CHAPTER 130: HOLE

"The skill I created..." Razeal’s voice was steady, his expression calm. "I call it Untouchability."

Sylva tilted her head slightly, one hand going to her chin as she repeated the word in her mind. "Untouchability..." She said it aloud, tasting the sound of it, but nothing in her vast knowledge brought up a match. No record, no theory, no historical precedent.

Still, just from the name alone, logic told her it meant exactly what it implied a skill that made him untouchable.

She narrowed her eyes. "Hmm. So... the skill that makes you untouchable Right?"

Then, without missing a beat, her lips curved into a mischievous smirk. "I mean, weren’t you already untouchable before this? Tell me, how many girls have touched you or even want to touch you? And now you’ve gone and made a skill for it? I wouldn’t exactly call that an achievement." She arched an eyebrow in mock seriousness. "Ever thought about creating a skill called Touchability? That would be far more useful for cute boys like you if you ask me. I mean"

Her tone was casual, dismissive as if his display of a completely new defensive technique was nothing more than a setup for her teasing.

Razeal’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t rise to the bait. The joke slid right past him, but deep down, he couldn’t help the faint twinge of disappointment. He’d expected something... more from her.

After all, creating Untouchability hadn’t been some lucky accident. It had taken him countless deaths, painful failures, and the kind of experimentation that most people wouldn’t even think.

Basic knowledge of Flow the most fundamental truth he possessed had been enough to open doors. But knowing and creating were different things entirely. To turned just the theory into reality through effort, risk, and precision. And she... she reduced it to a punchline joke.

He didn’t appreciate the joke. Not at all

Someone else did.

[HAHAHAHAHAHA!]

The System’s voice roared in his mind, laughing so hard it almost echoed. [This is one of the best jokes I’ve ever heard! "Touchability" brutal honesty and marketing potential in one! Host, I think we should actually consider making that skill.]

"...Shut up."

That was all Razeal gave in response, not in the mood to spar verbally with the irritating voice in his head. He’d deal with the System later, when he wasn’t standing in the middle of a battlefield.

The reaction he’d wanted from Sylva hadn’t come. But there were others whose attention was fully captured.

And the most significant reaction came from Selphira. Ofcourse

She inhaled slowly, her hands coming up to rest on either side of her face, fingertips pressing lightly against her skin. Her eyes locked onto him, not in awe, but in pure, focused analysis. The thin glint of light reflecting off the runes on her glasses made her gaze all the sharper.

Her breathing deepened as she studied not Razeal himself, but the way the attacks interacted with him or rather, failed to. Each fireball, lightning strike, wind slash, and spike of stone either curved away, split apart, or passed harmlessly by, as though the space immediately around his body refused to allow anything in.

"...Intriguing," she whispered, her voice low enough that only she could hear. A faint flash of light pulsed behind her glasses as she adjusted their settings, the enchantments magnifying every detail of his movements.

Yes. This skill was unlike anything she’d seen.

And in her mind, a decision was already forming.

After he died.. because in her mind, there was no "if" about it she would collect his body. She would dissect it, piece by piece, to understand exactly how he had done this. She even began forming contingency plans: how to prevent his remains from being damaged, how to preserve the integrity of his brain.

The brain would be the most important organ. That was where the foundation of his perception and calculation lay.

Selphira’s thoughts quickened, connecting to an old piece of knowledge. Virelans have permanent photographic memory. Even after death, every piece of sensory and learned information could be stored and preserved. The Virelan family had perfected a method to recover data from their dead a method that required a particular safety measure to be installed when the individual was twelve years old.

Razeal had never been there at that age. Which meant he likely hadn’t undergone the procedure. Which meant... his memories would remain fully intact if she got to him first.

Yes. The brain was hers to claim.

No wait why stop at the brain? Analysis already shows his mass is at least twenty percent lighter than it should be for his frame. His movement speed defies conventional strain limits. That strike he threw earlier even the flick with his index finger should have shattered bone. But it didn’t. No fractures, no strain damage, no tearing. This body is a specimen unlike any other.

Selphira’s lips curved faintly.

