Chapter 219: Hollow Crack

Silence followed across the deck of the burning Valmorian ship.

Rain poured over the black wood.

Water ran through the gaps between the planks and mixed with blood near the fallen soldiers. The broken ram continued to burn behind Ulrich, though the rain had weakened the flames. Smoke rose from the prow and drifted across the deck, carrying the smell of wet ash, scorched wood, and iron.

Ulrich stood beside the headless Valmorian knight.

The black anti-magic sword remained in his hand.

Crimson Formula Rings still orbited his body, circling his arms, shoulders, waist, and legs. But several were gone now. Empty spaces appeared within the assemblage where rings had been destroyed by enemy blades or exhausted by the strain of keeping him alive.

The remaining rings moved more slowly.

Some flickered.

Some shook whenever Ulrich breathed.

Yet the silver aura continued spiraling around him.

It moved in narrow streams from his feet toward his shoulders, winding around his body in patterns no one on the deck understood. It had no visible runes. It carried no recognizable Formula Ring. It did not resemble fire, water, wind, lightning, or any known affinity.

It simply remained.

And it filled every Valmorian knight with dread.

The soldiers stood at a distance, their senses sharpened to the limit. Their hands remained tight around their weapons. Their eyes watched Ulrich through the slits of their helmets.

No one wanted to be the first to move.

Ulrich raised his sword.

Several knights flinched.

Weapons came up at once.

Formula Rings began appearing near armored hands.

But Ulrich did not attack.

He drove the black sword into the deck.

The blade pierced through the wet wood between two planks.

Ulrich raised one hand toward his mouth.

Then he coughed.

Blood spilled between his fingers.

Another crimson Formula Ring vanished.

It broke apart silently, its runes fading into the rain.

The Valmorian soldiers stared at him.

Ulrich looked worse than before.

His body swayed faintly. Blood had soaked through the bandages beneath his shirt. His breathing came hard and broken. The silver aura remained around him, but the crimson rings continued disappearing one by one.

A few knights exchanged glances.

He was dying.

He had to be.

The Count had fought at the camp, faced Valdris directly, survived an Advanced lightning spell, defeated serum-enhanced soldiers, followed the carriage through the forest, and now fought again aboard the ship.

No man could continue forever.

One Valmorian knight moved.

He did not hesitate any longer.

He rushed toward Ulrich.

His left hand rose as he ran. A Formula Ring formed before his palm, glowing with hot orange light. The spell was quick and direct. A Rank 2 fire spell gathered into a dense sphere, the flames compressed until the air around it trembled.

The knight released it.

The fireball tore through the rain.

It exploded where Ulrich stood.

Flames burst across the deck.

The shockwave knocked loose pieces of burning wood from the broken ram. Steam rose as rain struck the sudden fire. The Valmorian knight continued forward through the smoke, black sword lifted for the finishing blow.

Ulrich was not there.

The soldier’s eyes widened.

A movement came from his left.

Too fast.

The knight turned.

It was already too late.

The black anti-magic sword entered his side.

The blade pierced through the narrow opening beneath his arm, passing through flesh and driving out through his chest. The knight made a strangled sound. Blood ran down the dark steel.

Ulrich stood beside him.

The silver aura curled around his body.

The Valmorian knight looked down at the sword protruding from his chest.

Then his knees gave out.

Ulrich pulled the blade free as the man fell.

"What are you waiting for, fools?!" Valdris shouted.

His voice broke the paralysis spreading through his soldiers.

"You outnumber him! Kill him!"

The remaining knights moved.

This time, they did not rush forward with swords alone.

Formula Rings formed across the deck.

Fire gathered over one knight’s palm.

Wind began to turn around another’s arm.

A third summoned lightning, blue-white sparks jumping between his fingers. More circles appeared behind them, their runes glowing through the rain as the soldiers prepared to overwhelm Ulrich with several spells at once.

The lightning spell released first.

Crackling bolts tore through the air toward Ulrich.

Ulrich swung his sword downward.

The anti-magic blade cut through the lightning.

