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Ch200-Let’s Keep Things Simple

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Without his need for eyes, there wasn’t a need for blinking.

Despite that, Sylver couldn’t tell when the exact moment of transition had occurred. It was seamless, there wasn’t a middle, just Sylver standing in the wooden building, with the boy on his right, and the next, he’s standing on top of a giant empty space.

Sylver was standing on what looked like black glass, like impossibly clear onyx. 

Above him, there was nothing, just endless black, like a cloudless night sky, but without the stars.

It was the same for the area between the floor and the sky, there was nothing there, no rocks, trees, animals, structures, nothing.

Stranger still, Sylver couldn’t see where the light was coming from. His body was illuminated, but the angle was vague, as he turned, his shadows remained the same as if his light source turned with him.

“An endless void of nothing, fitting for a heartless witch,” Sylver’s challenger, Izan, said.

Despite the supposed endless void, there wasn’t any echo, Sylver heard Izan’s voice loud and clear. He pushed his sense of wonder to the back of his mind for the moment, and instead covered his arms in a thick layer of [Necrotic Mutilation].

“You should have attacked while I was distracted. I can’t say it would have given you a fighting chance, but now I doubt you’re going to so much as scuff my shoes,” Sylver said with a gesture towards his oddly upbeat opponent.

Izan had a huge smile on his face, and now Sylver could loosely see the family resemblance.

“You’re that guy’s grandson…” Sylver guessed, and turned out to be right, as Izan nodded.

“Are you ready witch?” Izan asked, and Sylver felt like he had been slapped across the face.

“Just so I understand, you were waiting for me to be ready?” Sylver asked.

He wasn’t even angry.

Well, he was, but his anger was being superseded by a mixture of confusion, and self-pity.

“Of course I was waiting for you! Are you ready?” Izan asked as he took the same stance he had taken before they had been moved into this area.

“Did you not hear me when I said that I'm going to cut your face off when I win?” Sylver asked as he continued to lose what little enthusiasm he had to begin with.

Sure, he had been pissed off about the way he had been treated, but this was just disrespectful. They weren't treating him like an opponent, like a threat.

“You're not going to win,” Izan said, with the exact facial expression the head of commerce had as he confirmed that Sylver was indeed the witch drawn on that bounty paper.

Sylver lifted his hand up to his face and scratched his chin with one of his claws. He had a plan in mind to build some distance, so he had time to finish expanding his bear soul armor, but the boy had just stood there, and watched him.

“Are all martial artists like this? Because the one I fought previously attacked before I realized what was going on,” Sylver asked, as Izan’s smile slipped away and was replaced by anger. 

He glanced at the wooden nametag on Sylver’s arm before he responded.

“Enough talk! Are you ready?” Izan asked as Sylver shook his head.

“Actually, I need another minute, my back is sore,” Sylver said uncertainly, as Izan just quietly nodded his head.

Sylver just stood there, staring at Izan, while he tried to wrap his mind around this.

How are these people alive?

“So, just to be extremely clear, no one above level 200 will try to fight me, and everyone that does try to fight me, will always wait for me to prepare myself?” Sylver asked and could feel that Ria was as confused as he was.

“Are you ready?” Izan asked.

Sylver didn’t have any eyes to roll, but he would have rolled them.

“I need another minute,” Sylver answered, as he crouched down to the floor, and placed his hand on it.

Even using the bear soul like an ice pick, he still couldn’t break the mirror-polished onyx. More interestingly, despite appearances, it was very rough to the touch, as if it was very fine sandpaper.

“Are you ready?” Izan asked, as Sylver placed his ear against the floor, and tapped it with his knuckles.

It didn’t absorb any sound, it was as if it was frozen in time, completely motionless. Sylver had a sudden idea as he stood up from the floor.

“I get it, you know I can’t kill you, and because of that handicap you wanted to handicap yourself to make it fair, right?” Sylver asked, desperate to make sense of this disrespect.

“Are you ready?” Izan asked, as Sylver adjusted his stance, and turned so his left shoulder was towards Izan.

“Well, it’s still not fair. Most of my “techniques,” as you would call them, are meant to kill, or cripple, I’m rather limited when it comes to subduing someone. Especially when I can’t use poisons, since if I use too little it won’t work and will be embarrassing, but if I use too much, it will kill you, which I can’t do,” Sylver explained, as his robe unraveled, and went from its silky-smooth appearance to a dark cloud of wooly blackness.

