Grand Marshal Sammael.
A moment’s decision determined everything in the battlefield, where unforeseen variables could suddenly appear. This monstrous entity gave Rex, who was collapsed on the ground, no time to think as it lifted a finger towards him.
Rex immediately blew the horn he held in his hand, and white bones erupted from the ground and the air. Thin finger bones latched onto Sammael’s arm and began forming more bones. Within moments, a towering skeleton warrior exceeding three meters in height was summoned.
The skeleton grabbed the High Marshal’s arm and hoisted him high into the air. A black light that had begun to gather at the High Marshal’s fingertips detonated in the sky. A large hole opened up in the dark clouds, momentarily revealing a glimpse of the blue sky.
Boom!
Sammael struck the ribs of the giant skeleton with his other fist. Shattering like shotgun pellets, the ribs exploded into dozens of shards.
“…!”
As the broken bones hit the foundation rocks on the ground, they flew up into the air.
Whooooosh!
Rex blew his horn again, directing his sights at Sammael. Horn in hand, without an axe or useable legs, the enemy in front of him was obviously not one to be taken lightly.
‘…I shouldn’t be caught dealing with this kind of beast.’
Rex then handed the High Marshal Sammael over to the skeletal army emerging from the cracks while using his broken legs to push himself up.
For a moment, Rex glanced at the sky. Though it wasn’t a good decision to take his eyes off the High Marshal in front of him, he couldn’t help but do so.
“…Damn it.”
And what Rex saw next was the sight of crimson blood drawing a thin, long line across the black sky—Malitiel’s inky black fingernails pulling a crimson thread from the body of the young boy.
‘…Blood.’
Rex’s gigantic body froze in an instant.
‘Where is he hit? Neck? Cheek? Damn it, the wound is obstructed so I can’t see it. Is the wound deep? Poison? Malitiel could have injected poison in such a short period of time.’
Defeat.
This word passed through the mind of the brave warrior, who until then had been unyielding despite his broken legs, his eyes burning with fervent determination.
‘…I should have stopped him from going after Malitiel in the first place.’
Regret began to boil up in his chest.
‘I made the wrong decision. I should have known that the Grand Marshal would be such a challenging opponent for Bin, so why didn’t I stop him? I should have been more proactive in dissuading the General. This only happened because soldiers accompanied them. If it were just the Grand Marshal, he wouldn’t have acted so hastily.’
The possibilities of other choices began to haunt him later on.
‘Was it vengeance? Did personal feelings interfere with the mission? Is this to say I committed such an idiotic mistake?’
In time, his anger at himself pushed the regret out of his chest, taking root inside him.
‘Is this the end for the future of the allied forces? And how much time will it take for someone as talented as Bin to be born again? No… Can someone with Bin’s talent ever be born again?’
Next, his fear and worry over the future overshadowed his anger with himself.
“You think too much.”
Rex, overwhelmed by a flood of emotions, didn’t even realize that the High Marshal had approached from behind.
“…Damn it!”
By the time Rex came to his senses, it was already too late.
Sammael’s fist pierced through Rex’s abdomen.
Rex’s horn shattered into pieces.
*
About three seconds before a large hole was punched through Rex’s body.
“Too much time wasted.”
Malitiel, who had summoned Sammael, withdrew his finger pointed at Rex and swung it at the young boy.
“Knock him back.”
The young boy was once again able to release energy from his fingertips. Even if his reaction speed was slow, he wasn’t simply standing idly by while Malitiel was distracted having summoned Sammael.
The dark clouds, responding to the boy’s command, emitted another wail. Pure white lightning enveloped the boy’s back and gathered at his fingertips through his arms.
Of course, Malitiel also realized that the boy would be able to react to his own attacks effortlessly.
Whoosh!
Malitiel dodged the lightning bursting from the boy’s fingertips by twisting his body in mid-air.
The movement of his arms, the direction of his fingertips, his bodily balance, and the subtle shaking of his facial muscles provided innumerable clues for Malitiel to predict the boy’s attack trajectory.
No matter how brilliant a mage the boy was, he lacked experience and physical ability.
Therefore, this battle was one Malitiel was destined to win. No matter how powerful the boy’s magic was, it was useless if it didn’t hit.
“Well, what have you prepared next? Is this the end?”
Malitiel laughed loudly as he narrowly dodged the attack and extended his sharp claws.
Once again, the scythe of death descended upon the boy’s shoulder.
For a moment, a flash of his life passed before the boy’s eyes.
A chilling cold swept over his back, and just as everything seemed to be coming to an end…
“Overload.”
The boy’s lips barely managed to utter that word.
‘Too late to send out lightning. My nails have already touched your skin.’
Malitiel’s black nails grazed the boy’s skin. In an instant, the blood vessels were torn, and a stream of crimson blood gushed forth.
The battle was decided. No matter how powerful a large-scale magic the boy used to engulf Malitiel, he could no longer stop the black hand that Malitiel plunged into his skin.
‘I won…’
Whoosh!
At the next moment, Malitiel’s fingertips carved through the air.
“…Huh.”
Malitiel’s nails undoubtedly had touched the boy’s neck.
And at that moment, the fight was effectively over.
The boy’s body, with its superior magical talent, was pitifully weak and delicate, while Malitiel’s movements were swift, beyond the capabilities of the continent’s elite soldiers to keep up with.
Lacking any notable reaction speed, stamina, or strength, the boy’s body was easily recognized by Malitiel as fragile.
Thus, when his nails touched the boy’s neck, Malitiel was certain of victory. It was a simple, almost meaningless thrust, but the boy had no way to evade it.
…Or so he thought he had no way to evade it.
“…”
Malitiel’s nails barely scratched the surface of the boy’s skin, unable to inflict any greater wound.
