The Sinful Young Master

Chapter 472: Fight against the Nyphorite – 2

Yan would need to be hit. Like the blade contact rather than ambient disruption, the chaobane needed a direct physical interface to reach deep enough to find what it was looking for.

But the nyphorite had put himself under layers of protective barriers made from the malice.

Right then, Jolthar focused his energy into his sword. He gripped his sword as he was prepared to perform the first strike of the Chaosbane.

“Eclipse Slash,” Jolthar said, and he moved towards Yan.

The first form of Horgath’s technique sequence was deceptive in its presentation — the blade came from an angle that suggested a standard diagonal cut, fast enough to demand response but not so fast that response was impossible.

The chaobane energy riding the strike was the actual content; the physical blade was almost secondary to the disruption frequency it was delivering.

Yan read the movements but couldn’t fully comprehend them because the chaosbane energy flowed in unpredictable patterns.

It stepped to the side of the physical blade’s path with that unsettling positional decisiveness, but the chaobane energy extended beyond the blade edge and the edge of the disruption field caught Yan’s leading shoulder as it moved.

The effect was visible — a brief flicker of amber light across Yan’s grey skin where the chaobane frequency found purchase, a fractional disruption in the layered malice structure at the shoulder’s surface.

It wasn’t deep enough to reach the fault lines underneath. But it was enough to make Yan’s movement staggered by perhaps half a step, a disruption in his movement.

Half a step was enough for Jolthar’s follow-up. He knew he didn’t have much time and he needed to finish this quickly, so he was quick in his movements, putting all his energy into it.

Telekinesis hit Yan’s disrupted shoulder from behind, using the fractional window the chaobane had created, pushing into the brief moment where Yan’s malicious energy structure was processing the contradiction rather than fully defending.

The force drove Yan forward and down, and Jolthar was already repositioning, already finding the angle where Horgath could arrive before Yan’s layered defenses fully reestablished.

Yan recovered faster than expected.

It converted the forward momentum the telekinesis had imposed into a roll, used that roll to create distance, and came back upright in a position that placed it eight feet away with its own stance fully reestablished before Jolthar’s follow-up strike arrived at the space Yan was no longer in.

“Your sword requires contact depth to work against layered energy structures,” Yan observed, completely conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather rather than actively fighting. “Surface disruption achieves temporary degradation but not structural compromise. You understand this already. You’re trying to find the angle that gives you sufficient contact time.”

Jolthar was again surprised at the amount of detail it was giving to him. He hadn’t expected them to have such intelligence. Even the nyphorite he fought before, Yilar, wasn’t as good as Yan..

Though Yilar was more cunning and was really good at scheming.

“You’re very chatty for someone being attacked,” Jolthar replied, already moving again.

“I find conversation clarifying,” Yan said.

“It focuses—”

Jolthar didn’t give him time, and he was already ready to strike another. The energy flow had changed around him this time. Jolthar made a bold attempt to absorb the energy around him; it was risky, but he had to try it. Though there wasn’t much he could absorb.

Then he shouted as he moved.

“Crescent of the Void.”

The second form was different in character from the first — where Eclipse Slash presented as a committed strike, Crescent of the Void was genuinely two strikes delivered as one movement, the blade describing a curved path that created the first arc as a real attack and the second arc as a real attack, both of them carrying chaobane energy at full expression, the curved trajectory making the path of the disruption field less predictable than a straight-line delivery.

Yan blocked the first arc with its forearm, the grey skin absorbing the chaobane contact with a visible effort that suggested the layered malicious energy structure was actively working to contain the disruption rather than simply being resistant to it. But the blocking forearm was precisely what Jolthar needed — contact held for the fraction of a second that the block required, long enough for the chaobane threads to push slightly deeper than the Eclipse Slash’s glancing contact had achieved.

The second arc arrived at Yan’s other side while the block was still in progress.

Yan let it land.

Not failed to block it — chose not to.

The calculation behind those amber eyes was visible in the decision, the assessment that attempting to block both arcs would leave it more exposed than accepting one and controlling the damage.

The second arc hit Yan’s left side and the chaobane disruption flared visibly, amber light spreading across a handspan of grey skin where the frequency found the layers below the surface and began working at them.

Yan stepped back, and for the first time its movement carried the quality of genuine retreat rather than strategic repositioning.

Yan hadn’t expected the damage inflicted by the Horgath to be this difficult to deal with.

“Deeper than the first,” Yan acknowledged, one hand moving briefly to the left side where the chaobane was still working at the layered malicious energy.

“You have good instincts for contact structure.”

“Stop complimenting me and fight,” Jolthar said. He had to admit it, but he was growing impatient and angry too with this nyphorite as it was studying him and his sword.

“I am fighting,” Yan replied.

Then it demonstrated what fighting actually looked like.

The engagement that followed was faster and more demanding than anything preceding it.

Yan stopped probing and started committing, and the difference was the difference between watching something move at a pace you could track and watching it move at a pace you could only react to after the fact.

Yan’s hands extended into claws that looked like they could tear apart even metal.