Somehow Sylver could tell that the darkness behind him wasn’t hiding him, given the strange way he and Izan were both illuminated.

“Are you ready?” Izan asked as Sylver rolled his metaphorical eyes.

“For your own sake I genuinely hope I’m misunderstanding everything,” Sylver cautioned, as his ax magically appeared in his left hand. 

The [Necrotic Mutilation] wrapped around his arm slithered down onto the ax and coated it.

“Are you ready?” Izan asked as he started to very slightly bounce up and down on the balls of his feet.

“Sure, I guess we-”

Izan’s shin passed through Sylver’s neck as if it wasn’t there.

Because it wasn’t.

As Izan continued flying due to the massive amount of momentum he had built up, Sylver materialized on his left, and just watched him fly away.

The moment Izan’s feet touched the floor, he disappeared again, and once again his shin passed through Sylver’s neck, or more accurately, the spot where his neck had been a fraction of a second before he used [Fog Form] to move out of the way.

He was ready for the next attack, was on the lookout for the trick, or trap, or feint.

Sylver allowed Izan 4 more attempts, all while he kept a close eye on his status.

[Human – Way Of The Red Rabbit – 192]
[HP: 140,690 – 100%]
[MP: 0 – 0%]
[Stamina: 56,771 – 68%]
[Corpse – Common]
[Soul – Petty]

“Each one of your jumps and kicks costs you 5,000 stamina. You have another 13 or 14 kicks left… Are you taking this seriously?” Sylver asked as Izan did the exact same thing and somehow managed to appear surprised when Sylver’s head didn’t magically go flying.

Sylver’s ax floated near his back, as Sylver crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at Izan judgmentally.

Sylver dodged another kick to the neck.

“Why did they allow a retarded child to fight me? Are the witches you’re used to facing that weak?” Sylver asked as Izan attempted yet another kick to his neck.

“Fight like a man!” Izan said through gritted teeth.

Sylver hoped his body language did a good job of conveying how confused he was.

“This is me fighting like a man. This is how men fight, in case you weren’t aware. Unlike you, I’m taking this seriously. You have another 7 kicks left, you fucking idiot,” Sylver explained, as Izan, yet again, harmlessly passed through Sylver and flew away from him.

“6 kicks, I’m just… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can you please try something else? I was trying to prove a point here, and this is just-”

There was the briefest pause as Sylver used [Fog Form] to dodge Izan’s attack again.

“-pathetic. I won’t say I was pumped up for this fight, but I expected,” Sylver vaguely gestured around with his hands, “to at least get taken seriously,” Sylver finished, as he dodged yet another relatively quick kick through the neck.

“Is this normal for a cultivator?” Ria asked as Sylver shook his head.

“I think he only knows one move. But then what was the point of-”

Sylver dodged another attack from Izan, even though what he was doing at this point couldn’t be considered “dodging,” in Sylver’s opinion. If he hadn’t made the mistake of not taking a stupid fight seriously in the past, and died as a result, he would have stopped using [Fog Form] and just leaned out of the way.

[Human – Way Of The Red Rabbit – 192]
[HP: 139,941 – 99%]
[MP: 0 – 0%]
[Stamina: 26,192 – 31%]
[Corpse – Common]
[Soul – Petty]

“-challenging me? Did you think being faster than me meant I would be helpless?” Sylver asked, as Izan’s shin once again passed through a Sylver-shaped cloud, as Sylver’s physical body materialized out of Izan’s range.

The truth of the matter was that Izan’s kick was very powerful. If his leg connected with Sylver’s body, the damage would be significant. Just from the way the air was moving around the boy’s feet made Sylver weary, it might just be a kick, but it was a very dangerous kick.

Sylver still had his bear soul armor, which should protect him from any kind of widespread damage, but there was no telling what exactly Izan’s technique would do.

Izan brought his arms close to himself and took a very quick deep breath. Sylver didn’t even need to look at the boy’s status to know exactly what he had done.

[Human – Way Of The Red Rabbit – 192]
[HP: 129,741 – 92%]
[MP: 0 – 0%]
[Stamina: 83,000 – 100%]
[Corpse – Common]
[Soul – Petty]

“Big words for someone only dodging,” Izan countered, as Sylver considered if giving himself eyes to roll would be a good idea. 

