Immediately, the guard activated his Essence.
A faint hum resonated through the air pure, melodic, and sharp. The ground vibrated under the pressure as pale gold energy gathered along his blade.
He exhaled slowly, eyes calm now, movements precise. This wasn't rage anymore. This was focus.
The Song Sword Art of the Royal Kingdom of Nezia.
A sword art known only to royal knights and guards of the crown an art that demanded harmony between Essence and serenity, mind and blade. It was said that one must strike without emotion, without doubt. Every swing was a verse, every cut a stanza in the song of death.
That was the Song Sword Art graceful, perfect, and without openings.
Muliad's eyes widened in horror. He knew it.
He used to wield it himself. And he knew exactly how lethal it was in the hands of someone with even basic training.
Harian stood there, unfazed. Watching. Studying.
If it had been anyone else, they would have frozen where they stood but this wasn't anyone else.
This was Harian Liche, the regressor.
Instead of fear, he smiled. Slowly. Deadly.
"I have something of my own too," he whispered.
He raised his hands empty and took a stance as if holding an invisible blade.
"What's this crazy bastard doing?" Muliad muttered, barely above a whisper.
But Harian didn't answer. He just grinned wider, eyes dark and intent.
Then it began.
The torches flickered again, dimming one by one. The glow of the guard's Essence cast long shadows across the stone floor but those shadows didn't behave like they should. They stretched, twisted, and swirled, converging at Harian's feet.
The Void Essence stirred.
Where the Song Sword Art embodied serenity and precision Harian's art embodied nothingness.
The space between things. The silence between sounds.
The world where everything came from nothing, and where all things would eventually return.
That was the Art of the Void Essence.
"...Shadow Arts," Harian whispered.
The air around him warped. The dim torches bent their light away as if afraid. The Devour Field flared faintly, overclocked pulling every trace of free Essence into him.
His senses sharpened to impossible clarity. He could feel the faintest vibration of the guard's muscles before he moved. Every flicker of Essence, every intake of breath.
And then he remembered this same guard, in his past life.
The same arrogant smirk. The same man who had beaten him half to death out of boredom. And worse the same one who had hurt George. From the start he knew who this guy was perhaps that's why Harian was being more aggressive than he usually was but he could not care less. If beating this guy means he'll be stronger then he'll take it as a bonus. And as he thought about George who died in his previous life ..
Harian's grin vanished.
"...Not this time."
The tension in the air was suffocating.
Every muscle, every breath in that cell waited for the inevitable.
Then—
The guard moved.
The floor cracked beneath his foot as the sword sliced through the air, the glow of the Song Sword Art illuminating the entire cell in a flash of gold.
[DANGER.]
[COUNTERMEASURES ACTIVATED.]
[NULL STEP — ENGAGED.]
[ESSENCE LEVELS CRITICALLY LOW.]
Vex's mechanical voice rang in Harian's mind like a siren.
Yet Harian didn't care.
A grin split across his face. "A villain never backs down."
The sword closed the distance in an instant and Harian vanished.
He bent low, sliding forward in a blur, Null Step accelerating his body with inhuman precision. The blade skimmed the air above his head, close enough that the heat of the Essence scorched his hair.
The guard's eyes widened too late.
Harian twisted mid-step, momentum carrying him upward. The Othril chains wrapped around his waist gleamed faintly, humming with absorbed Essence.
"It's over," Harian declared.
He poured everything he had every trace of stolen energy, every drop of Void Essence into his fist. The metal groaned under the strain as black energy coiled around it.
Then he struck.
The blow landed cleanly, knuckles slamming into the guard's jaw with a sound like cracking thunder.
The man's body lifted off the ground, propelled backward. For a fraction of a second, he tried to guard himself, Essence flaring weakly around him but the Void Essence ignored it.
All defenses dissolved on contact. All resistance meant nothing. This was the true result of one who master the shadow Arts using void essence a technique that through perfect movement and an empty mind creates an attack that negates all defences. Physical or not, defences were nothing in the face of the shadow arts. A hollow snap echoed through the cell as the guard's neck twisted unnaturally.
