Chapter 35: Combat Legacy (2)

When Neo thought another group of strange creatures would appear, and a new battle would begin.

Nothing appeared.

He activated the screen to check for new information. The display appeared in front of his eyes.

A new countdown had started.

300.

It seemed Neo had been granted five minutes of rest.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough for him to catch his breath.

He took a minute to clear his mind, and calm his heart.

Then his mind began to review all the battle he had been through.

From the first battle with the weak strange creature to the last one that just concluded.

He examined every progress he had made.

He reviewed everything.

The moves he could refine.

The techniques he would discard.

He optimized every move in his mind.

He hadn’t found that perfect balance he searched for, but he knew he was getting near.

He could almost feel it.

It was like a breath whispering by his ear.

He shook off the poetic mood that had settled in his calmed heart.

He checked the ranking.

His current ranking was seventh.

That caused him some surprise.

Seventh?

That was very interesting.

He waited for the countdown to end.

His mind was the sharpest it could be now.

His surrounding changed the moment the countdown reached zero.

He looked around him.

This new place was maybe just normal.

It was a large training room.

Neo knew this by looking at the design of the room.

It was empty.

There were only two people inside.

Neo and a prime demon.

Yes.

A prime demon was the only other being in the room.

Neo observed it.

It observed Neo too.

The two people from different races observed each other intently.

Its body still looked scary.

But Neo never feared such things in the first place.

A new line of words appeared on the screen before Neo.

Eliminate your opponent to gain ten points of minor origin.

Just ten?

Neo felt this legacy was becoming more hellish.

How much minor origin had he used up.

How much would he be using up now?

This was forcing one to the extreme.

The prime demon across from Neo seemed to have recieved the same message too.

It charged at Neo.

Neo of course had always been alert.

Even as he complained about the meagre reward in his mind.

The prime demon’s tail flashed.

It struck at Neo.

As the tail neared him, it split into eight copies of itself.

All of them real, and packing serious punch.

Each tail attacked Neo simultaneously from different angles.

They were fast.

But Neo was even faster.

His sword drawn, he parried every strike with a single move.

The prime demon wasn’t discouraged.

It continued its assault.

Every one of the tail seemed to have a mind of its own.

They attacked Neo.

Relentless in their effort to overwhelm him.

Neo became faster.

He knew this would drain his meagre minor origin.

However, there were only two ways for him to overcome this attack.

Be fast enough to cut down every tail.

Or be strong enough to break the prime demon’s move at the very root.

This seemed to be the special ability the prime demon had.

He didn’t plan to pit his minor origin against the prime demon’s.

He had no interest in finding out whose minor origin would last till the end in this fight.

He needed to end this before he spent too much minor origin.

His speed increased further.

His next move cut each tail three times.

By the end of that move, the tails had disappeared.

The prime demon stumbled back.

It was startled by Neo’s move.

It observed Neo for a while.

Then, it changed its tactics.

The scales that covered its body vibrated.

They detached and shot towards Neo with great speed.

Neo could feel the sharpness that emanated from the scales.

Those things would turn him into a sieve if he let them hit him.

Dodging them or creating a shield didn’t seem to be the best response to this move.

He knew that the prime demon could control the scales. It was a part of its body like its limbs.

The best counter to this move was to sever that connection.

Sever it and take control.

Neo made only one move.

That move consumed about a quarter of the minor origin he had left.

The scales that had almost reached his position froze.

They should have torn his body apart, but now they just froze there.

Unable to gather any more momentum.

Neo turned every scale around.

Their sharp points aimed towards the prime demon.

He shot them forward.

With even greater speed.

They reached the prime demon the moment they shot out.

The prime demon disappeared before it could be torn apart by its own scale.

Neo was the only one left in the training room.

The prime demon and its scales had disappeared.

He felt the minor origin within him increase.

It only slightly surpassed what he had before the fight.

He had eliminated his opponent.

But at great cost.

He wondered what was next.

Another opponent like the prime demon to eliminate?

He checked the screen that was in front of him.

His ranking still remained the same.

It looked like the prime demon he just eliminated was not above him in the rankings.

There was nothing new on the screen.

All he could do now was wait.

He thought he would be waiting for long, but the legacy didn’t seem to prefer idling.

A strange creature appeared in front of him.

Neo almost groaned.

He was getting tired of seeing these things.

He could almost call the prime demon he just defeated a welcome sight for sore eyes.

Neo shook off his irritation.

He needed to see this to the end.

Seventh?

It seemed he had been slacking a lot.

The strength of this strange creature had surpassed the previous ones by a large margin.

Neo didn’t care.

He tossed all irrelevant thoughts aside.

He didn’t wait for the strange creature to attack.

He charged towards it.

His attacks had not only finesse, but also something it had been lacking before.

A raw ferocity that sought to overwhelm all things.

Neo realized something.

He had been holding back.

Even he found it hard to believe that thought.

But, he had truly been holding back.

He had been taxing his mind, trying to find the perfect balance.

Like it was something he could solve and get an answer to.

There was no more of that.

He would find that perfect balance, but it won’t be by holding back.

It won’t be by groping in the dark for something that wasn’t lost.

With every move that overwhelmed his opponents.

With a will that refused to let anything hold it back.

He would gain that perfect balance.

His techniques had been perfect, but they had been lacking a certain quality.

They had only been forms, but with no essence.

Now, his moves carried that subtle quality.

The perfect balance.

A true conviction.

This Combat Legacy sought the greatest combat genius.

He would show it what a combat genius truly was.