Chapter 216: A Fight Without Qualification
Calix stood motionless, sword in hand.
The Neural Accelerator hummed faintly. A warning. That hum was different from the pressure of a legion commander—far deeper. As though memories long embedded in the passage of time had only now risen to the surface.
Through that stillness, the knight draped in a black cloak raised his head. Beneath the horns that rose from his helm. His eyes were invisible, yet Calix was certain.
He was being watched.
"Captain."
He called out to Royce in a low voice. The end of the word trembled slightly.
The Mountain Rabbits had fanned out into a semicircle, forming a perimeter. Basim adjusted his grip on his axe handle, and Gregor pressed his shield flush against his body. Marik, Adrian, and Airien each anchored three separate directions.
Yet Calix spoke without even turning his head.
"Don't rush in."
"But—"
"Guard my back. For now."
Before the words had even finished, De Generitum took a single step forward.
Caution spiked instantly—but this was no attack. No threat. The distance simply changed, and yet the air grazing Calix's skin grew one layer colder.
Calix took an offensive stance.
He checked his own breathing and pushed the Neural Accelerator's output to its maximum. The timeline thinned; the hues of mana split apart, and the flow of the battlefield extended like a taut wire. De Generitum's center of gravity, his balance, the microscopic distribution of pressure across his feet—Calix read all of it.
The objective was simple.
‘One touch is all I need.’
Calix hurled himself forward.
A gray streak cut through the air, and the tip of the sword drove straight for the enemy's head.
In that instant—
The shadows of two figures crossed.
"……!"
Calix realized, a beat too late, that he had cleaved through empty air. Without even drawing his sword, the opponent had simply stepped to the side and let the attack pass.
Calix was slow.
"What—"
Marik exhaled a hollow breath, and Basim reflexively lunged forward—then stopped at Calix's gesture. De Generitum stood motionless to his right.
No special ability was visible. No trace of mana shifting. With nothing but two feet, he had deflected Calix's sword.
And then he opened his mouth.
[You still……Fight like that.]
Calix's fingers tightened around the sword's grip. From somewhere deep in his chest, an incomprehensible revulsion began to boil.
‘This isn't a matter of speed.’
Calix stepped back and raised his blade once more.
The fight had only just begun.
***
Calix steadied his breathing again. Only a single exchange had occurred so far. And yet he had already gathered sufficient information. The opponent was not merely fast.
He was overwhelming him in a human way.
Even so, retreat was not an option.
Calix kicked off the ground and launched himself forward.
This time, it was not a straight line. He deliberately disrupted his own trajectory. From high to low, then to the flank—a threefold acceleration. It held the shape of swordsmanship, but his intent was to tear through the opponent's flow with Chaotic Mana.
In an instant, the gray sword-light split into three beams.
A sound like breath being held break passed through the Mountain Rabbits. Royce's vision barely captured the afterimages. Even those were beyond most to perceive. It was speed too fast to follow with the eye.
But De Generitum moved to match it.
No—calling it movement felt inadequate. He had simply shifted one foot.
The first strike cleaved empty air; the second grazed the hem of his cloak; and the third—struck nothing at all.
Calix's eyes widened for a fraction of a moment.
‘The opening vanished.’
The enemy's center, which had been vivid and clear just moments ago, had shifted. Immediately after, a heavy impact drove into his side.
Thud.
An elbow.
A purely physical blow, without a single trace of mana.
Calix's body spun half a revolution and was flung back. His heels scraped the ground as he barely caught his balance. A throbbing pain surged—a possible crack in his ribs.
The watching Mountain Rabbits ground their teeth. Intervening mid-fight was impossible. This battle was not a matter of numbers.
Calix knew that just as well as any of them.
The Neural Accelerator's output rapidly exceeded its threshold. The world slowed further. The hues of mana sharpened, and the flow of the battlefield stilled as though frozen entirely.
And at the far end of that line—
A second gaze overlapped with his.
Only then did Calix become certain. De Generitum was seeing the same thing he was.
The colors Calix perceived. The flow Calix read. The next move Calix calculated.
Every one of those elements—his opponent was one beat ahead of all of them.
"……So you've noticed. Yes—the same eyes."
De Generitum's voice resonated low. It was less mockery than a simple reconfirmation of fact. Calix answered by pressing forward.
Dust billowed from the ground as he kicked off. This time, he abandoned technique. A simple slash. No intent, no variation carried within it.
Whoosh—BOOM!!
Yet even that simplicity was stopped.
At last, De Generitum drew his sword. A jet-black blade, summoned from thin air, met Srna head-on. The two faces crossed with only the blades between them.
In that instant, De Generitum's other hand closed around Calix's wrist. No force was applied.
[The future you see……]
He held him in place and spoke only what he wished to say.
[Is already a place I have passed through.]
With those words, the wrist was twisted. Calix's sword was forced to within a hair's breadth of the ground. He recovered his upper body's balance in the same motion and drove at the opponent's left thigh.
Dozens of strikes rained down in an instant, yet only one truth became more certain than ever. This was not a clash of mana attributes, nor a difference in skill.