To move at that speed without physical reinforcement, without a visible augmentation, means his internal structure must be fundamentally different. I could study the muscle fibers, the bone density, the nerve conduction rate... and that’s without even considering whatever mechanism lets him redirect external force without injury.

Her breathing slowed, steady and deliberate.

She could almost picture it: the body laid out on a cold table, each tissue sample labeled, every nerve and muscle examined, his nervous system mapped out like a perfect diagram.

Yes. She wanted it all.

It was for magicology... maybe she could really find many things.

There was an undeniable thirst for his body now. She would examine it throughout, inside and out very thoroughly. Selphira’s eyes stayed fixed on him, quietly calculating. Sadly, she couldn’t take him now; if she could, she would love to pick him apart and study him alive. But that would be far too difficult... for the moment, she could do nothing but sigh.

Down below, Razeal suddenly shivered. A prickling sensation crawled up his spine, and his instincts screamed that someone was thinking about him in a very wrong way.

What the hell was that...?

His eyes scanned the area and locked onto the source almost immediately. Floating above, hands pressed to her cheeks, Selphira stared down at him with a look that was... not right. Her lips parted slightly, her gaze roaming his frame in ways that made his skin itch. Then and he almost wished he’d imagined it her tongue brushed across her lips, slow and deliberate.

Even worse, her body shifted in small, strange motions, like she was shivering with contained excitement.

[Villey...] Razeal’s voice in his head was flat. She’s not just thinking something wrong... I think she’s getting horny looking at me. What’s your read?

Scanning...

A pause.

[From facial expressions, Host... I can confirm yes. She is one hundred percent interested in your body. You should definitely be aware.]

Razeal frowned. I don’t know why, but I’m hearing malice in your voice, Villey. You alright?

[Hehe... nothing, nothing.] The System’s voice carried an edge of amusement but it didn’t bother explaining. Let host have some happy moments too.

Deciding he didn’t want to unpack that, Razeal turned his focus away from Selphira. His gaze snapped to Sylva, who was still at range, poised with her bow-like weapon, her smirk ever-present.

"I think you’ve had enough fun sniping," he said, raising his hand and pointing one fingers toward her. "Let me show you what actual sniping looks like."

Sylva tilted her head, amused but curious. "Oh? And what are you going to do, throw rocks at me?"

It wasn’t just sarcasm she genuinely doubted he could surprise her. Sylva had been born with a rare gift: the natural perception of mana and an instinctive sense for elemental energies. To her, the world was never silent. She could feel the subtle thrum of magic in the air, the faint pulse of fire deep in a hearth, the whisper of water hidden far below the ground. Anything that carried even the smallest flicker of mana or elemental force lit up in her awareness like a lantern in the dark.

That gift was also why, earlier, she hadn’t been able to react to his incredible speed. Razeal moved without leaving any magical or elemental trace, forcing her to rely solely on her other heightened senses most notably, her exceptional hearing, sharp enough to catch the rustle of a leaf or the faintest footstep in a storm.

Right now, her perception told her something absolute: there was nothing on him. No mana, no elemental energy, no hidden signature of power. If he was talking about attacking her from this distance, then there was only one possibility left he planned to use something purely physical, launched from afar.

Razeal didn’t answer her question. Instead, at the tip of his finger, something began to form out of thin air. At first it was a wisp of darkness, like shadow peeled away from the world itself. Then it thickened, swirling in small, hypnotic circles.

The shadow condensed, its edges sharpening, its center darkening until it looked almost like a droplet of pure black ink. But this "ink" wasn’t liquid not anymore. It was solidifying, compressing under some unseen force, spinning faster and faster until the air around it began to vibrate faintly.

Sylva’s eyes narrowed. She’d never seen this before. The more she stared, the louder the alarms in her instincts rang.

Danger.

She reacted instantly, slamming her palm downwards. A massive wall of earth erupted in front of her thick, layered, dense enough to make it more like a boulder then wall.

Not stopping there, she flicked her wrist again, causing a second wall to grow directly behind the first, this one composed entirely of tightly woven wood reinforced with her mana. Between the two barriers, she was confident nothing could pass.

