Chapter 116: Chapter 116: A real Slayer.
Aiden saw them first, far away, ghostlike silhouettes poised upon the trees.
"...elves."
The word left his throat not as a statement but as a fracture, a splinter in silence, the syllables trembling like a secret too heavy to carry.
The treeline rippled, and for a heartbeat he thought it was the wind. But no—those shapes were too deliberate, too watchful, too still. Their silver-green cloaks clung to the branches like mist, eyes glinting in fragments of sunlight.
[Serpent swordsmanship activated: level—basic.]
The whisper of notification in his mind, not in any voice he knew but in the blade’s. His hand found the hilt before he realized he was reaching, before thought could catch up with instinct. Cold steel pressed against his palm and a spark arced through him—recognition, tether, completion.
It wasn’t just grip. It was link.
Every morning training in the dew-hung yard, every punishing correction under Flora’s merciless eye, every lonely practice swing when others still slept—here they coiled back into him.
The sword was not something he held; it was something he was. His fingers tightened, and he felt bone dissolve into steel, steel into vein.
The air trembled around him.
Arrows came. Not one. Not ten. Scores. A storm birthed from invisible hands, slicing down in silence until the final instant when the air itself screamed around their tips.
Aiden’s chest clenched. But they were not bullets. Not the metallic hell Flora had once used to torment him, blistering skin and bruising bone until he wanted to crawl into earth and hide. He could still taste the tang of iron when memory surged—faster, Aiden, faster, or you die here.
He had hated her for it. Gods, he had cursed her, hated her with every shredded muscle and bloodied knuckle. But now—now those curses became salvation. Because arrows were slower. Slower than bullets. Slower than death disguised as training.
Aiden inhaled. One breath. Exhaled. Another.
The instant stretched. Time slowed, thickened like honey. The arrows glimmered in the sun, shafts spinning, feathers whispering against the sky.
He whispered.
"...serpent style. Devil’s breathing."
The words sank into his lungs and slithered out in violet. His golden eyes flickered, then burned into an alien purple as ember drained from him into the blade. Pain lanced through his arm—the familiar burn of being unmade and remade.
The sword writhed.
It broke and didn’t. Fractured and didn’t. Segments slid apart, yet tethered by a searing purple filament, like vertebrae of some cosmic serpent slashing through air. The whip-sword cracked outward, devouring distance, slicing.
One arrow shattered. Three. Five. Eight.
Fragments spun like dying stars across the field. Yet still they came—an unbroken rain. Two slammed into his shoulder armor, teeth of wood and steel gnawing but failing to pierce deeper.
"Aiden!"
Her voice.
Arina was at his back before fear could take root, her steps a thunderclap on grass. Six more arrows sang death. She did not flinch. One swing—one contemptuous, almost lazy arc—and the shafts ceased to exist, erased from the world as though they’d never been carved.
"Sweet move..." Her tone carried amusement, and something else—challenge, maybe, or recognition. She didn’t look at him, eyes still scanning the trees. "But it seems," she added, blade resting like a red promise at her side, "they’re only interested in you."
The words stung more than the arrows. Why him? Why always him?
He opened his mouth, but fate answered first.
Thud.
The ground shook.
The loafer giant was back.
Its bulk blocked the sun, shadow falling across them like an executioner’s hood. Branches snapped, soil groaned. Its massive head tilted, eyes two pits of black hunger. They were in the open. Its territory.
"Fuck!" Arina barked, too loud, too human.
The giant’s foot descended.
Both of them moved, instinct snapping bodies before thought could. They leapt sideways as the foot slammed down where they had stood. The earth convulsed, screaming through their bones. Soil erupted, pebbles ricocheted, the smell of crushed roots rising bitter in the air.
Aiden rolled, gasping, heart lurching against his ribs.
"Arina!" His voice cracked. "What’s the plan here?!"
She stood already, grinning like fire incarnate.
"...just observe and relish..."
He blinked. Her grin was feral, alive, reckless. She was already running, feet drumming against soil, faster and faster until she was ascending—leaping up a trunk, sprinting across bark like it was stone, her momentum unbroken.
The giant raised its foot again.
Arina kicked off the tree. Leaves spiraled in her wake, her body incandescent. Her eyes flared red, blood-red, brighter than coals. Mana ignited around her, blistering the air, warping the very outline of her form.
She flew.
"Kid," she roared, voice thick with berserker heat, "I’ll steal your move for a sec!"
His stomach dropped. "What—?"
Her sword convulsed. Fractured into segments, violet serpentine arcs snapping alive just as his had.
Her lips echoed his whisper.
"...serpent style. Devil’s breathing!"
But where his blade had looked like rebellion forced into obedience, hers was pure mastery. The whip-sword flowed, every segment a predator’s coil, elegance woven with slaughter.
The blade coiled the giant’s neck. Flesh split. The smell—resin and rot—flooded the clearing.
Arina landed not on the ground but on the giant’s shoulder. She ran its spine like a hunter racing prey, not slowing, not slipping.
"Giant breathing," she bellowed, red mana writhing like wildfire around her. "Compound strength!"
Her muscles convulsed, veins flaring, and with impossible force she yanked.
The giant loafer screamed—sound like trees uprooting, like avalanches.
Its body stumbled. She leapt, dragging neck and gravity with her. The blade sank deeper, deeper, until wood-flesh split, arterial sap raining.
The giant’s head tore free.
Thud!
It fell between them, shaking earth as though mountains had collapsed. The body collapsed next, crushing trees in its death spasm, ground weeping under its weight. Sap sprayed, hot and acrid, burning against skin.
Aiden stood frozen, eyes wide, chest hammering.
What did he just witness?
This wasn’t a battle. It was execution.
She landed in sap and shadow, blade dripping green blood. Her breath rasped, shoulders heaving, but her eyes—still burning crimson—never wavered.
For a moment silence held. The elves above had stilled, their arrows forgotten. The forest itself seemed to hesitate, to bow.
Aiden’s throat was dry. Words cracked out, unbidden.
"...that was some epic shit."
But inside, something twisted. Awe, yes.
Terror, yes. But more—confusion, raw and aching. Because she had stolen his move, wielded it with ease, with grace that mocked his clumsy first attempt.
And deeper still, another fear: if she could steal it so easily, what else of his could she take?