The man had a mane of dark hair rising out of his skull and spilling down his back, and deep, sunken eyes that stared down a sharp beak of a nose. His skin was pallid, almost sickly, and his mouth parted to reveal sharp little triangular teeth.

He studied Velik while he waited for a response, the same way Velik was studying him. Not much to look at. Limbs are thin. Small stature. Fast, though, and sneaky. Ambush predator, then. But if that’s the way it is, why does he look so confident now that his opening strike has failed?

Velik knew as well as anyone not to judge someone solely by their appearance. The system refined a person’s physique to an extent, but it wasn’t a perfect indicator of someone’s strength. Even worse, Velik was far outside the system’s reach and still struggling to learn the new rules to direct essence manipulation. If this was a divine beast, and he had no reason to think otherwise, he couldn’t take anything for granted.

“Not going to run?” the man asked.

“Why should I?”

He let out an evil little chuckle, then said, “Good. I figured you’d be smarter than this, but it saves me some effort. Don’t worry, though. I’m not going to kill you, just bring you back.”

“Yeah, heard that one before,” Velik said.

“Oh, that’s rich. Let me set the record straight for you. Tesir fought you at an extreme handicap and only left because humans die if you look at them sideways. Don’t think you were really holding your own against him. As far as sneaking away from Eslaka, running away and fighting are far from the same thing. And trust me, you can’t hide from me. There’s no escaping this time.”

[The Wanderer’s Path] let Velik see essence, which was why he realized the divine beast’s whole speech was nothing but a stall for time. Normally, he couldn’t see the essence hidden inside a monster, but when they started actively manipulating it, it became visible. Is he… building new skills right now?

Whatever the man was doing, letting him proceed seemed like a losing strategy. Velik burst into motion, closing the distance between them in an instant as he summoned his shadow spear. It stabbed through the divine beast, piercing his chest cleanly and erupting out between the man’s shoulder blades. For the briefest moment, Velik thought he’d somehow greatly overestimated the man’s strength.

Then his form blurred into nothing and vanished, leaving Velik standing there holding a weapon stabbed through nothing. Then a black spear, twin to his own, pierced his leg. Velik was already moving, slipping away from the strike before it could do more than tear muscle. The wound healed so fast that the only evidence it had ever existed at all was the golden blood staining the tip of the man’s spear.

“An interesting skill,” he said, examining the spear with a critical eye. “Tied to the user’s power, making it weak unless it’s in the right hands. Locking it to your divine blood is an inspired bit of essence manipulation, though, I’ll grant you that.”

How the fuck did he get behind me?

Velik refused to believe the man was too fast to be seen when he moved. It had to be some kind of trick, some skill that teleported him somehow. Nothing had so much raw speed that he couldn’t track its movements. But if it was some kind of spell, [Magic Eater]

should have taken a bite out of it before it could go off.

The man vanished again, this time right in front of Velik’s eyes. There’d been no mana flare, no whisper of essence. He was just gone. Not knowing which direction the attack would come from, but certain he had precious fractions of a second to figure out a response, he broke into a sprint.

The spear flashed into existence to his right, exactly at an angle to intercept him. Velik twisted, throwing himself up and over into a no-hands cartwheel that saw him safely over the swipe of the spearhead. His own spear shot out, biting deep into the man’s shoulder.

Then the divine beast was gone again. Reacting more on instinct than anything, Velik dove into a roll. Behind him, he heard the crunch of broken stone. The man floated in the air, his cloak drifting around him and the spear stabbed straight down into the ground.

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He thought I’d jump again. I dodged him this time, but if I don’t figure out where he’s disappearing to, he’ll get lucky eventually.

It definitely wasn’t any sort of instant teleport. The man disappeared for whole seconds before striking again. He was going somewhere, then reappearing, and Velik thought he knew where. Once again, he lamented that he’d been forced to leave his gear behind.

His cloak had an enchantment on it called [Shadow Step], and while it was extremely limited in duration and useless for popping in and out of reality, in theory, with enough mana, it could do exactly what the divine beast was doing. Unfortunately, Velik no longer had access to the enchantment.