Blue-white energy broke apart against the black steel and scattered across the deck in fading sparks.

A fire spell came from his right.

Ulrich jumped backward.

Flame passed across the space where he had stood. It struck the deck and exploded, sending burning fragments of wood upward.

Another Valmorian knight attacked from behind.

His sword came down toward Ulrich’s shoulder.

One of the crimson Orbit Rings shifted.

It moved behind Ulrich’s back and caught the strike.

The anti-magic blade tore through the ring almost instantly.

Crimson mana shattered.

The ring vanished faster than before.

But the formation had taken enough of the sword’s momentum that the blow no longer carried its full force.

Ulrich used the moment.

He drove the back of his head into the knight’s helmet.

The impact rang across the deck.

The Valmorian knight staggered.

Even through the helmet, pain shot through his skull. His head tilted back. The force of the strike loosened the helmet’s fastening, and it shifted crookedly across his face.

Ulrich spun.

He moved behind the knight and caught him around the shoulders, turning the larger armored body between himself and the oncoming spells.

Fire and wind struck.

"Gaghhh!"

The Valmorian knight screamed.

His black armor protected much of his body. The metal resisted the direct spell damage but his face was exposed.

The fire scorched skin.

Wind-driven fragments of burning wood cut across his eyes and mouth.

He collapsed in Ulrich’s grasp.

Ulrich released him.

The body hit the deck.

The other Valmorian knights rushed forward.

Then the sound came.

A tearing crack passed through the air, followed by a terryfing sucking sound.

"Careful—!" Valdris shouted.

Too late.

The silver aura around Ulrich intensified.

His body blurred.

The sound came again.

It was not speed alone.

The knights had seen fast swordsmen before. They had trained against enhanced opponents, faced mages who accelerated themselves with wind, and fought creatures capable of crossing a battlefield in a single breath.

This was different.

Ulrich seemed to vanish from one place and arrive in another without crossing the space between.

Four cries echoed through the deck.

Valdris’s eyes moved rapidly.

He saw one Valmorian knight collapse near the mast, blood pouring from the opening beneath his helmet.

A second fell beside the railing, both hands grasping at a wound across his throat.

A third dropped his sword and stumbled backward before his legs gave way beneath him.

The fourth collapsed near the ship’s cabin door, the black armor around his waist split where Ulrich’s blade had found the narrow joint between plates.

Ulrich stood among two remaining knights.

His movements had slowed again.

The silver aura remained, but it did not make him untouchable. Blood continued to run from his side. His arms trembled whenever he lifted the anti-magic sword. The crimson Orbit Rings had dwindled further, leaving only a handful circling his body.

The two Valmorian knights pressed him.

One struck high.

Ulrich blocked.

The impact drove his sword down.

The second attacked toward his ribs.

Ulrich twisted away, but the black blade still scraped across his bandaged side. Fresh blood spread through his shirt.

Ulrich stepped backward.

Then another step.

The knights followed.

Valdris raised his sword.

A Formula Ring appeared before his hand.

He had watched Ulrich’s strange movement closely. Whatever the silver aura was, it allowed Ulrich to shift through space in a way that did not resemble ordinary physical enhancement. Valdris could not understand it, but he could predict one thing.

Ulrich still had to appear somewhere.

He still needed a place to stand.

Valdris built his spell quickly.

Lightning gathered inside the Formula Ring. He chose a direct formation, sacrificing power for speed. He did not need to destroy the ship. He only needed to strike Ulrich before he used that unknown ability again.

Ulrich saw the Formula Ring.

His eyes moved toward Valdris for a brief moment.

Then he turned back toward the two knights.

Valdris released the spell.

Lightning crossed the deck.

It struck toward Ulrich with perfect timing.

The silver aura moved.

Ulrich’s body blurred.

The lightning struck the deck.

Wood exploded.

The ship shook beneath the impact.

Valdris stared through the smoke.

Ulrich was gone.

"What..."

His eyes widened.

The two Valmorian knights remained standing.

For a moment, they appeared unharmed.

Then their upper bodies fell forward.

