Chapter 303: Counterattack
"Take him down. I’ll handle the rest." Kharom fixed his gaze on the figure in the air and delivered the order in a cold, flat voice.
The 10 Umbraen Practitioners moved at once.
They were not as seamless as the Aqualeth or the Lunari; Umbraen pride frays teamwork. Even so, they snapped into a practical kill formation.
3 with wings flared wide and lifted off, climbing hard to engage Adyr in the air.
3 on the ground readied long-range weapons and skills, set to punish any opening the fliers created.
The remaining 4 hung back with support skills already weaving into place; layering slows to cut his speed, choke his flight paths, and force a landing.
Not bad, Adyr thought, and he meant it. He let his Gaze push a 10-second slice of the future across the present and began to map a counter.
In that glimpse, he saw the 3 fliers driving straight for him, weapons raised and Sparks primed; the 3 ranged attackers below locking angles so he could not slip free; and the 4 supporters feeding one after another debuff skill to drag him earthward.
He ran the permutations in his mind—paths, timings, hit windows—until a near-perfect route settled in his head.
Exactly 10 seconds later, the formation committed. The arena’s attention tightened as one. Everyone wanted to see how Adyr would break a net like this.
Although Adyr could not use Sense Fade, the Null Maggot debuff, or pair it with Duskrend’s skill to crystal-harden his wings into cutting shields—since both were Nether Path Sparks he could not reveal here—he was far from helpless.
So he adapted what he had, turning their ambush to his advantage.
He drew his second sword from over his back and shifted into the core stance of the Sword Art of Existence.
His right-hand blade rose close to his centerline, a loyal guard set to protect the body. His left-hand blade hung loose at his hip, relaxed and misleading like a quiet snake, unassuming until it struck. The posture forgave no error.
My first real fight in this world. Let’s see how well I do.
His expression emptied of anything readable, his breath leveled, and his focus tightened until only the closing enemies remained.
The air tugged at his hair, steel balanced in both hands, and the next heartbeat slid neatly into the one after it as he moved to meet them.
"Take this." An Umbraen Practitioner rose with his axe and brought it down in a hard, committed chop, a raw battle cry tearing from his throat, only to meet Adyr’s right-hand blade with a clean metallic crack that stalled the weapon mid-swing and sent a thin ring of sound skittering across the air.
"I’ve got you." Another attacker darted in from the left, spear lancing for the opening the axe should have made.
Adyr’s left blade was already waiting.
It snapped up and kissed the spear’s tip, knocking it off line with a precise twist. The deflection changed the trajectory just enough to steal force and angle, and the shock of contact tugged the spear wielder’s balance in the air so that her feet and wings fought for a beat to recover.
No one on the Umbraen side flinched from their failed attacks.
They understood this was only the opening exchange and pressed without hesitation.
A third flier rushed straight for Adyr’s chest, reading him as exposed with both swords engaged and the centerline seemingly unguarded.
"Die."
"Nope." The word left Adyr flat and unhurried as Burst Hop fired through his legs.
A low sonic pop rippled, and his body shot upward in a clean vertical snap, the third strike cutting nothing but air as the weapon’s edge bit into the space where he had been a breath before.
The trap did not end there.
The other 3 ranged attackers and the 4 supporters on the ground had been waiting for exactly that escape line.
Their skills and projectiles were already primed on his leap point and now ripped upward together, 7 paths converging with perfect timing on the space his movement had just claimed.
"Come down, you flying rat." Kharom’s laugh rolled across the arena, the certainty in his voice mirrored by the pleased murmur swelling through the stands. In his eyes, it was impossible to dodge this attack.
Adyr met the 7 incoming lines with no room to roll or weave.
He folded his wings tight across his front, white feathers closing over his body until they formed a shield.
To the crowd, they looked too soft to stop anything, much less a combined volley arriving in a single breath.
Then a faint hum threaded the air. The space around the feathers wavered as if the atmosphere itself were condensing into a clear skin.
Sonic Burst wrapped his wings. The same energy he had used to sheath his sword for a slash now clung to every vane and barb, a glassy distortion trembling along the edges.
In the same breath, he activated Burst Hop as well, channeling it to his wings and banking force inside the folded span.
Muscles and bones under the feathers swelled by a fraction, the subtle tell any keen eye could read as stored kinetic energy gathering for release.
The wind at that height tightened around him and pulled at his hair and clothes while his grip on both swords stayed light and exact, the balance of steel unchanged even with his wings locked shut.
Is he about to use his sword technique with his wings?
The sharpest minds in the audience reached the thought at once.
The scene answered them before the rest could catch up. When the 7 attacks came within a hair of contact, his wings snapped open.
PA!
A shock of sound burst outward.
Air shoved in twin sheets from the sweeping wings, and a pressure wave slammed forward, the leading edge of the blast biting into the converging skills and projectiles and scattering their paths.
The 3 fliers nearest him lost control at once, torsos whipping back as if hooked and yanked by invisible lines, bodies hurled through the sky and then hammered into the marble platform with brutal force that cracked stone beneath them.
On the ground, the other 7 were staggered where they stood, the wave punching into their bodies hard enough to lift heels and drive breath from lungs.
The impact shook organs and rattled ribs. Blood threaded from noses and trickled from mouths as they backpedaled and tumbled, weapons skidding and skills breaking apart mid-cast.
Kharom’s frame took the brunt with a planted stance and coiled strength, yet the others lacked that base and took heavy damage.
"Using a sword technique with his wings. If he isn’t a natural-born sword genius, he might truly be a reincarnation of one." Lucen watched with a small smile on his usually stone-hard face, fingers curling until both hands had tightened into fists without him noticing, tension and excitement held in check by discipline.
It was not the half-moon arc of his blade slash, but the method was the same. He had woven 2 Spark skills into a single release. Only the delivery channel changed, and the result spoke for itself while the echoes of the sonic blast still rolled along the arena floor.