He had a feeling he would be rolling them quite a bit while he was here, fighting these cultivator motherfuckers.

“Only been dodging? What gave you that idea?” Sylver asked as Izan’s foot passed through the space Sylver had been a moment prior.

Another 7 kicks nearly separated Sylver’s head from his body, before Izan felt an ever so faint tension at the edge of his right hand.

Izan lifted his hand up to his eyes, and in the weird illumination provided by this weird place, could see something sparkling on the tips of his fingernails. He wiped his hand on his bathrobe and brought his hand up to his eyes again. As he did this, he felt the area he had rubbed ever so slightly get pulled in the direction he moved his hand.

“You bastard!” Izan shouted, as Sylver just stared at him with a confused look on his bandaged-covered face.

“What did you think I was doing? Just waiting for you to tire yourself out?” Sylver asked, as Izan once again came rather close to decapitating him with his leg, but simply cut foggy air instead.

Sylver lifted his hand and pointed it at Izan’s face. He closed it into a fist, and Izan’s eyelids started to jitter.

Izan attempted another kick at Sylver’s neck, which was dodged with the same ease as all the previous kicks.

“Can you at least try to punch me? You have less than a minute left. I’m still going to cut your face off, and pull your teeth out, and-”

3 consecutive kicks were dodged as Izan managed to predict the spot where Sylver had moved to but hadn’t accounted for the fact that Sylver could travel back to his original position through the same tendril of fog.

“-slice away your fingernails, and carve up your chest, and-”

Sylver lost count of the number of lightning-fast kicks he effortlessly dodged, but it was at least 10. Using [Fog Form] without a couple of seconds of rest gave him a terrible migraine. 

He didn’t know if this was due to the system being upset at him using the perk incorrectly, or if it was backlash from his regeneration rates increasing and decreasing so quickly.

When he first gained the perk, he felt like throwing up when he tried to use it more than once, but with his new body, he could do it about 10 times before it started to hurt. Even then, it didn’t hurt, it was just disorienting.

Izan’s eyes closed all the way, and even from how far away he was, Sylver could see the shiny resin coating his eyelashes.

“What is this!” Izan shouted as he tried to pull at the gunk gluing his eyelids together but quickly realized his fingers would get glued to his face if he continued doing that.

Sylver had noticed right away that the air in this area was sterile, and more importantly, dry. There wasn’t the usual moisture he had become accustomed to, and somewhat relied on, so Sylver had to wait for the boy to produce some for him. 

He wasn’t sweating as much as he hoped for, but every single breath sealed his fate, as did passing through Sylver’s uncharacteristically dense fog.

“Figure it out yourself, you dumb fuck!” Sylver shouted back, as Izan blindly kicked at his head, and was surprisingly close, except for the fact that Sylver was already far away from him.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you use magic like this before,” Ria asked, as Izan clutched at his throat, which had razor-thin lines appearing on it.

“It’s nothing special. Back when I was wasting my time banging mushrooms together in an attempt to teleport, I ended up discovering several interesting strains. This one produces a candy floss like resin, that gets rather hard when exposed to air,” Sylver tapped out, as Izan’s sleeve tore at the seam as he tried to pull his hand away from his body.

“Now I remember, you made yourself a chair out of it,” Ria said, as Izan tried to place his feet into the same stance he had been using since the start but found something constricting his legs.

“You’re going to want to push out with your Ki. But the second you do, I’m going to appear in front of you, and punch you so hard you’ll swallow your teeth,” Sylver called out, as Izan stopped struggling against the invisible thread like resin and turned his head to look up at Sylver.

“I thought you were going to wait for him to become immobilized by the resin?” Ria asked, as Sylver shifted the [Necrotic Mutilation] on his forearm down to his hand and made his fist a bit thicker.

“I am, but my goal is to end this as quickly as possible. I don’t know how resistant the resin will be to his Ki, but there will be a small window where he’s defenseless while he changes the way it's distributed. Unlike mana, he’ll need to suck all his Ki in, to then push it out. Cultivators are generally more powerful than mages because they can compress their strength into short bursts, but they’re very weak when moving their Ki around,” Sylver explained, as Izan just stared at him.

“I still don’t understand why you kept using the same move,” Sylver asked, as Izan experimentally tried pulling his legs apart, but now the linked together resin was thick enough that it was clearly visible.