But his LPS could recreate it, and if it was drawing power from him instead of an invested mana battery, he might be able to play on an even field with the divine beast. Without hesitation, he ordered his LPS to start constructing a new essence configuration.

“Oh really?” the man asked, popping back into existence twenty feet away. “I didn’t realize you were a fellow practitioner of the dark arts. I apologize for my rudeness. I’d have given you my name if I’d known.”

“I don’t care what your name is,” Velik said.

“Halifex,” the man told him anyway. “One should know the names of his betters.”

“I really don’t care,” Velik repeated.

Halifex snorted, then raised a hand and launched three spiraling bolts of darkness. They wrapped around themselves, miniature black holes sucking in what little light there was as they streaked through the air. Velik saw them coming and was already moving before they’d even left the divine beast’s hand.

[Magic Eater] got the closest one. He cut through another with his spear, though the magic ripped his weapon apart in the process, and the third one missed completely. It might have been a good trade for him, except that the moment he blocked one of the bolts, he realized his mistake. Now his hands were empty—exactly what Halifex wanted.

Velik could resummon the weapon faster than he could blink, but in a battle against anyone where he truly needed

the weapon, that wasn’t fast enough. Before he could even start to make a new spear, Halifex was suddenly there, fingernails sharpened into hooked nails that dug into Velik’s stomach. The nails pierced skin, drawing blood and sinking half an inch in before stopping.

Velik’s hand was iron around Halifex’s wrist, holding him in place. Got you, you son of a bitch. His other hand snapped up and grabbed the divine beast by the throat. [Dread Lance] ignited, sending burning energy into Halifex’s head and up to his skull.

The divine beast vanished again, leaving Velik holding nothing but phantasmal wisps of shadow and an explosion of energy that scoured empty air. Halifex had slipped away again, and Velik hadn’t managed to so much as ruffle his hair.

[Saving new configuration: Shadow Step.]

[Integrating new configuration.]

[Congratulations! Your new configuration is ready for use.]

He didn’t hesitate to pull mana into the new skill. Instantly, the world shifted into a twisted version of itself where everything was made of patterned darkness. It was a cold reflection, one that only those who could see with no light whatsoever could hope to traverse. Halifex stood there, his mouth hanging open, as Velik appeared.

“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he muttered grimly. “Very well. Let the true dance through the darkness begin.”

“Who the hell talks like that?” Velik asked as he summoned a new spear. “Nobody says that kind of crap anymore. I’m not sure they ever did.”

“Plebeians who lack the heart of a warrior poet,” Halifex said dismissively. “I don’t concern myself with their opinions.”

“Uh…”

Nope. Not touching that. Just gonna kill the bastard.

Halifex brandished his own spear, practically a twin to Velik’s. No more words were exchanged between them, just explosive motion as they closed the distance and worked their weapons. Spear shafts spun, cracking against each other in deflections with hairs’ breadth margins. Blood flickered through the shadows where razor edges creased skin, only for the injuries to vanish instantly.

Velik slipped out of the shadow world to dodge a thrust that would surely have skewered him. It was only for an instant, but that was enough to reposition himself before diving back in. Halifex hadn’t been idle in that sliver of time, however, and was already swinging his spear in a wide arc.

Velik slashed upward, catching the spear and forcing both weapons up above their heads. Undeterred, he leaped and planted a double-footed kick in Halifex’s chest. The divine beast lost his grip on his spear when he was knocked back, causing the weapon to unravel into mana.

There was no coming back from that and no running away. The spear descended on Halifex with lethal precision, set to drive its tip through the man’s throat. Even when he tried to copy Velik’s trick and shift back to the real world, Velik simply followed him there. Death was inevitable and not to be denied.

Halifex’s cloak rose up like it was alive, strands of fabric wrapping around the spear shaft and slowing it down. It didn’t have the raw physical power to stop Velik, not completely, but even a tenth of a second was enough. Halifex vanished again, and by the time Velik jumped after him, he’d already rolled to the side and regained his feet.

There were no fancy words now. Halifex merely snarled and jumped straight into the air. His form shifted back to that of a giant bat and he flew up with great, scooping flaps of his wings. Undeterred, Velik bounded through the air after him, taking their battle off the ground.