Chapter 84: Abyssal Corruption [1]

Ser Hughway stood amidst the smoldering ruins of the central grove, the severed head of the ghost-masked leader dangling from his gauntleted hand by its gore-matted hair.

Yet, despite the silence that had settled over the charred earth, the old knight felt no peace.

His instincts, forged through decades of lethal combat, screamed that something was dangerously amiss.

Every operative sent by the Unknown organization called Hydra had been a seasoned Ranker.

He had personally observed their talents—Damage Transfer, Teleportation, and the spatial techniques deployed during the initial ambush.

Yet this man—a Peak-stage Sword Sage who had stood inches from the grave—had relied strictly on his Headless Ghost True Sword Art during their final exchange.

He had not activated a single offensive or defensive talent, choosing instead to let himself be cornered and cleaved in two.

A Ranker fighting for his life does not simply hoard his talent until death.

It was impossible.

Ser Hughway stared down at the headless, mutilated corpse at his feet, his heavy brow furrowing in deep suspicion.

Suddenly, the air behind him quivered.

RUSTLE.

Ser Hughway turned his head instantly, his pupils narrowing.

The Initial-stage of the Sword Sage class’ Battle Skill granted the Superhuman the ability to perceive the subtle “Breath of All Things”.

A sensory sphere where even the faint rustle of a falling leaf or the displacement of heat within a hundred meters could never escape detection.

Dozens of yards away, tucked within the thick, unburnt shadows of the outer treeline, a distinct, rapid heartbeat resonated.

SWOOSH!

Without a moment’s hesitation, Hughway whirled around and delivered a blind, horizontal slash with his longsword.

A wave of silver, formless blade force tore through the forest, cleaving three massive, burning ironwood trunks in half and scattering a violent curtain of ash and cinders across the sky.

As the smoke cleared, Ser Hughway’s eyes widened in genuine shock.

He saw him.

A solitary figure clad in dark combat robes was sprinting through the trees, fleeing for his life with desperate speed.

Ser Hughway exploded into motion, his boots shattering the earth as he closed the four-hundred-yard gap in the span of a single breath.

The veteran knight materialized directly above the runner’s back, his heavy longsword coming down in a devastating, decapitating arc!

CRASH!

The runner was exceptionally nimble.

Sensing the air pressure collapsing above him, he executed a frantic forward dive, rolling across the dirt and spinning around to create a twenty-foot gap between himself and the knight.

Ser Hughway landed heavily, his cold eyes taking in the stranger’s appearance.

The man before him wore no mask.

His dark hair fluttered in the night wind, and his frame was completely whole.

Most shockingly, his face bore not a single burn mark, blister, or thermal scar—he was entirely fresh, his mana reserves unblemished by the dragonfire that had scorched the central grove.

Hughway tightened his grip on his longsword, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. “How are you alive? What happened to your wounds… how did your body recover from being cleaved in half?”

The assassin let out a raspy, arrogant grin, tightening his pale knuckles around the hilt of his katana.

“You truly killed me…” the assassin sneered, his eyes glinting with dark amusement. “…yet you still didn’t kill me, old man.”

He took a slow step back, adjusting his footwork. “My talent is Duplication. Because I have yet to ascend to a Sword Master and unencumber my soul to merge my talent with my True Sword Art, I am limited.

I can only manifest a single duplicate at a time. But that duplicate is not a illusion or a weak puppet—it is an absolute, identical original.”

The assassin pointed a finger at his own chest.

“Before we engaged your Lord, I hid my true body in the outer perimeter. So long as my duplicate lives, it acts as my anchor. But if that body is destroyed… my existence transfers entirely to the duplicate.”

“Is that so?” Ser Hughway murmured.

The suspicion in his chest dissolved, replaced by an absolute, terrifying calm.

The veteran knight adjusted his stance, taking a slow, heavy step forward.

“Then that simply means… there are no more copies left.” Hughway drew a deep breath, his silver mana flaring outward. “I will end you for real this time.”

BOOM!

They collided once more, the air shattering under the impact of their blades.

The assassin fought with a feral, terrifying intensity far surpassing his previous duplicate.

With no secondary body to fall back on, every strike was a desperate struggle against execution.

His katana turned into a silver hurricane, aiming for Hughway’s eyes, throat, and wrists with frantic precision.

Yet, the gap between a Peak-stage Sword Sage and an Initial-stage Sword Master was a vast, impassable chasm.

Ser Hughway completely dominated the engagement.

Moving with methodical, terrifying efficiency, he offered the assassin zero breathing room.

CLANG! CSHHH!

Hughway parried a high thrust, stepped inside the assassin’s guard, and delivered a heavy shoulder check that cracked the assassin’s collarbone.

Before the assassin could regain his footing, Hughway’s longsword flashed in a low arc, carving a bloody trench across his ribs.

The assassin gasped, barely ducking his head to dodge a broad horizontal stroke that shivered off a clump of his dark hair.

Lacking an offensive or defensive talent to bridge the gap, he was forced to rely purely on spatial perception—a fragile defense against a Sword Master’s absolute physical output.

“Die!” the assassin screamed, lunging forward in a final, frantic thrust.

Ser Hughway didn’t even bother parrying.

He shifted his hips, let the katana graze past his leather pauldrons, and brought his heavy longsword down in a clean, wheeling downward slash.

CSHHH!

AGHHHRRR-KEY!

A horrific, blood-curdling scream echoed through the woods.

Both of the assassin’s legs were cleanly severed at the knees.

His body crashed heavily onto the blood-soaked soil, writhing in agonizing spasms as dark crimson gushed from his stumps.

Ser Hughway walked up slowly, standing over the shivering, crippled operative like an absolute judge.

His face was devoid of emotion, his eyes burning with an unholy, lethal bloodlust that crushed what remained of the assassin’s spirit.

For the first time since the ambush began, the ghost-masked operative lost all his arrogance.

Looking up into the cold, terrifying eyes of the Indestructible Knight, an intense, suffocating wave of primal terror seized his heart.

He was shivering uncontrollably, clutching his bleeding thighs as he stared directly into the jaws of death.

Hughway flicked his wrist, letting the droplets of dark blood clinging to his blade splash directly onto the assassin’s pale face.

“Speak,” Hughway commanded softly. “Who is your master? What is the Hydra Syndicate?”

The assassin opened his mouth, his jaw trembling as if he were about to yield to the overwhelming fear.

“It… it is…”

Before a single name could slip past his lips, his eyes suddenly rolled back, the pupils contracting until only the bloodshot whites were visible.

SCREEEEEECH!!

A high-pitched, unnatural screech tore from the assassin’s throat—a sound so repulsive and jagged that it caused the ambient air to vibrate with violent distortion!

Ser Hughway’s heart skipped a beat.

A cold sweat broke across his neck as he instinctively kicked off the earth, leaping back ten yards.

“That… that is…!” Hughway gasped, his eyes wide with horror.

Surging outward from the twitching assassin was not the refined blue or silver aura of a superhuman.

It was a pitch-black, suffocating, corruptive haze that smelled of ancient rot and burnt flesh.

The grass around the assassin instantly withered and turned to black dust, and his veins bulged against his skin, turning into pulsing, jet-black cords.

Abyssal mana radiation.

The Abyssal corruption had begun.