Mora froze. The malicious intent in her eyes wavered, replaced by a momentary, jarring silence.
She stood up straight, her blades lowering just an inch as her gaze flicked toward Soren, then back to Bloodshine, searching for a lie she couldn't find.
"We did not even officially break up and you already married?" Mora's voice was low, trembling with a new kind of venom.
"Typical of a murderer."
Soren was perplexed. He opened his mouth to speak, the words "we aren't actually married" catching in his throat.
He wanted to explain that "husband" was just the way Bloodshine referred to him—a title she had claimed without the true ceremony—but the air in the tunnel grew heavy before he could find his breath.
But even more perplexing, was her reaction.
Is she... is she jealous?
This was the only conclusion Soren's brain could arrive at.
Bloodshine turned her head slowly toward Soren. Her eyes were sharp.
"What is this tramp talking about?"
Mora let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "Oh, didn't your 'husband' tell you? He was locking lips with this TRAMP... in prison."
The words locking lips made Bloodshine boil.
A deep, visible blush crept up her neck, but her expression remained terrifying.
She gritted her teeth, the sound of grinding molars audible over the bubbling green goo.
She looked back at Mora, her grip tightening on her issued dagger.
"At least he married me," Bloodshine spat.
Soren, still holding the terrified Enrique, raised a brow. Married?
The shock was so absolute he couldn't even voice the word. He felt like he was watching a play he hadn't rehearsed for.
Even worse, Mora did not know that Bloodshine's curse did not let her say truths.
Meaning that she was clearly lying, but only Soren knew.
Nevertheless, Bloodshine was not done.
She stepped forward, her chin tilting up in a gesture of pure defiance. "And I'm carrying his baby.
You know what that means, don't you?" Bloodshine's eyes brightened—as if trying to fool herself than her opponent.
"Yes. We... We did it."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Mora gasped.
Her anger rose visibly, her purple skin shifting into a dark, bruised shade of red.
The Aether neurallinks in her blades hummed with a frantic, erratic energy, mirroring her heartbeat.
Soren wanted to do something—anything—to stop the spiraling madness, but what to do was the problem.
At his side, Enrique looked up at Soren with a peculiar, judgmental gaze. It was the look one gave a degenerate pervert.
At this point, no explanation was going to solve this.
The truth was a distant shore he could no longer reach.
Soren looked at the soul-steel in his hand, momentarily tempted to just take the blade and slice his own throat.
Yes.
That seemed like a very logical solution.
At least it would spare him this embarrassment.
Mora gritted her teeth, the sound like stone grinding on stone. "Good," she hissed, her voice dripping with a newfound lethality. "That means I can take two lives with one strike.
I'll avenge my fathers."
With a sudden, violent burst of speed, she leapt for Bloodshine.
The place erupted into a blur of steel and sparks.
Mora was insanely flexible, her body contorting in mid-air like a serpent to avoid Bloodshine's initial counter-thrust.
She moved with a jagged, unpredictable rhythm born from years of brutal battle experience in prison.
Bloodshine, however, was incredibly fast. Even with just one issued dagger, she became a phantom of silver light.
Every time Mora's twin blades arched down in a lethal pincer movement, Bloodshine was already elsewhere, her feet barely touching the green-stained floor.
The contrast in their styles was stark.
Bloodshine fought with a refined, almost mathematical technique, parrying Mora's wilder swings with minimal effort.
But Mora's experience allowed her to tank hits and use her momentum to stay in the pocket, forcing Bloodshine to constantly recalibrate.
Bloodshine saw an opening. She lunged, her dagger aimed at a gap in Mora's defense. It was a perfect strike—one that should have ended the fight.
But then, Mora's gaze glowed.
A surge of raw soul energy erupted from her body, pulsing outward in a violet wave. Her eyes turned into voids of swirling mist as she echoed the words:
"Second form: Memory copy."
Instantly, the flow of the battle shifted. Mora moved as if she had lived through Bloodshine's next attack a thousand times before.
Before the dagger could land, Mora's body twisted in a way that defied physics. She parried the strike with a casual flick of her wrist and, in the same motion, drove her foot into Bloodshine's chest.
The impact was heavy. Bloodshine flew backward, hitting the stone floor with a dull thud.
Soren stood frozen, his hand still tight on Enrique's collar. His heart hammered against his ribs. He had seen it clearly.
Mora had just used her Second Form.
For a person to use the first form, they must be able to channel the power of their shade into a soul steel blade of at least six inches.
Although most people did not know, but it was the prove of talent and the possibility of having a good life as a soulbound warrior.
While it was the foundation, it was not considered as the beginning of cultivation.
For one to truly cultivate the power of a shade, they must have began the second form.
But this could only occur through specific techniques known as Artistic Perception.
As far as Soren knew, only noble families had Artistic Perception techniques.
In fact, I was so valued that it was a requirement for a house to be called a noble house.
Soren knew Mora from prison. And as far as he knew, she was a poor commoner girl with no one of noble status in the outside world.
And yet, here she was expressing such a valuable technique.
Also, wasn't she a D rank Soulbound warrior?
How was she able to comprehend such a technique so fast, when it took months for his seniors back in the academy?