Chapter 232: Enough Playing

"Push harder!" The Shadows pressed down with their hands and feet, putting all their strength into stopping Magna from getting up.

There were 8 of them restraining him now. Two held his arms out to either side while the other 6 pushed against his head, shoulders, and back as he knelt in the ash.

Yet even with their combined strength, they couldn’t close the last few centimeters between his face and the ground.

"Just how strong is his core?"

With his arms held apart and only his knees supporting him, Magna was resisting them through the strength of his back and abdomen alone.

Their grips left him little room to move, so simply being stronger wasn’t enough to make getting up easy. He had to work against pressure from several directions without letting any of them force him lower.

He was even beginning to straighten up, gradually lifting his head despite the weight pressing down on him.

His clenched teeth showed how much effort it took. This wasn’t easy for him either, but he refused to bow his head, forcing himself upward until his upper body was finally upright.

"Punch him down!" one of the Shadows shouted.

A fighter from the attack unit stepped in front of Magna and raised his fist, only to hesitate when their eyes met.

It wasn’t the fierce look in those golden eyes alone that stopped him, nor was it Magna’s intimidating aura, which remained suppressed. It was the memory of what he had seen 3 days earlier.

The head he was about to punch belonged to the same man who had shattered an entire mountain with a single blow.

Still, as a Shadow trained not to give in to fear, he pushed through his hesitation.

"Sorry, sir. I’m just following orders."

Among Shadows, hierarchy was respected even more strictly than among Witches, and physical strength determined who stood above whom.

Knowing that Magna was stronger than him, the man felt he at least owed him an apology before bringing his fist down, aiming to force his head back toward the ground.

BAM!

The blow landed with a heavy thud, carrying enough force to shatter a large rock.

Melisandre flinched, briefly considering whether to stop the fight, as a punch like that would normally crush a person’s skull, killing them on the spot.

Seeing that Magna’s head hadn’t even dropped, let alone shattered, she let out a quiet breath of relief.

He showed no sign that the blow had hurt him either. His teeth remained clenched, but that was from resisting the Shadows still trying to force him down.

’An incredibly durable body on top of all that muscle strength.’

Melisandre added the observation to her report while keeping an eye on him.

She was already convinced that his physical abilities matched those of a high-caliber Shadow. What she hadn’t found yet was his limit, so she allowed them to keep pushing.

Perhaps he would show her something unusual, something that came close to what he had accomplished with his spells.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Magna was still pushing himself upright when another fist threatened to come down on his head.

Breaking out of this hold was proving more difficult than he expected, so he decided it was time to use his trump card.

His expression changed, his eyes turning fierce as he spoke. "Enough playing."

The words had barely left his mouth when the Shadows holding him felt their limbs tremble and their minds falter.

Fear had struck them, the most basic of their bodies’ defenses, an instinct passed down through generations and written into their very nature.

Its reach even extended beyond those Shadows restraining him.

Around the edge of the fight, the Witches’ expressions changed as they felt it too.

’Is this a mental attack spell? No...’ Melisandre briefly wondered whether Magna had broken the rules, but the sensation was too natural to feel like a spell.

It was the fear of an ordinary, defenseless person suddenly finding a hungry predator standing before them.

’It’s his Bloodline Trait.’

Once she recognized it, she had something to compare it to.

Arthas possessed a similar trait, one that allowed him to break a weaker opponent’s fighting spirit with a single look.

She had heard about its effects before, but experiencing something like it herself was another matter. Magna’s aura was strong enough to shake even her.

The Shadows weren’t so weak-willed that it would make them abandon the fight. Even so, the brief hesitation it caused was enough.

Feeling their fingers loosen around his arms, Magna immediately pulled inward with all his strength.

Their grips broke. "Be careful..." they tried to warn the others, reaching for him again, but he was already moving.

Magna planted his freed hands on the ground and pushed himself up, throwing off the Shadows pressing against his back.

As soon as he regained his feet, he went on the offensive.

The white-armored Shadow on his right was coming to grab him again, only to be met with a punch from Magna.

BOOM!

His fist struck the thick metal with a heavy crash, sending several hundred kilograms of man and armor flying backward.

Before the Shadow landed, Magna had already turned toward the attack-unit fighter on his left and driven a second punch into his chest.

Another booming impact followed, and the dark red figure flew back, bouncing across the ashen ground.

Magna was still holding back enough to avoid killing or gravely injuring them, but even those restrained blows could put someone out of the fight.

Losing 2 comrades to a single punch each did nothing to make the others retreat.

They continued rushing him from every side, committed to the same plan.

Once they caught him and stopped him from moving, they could force him down again.

This time, however, Magna meant to make full use of his Agility and Reaction to keep that from happening.

Whenever a hand reached for him, he moved his head and shoulders off its path, his feet sliding across the ash to adjust the distance before he answered with a punch.

He wasn’t moving far between attacks. A small shift took him past a reaching hand, leaving him close enough to strike before the Shadow could recover and try to grab him again.

He kept his fists raised in front of his chest and his elbows close, moving in short steps rather than letting the Shadows catch him standing still.

When an arm swept toward him, he bent his knees and dipped beneath it, turning through his hips as he rose to drive a fist into the attacker.

Then his hand returned to guard while his feet carried him clear of the next grasp.

For the spectators, the fight suddenly took on a strange rhythm.

Around 40 armored Shadows crowded toward him, yet each time someone closed in, a heavy impact rang out and another body came flying back.

"What kind of martial art is that?" Renna’s eyes shone as she followed his movements.

Her Bloodline Trait had led her to practice martial arts from childhood to strengthen her body, making the way Magna fought all the more fascinating to her.