The cuts had been so clean that neither soldier had understood they had been struck. Their armor separated beneath the breastplates. Blood spilled across the deck as their bodies collapsed into the rain.

Ulrich stood several paces away.

He held the black sword tightly in one hand.

His chest rose and fell.

The silver aura spiraled around him.

"What are you doing?" Valdris asked.

He could not understand what he had seen.

Ulrich had not moved like a man enhanced by wind or lightning. He had not teleported through a space spell. Valdris knew the signs of those arts. A teleportation Formula Ring required a clear structure, a point of departure, and a point of arrival. Even a short-range space spell could not be cast so freely in the middle of a sword fight without leaving visible mana disturbance.

Ulrich’s movement left no Formula Ring.

Only that sound.

The tearing of air.

The fracture of space.

Ulrich did not answer.

A Valmorian knight formed a wind spell and released it toward him. The attack came as a sharp wall of compressed air, strong enough to throw an armored man across the deck.

Ulrich swung the anti-magic sword.

The black blade cut through the spell.

The wind formation broke apart, bursting into harmless rain and fading mana.

"Attack him together!" Valdris shouted.

His voice carried over the storm.

"And keep your guards up!"

The remaining Valmorian knights moved at once.

Ten or so soldiers rushed toward Ulrich from across the ship and the dockside gangplank. Some had been stationed below the deck. Others had remained near the harbor entrance, waiting to board when Valdris called for them. Their black armor clattered as they crossed the wet planks.

They raised their weapons.

Swords.

Spears.

Anti-magic steel.

Ulrich clenched his grip around the black blade.

Then he held it with both hands.

The silver aura around him grew brighter.

It spiraled faster.

The remaining crimson Orbit Rings moved close to his body, circling him like fragments of a broken crown. Ulrich lowered his head slightly. Rain ran down his face. Blood dripped from his fingertips.

His lips moved.

He whispered something too quietly for anyone else to hear.

The silver aura intensified.

Ulrich swung his sword.

The blade cut through the air.

A perfect horizontal line passed across the deck.

Valdris’s eyes widened.

"Idiots!"

The dozen Valmorian knights did not understand.

They thought Ulrich had released a spell.

They raised their weapons to defend. Anti-magic swords came up. Formula Rings began forming beside their hands.

Then the cut reached them.

The air itself had been divided.

Rain split apart along the path of the strike.

The anti-magic weapons broke.

Reinforced steel blades were cut cleanly in half. Spears split apart. Axe heads fell from their shafts. Black metal struck the deck in pieces.

Then blood appeared.

One knight clutched at his chest as a deep line opened across his armor.

Another lost an arm at the shoulder.

A third fell to his knees, hands pressed against his stomach as blood spilled between his gauntlets.

All of them collapsed at once.

The deck became a field of broken weapons and dying men.

Valdris raised his sword.

Crack.

The sound came again.

He turned.

Ulrich disappeared.

He appeared behind two soldiers on the left side of the deck.

They had stopped moving.

Shock held them still as they stared at their broken weapons and the bodies falling around them.

Ulrich’s sword moved twice.

The first knight fell with his throat cut.

The second turned too late.

The black blade entered beneath his helmet.

Both bodies hit the deck.

Ulrich pulled his sword free.

Then danger reached him.

Valdris disappeared.

Ulrich felt the shift in mana.

He raised his sword.

Valdris appeared directly before him.

Black steel collided with black steel.

Ulrich groaned.

The impact drove him backward across the deck. His boots slipped on rainwater and blood. Valdris did not allow him to recover.

He stepped in and drove a kick toward Ulrich’s wounded side.

Ulrich tried to turn away.

The kick landed.

Pain tore through his ribs.

Ulrich was thrown across the deck.

He crashed against the ship’s wooden ramp near the broken prow. The impact split part of the railing behind him. His body struck the wet wood hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs.

He slid down onto one knee.

Blood spilled from his mouth.

Rain struck the deck around him.

And Valdris stood across from him with his sword raised.

"This time you won’t get out of it alive."