Bell rolled his shoulder.
"Is that so..."
His fists came up to his chest as he bent into a specific stance. Feet shoulder-width apart. Weight dropping low.
Ancient Spartan.
Finn tightened his grip around his spear.
Bete's center of gravity shifted forward, leg muscles coiling.
Allen's foot slid back an inch, shoulder blades contracting.
Hogni's stance shifted, the aim of his sword dropping from Bell's shoulder to his ribs.
Ottar remained still. No muscle movement. No sign of vigilance.
Bell looked at all of them.
Colors from his vision started to flake away like paint under heat. Finn's blonde hair turned to monochrome. Allen's silver leg protectors peeled to grey. Ash corroded Hogni's crimson-black sword. The stairs behind them chipped away to black and white.
[Ittou Rasetsu] awoke. His presence rose, firmly settling in the domain of a Level 5.
He moved forward.
Cracks spiderwebbed beneath his heels. The white marble sank within a meter radius. Shattered stone and dust launched up in a cloud that hung mid-air like frozen rain.
A god's statue rested on a pillar, its cheek turned toward him. Smooth stone. Cold expression. Then—a blur of motion distorted its features—and its eyes were looking straight at him, as if the statue had turned to watch. A breath later, it was left behind.
Bell was already climbing the stairs. Each step more of a jump than a push, embers igniting beneath his boots, friction turning their soles red.
Two spears screeched toward him from either side.
Left Allen. Right Finn.
His hands were already moving. One came up to grab a spear's shaft, another circled around the second spear's head.
A Spartan doesn't block. He breaks what swings.
He turned on his heel with their spears' momentum feeding into his pivot. The stone step groaned beneath him, then cracked. He hefted Finn and Allen up by their spears and threw them in opposite directions.
Allen crashed into a side bench. Finn rolled to a stop by burying his spear in marble.
Yet, both of them were already scrambling to their feet, sprinting for stairs above.
Bell resumed his climb.
Hogni came from above. Sword aimed straight for his neck. Simultaneously, air tore from behind—Bete's claws closing in on his spine.
Front. Back. Sword. Claws.
A pincer. No room to sidestep. Sidestep and both would adjust. No room to retreat. Retreat meant claws. No room to advance. A sword was already descending.
A Spartan doesn't evade. He collapses beneath a strike and builds his answer from the fall.
Bell collapsed.
His legs gave out entirely—knees buckling, ankles folding, his body plummeting straight down. His center of gravity fell past recovery, past dignity, into the raw territory of survival.
Hogni's blade passed where his neck had been an instant prior. Close enough that he felt his hair part from displaced air.
Bete's claws raked through the space his spine had occupied, five lines of heat screaming above his back.
Bell's palm struck marble. His entire body weight dropped through that single point of contact. His body rolled forward—hips leading, spine following, neck last—and from the floor, from the absolute nadir of his collapsed posture, his heel drove upward.
It hammered straight into Hogni's chin, rattling his brain, the sword clattering from his grip.
Hogni clenched his teeth and forced himself to keep standing even as his legs shook. His free hand was already reaching down for his fallen blade.
Too slow.
Bell was already past Hogni.
But Bete was also correcting. The werewolf's momentum had carried him past, but his foot caught a step above and he arrested his slide with one hand, claws gouging five furrows into stone, body whipping around mid-slide.
He came back in low and fast—claws leading, teeth bared, every muscle coiled to its limit.
Bell didn't rise to meet him.
He stayed low. Lower than low. His shins pressed until only an inch remained between them and the stairs, spine nearly parallel to the steps, body folded into a shape that looked like a spear ascending rather than something human.
Bell rolled.
A brutal, practical thing—shoulder to back to shoulder—directly into Bete's legs. That werewolf's claws came down where Bell's head had been and ripped into marble instead, fingers sinking two inches deep. Then, Bell's roll caught him and swept him off his footing.
Bete fell. And rolled.
Both of them rolled together, coming to a stop on another stair above. Bell was on top of Bete before the werewolf even caught a breath.
He dropped his knee onto Bete's torso, pinning him in place. His hands clamped around the werewolf's wrists, slamming them against marble.
"You BASTAR—" Bete cursed, trying to thrash.
Bell released his wrists, and before Bete could claw back, his other knee crashed down on the werewolf's face. A brutal, grinding move. A Spartan press.
"Mmmmph!"
Bell shifted his whole weight onto that knee, crushing Bete's head between marble and bone. His freed hands gripped onto Bete's biceps, locking the werewolf's arms in place.
A wet crunch echoed as Bete's nose gave in, hot blood splattering against Bell's knee.
Yet,
Finn's spear.
It came from Bell's blind spot—from a corner in his peripheral vision, from above them both.
Bell released the choke and pulled back, wrapping a hand around Bete's throat. He wrenched the werewolf up and hurled him up toward Finn like a ragdoll.
Finn ducked instinctively as Bete screamed over him, but he was never the target. Behind Finn, even further above—Allen had recovered, using his blinding speed to climb up. The cat-person dodged easily, but Bete had nothing to stop his fall. Desperation made him extend his claws and grab onto Allen, making both of them stumble and fall back down the stairs.
In one second. Maybe less.
Bell closed the distance to Finn.
Stairs became a blur of grey and white beneath his feet. Each step a controlled explosion—friction igniting stone, dust blooming in his wake. His body dropped lower with each stride, center of gravity sinking, legs compressing like springs loading for something catastrophic.
Finn's spear came up. Its tip tracing a line along Bell's path.
Bell's right leg moved.
Not toward Finn's spear. Toward a single stair ahead of him.
His toe hooked under the step's edge—and he pulled.
One hundred pounds of marble ripped free, flying up into his grip, and he swung it like a Spartan shield. That stone slab met Finn's spear with a deafening crack. The impact jerked Bell's shoulders up. His bones screamed. His grip still held.
Finn's spear deflected wide.
And his stance broke. Just a fraction.
Bell dropped the shattered marble and stepped into the arc of Finn's arm. His elbow drove forward, right into Finn's wrist where he held his spear.
With a crack, Finn's fingers spasmed open. His spear tumbled.
Before it hit the ground, Bell's other hand was already moving—palm open, pressing against Finn's chest. Not a push. A single point of contact, light as a feather.
A Spartan doesn't strike to knock a man back. He places his hand where the man's balance lives, and then he takes that balance away.
Bell shifted his weight forward through that palm. One inch. Two.
Finn's eyes went wide.
His body tipped backward—one inch, two inches—and his back heel searched for hold and found nothing. The step ended just two inches behind him.
Captain of the Loki Familia fell backward, down the stairs.
He caught himself—of course he did. Rolled, absorbed, came up on one knee multiple steps down, already looking for his spear.
But he was down, and Bell was up, and between them lay six steps and a scattered battlefield of broken marble.
Bell straightened.
Then he looked up.
More stairs.
And at the top—still, silent, unmoved by any of it—Ottar.
His eyes met Bell's.
Sparks ignited between them.
Bell took a step forward.
Then another.
The grey world held.
His climb continued.
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
So... some people will be slightly confused, right? How can every adventurer be above Bell? Its simple actually, while Bell fights a single person, another person is not standing still, they are climbing the stairs too, that is why it is so hard for Bell. Whenever he fights someone, others would climb up in the meantime and have high ground advantage over him.