibrant, sovereign radiance.

Sitting up slowly amidst the ash, Craig wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of his lips.

His gaze swept across the shock-filled faces of the assassins and his awe-struck defenders.

A dark, unhinged smile curled across the Seventh Successor’s face.

"Well done, Damian," Craig’s voice echoed softly through the quiet grove, humming with newfound, terrifying power.

"Now... let’s finish off the rest of these rats."