Chapter 53: Unknown affinity

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Unknown affinity

The dark elf stood over Felix, the black greatsword raised in a two-handed executioner’s grip, crimson eyes utterly devoid of emotion.

​*Damn it, *

Felix thought, his fingers digging into the dirt. The recovery curve is too slow.

​The greatsword began its downward arc—

​SHRRRR-BOOOOOM!

​A hyper-pressurized, oscillating jet of water slammed dead-center into the dark elf’s breastplate.

​The force sounded like a siege cannon. The elf was blasted thirty meters across the clearing, his boots carving deep furrows, as he skidded to a halt, his serene expression shattering into genuine fury for the first time.

​Felix pushed his head up from the rubble.

​Standing between him and the dark sovereign was Seraphina.

​Her silhouette was completely swallowed in blinding, azure luminescence. A roaring vortex of pressurized water circled her frame like an enraged serpent, while jagged yellow lightning arced violently across her forearms, her shoulders, and through her hair.

​Her face was white with terrifying malice. Her eyes burned with abyssal light, locked onto the elf with a hatred that froze the surrounding air.

​"You," she whispered.

​KRA-KOOOOM!

​Lightning detonated in an omnidirectional shockwave from her boots.

​"You dare," she snarled, her voice vibrating with double resonance, "lay a hand on him!"

​ZIP!

​She vanished.

​The clearing came apart.

​SH-SH-SH-SHING!

​Thousands of high-density water blades materialized across the canopy, screaming downward in a tempest.

​The dark elf blinked, fifty meters to the left.

​CRACKLE-BOOM!

​Seraphina was already there. Her lightning-accelerated displacement outpaced his phase-step, her eyes meeting his as an electrified hydro-whip sheared across his torso, tearing through his dark mana coat and drawing black blood.

​The elf vanished again.

​ZIP.

​She matched his speed instantly, appearing above his blind spot with an oscillating water lance that cleaved through the earth beneath his feet.

RUMBLE-CRUNCH!

​Darius, leaning against a tree with blood running down his leg, saw the opening and slammed both palms into the ground. "Got you, you slippery bastard!"

BANG!

​The bedrock surged upward like twin jaws, clamping tight around the dark elf’s lower legs mid-stride. The elf flickered, his dark mana sputtering as he attempted to phase, but the physical compression interrupted his channel.

​Darius’s face split into a savage grin. "Felix! Finish it!"

"Roger," Felix said, already healed and back on his feet.

Aria stepped up on the flank, seven massive glacial lances hovering at her back. Seraphina locked down the opposite arc, a cage of electrified water scythes closing every perimeter gap.

​VZZZT!

​The elf strained violently against the stone, black mana erupting from his chest in a desperate shockwave.

​"Execute!" Aria barked.

​BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

​The glacial lances and pressurized water scythes fell in perfect synchronization.

​The elf attempted one final, desperate blind teleport and materialized directly into the center of the converging storm.

​SHUCK-SHUCK-SHUCK!

​Ice and pressurized water punched through his shoulders, his ribs, his thighs, pinning his limbs in a crossfire of elemental destruction.

​The sovereign let out a raw, deafening shriek of rage.

​VWOOOOM!

​Felix launched himself skyward, climbing twenty meters above the tree line.

​Every drop of his remaining mana surged into his right arm. The emerald energy compressed, turning from a soft radiance into a dense, vibrating crystalline edge that extended half a meter past his knuckles.

​Seraphina and Aria disengaged, clearing the kill zone.

​Felix looked down through the falling mist at the impaled, thrashing sovereign.

​His feral grin returned, cold and absolute.

​"Break."

​KRA-BOOOOOOOOM!

​Felix fell like a thunderbolt.

​The mana-dense blade drove straight through the dark elf’s skull, through his neck, through his torso, and detonated into the bedrock below.

​The shockwave shattered every remaining tree within fifty meters. The dark elf’s upper body ceased to exist, atomized into gray ash and dissipating black mist.

​What remained of the corpse collapsed into the smoking crater.

​Dead silence.

​The oppressive, suffocating darkness that had choked the clearing slowly bled away, replaced by the pale, cold daylight filtering through the canopy.

Across the woods, the remaining monsters went rigid; the madness cleared from their eyes, and they collapsed into the ferns.

​For ten long seconds, nobody drew a breath.

Kael slowly lowered his hands, his voice a bewildered whisper. "...What in the seven hells was that thing?"

"Something I never want to fight again," Darius wheezed, sliding down the side of a boulder and clutching his knee.

Aria stepped to the edge of the crater, wiping frost from her cheek as she looked down at the dissipating ash. "S-rank boss down. Gate perimeter confirmed clear."

Felix rolled his shoulders, his internal regeneration smoothing out the last of his broken ribs.

​Crunch.

​Footsteps sounded behind him.

​Seraphina approached, the blinding azure light fading from her skin, her breathing shallow and ragged. She stopped an arm’s length away, her eyes raking over his chest, his arms, his neck with frantic intensity.

​"Are you hurt?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

​Felix looked down at his shredded vest, then offered that easy, unbothered grin. "Completely intact. Healer, remember?"

Only then did the rigid tension drain from her shoulders, her jaw relaxing as she let out a slow, trembling breath.

The lizardman prince approached the crater with cautious, measured steps, staring down at the corpse with wide, bewildered eyes. "What manner of creature possessed such foul arts?"

​"Unregistered variant," Aria replied, her brow furrowed in deep thought.

Felix looked back at the dark elf once more. Something about that black mana bothered him. It hadn’t just been powerful. It had behaved differently from every affinity he’d ever run into, and somewhere in the back of his mind, a question had already started to form.

If that was genuine Darkness, why has humanity’s entire recorded history never documented a single awakened user with that affinity?

He had no answer.

​The S-rank rift was formally closed, but the shadow of that black mana had only just begun to spread.