THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 268: 268. BREAKING THE MIST

Knowing their positions was the easiest part. Sagiri pushed the archive out around N’varu and Yoka to shield them from the needle darts raining down on them.

Even after Sagiri found them and their positions, they did not stop in their relentless mist attacks. They were completely on the offensive and not giving Sagiri and his team any chance to go on the offensive.

He had stopped the darts. Thousands of them by now, but they kept coming. It was as if they were not going to change their fighting style until one of the dart needles broke through the archive shield.

It was futile anyway. The archive did not have a blind spot. He could just keep blocking them all night. The only problem was that at some point, he would run out of energy, and he was sure that was what the assassins were betting on. A time when the archive would fail.

”N’varu tapped Sagiri on the shoulder. Sagiri knew what he was trying to say. He could not keep protecting and exhaust himself. Since he could now feel their presence, they could fight and block needles without his protection.

”Are you sure?” Sagiri asked, and N’varu tapped him once.

”Alright. Let’s push them back. It’s four to one, are you sure you can keep up with four?” Sagiri asked.

There was a moment of silence before he tapped his shoulder. There was slight excitement emanating from him. He was itching to fight the Southern way. The tap was heavier than the first, and Sagiri breathed before he returned hundreds of needles into the mist again. It was surprising that the needles did not hit anyone. First things first. break the mist formation.

Sagiri let the next volley pass, feeling the strain ripple through the Archive as it held just enough to keep Yoka and N’varu safe, then he stepped out of it without warning.

”I will break the mist first. You are on your own now!” Sagiri said. He knew they could hear him.

”Nokai!!”

The pressure dropped behind him as he moved forward into the mist, one hand lifting to catch Nokai. Nokai answered, cutting through the haze to meet his grip as if it had always been there. The blade had been itching for real action, and it was finally time.

Sagiri tore through the deep seas in his mind. The mist felt like dark waters, and just the moment Nokai touched it, he could feel it move back. He didn’t rush. He flowed as if he were in deep waters. Each step was placed with quiet precision, before he sank into a stance only he understood. His body turned, folded, and unwound in smooth arcs that carried him between the unseen lines of incoming darts.

He dipped at the waist, a needle slipping past his shoulder, then rose into a pivot, the blade tracing a low curve that parted the mist just enough to reveal a shifting silhouette before it vanished again. The needles felt like the small fish of the sea swimming towards him from all directions. Nokai cut through them in rapid succession. He had to make sure none of the darts touched him. If they contained poison, then they would be troublesome.

Sagiri took another light step as if he was obeying the waves and allowed them to sweep him, but not so much that he forgot he was fighting a deadly opponent. His weight is shifted like sand under the wind. The darts kept coming, but he moved through them, his form weaving in controlled, fluid motions almost like a dance born from the desert itself. patient, inevitable, unbroken by their attacks.

Nokai followed the rhythm, cutting not just as the darts but at the space between them, slicing through currents in the mist and disrupting whatever anchored it. Each turn of his body carried the blade through another unseen line, each step pulling him deeper into the haze, where the air began to resist, to twist, to fight back.

Sagiri didn’t stop. He leaned into it. His movements sharpened and flowed like a dance. The dance tightened, accelerating, until the mist around him began to fracture in thin, wavering lines like something unseen was being cut apart from within. To N’varu and Yoka, though he had asked them to watch their own backs, or a few. None of the needles had been able to reach them at how fast Sagiri was circling the place, blocking the darts and cutting through the mist.

”Your friend is full of surprises, isn’t he?” Yoka marveled.

”He is the keeper. It would be surprising if he did not live up to his name,” N’varu said with pride.

At that moment, Sagiri had turned the mist into a part of his dance. It was no longer obeying its weavers.

The dance accelerated.

The rhythm broke its own limits. His steps shortened, then vanished into motion so tight and fast it no longer read as steps at all. It was a series, only a continuous glide, a blur of turns and pivots that stitched the space around him into a single, unbroken line. Nokai followed that line, faster with each pass, carving arcs that overlapped and crossed until the air itself began to shudder under the pressure.

The mist tried to hold, thickening, folding in on itself, but it couldn’t keep its shape. Every layer he cut collapsed into the next, every pocket of concealment stripped the moment it formed. The hiss of darts faded, swallowed by the force of his movement as he drove deeper, the dance tightening into something relentless, something that refused resistance.

Then it gave.

The mist split along the paths he had carved, tearing open in jagged streams that unraveled outward from him, until with one final sharp turn, he cut through the last of it and stepped clear, the haze collapsing behind him. The dance came to an end violently, and Sagiri wheeled Nokai around with so much force before he stuck one side of the blade to the ground.

They had, after all, left a small blade embedded in the ground at the end of their massacre. He was accepting their challenge. Only one of them could leave the place alive.

Sagiri pulled his seals off, and the archive snatched them into the archive pocket. He finally opened his eyes and looked up, his right eye fixated on the now visible opponents who were perched in the trees.

”Now what do you say the real fight begins!” Sagiri snarled.

There was silence as Captain Yoka and N’varu came to flank him.

”It will be an honour to kill you, last child of N’folu. You are a worthy opponent. Not many have been able to break the mist formation,” a voice layered with calmness and madness said from behind the leaves.

”I could barely consider you worthy opponents!” Sagiri curled his lips back in disgust.