Overwhelming Firepower

The sound of battle echoed in Lucen’s ears, the continuous firing of the Arquebus and the Thunderspear could be heard, but all his focus was on the man in front of him.

Even though they had only exchanged a few moves, sweat already clung to Lucen’s brow. The intensity of this battle was high, but because of his many passive skills and traits, his breathing immediately stabilized.

Lucen had looked at Alpha using the eye of Judgement and saw a blue glow surrounding Alpha, meaning even though he was trying to kill him, he didn’t feel anything for him. Lucen was simply someone he needed to kill.

Lucen kept up the pressure, firing his revolver from mid-range. Alpha, who was bleeding while moving around, took out some sort of medicine from his pocket and ate it. The blood that was flowing out of his body had lessened after eating the unknown medicine.

Behind the Fox mask, Alpha started breathing in a different way. Lucen, who had just reloaded his revolver, felt a chill crawl down his back. He raised the weapon, but the moment he blinked, Alpha was gone.

This time, Lucen wasn’t that surprised since Alpha had used this trick multiple times in battle now. Lucen now understood the trick. It was that Alpha wasn’t disappearing or teleporting. He was simply timing his bursts of movement to coincide with Lucen’s blinks and gaze shifts.

Alpha appeared to the right, swinging his crescent blades. Lucen bent down, aimed his revolver at Alpha, and shot at him.

Alpha, also now aware of what kind of weapon Lucen was using, had anticipated such a counter and evaded the shot with a sidestep, and then pressed forward.

’As expected, he understood that sticking close to me is his best option.’

Seeing how Alpha stuck close to him made Lucen smile. Lucen let go of the revolver, and it dissolved into particles of mana.

He then gathered mana into his hand and, with a weaker version than the one he used on the young fire dragon, Lucen made his mana explode in point-blank range. It was weak but enough to injure the two of them.

The current Lucen was far less skilled than Alpha, and he knew that once his mana was depleted, Alpha would kill him. So Lucen took a gamble. Compared to Alpha, his skills and traits help him recover faster.

Lucen hit the ground hard, rolling to his feet, already bruised. Alpha stumbled, blood trailing from one leg. Lucen coughed up a bit of blood, but he still grinned.

’He might be able to ignore pain, but the human body has limits, and it will eventually break no matter how tolerant.’

Alpha, who felt his body becoming a bit heavier, looked at the smiling Lucen and raised his crescent blades. Seeing his actions, Lucen opened the Crimson Lord Mk IV and poured black powder into it. Lucen then squeezed the trigger several times.

The Crimson Lord Mk IV started heating up its runed blade started turning crimson, while smoke came out of its exhaust.

”Ready for the second round?”

Lucen spoke while raising his blade in his right hand and in his other hand his recreated revolver.

Alpha did not respond, and he did not dash forward. He had no chance of catching Lucen by surprise anymore, and that crimson blade felt ominous. His aura mantle was already weakening, as was his concentration.

This time, it was Alpha who blinked and Lucen who disappeared from his sight.

”Heh, this trick is pretty nice.”

Lucen appeared on Alpha’s side and fired a shot. Alpha blocked the bullet with his crescent sword, enveloped in his aura mantle. Lucen expected that and swung his sword at Alpha, who barely evaded the strike.

Even though he was able to evade the strike, the heat from the blade was able to burn a bit of Alpha’s chest. He then threw his two crescent blades with a spin, and each throw had a second delay.

Lucen evaded the first crescent blade by swaying his body backward, and he then blocked the other incoming crescent blade with his sword.

When the thrown crescent blade hit Lucen’s burning crimson blade, the crescent blade was cut in half. Alpha appeared behind him as he caught the other crescent blade and slashed down at Lucen.

Even though Lucen’s battle instinct was giving him a warning, he could not respond in time and could barely dodge the downward slash by jumping backward. A cut appeared on Lucen’s left shoulder.

While he was backing away, Lucen was shooting at Alpha, who, unlike before, could only evade some of the bullets. Alpha, who had slowed down, had no choice but to allow some of the bullets to hit him, but he did it in a way that they did not hit any vital area.

It was at this moment that Alpha and Lucen noticed that there was no longer any sound of gunfire. The two saw that Lucen’s men had already surrounded Alpha, pointing their arquebuses at him.

”Little leader, should we finish him off?” Harlik, who stood beside Lucen, asked.

”No, everyone, lower your weapons and back away. Let me finish this myself.”

Hearing Lucen’s command, the others did as they were told and lowered their weapons.

”You’re the only one left. Do you wish to continue?” Lucen asked.

Alpha, who had not spoken a single word to Lucen, continued to do so and instead responded by raising his weapon.

”I see... You might be an assassin, but you do have some qualities of a warrior.” Lucen stabbed the Crimson Lord Mk IV into the ground.

He then created two revolvers for each of his hands and loaded them with bullets. Lucen then got into a true gun kata stance, dual-wielding pistols. Lucen’s stance was firm. Knees slightly bent. Arms loose but ready.

Alpha steadied his breath and got into a fighting stance with his last remaining crescent blade. The two then looked at each other, and without any signal, they made their move almost in sync.

Alpha, with one final burst, dashed forward and closed the distance before Lucen could pull the trigger.

The crescent blade came down like a guillotine. Lucen blocked the downward swing with one of his revolvers.

In that instant, Lucen’s second revolver was already aimed at Alpha’s chest.

Bang.

The bullet missed his heart, but not by much. It tore through Alpha’s abdomen with a sickening crunch of ruptured flesh.

Alpha staggered backward and fell to the ground, his face facing the sky. He wanted to stand up, but he could no longer move his body.

The night slowly faded. Light crept over the battlefield. Above him, a single bird cut across the golden sky. Alpha watched it, lips curling faintly into the first real smile he’d shown in years.

”Beautiful...”

That bird, soaring freely across a sky turning gold... That was the last thing he saw.