“Hey, hey, what part of that is Dragonification? All I see is a sad little lizard.”
Navie’s followers similarly showered him with sneers.
Haring banged his gauntlets together. “Quit blabberin’ and come at me already—worthless worm.”
Seeing Haring take his stance, Navie’s expression bent in irritation. “I see... Then croak already!”
It took only a jerk of his chin for the two shadow arms to fly at Haring. And—all of a sudden, one of them was gone.
But Haring already understood the shadow mechanics of Nix Negate.
“Raaaaaah!!” He swung his fist straight at the lone flying arm. When the shadowy specter came into contact with his fist enhanced by an armor of sand, it let off a bizarre sound before being shot off course. Haring used the forward momentum from his punch to take a large leap. The arm hidden in his shadow sliced through thin air.
“—Fucking hell!” Navie cried as he hurriedly called his arms back.
But it was already too late. Haring had removed as much excess as he could. His current form was built for speed, and the shadow arms weren’t able to keep up.
“Your arms have to move from shadow to shadow.”
That was why Navie’s first blow was carried out with only one arm. As one flew, the other hid inside of its shadow. Once the first arm was close enough to the enemy, the hiding arm shifted to their shadow to launch a surprise attack.
And now, both arms were stuck in the air. There was no worry of a sneak attack; they wouldn’t be able to catch him.
“Here’s that first blow.”
Haring stared straight at Navie as he grew closer and closer, putting power into his fist. He hammered the strongest blow he could muster into the man’s lanky body.
“—Waaaaaaaah!?” Navie let out a pathetic shriek as he was blown back, the gold coins from the sack scattered into the night air.
Haring let out a light breath.
The fallen Navie showed no signs of getting up.
The Demon Tribe were physically weak, second only to the Spirit Tribe in terms of frailty. Without their Familiars for defense, even a single strike could prove fatal. He wouldn’t be able to stand after taking a blow from the Dragon Tribe, let alone in a Dragonified state.
But it wasn’t over yet.
“I’m far from through with you.”
He took a step towards Navie. Just one punch wasn’t enough to contain his rage.
“I’ll keep beatin’ you ’til you’re a bloody pulp...!”
As the flames of wrath blazed, and he approached a fallen Navie step by step—something suddenly grasped his leg. He looked down. His right leg was in the grip of an arm growing from his shadow.
“Just kidding!”
The moment he heard that irksome voice, Haring’s right leg was crushed in its grasp.
“Gah—aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
The creaking sound of something cracking resounded throughout his body, and Haring cried out in dismay. All the while, Navie stood, brushing the dirt off his clothing.
“Nice, nice, very nice! That voice, that expression! The despair that comes after convincing yourself you’ve won is the best.” He chuckled to himself in a mad frenzy—it was as if he had lost his mind. The two shadow arms floating in the air began to clap at Haring’s sorry state.
“A-A third one...!” Haring squeezed out, staring at the new arm grasping his leg.
In a complete reversal, Navie now sauntered over to a toppled Haring. “You’re pretty stupid, you know... I told you I started off with two. I never said that was all I had.”
Navie’s throat gurgled again after he kicked Haring in the face. The arms began to creep up from his shadow. They gathered around Navie like swarming flies.
“You really are an idiot.”
Eight shadow arms took to the sky. They grabbed Haring’s limbs and fastened him to the air.
“Let me guess what’s on your mind. You thought I’m the sorta guy who earned all his rate through underhanded means. That my rank’s just a decoration, right?”
He smiled wide as he admired his own handiwork keeping Haring in place.
“What if I told you I’m a genuine Adamant?”
Again came the jarring, cracking sounds of breaking bones. As his body was helplessly crushed in Navie’s grasp, a trickle of blood dripped from his mouth.
“Y...you...godforsaken...!!”
“Hya—hahahahahah! Pretty talkative for a guy with one foot in the grave.”
Slowly, slowly, the shadow arms increased in strength to inflict as much suffering as possible. It kept going on for what seemed like an eternity. He could still hear those wretched, painful sounds break out intermittently from different parts of his body. Navie was a man well-versed in torture, who knew how much it took to fully break someone. He was going to take his sweet time to reach that point.
Still, Haring wouldn’t stand down.
“I...made...a promise to that brat...!”
An inferno continued to burn in his eyes. Mustering all his might, he desperately reached his right hand for the demon.
“I gotta give you...the smacking she couldn’t...!!”
He didn’t take the job out of pity for the girl. His instincts screamed that he just had to do it. Her bottomless anger had spurred something strong within him too.
That was how it had always been. When those dear to him were insulted, his fist would fly as if it had taken on their honor. When those dear to him were injured, his fist would take on their regret. When the girl was beaten down, he would stand to his feet, having taken on her anger.
“I’ve always fought for someone else’s sake...” Leaving his body to instinct and indignation, he thrust his fist out despite the pitiful sounds it emitted. “I ain’t gonna let that end now!”
He would always find himself acting in someone else’s place, fighting to carry out their sentiment. That was the origin of the conflict within Haring’s heart.
“You’re the one guy I ain’t never gonna forgive...”
Despite Haring’s frantic attempts to make his plea, the eyes Navie saved for him were terribly cold.
“Oh, I see... Now that’s quite a reason you’ve got there.” He scoffed, disappointed, and nudged his chin towards Haring. “For now, how about you just die?”
The swarming shadow hands covered his entire body. The moment before they all contracted to crush Haring’s body in its entirety—
“No, the one dying here is you,” echoed a familiar voice.
A figure slowly walked forth—a boy with a black sword in one hand. The blood-stained visage of Yuri Eniastar.