Like a beast, the boy quickly tilted his neck backward, and Malitiel’s nail left the trace of red blood sprinkled across the black clouds.
At that instant, confusion washed into the part of the Grand Marshal’s brain responsible for rationality and cunning.
‘Bin’s physical abilities are so far below standard that even the word “inferior” doesn’t do them justice. They’re truly despicable—something I’ve known ever since that night’s battle in the forest.’
Even so, thoughts raced through his mind.
‘Judging by muscle mass and aerobic capacity, I have a sense of it all. Even if his attack were casual, the probability of evasion should be close to zero.’
Malitiel’s attack was evaded.
In fact, there are more people than one might expect who can make this sentence true.
Of course, a Sword Saint could do it, as well as the human General in his party responsible for assassination and reconnaissance, and the Elf General responsible for sniping.
Even without being a general-level power, a fairly skilled soldier might evade a few times.
Malitiel’s attack wasn’t fully committed; the speed wasn’t that fast, and the angle of the oncoming strike was one that could be easily evaded by just turning the head slightly.
“Huh.”
Still, Malitiel couldn’t shake the confusion swirling in his mind, for the one who evaded his attack was none other than “Bin.”
The confusion washed over his mind like a tsunami, and soon an unusual sensation brushed against his hands and feet.
Malitiel worked to uncover the cause of this sensation enveloping his entire body, so much so that he failed to notice the thunderclouds above him roaring their loud clamor into his ears.
‘It wasn’t avoidance so much as… being nudged out of the way. It wasn’t an active movement by him.’
The sudden crackling sound erupting from the boy’s body. The electric current wrapping around him.
‘His body temperature has skyrocketed. Something, something is happening inside his body now.’
Lightning, electricity, electric current.
‘Electric current…?’
Words and phrases raced chaotically through the Grand Marshal’s thoughts.
‘Rising body temperature, the faint sounds of lightning still resonating faintly within the boy’s body.’
Then, a possibility dawned on this Grand Marshal, seasoned in war and battles.
“You’ve manipulated your bioelectric current.”
Human muscles move due to bioelectric currents interfered with by the brain or the spinal cord.
Most living creatures analyze external stimuli using one of their five senses, converting these into electric signals. The brain or the spinal cord then analyze these converted electric signals and issue commands to the muscles based on this analysis.
For example, when a trained boxer receives a punch to the ribs, the pain generated there is the ‘stimulus,’ and the brain’s directive to ‘endure’ or ‘stay still’ via electrical signals is the ‘command.’
There’s a vast difference in speed due to human talent and continuous effort, but, in general, humans take at least 0.1 seconds to deliver the ‘stimulus’ to the brain and, in turn, receive the appropriate ‘command’ back.
To most, this 0.1 second is insignificant, but for first-class soldiers on the brink of life and death, it’s an exceedingly precious and important period.
This tiny moment that bioelectric currents take to travel to and from the brain is enough to determine the winner and loser.
Thus, the boy thought.
Let’s just eliminate this 0.1-second delay.
There’s no time to wait for the brain’s decision anyway, considering how slow his already sluggish movements are.
A reckless thought that most humans could never imagine, nor had ever been attempted by previous generation’s apex 9th Circle Storm Mages.
The boy decided to tamper with the mechanism of the bioelectric current governing his body.
“Whenever an object approaches my skin at a certain speed, the entire muscle of my body immediately moves to avoid the stimulus.”
The ‘stimulus’ current, which normally would have traveled to the brain or the spinal cord, was reformed by the boy’s magic at the site of its creation, into a ‘command’ current.
The content of this newly created ‘command’ current delivered to the muscle was simple.
[Contract immediately.]
Without going through the brain, achieving finer and more precise commands was impossible.
‘For now, this is sufficient.’
A frail boy, weak in strength and stamina by normal human standards, developed a dangerous shortcut that raised his reaction speed to levels beyond typical biological logic.
“Even a slight mistake could result in your nerves burning out entirely.”
It was akin to illegal tuning.
Ripping apart the solid internal structure of a human being and fitting it with a makeshift engine according to the user’s preference—it was exactly the same kind of reckless meddling.
Unless there were no problems, that would be more surprising.
Once an error occurred, the boy’s body might move out of control, and in the worst-case scenario, his nervous circuits could collapse, leaving him paralyzed.
“So?”
With hand stretched above his head, the boy spoke. His face was filled with an icy anger and resolve.
The possibility of losing the Grand Marshal before him meant nothing compared to the fear of paralysis.
“As long as there’s no problem today.”
The boy conserved his magic for nearly 30 days, refraining from any use to prepare for potential moments.
To maintain the best state, he dedicated himself fully to rest days before the decisive battle and even spent an entire day meditating in his personal tent the day before the battle.
An immense amount of mana was compressed and activated through a high-density ‘Blossoming,’ allowing him to access this delicate and reckless feat, only possible in the extreme awakened state brought by ‘Blossoming.’
An original and reckless technique that belonged solely to the boy, which no one in this world could replicate.
“Can your attacks provoke reactions a few more times? Maybe three times, or up to five at best. Eventually, it’ll only be a matter of time before something goes wrong!”
Not long after, the dark clouds towards which the boy had ascended were finally touched by his fingertips, now saturated with lightning.
“As long as I kill you before something goes wrong, it’s a simple and certain solution.”
In the next instance, the thick, heavy thunderclouds covering the battlefield dissipated. The blue sky overlooked the battlefield once more, and the boy’s fingertips held a lump of light too intense to even look at directly.
“Release.”
The bright white light that exploded at an altitude of 2,000 meters didn’t sprout numerous branches like other lightning bolts. Instead, a single thick beam moved straight towards its target.
And the target, of course, was Grand Marshal Malitiel.
