“Cut the crap.” With a swift stride, he closed the distance.
The slaughter blade in his grip tore through the air, carrying a piercing, high-pitched shriek as he brought it down with crushing force.
But just like before, the heavy strike only sparked a dazzling shower of fire against the hardened Originium Arts shield protecting her.
The Black Snake remained entirely motionless.
Undisguised contempt flickered in her crimson eyes.
“It is useless,” her voice carried a steady, chilling weight.
“You are too weak.” Right at that second, a voice echoed from the deepest, darkest recesses of Ivan’s own mind, dripping with impatient mockery.
‘Kid, if you can’t do it, let me.
You really can’t even deal with such a weak opponent?’ Ivan offered no answer.
Instead, he slowly sheathed his blade.
The metal tsuba met the mouth of the scabbard with a crisp, echoing click that cut through the roar of the surrounding fires.
“What?
Giving up?” the Black Snake asked, her tone flat.
Ivan’s mind had completely quieted.
He silently recited the strict mechanics of the technique: sheathe the blade, build the momentum…
run, accelerate…
then, execute a rapid Iai strike.
As long as he maximized his movement speed and stacked enough slashes, unleashing the full sequence of the Crimson Sakura, the sheer volume of damage ticks would absolutely break her defense.
Ivan moved.
He launched forward, executing a rapid Iai strike that landed with pinpoint precision.
Brilliant sparks burst across the amber surface of the Arts shield.
The Black Snake stood her ground, watching his desperate performance with a faint trace of amusement dancing in her eyes.
Ivan did not stop.
His attacks grew faster, the rhythm of his strikes accelerating until his figure blurred into a dark streak.
He became exceedingly difficult for the naked eye to track, leaving behind only a violent storm of fierce black blade lights that pounded relentlessly against the barrier.
The sparks no longer shot out sporadically.
They exploded in a blinding, unending barrage of kinetic energy.
The Reunion Movement soldiers standing in the vanguard behind their leader momentarily forgot how to breathe, frozen in place by the sheer ferocity of the assault.
Then, all the blinding light and the deafening clash of metal came to an abrupt halt.
Ivan stood a few paces away, his blade already sheathed at his hip.
He uttered four words in a low, steady voice.
“Crimson Sakura Slash.” The heated air seemed to solidify.
A split second later, every single blade trajectory that had previously been blocked by the shield reappeared in mid-air simultaneously.
Countless delayed-burst slash energies instantly converged, stacking their damage values into one localized point.
A crisp, shattering crack rang out.
Talulah’s supposedly indestructible Originium shield burst into a cloud of glowing, fragmented dust.
Now.
Ivan’s blade turned into a streak of black lightning, aiming directly for the Black Snake’s neck.
At the very last fraction of a second, he adjusted his grip, rotating the weapon to change the lethal chop into a heavy slap.
He intended to knock her unconscious with the blunt spine of the sword.
However, just an instant before the blunt steel could make contact with her skin, a longsword wreathed in scorching flames swung upward.
It intercepted the strike in the nick of time, precisely deflecting Ivan’s weapon away.
The Black Snake spoke, her voice still measured, but now carrying a sliver of genuine, freezing malice.
“Too slow.” Her gaze seemed to bore straight through his armor.
“And, if I am not mistaken, that strange fire resistance effect on you should also be gone, right?” Ivan flicked his eyes to the upper corner of his vision.
The status bar was completely empty.
The potion icon had vanished.
His face instantly drained of color.
There was zero time to react.
Talulah’s free left hand was already raised, and a concentrated blast of her Originium Arts violently detonated at point-blank range right in front of his chest.
The deafening roar of the explosion swallowed the battlefield.
Ivan was violently thrown backward by the sheer kinetic force of the blast wave, crashing heavily into the scorched earth.
His clothes were burned through, leaving large, charred holes.
His exposed skin was blistered, and sharp, superheated fragments from the explosion had torn several bone-deep wounds across his body.
Blood quickly began to pool beneath him.
Fortunately, his gamer reflexes had saved his life.
At the very last millisecond, he had managed to equip his shield to block the worst of the blast, relying on the durability of his iron armor to absorb the rest.