Still... her frown deepened. The alarms in her mind didn’t fade. If anything, they grew sharper.

She didn’t have time to think further.

"Shadow Bullet," Razeal whispered.

The words were quiet, but they carried weight. At that instant, the black sphere at his fingertip flickered and then vanished.

For half a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then

Zzzzzzzzz-sssshhhhh

It wasn’t an explosion. It wasn’t a crack. It was the sound of something impossibly sharp slicing through the air at absurd speed.

No one in the arena saw or felt anything.

Nothing except two people.

It began with nothing. Not even a flicker of motion. No blur. No sound. Not the faintest ripple in the air.

The shadow bullet had already finished its work by the time anyone might have thought to look for it.

Sylva didn’t see it.

Selphira didn’t see it.

Razeal barely moved to fire it.

Thought after work was done

Sylva was the first.

Her pupils narrowed, then widened, as instinct forced her to see what her mind refused to accept. There, in front of her, was a hole.

Not a crack, not a splinter an impossibly clean, perfectly circular hole, four centimeters wide, drilled straight through the defense wall she’d created. A wall four feet thick, forged from layers of rock and reinforced wood, sculpted with her own hands and magical Elemental magic? Just a thin as paper earth wall last time was able to take his blow without even shaking and now

Something had pierced it.

Something so sharp, so fast, that the cut looked like it had been polished by the world’s finest thing.

Through the hole, she could see a single finger. Razeal’s finger.

Sylva lowered her gaze, her hands stiffened ever so slightly, though her face remained blank. Her fingers were coated in flickering arcs of lightning, intertwined with streams of cutting wind her Elemental Coting Armour had activated without her command.

Did he make me move? she thought. Did my body react by itself?

The thought slipped through her mind like a shadow.

She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t even shocked. She was... dazed. Confused. Unwilling to believe what had just happened. The Faerelith family was proud for one reason above all: their Absolute Defence. They dont dodge or even flinch. They stood still and took whatever came as showcasing their pride and absolute confidence in themselves. Their way of saying: We are untouchable.

For her, the designated heiress, to have her body instinctively shift aside worse, to automatically deploy her armour wasn’t a small slip. It was shame.

Her eyes swept over the stands. Thousands of spectators. Not a single one reacting. Not a single one aware of what had just happened. And yet her face burned, as though she’d been slapped in front of them all.

Breaking a faerelith’s confidence is a wound deeper than steel. And for someone as relentlessly proud as Sylva, it was nothing short of humiliation.

The question in her mind wasn’t What was that? or How could it be so fast I couldn’t even sense it?

No, the only thing she cared about was that her dignity had been stepped on.

"Your left arm would’ve been gone if your body hadn’t reacted on its own." Came a voice from within her

Sylva said nothing. Thought the cocky smirk, Trademark mask of arrogance she always wore, finally disappeared from her face.

The second person who noticed was Selphira.

She didn’t see it, exactly. She felt it a puncture, small and surgical, in the protective barrier she had woven around the arena. It was only four centimeters wide, but that didn’t matter. Her barrier wasn’t made to have holes. It was a dome of pure security, hundred times harder then diamond. It was not supposed to be broken.

Yet it had been pierced though without even a second of resistance. She had felt it

Her first instinct wasn’t analysis it was panic. She spun toward the section of the stands that lay in the direct path of that hole. Whatever had punched through her shield had more than enough power to put extra hole through anyone in its path.

But... nothing. No screaming. No blood. No panic. The spectators were fine.

Her eyes narrowed. Did the attack vanish after piercing the barrier? Or did it lose its energy midway?

Wait or did he controled it specifically so it shouldn’t hurt anyone? She thought but shook her head as it appeared the thought didn’t sit right with her. He doesn’t seems that kind of person.. Reason? she doesn’t know but yeah he doesn’t.

Anyways

Selphira’s vision zoomed in on the barrier’s hole, still faintly visible but rapidly repairing itself under the array’s automatic restoration protocols.

