Chapter 367: First - : “Demon Descends.”

Kael shot forward without waiting. He had already spent nearly an hour learning how the Lesser Death Knight fought, how quickly its sword followed a blocked attack, and how effortlessly the undead punished hesitation. This time, his health, stamina, and internal energy had been completely restored, while the opponent waiting before him had been marginally weakened.

He pushed a heavy surge of internal energy through his right arm. Fire answered first, igniting the runic lines across his gauntlet and spreading glowing orange patterns from his wrist to his knuckles. Heft layered over it a moment later, changing the pressure around his fist as the Death Knight raised its tower shield exactly as Kael expected.

His fist connected with a thunderous impact. Fire erupted across the green barrier, and the combined force of Heft, Kael’s physical strength, and the explosive release of Fire drove the Lesser Death Knight backward. Its armored boots carved deep grooves through the ground while dirt and broken stone sprayed behind it. Flames climbed around the edges of the tower shield until dust swallowed the creature entirely.

Kael continued moving. "Presence."

For a fraction of a second, he disappeared from the Death Knight’s perception. Its red eyes remained pointed toward where he had been, but when the smoke cleared enough for the undead to lower its shield and retaliate, there was nobody standing in front of it.

Kael had already reached its side. Presence released, and his fist crashed into the Death Knight’s ribs with a metallic clang. Armor buckled inward as the force traveled through the metal and rattled the bones beneath it, twisting the entire undead body sideways.

Kael pulled back immediately as the sword came for him. The attack remained terrifyingly fast, but this time, he saw the beginning of the swing.

"Slower."

The difference was barely noticeable, perhaps ten percent. The Tower had called the adjustment marginal and apparently meant that very literally. It had not transformed the Death Knight into an easy opponent, but ten percent mattered when the difference between dodging and being cut in half could be measured in fractions of a second.

Kael ducked beneath the sword as it screamed over his head, then rose immediately with Frost covering his left gauntlet. His punch struck the shield, and white exploded across the green aura. Ice spread outward from the impact until the entire defensive field became a frozen dome around the Death Knight.

"Presence."

Kael vanished again as the Death Knight swung downward. Its sword broke through the frozen dome and continued into the ground, scattering ice, dust, and frozen fragments in every direction. By the time the undead turned, Kael had already appeared several steps to the side.

He smiled faintly. Using Presence this aggressively would have been suicide earlier, when his internal energy had been nearly empty and layering Fire, Frost, Heft, and Presence together would have drained whatever remained within minutes. His reserves were full now, and although they were far from infinite, he could finally afford to spend them.

His left thumb brushed across Exploit Weakness, activating the rune and changing his vision. Faint points began appearing across the Death Knight’s defenses. Some were nearly invisible, while others glowed a dim red where the shield had already suffered repeated impacts, its aura had grown slightly thinner, or stress had accumulated through thousands of blocks.

Kael needed more, so he activated Execrate and waited for the contact it required. The Death Knight charged, bringing its sword down as Kael met it. He slipped sideways and struck the shield with his left fist, allowing Execrate to pass through the touch and seed a foreign instability within the defensive aura.

Thin red fractures spread throughout Kael’s altered perception. He ducked beneath the returning sword and saw a deeper red point near the middle of the shield, another along its lower edge, and one almost directly where he had repeatedly struck with Heft during the previous hour.

There.

Kael backed away as the Death Knight advanced. He tightened his right hand and activated Stone, strengthening his connection to the ground until his stance became heavier and almost rooted to the earth. Fire spread around his right arm, followed by Heft, and the effective weight behind his fist increased dramatically.

His internal energy began falling at an alarming rate, but Kael ignored it. He had been given one chance and intended to use it properly.

He lowered his body, planted his feet, grounded his rear heel, and turned his hip slightly inward while keeping his shoulder loose and his spine aligned. The Fist King’s voice practically echoed inside his head. A fist began with the ground, while the hand merely marked the point where all that force finally arrived.

Kael drew his internal energy downward through his leg, across his hip, up his spine, and into his shoulder before allowing it to enter his arm. Anchor stabilized everything. Stone fixed him to the earth. Fire compressed instead of bursting outward, while Heft accumulated mass behind the strike. Exploit Weakness showed him precisely where the defense would fail, and Execrate ensured that failure came sooner.

The Death Knight raised its shield. Kael stepped forward, driving his rear foot into the ground hard enough to crack the stone beneath it. His entire body moved behind the blow, executing the first stance of the Demon Fist, the most basic technique the Fist King had given him and one Kael had still required months to stop performing incorrectly.

"Demon Fist."

The Death Knight braced as Kael’s hip rotated and energy surged through him.

"First Stance."

His fist moved toward the brightest point.

"Demon Descends."

Contact came, and for one impossible instant, everything became silent.

Then the shield exploded.

BOOOOOOM!

The green barrier shattered completely. Countless brittle fragments of light flew in every direction like broken glass, but Kael’s fist continued into the physical tower shield beneath it and punched straight through.

Metal folded around his gauntlet as his entire forearm entered the shield and continued into the Lesser Death Knight. His knuckles smashed through its inner armor and struck the ribs beneath, exploding bones and tearing several joints apart. The creature’s torso buckled around Kael’s arm before Fire detonated inside its chest cavity.

Orange light poured from the Death Knight’s mouth, the hollow spaces around its eyes, the gaps between its armor plates, and the hole punched through its ribs. A cone-shaped explosion burst from its back, blasting the dust behind it outward and tearing open the earth in a wide line.

Kael ripped his arm free and took two quick steps backward. The broken tower shield remained hanging from the Death Knight’s left hand with a fist-sized hole punched completely through its center. Flames poured through the creature’s chest while smoke leaked from its helmet. Several ribs were missing entirely, and its armor had been opened from front to back.

The motherfucker still raised its sword.

"Scary-ass bastard."

Kael’s right arm dropped beside him as the pain finally arrived. His fingers twitched, but when he tried making a fist, the hand barely responded.

"Yeah."

Something in his forearm was fractured, possibly in several places, and his wrist felt even worse. The recoil of Demon Descends had traveled backward through him despite Stone, Anchor, the fetters, and every lesson the Fist King had drilled into him.

Kael glanced at the dark ring around his wrist and felt profoundly grateful that he had listened. Removing the fetters before throwing that punch might have turned the bones inside his arm into powder. The Fist King had warned him for a reason. Kael had completed only one of the required three Chapters, leaving him with a body that understood the foundation without being prepared for the power it could eventually produce.