He coughed out a mouthful of blood mixed with ash and dust.
Thoughts flashed rapidly through his ringing head.
If he had been a fraction of a second slower on the inventory switch, that hit would have sent him straight to the respawn screen.
Ivan struggled, planting his hands in the dirt, trying to force his broken body up to continue the fight.
But just then, dense and chaotic footsteps surged like a rising tide from behind Talulah.
A mocking, youthful voice drifted through the smoke.
“Why are you still struggling to fight when you’ve been beaten like this?
Truly baffling.” Mephisto emerged from the shadows, a twisted smile playing on his lips.
Another voice followed, clear, cold, and carrying a complex weight.
Frostnova looked down at Ivan, taking in his ruined armor and bleeding wounds as he still tried to stand.
“Even knowing that in the end there will be nothing left but bones, he still chooses to fight to this extent.
A remarkable warrior.” Mephisto, Frostnova, and the composed Black Snake standing tall with her flaming sword.
Ivan swept his gaze over the utterly desperate lineup gathered before him.
A bitter, self-mocking smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“As expected…
the whole raid boss squad showed up.” Talulah gazed down at him.
She slowly raised her weapon.
“I will remember you, Ivan.” The sentence fell like a judge’s gavel, coldly sealing the outcome of the battle.
Before the final syllable even faded into the ash-filled wind, without giving Ivan a single heartbeat to respond or strategize, a sharp blade plunged downward.
It pierced clean through his iron chestplate, sinking deep into his body.
Ivan went completely rigid.
All movement, all desperate planning, and all breath were entirely severed in that singular instant.
His vision began to blur, the colors washing out into a dull gray.
The crackle of flames and the voices of his enemies rapidly receded, leaving only the sound of his own heavy, broken gasping, followed by the faint, rhythmic dripping of his blood onto the ruined earth.
Simultaneously, high above the clouds, inside the aircraft speeding toward Rhodes Island.
Amiya, who had been quietly looking out the reinforced window, suddenly gasped.
Her brown eyes widened, her pupils contracting sharply as if an invisible, jagged spike had just been driven straight through her chest.
Her small hands instinctively flew up, clutching the fabric over her heart.
A massive, suffocating wave of pure sorrow engulfed her without a single warning.
“What is wrong, Amiya?” the Doctor sitting beside her asked, immediately noticing her sudden distress.
Amiya turned her head.
Her face was deathly pale, and her voice trembled, choked by an uncontrollable sob.
“Doctor…
I…
I suddenly feel a very, very sad feeling…” Tears spilled over her eyelashes, streaming freely down her cheeks.
“Mr.
Ivan…
he…
he…” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence.
The chilling, bone-deep sense of finality, transmitted across the distance through some deep empathic bond or Originium Arts resonance, had already explained everything.
The cabin instantly fell into a suffocating silence.
Every Rhodes Island Operator present heard her broken words.
Whether it was the Doctor, Nearl standing by the bulkhead, or the medics checking their gear, they all understood exactly what Amiya’s unfinished sentence meant.
A crushing weight settled over everyone’s chest.
They had been anxious about the battle he stayed behind to fight, but now there was only a quiet, heavy mourning for the passing of a warrior who had held the line to the very bitter end.
Some lowered their heads.
Some clenched their fists in silent frustration.
Others looked away, unable to bear the grief filling the small space.
Only the low, steady drone of the aircraft’s engines remained.
Back on the ruined earth, just as Talulah, Frostnova, and Mephisto turned their backs to leave the corpse behind.
A low, unnatural rumbling sound began to vibrate through the ground.
The dead body behind them slowly stood up.
Ivan rose in a disjointed, unnatural posture, moving exactly like a broken puppet being hoisted up by invisible strings.
Wobbling, inch by agonizing inch, he propped himself up from the expanding pool of his own blood.
When he finally lifted his head, his eyes had completely lost all human light and vitality.
In their place, an ominous, piercing white glow radiated from his sockets.
[Objective Achieved: Transcend Life and Death] A voice that did not belong to Ivan spoke from his throat, echoing with a hollow, digital distortion.
“Now, switch.” [Rhodes’s Note: Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?
(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent!
to use the links!)