The expedition had been traveling for several hours. The village had long disappeared behind the endless expanse of crimson snow. Jagged black rock formations rose from the frozen earth like broken teeth, while the blood-red sky cast everything beneath it in an eerie twilight. The two horned mounts maintained a steady pace.
Leon and Adrian rode in front, while several meters behind them, Lyra and Maya followed on the second mount. Nobody had spoken much after Leon finished explaining his theory about the mysterious fluctuations. Every now and then, Adrian would glance around the horizon, as though expecting survivors to emerge from the wasteland at any moment.
Instead... something else appeared. A familiar metallic scraping echoed across the frozen plain.
*SCREEEECH.*
Lyra immediately raised a hand. "Stop."
Both mounts slowed. From behind a cluster of black stone, a creature slowly emerged, its matte-black shell reflecting the crimson sky. Three serrated scythes scraped against the ground. Behind it floated the grotesque purple eye they had all seen on their first day.
Maya instinctively tensed, her grip tightening on the saddle. "...That thing..."
"I remember," Adrian muttered, the memory of thirty terrified people running for their lives returning instantly.
Lyra calmly reached for her spear. "I'll—"
"I've got this," Leon interrupted, raising his hand.
She paused, her brow furrowing. "...By yourself? Those are not normal Grade Zero beasts."
"I need to test something."
Lyra frowned but lowered her weapon. "As long as you retreat the moment it becomes dangerous."
Leon smiled. "I plan to."
He stepped off the mount, his analytical mind already processing the upcoming tactical data. *If the Yin-Yang Blast will no longer work starting from Grade Two—or rather, to be exact, the white aura's ability to bypass the outer layer and strike directly inside—then I need to start winning without it.*
The crab screeched, the floating eye pulsed, and both monsters charged simultaneously.
Leon inhaled sharply. Purple light quietly flowed through his muscles as Boost Mode ignited, strength and speed merging into one continuous circulation. His muscles instantly felt lighter, faster, and stronger. At the same time, green energy spread through his bloodstream in Self-Reliance Mode, the microscopic tears created by Boost Mode repairing almost as quickly as they appeared. Finally, a faint yellow sheen of Bitter Strength settled through his skin; whatever damage slipped past his guard would be absorbed before reaching deeper tissues. Three passive modes were working simultaneously, perfectly balanced, always on, but increasing in intensity with the adrenaline of the battle.
"...He's gotten smoother," Lyra watched carefully from her saddle. "The circulation barely fluctuates."
Leon exploded forward, the distance disappearing almost instantly. The crab's first scythe descended, but Leon slipped beneath it. The second followed immediately, and he twisted around the arc before the third carved uselessly through empty air. Capitalizing on the opening, he drove his fist straight into the creature's shell as black energy gathered around his knuckles.
*BOOM.*
The impact echoed across the plain. The crab staggered backward, a shallow crack appearing across its armor. It wasn't enough. The beast screeched in fury before charging again.
Leon smiled. "Good. Now this is worth testing."
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Another exchange brought another dodge and another punch. The black energy erupted, scattering chunks of shell into the crimson snow. Yet every strike required perfect timing; without the black hue, his standard punches barely mattered, as the shell absorbed almost the entirety of the kinetic force even with Boost Mode active. The black hue wasn't stronger just because it increased raw force—it damaged the target differently.
Leon ducked beneath another scythe, sliding across the snow as a theoretical question formed in his mind. *Why?*
The floating eye released another psychic pulse, but Leon ignored the mental weight. Having been hit before, the Universal Vessel granted him an incredibly high resistance to illusions. Additionally, with Qi currently filling over ninety-five percent of his meridians, his internal network acted as a natural buffer against psychic attacks; he was also quick to give a micro-fry to his own brain and instantly heal it whenever he felt slightly affected.
The Universal Vessel quietly analyzed every collision, comparing the physical force, the black hue, and the shell's structural resistance. A new thought appeared. *Why can't I name the black and white hues separately?*
To begin with, he didn't truly invent the names of the techniques. He had been under that naive impression at first, but as he cultivated more, his understanding grew; the moment he truly understood their underlying functions, he naturally claimed their names.
His fist collided with another scythe from the side to deflect the strike, and the resulting force threw him backward several meters before he regained his footing. He quickly circled around the perimeter to keep his distance from the eye, which was currently focused on sending illusion attacks but would likely attack physically if he drew too close.
Red and blue energy possessed no individual names—only together did they form Boost Mode. His eyes narrowed. *Maybe black and white work the same way.*
The black hue gathered around his knuckles again, channeling corrosion, destruction, and magical interference. It damaged what his bare fists couldn't because the crab's shell resisted physical force far better than magical distortion. Another punch landed, widening the crack.
Then another question appeared: *What happens against the opposite? A beast with overwhelming magical resistance but weak physical defenses? Would the black hue become inefficient, or would raw punches outperform it?*
That didn't sound right. The Universal Vessel continued processing the data. Leon had barely used the white hue outside of the Yin-Yang Strike. It phased, it penetrated, and it carried energy through obstacles. It wasn't purely offensive, and it wasn't defensive either; it simply ignored boundaries.
Another scythe descended, and Leon caught it directly on his forearm. The yellow energy turned orange as it absorbed a portion of the impact to strengthen him, while the green energy repaired the damaged tissue and the purple energy kept his muscles moving. The instant he escaped the grapple, the black energy gathered again.
*What if...* His mental heartbeat slowed, entirely detached from the physical chaos. *What exactly am I trying to accomplish?*
He wasn't trying to bypass armor or ignore reality anymore; he just wanted a more effective execution. He wasn't violating the world's rules; he was changing his own attack's expression. His eyes suddenly widened as the realization locked into place: physical damage and magical damage were both merely expressions of something deeper. The black hue expressed destruction through magical interference, while his fist expressed destruction through physical force. They were two different languages speaking one meaning.
*Then what if the white hue lets one expression phase into the other? Not transforming or replacing them, but blurring the boundary entirely.*
His right hand gathered black energy at the back of his hand, then gathered white energy directly in his palm. The two currents began circulating together, interweaving over and over again. Within his soul plane, the Universal Vessel silently adjusted the microscopic flows thousands of times every second, sorting through the errors.
*Wrong. Wrong. Closer. Wrong. Closer.*
Suddenly, a application of linked energy manipulation formed. The white hue slipped through the black instead of opposing it, and the black followed. Both energies lost their distinct shades as the darkness brightened and the white dimmed until a quiet, metallic silver glow covered his fist.
Leon stared at his hand. "...Found you."
The name appeared naturally inside his mind, discovered and claimed rather than created.
*True Strike.*
The silver fist met the descending scythe head-on.
*CRACK.*
The impact exploded like thunder across the plain. The crab's foremost scythe shattered clean from the joint, spinning fragments of black armor through the air. The beast screamed in agony, staggering backward in complete confusion.
Even Leon blinked at the structural output. "...That's..."
It wasn't an overwhelming wave of explosive force, but the result was far better. The shell beneath the broken limb now carried both a deep dent and spreading fractures. The damage was neither purely physical nor purely magical; it was as though the armor never had the chance to decide which defense it wanted to rely on.
Leon smiled, flexing his silver fingers. It was the closest thing his current comprehension could make to True Damage.