XXXI
Caecus stood in front of Nyx, who had a relaxed stance, while he in contrast was clutching the hilts of his daggers tightly.
Using his echolocation, he tried to sense openings. She had her sword lowered with no guard, or any special stance. Nyx was just standing there, with her Jian in one hand, and watching him quietly.
But even though she seemed to be completely open, Caecus felt that the complete opposite was happening. The fact that she hadn't assumed any special stance, meant that she had more flexibility to move.
'No openings at all!'
His jaw clenched.
What would one do when there were no openings?
'I'll create one myself!'
Caecus infused his body with seventy percent of his soul essence, assimilated five percent of it in his legs, fifteen going into his blade, and kept five percent in his soul core.
He dashed forward at a speed incomprehensible to the mundane human eye, the silhouette of his body collapsing into a blur.
The closer he came, the more wary he grew of her. His heart was beating loudly, and cold sweat was running down his lower back, even though he hadn't exhausted any of his stamina.
The blind boy made sure to try and sense the smallest movements in Nyx's body, to be able to predict her attacks.
Splank!
The sound of metal clashing against metal resounded through the air, deafening for Caecus, but gritting his teeth, he ignored it.
'Goddamn it! Why is she so strong?'
Caecus' wrist and forearm were aching heavily, as he felt the resonance from the collision travel through his body, and thoroughly shaking it.
His right hand was currently holding the dagger that was against Nyx's sword. She hadn't bothered using both her hands to hold her jian.
Normal jians were wielded with only one hand, but she had a longer version of it that had a bigger hilt, and blade. The blade was around one hundred twenty centimeters, making it resemble a longsword.
Caecus didn't waste a second, and used the force that she used to press against his dagger, to gain momentum; The blind boy dashed left, and kept contact with her sword, and then stopped pressing against it, while jumping in the air, assimilation in his legs making him go extremely high. The momentum he had gained was used to rotate in the air.
He spun around twice, and delivered a kick that would turn a mundane person into a sludge of meat upon contact.
Nyx's face still had a deadpan expression, and to defend against the bone shattering blow, she solely raised her arm in an upward block, like the ones seen in karate or Taekwondo. The forearm was at ninety degrees to her humerus.
Considering the assimilation was still on his legs, one would expect that it'd be stupid to defend, but at unimaginable speeds, just before the kick would land on her forearm, she assimilated.
When the contact came, air was pushed away from the two, making the clash produce a wind that blew in all directions.
But Nyx was stronger.
He felt how she extended her elbow, forearm pushing him away.
Ironically, when an assimilated arm, with superior soul density pushed against a sixty kilogram boy, one could imagine what would happen.
Cartoonishly Caecus flew through the air.
'What the fuck..?!'
Six meters in the air, his body's reflexes acted involuntarily, and made his muscles tense up.
Trying his best to regain control, Caecus performed a backflip, and landed on the tips of his feet.
The assimilation on his feet had already worn off, but he still had infused them with a chunk of soul essence, it was only a part of it that he assimilated.
'Lucky… my feet would've been shattered if I hadn't prepared.'
When he regained balance, he assimilated ten percent of his soul essence into his legs this time, and made sure to keep most of the rest in his core and arms.
To anyone else it might've seemed like he vanished.
But Nyx saw everything clearly, and defended.
The blades clashed again, but this time, realizing that she had an obvious advantage in strength and speed over him, he used the one thing he was better at than her.
Comprehension speed.
Her physical speed might be way faster, but it didn't matter if her comprehension wasn't fast enough to match it.
This time, Caecus didn't keep pressing against her with his blade, but kept moving and dashing, while slicing.
She deflected, parried, and dodged every single one of the blows, and in that moment something flickered beneath her eyes.
But Caecus didn't ease up.
Every time Nyx deflected, he used the momentum gained from that, and converted the force into momentum for another attack.
Clang, Clang!
Clang, Clang, Clang!
The blades kissed five times in just one second.
Not relenting, he kept going.
'More. More. More. I need more!'
Assimilating twenty percent of his soul essence into his legs again, his speed increased even more.
Both of them wore black clothes, so from the outside it looked like two black blurs were dancing across the room, with sparks flying around them.
The sparks were produced by the metal of the sharp blades, which were both augmented, and didn't break, even if used at the speed that Nyx and Caecus used them.
This kept going for another five seconds.
Nyx gave him a little smile that seemed to say "This is not enough."
She wasn't attacking at all, just defending, but Caecus knew.
He knew that if she wanted to she could've returned the strikes every time.
'...Even…Faster!'
And so Caecus assimilated thirty percent of his remaining soul essence into his body.
When one assimilated soul essence while the effect from the previous assimilation was short of wearing off, something incredible happened.
The previous assimilation got 'renewed' and stacked together with the new one, making it last as long as the new one.
This meant the twenty percent of soul essence Caecus assimilated, would stack together with the new thirty, resulting in the same effect as if he had just assimilated fifty percent of his soul essence.
Nyx sensed it, and her smile twisted into a grin.
What previously were five clashes in one second, turned into twenty.
'Yes! This is what I needed!'
Caecus didn't even notice the grin on Nyx's face, as he was wallowing in the ecstatic feeling of fifty percent of his soul essence being assimilated.
Subconsciously, he started grinning as well.
Even though she was rank three, Nyx wasn't able to react well to those strikes, since he didn't lose his technique or form during them. They simply got faster, and faster also meant the force behind them increased.
After struggling to parry all of the hits from Caecus, she decided that it was enough.
Caecus felt thirty percent of the soul essence she would have at rank two be assimilated.
The next clash didn't let Caecus follow with another.
He simply flew away.
Like a bullet, he crashed against the wall with his back.
The assimilation on his body helped him not take any serious damage, but he felt all the air in his lungs leave.
"Guh!"
His own spit left the contents of his mouth, wettening the floor before him.
Sounds blurred, and then did also the world around him.
Unconsciousness took him in its embrace, and he ultimately lost his consciousness.