She made a mental note. I need to make it more harder.

Just as I thought...

At this point of plot, she still hadn’t accepted the truth of her own power.

Sylva was caught between the weight of her arrogance, the cracks of her insecurities, and the useless pride that chained her to the image she had built for herself.

For Razeal, this was perfect.

If she keeps holding onto that arrogance..I will win. Definitely

His said as his gaze fixed on the evidence of his latest attack a flawless, circular hole bored cleanly through both layers of Sylva’s defenses.

The massive earth wall she had raised, thick enough to stop siege weaponry, and the dense wooden barrier behind it had both been pierced as if they were paper.

Yeah.. Sylva herself wasn’t injured. The Shadow Bullet wasn’t able to injur her. He had expected that.

But what mattered was that it could have.

As for what he had done, the technique was deceptively simple at least in theory.

The Shadow Bullet began as a concentrated sphere of condensation of shadow, created close to his own body so that it was still within his direct control. Then shape and solidify it compressed until it was as dense as it could then. Then came the key part: he invoked Flow.

This time, Razeal used Tectonic Flow, channeling kinetic energy directly into the bullet, pushing it far beyond the burden his own body could handle. After all, it wasn’t his body he could pour far more into it than into himself. In fact, he pushed at least a hundred times the Flow burden he could normally take.

All he needed was Shadow as the medium and Tectonic Flow as the kinetic force. The only real challenge was aiming.

But it worked. The shot was fierce, penetrating, and fast so fast that it was almost impossible to track with the naked eye.

And as for him shooting so casually at Sylva, knowing full well she would escape unharmed and knowing there were spectators behind her who might get hit

Well, Razeal didn’t care. If they died, they died. The people of this empire had never shown him any sympathy. In fact, everyone here watching the duel had only come to see him die, even praying for it.

It wasn’t that he was petty. He wasn’t firing into the crowd just to spill blood or just kill them. He was simply refusing to hold back his target was Sylva, and everything else was irrelevant. Protecting the audience was the responsibility of the referees and the arena’s defensive wards, not his.

Still, his gaze shifted toward the imperial chamber above the main stands. He knew exactly where that shadow bullet had vanished to. But whatever he could definitely say It wasn’t him who made it disappear before it could harm the crowd. They can die for all he cares.

Razeal shook his head slightly, dismissing the thought for now.

But then he heard her voice.

"I was going to go easy on you at someone’s request," Sylva whispered. Her tone was no longer playful it was cold, laced with the promise of pain. "But I guess... you’ll have to pay with your body for ruining my mood."

Her green eyes glowed, sharp and inhuman in the afternoon light.

Then, behind her, something began to form.

It started as a rush of wind pressure so intense it bent the dust in the air toward her back. Then, with a violent burst, translucent wings took shape. They were massive three times the length of her own body and made entirely of condensed, whirling air. The wind currents alone howled with power, but then... lightning began to crawl along their edges.

Bolts of white-blue electricity danced across the surface, connecting the feather-like streams of wind into one cohesive, deadly form. The combination of sound was overwhelming: the deep thrumming of air vibrating at extreme speed and the sharp crackle of charged lightning bursting intermittently.

And it wasn’t just the wings.

The rest of her body began to shimmer with the same dual-elemental aura a thin, constantly moving sheath of wind and lightning that coated her from head to toe. The air around her distorted from the heat of compressed friction, each spark making the space between her and Razeal tremble.

When she spoke again, her voice had none of its earlier levity.

"And you said something about speed?"

The wind shifted.

"Let me show you... what speed really is."

Her expression was chilling focused, serious, and unamused. Whatever game she had been playing before was over.

In the space of a heartbeat, she moved.

No, disappeared.

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3.2k words

Hey guys! Sorry for being late was out shopping. Oh, and guess what? Yesterday, I got my very first salary from this book! 🎉 I even bought my first-ever gift for my sister couldn’t stop laughing Hahaha 😂

Honestly, I can’t thank you all enough for supporting me as an author. Believe it or not, because of your support, I’m going to be able to put all three of my siblings through college.😂💖🙏

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