The foundation was the same.
The same bloodline. The same senses. A being that read the world by the same method. And so every choice Calix made was already contained within the choices his opponent had made.
In the end, the one who stepped back was Calix.
He drew ragged breaths. It was not physical exhaustion. It was the impact on his mind, spilling over into his body.
De Generitum, by contrast, remained standing in place without moving.
For the first time, the flow of the battlefield was slipping out of Calix's hands.
***
Royce watched the battle before him in silence. With each movement, the ground shattered and gusts of sword-wind swept through. The mercenaries stepped back, yet kept their gaze fixed to the end, as though they refused to miss a single instant.
Calix's form was barely visible. A speed that escaped the range of sight. The fierce clash of impacts that broke through the silence told them a ferocious battle was unfolding.
"Ah……"
Then, at a certain moment, a sigh escaped.
The wounds on Calix's body had multiplied. The jet-black blade had grazed his shoulder, forearm, side, and thigh with shallow cuts. The process was beyond comprehension, but the result could be anticipated.
"Calix is being pushed back."
At Volga's murmur, the color drained from the Mountain Rabbits' faces. It was less the fact that Calix was wounded, and more the expression on his face that they caught sight of belatedly.
On the young man's face was an emotion none of them had ever seen before.
Bewilderment and disbelief. The one who had never wavered against any opponent now wore the expression of someone staring at defeat. And beneath that, there was even something that looked like sheer stubbornness.
Crack!
At that moment, Calix was kicked by the opponent and tumbled across the ground. He rose immediately—but in that breath, a shared thought passed through the Mountain Rabbits.
‘This can't go on.’
Royce felt the same. Even so, he did not act on it immediately. He knew it would be a rash judgment. A feeling like this was the last chance—if they didn't move now, there would never be another. He could not allow fear to cloud what was in front of him.
But just as he moved to steady his subordinates, someone else moved first.
"……Hagen! Stop!!"
Veteran mercenary Hagen kicked off the ground and charged into the battlefield. The man whose face was covered in scars ignored Royce's shout and leveled his blade.
‘In the end, a life-or-death bout is decided in one moment. All I need is one single opening!’
That was when it happened.
De Generitum swept his left arm.
That was truly all.
Mana did not stir. There was no sensation of air splitting. Only a glance brushed past, and a hand swept through the air—and Hagen's movement stopped.
The body that had been surging forward lurched.
"……Huh?"
The balance of his body crumbled. His two legs still moved, but could not carry the next action forward. This was Hagen's final moment.
Hagen's body—sank straight down.
No, ‘sank’ wasn't quite the word. He did not crumble. He did not fall. His upper body—was gone.
Without a single trace of a cut, without a single spray of blood, the part of him above the waist had been erased. Moments later, the remaining lower half toppled lifelessly. Not a drop of blood ran.
Silence.
The Mountain Rabbits could not even draw a breath. Only Ungcap cried out as though screaming.
"Hage—en!!"
The man who had been given his life back, the man who had shared the Mountain Rabbits' oath, had met his death. Instead of consoling Ungcap, Marik seized him firmly in place.
So that he could not rush out recklessly. So that one more hollow death would not arrive.
"Let go of me! That son of a bi—……"
"……"
With the help of the others, they forced him down.
***
Nothing remained where Hagen had been.
Only the mark of severance was left. No blood, no flesh. As though he had never existed at all, the battlefield was immaculate. And somehow that very fact summoned a greater terror than any carnage could.
Not one of the Mountain Rabbits could speak. Only rigid stares and ragged breathing filled the air. Among them, Ella reflexively began to recite a prayer, but the light could not extend its reach.
Darkness had erased everything.
That was the most accurate way to put it.
This was not a being that could be resisted. The one standing in this place stood outside the rules of battle.
Even so, Calix raised his sword. Knowing it was meaningless, he rose again and charged again. He threw his body into finding a way through.
The Neural Accelerator rang again. But this time was not the same as before. The world still appeared slow, but the things overlaid upon it moved slightly faster. He could still see them. The hues of mana, the movements that followed.
Yet wherever he went, a predetermined answer waited at the end.
De Generitum did not charge. He did not counterattack aggressively. He simply looked down at Calix.
Calix closed the distance and drove all his strength into the final step. His breathing was perfectly calibrated, and mana blazed at the tip of his sword. And in that moment, he understood.
What he was holding now was not will—but something closer to regret.
The blades collided. Calix poured everything into forcing his opponent back, but De Generitum did not yield an inch. Then his voice resounded.
[Do you know?]
Low. Even. No emotion, no trace of pressure.
[Your beginning was born of me. The thing suspended from your neck, the world you see, even the beating of your heart.]
Calix's heart lurched in reply.
[And therefore, your death too—is mine.]
With blades between them, De Generitum pronounced his final words as though reading a verdict.
Calix did not open his mouth. He did not lower his sword, nor did he retreat. He simply stood in place and, for the first time, accepted the reality before him.
This was not a fight.
He had never possessed the qualification to contest this outcome in the first place.