The Martial Unity

He had served as the shadow of the Emperor.

And since Ria was born, he had served as her shadow. The Emperor of Water had entrusted him and only him to protect his daughter, having known just how able Sayfeel was when it came to protecting someone up close without them ever even noticing it.

Returning to his role as a shadow had helped him grow even more. Because she was a princess, she had often been in the presence of many powerful beings. And because of that, he had been forced to upgrade his stealth to even greater heights, reaching a level of proficiency that simply exceeded the limits of what was thought to be possible.

And eventually, he became a Transcendent Candidate.

And yet, nobody knew. He told no one. Shadows could not exist in the light. And his very existence had been scrubbed and sealed off. He was nobody. He was nobody except for the shadow of the first princess of the Kandrian Empire.

Only a handful of individuals could possibly see through his stealth, and his opponent was not one of them.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT

Each time his dagger struck her webbing, he hoped to cause damage. He hoped to pierce through and eventually break through. The fact that this alien creature had dared to steal the princess was a sin that could not be forgiven, as far as he was concerned.

And the fact that this hostile entity had been made aware of Ria’s gifts was even more dangerous.

”Your life is forfeit.”

His ominous voice rang in the auditory sensory organs of —oo—oo.

His dagger became a fleeting shadow that moved at extraordinary speeds.

In just the blink of an eye, he unleashed nearly a billion attacks.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT...!!!

The sheer speed and frequency of the attacks were so high that they may as well have been a singular concussive force.

And they were.

A singular, sharp force with the sole goal of breaking past the web armor of the female homoarachnoid and chopping her up into pieces.

So what if one of his attacks couldn’t break past the web armor of the alien?

He could just swing as many times as he needed to and break her armor open with force if he had to.

And yet, his opponent was not nearly as weak as he had hoped.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK

”You. Cannot. Best. Me.”

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world around her shook as she unleashed a spew of space-time webbing around her. It erupted from her stinger like a fountain, infecting the very fabric of the world around them as she began distorting the very geometry of space and time itself.

She couldn’t believe that she had to use her domain twice, but unfortunately, the outsiders had powerful forces.

”You. Will. Drown. In. The. Webs. Of. Reality. Itself.”

By distorting the very geometry of space and time, like she had against Arastia, she could make it impossible for him to attack her as cleanly as he might have hoped. Then she could use this domain to crush the man with her webs, something that she couldn’t do against Arastia, who possessed an absurd amount of destructive and combat power.

’I. Must. Corner. Him. By. Closing. Off. His. Space.’ Her six eyes sharpened as she began pulling on the fabric of the space-time domain held together by her webs. Like it was a noose, she slowly began to draw on the fabric and make the domain smaller and smaller as it began eliminating the spaces that Sage Sayfeel could travel about.

So what if she couldn’t sense him properly?

So what if he was nothing more than a fleeting shadow in her senses?

If she could completely clamp down on his maneuvering space and then unleash a wide-scale web attack, then she could completely throttle his ability to retaliate.

Sage Sayfeel clearly realized this as well, his expression growing more grim. ’I need to end this quickly.’

He was fighting against a creature that had held her own against none other than the Blood Empress for a substantial period of time. And even if she had been injured since then, he knew that this wasn’t an opponent that he wanted to get into a protracted battle with.

Especially since his highest goal was protecting Ria, which was extremely difficult to do in a protracted battle against a deadly opponent.

However, taking the homoarachnoid was not easy. He had already launched some of his most powerful attacks against the powerful alien creature, and yet, it had managed to withstand everything he threw at it. Not only was the webbing she used an extremely tough armor, but it was lightweight and extremely fast, making avoiding it very difficult.

’I’ll have to aim for the only weakness that she does have.’

Her eyes were the only spots that were uncovered. Most likely, if he had to guess, because vision was extremely important to the sensory apparatus of the homoarachnoids. If that was the case, then his only hope was to jam his dagger through the eyeballs of the creature and reach its brain or any other important organ that might have been stored within the species.

He didn’t need any more deliberation on the matter, for time was running out.

He charged towards her, blending into the shadows of the domain as he arrived before her almost instantaneously, driving his dagger through one of the eyeballs of the creature.

SPLAT!

Blue blood began spewing out of the wound as the blade went deeper and deeper until the hilt of the dagger struck the skull of the creature. The creature shuddered for a moment before it froze all of its movements, not even shifting a little in the slightest.

For a moment, nothing happened.

It should have been the end.

And yet, a smile emerged on the creature’s face.

CLICK CLICK CLICK

”I. Have. You. Now.”

Sage Sayfeel’s eyes widened as a massive spew of web fluid emerged from the stinger of the creature, completely covering his entire body.