He hit the wall with a crash that shook the chamber then slid down, motionless.
Silence.
Even Vex went quiet for a moment before finally speaking.
[IMPACT CONFIRMED. TARGET LIFE SIGNS — ZERO.]
Harian exhaled, lowering his hand. The Othril chains unraveled from his fist and fell, clattering softly onto the stone floor.
The first test of the Void Essence… had succeeded.
Stunned..no one moved.
The guard's body hung limp at the far end of the cell, a smear of blood painting the wall behind him. He wasn't breathing. Everyone knew it.
Silence. Only the faint drip of blood echoed in the cell.
Muliad's eyes darted between Harian and the corpse, disbelief etched deep into his face. He had seen everything. Every movement. Every shift in stance. It had been too fast for the others, but not for him.
That boy… went against a Divine Knight.
A trained wielder of the Song Sword Art and someone with access to essence and won. With no weapon. No armor.
Only othril chains that drained essence which made it even impossible and an Essence skill Muliad had never even heard of.
He crouched, checking the body. No pulse. No signs of life.
He looked up slowly, his throat dry. "He's… really dead."
His gaze shifted to Harian, who stood still in the center of the cell expression unreadable, faint traces of black Essence still flickering around his fist.
Muliad swallowed hard. "What are you?" he asked quietly, his voice breaking the heavy silence.
George, pale, stumbled forward, staring at the body, then at his friend. "He's dead," he whispered. "He's really dead…"
He turned to Harian, panic mixing with confusion. "What! how Harian, what did you just do?"
But Harian didn't answer. He simply stared at his own hand, flexing it slowly, the faint hum of the Void Essence pulsing beneath his skin.
Unprecedented.
That was the only word that fit.
Then, just as the silence threatened to swallow the room whole—
A voice boomed from another cell down the corridor.
"Boy! Is he dead!?"
Everyone flinched, the sudden shout snapping them out of their shock. Muliad blinked, then instinctively answered, still trying to process everything. "Y-Yes! He's dead!"
For a moment, there was only stillness.
Then
The prison erupted.
A deafening roar of laughter and cheers burst from every cell around them. Shackles rattled, hands pounded against iron bars, voices overlapping in chaotic celebration.
"He's dead!" someone yelled.
"Gremlo the Tyrant is dead!" another cried.
"Finally!"
Muliad froze mid-breath, the name sinking in. "Gremlo… the Tyrant?" he muttered, glancing at the mangled corpse.
The cheers kept growing men screaming, laughing, crying all at once. Years of pent-up hatred spilling into the air.
They were all looking at Harian now.
The skinny, beaten, seventeen-year-old prisoner who had just killed one of the most feared guards in the Thax Prison.
The man who killed Gremlo.
"Who the hell is Gremlo?" George asked, blinking in confusion.
Before anyone could answer, the same inmate from earlier the one who had shouted stepped forward, gripping the bars of his cell. His face was lit by the dim torchlight, eyes wide and almost disbelieving as he pointed at the dead guard.
"That is Gremlo!" he declared, voice trembling with excitement. "The bastard responsible for all of us being here! The man who tortured inmates for fun who sent innocents to die!"
The air shifted.
Other prisoners pressed against their bars, whispering, shouting, asking over one another.
"Gremlo's dead?"
"Are you sure?"
"Someone finally killed that demon?"
"Yes!" the first inmate shouted back. "He's dead! That boy he did what we never could!"
The news spread like wildfire, cell by cell, echoing through the stone halls of the Thax Prison.
Laughter and disbelief mixed with cries of relief. Chains rattled, voices rose, names were shouted.
George turned to Harian, still trying to comprehend it. "So you're telling me… you just killed the most hated man in the entire prison?"
Harian blinked, looking around at the chaos at prisoners cheering, crying, calling his name.
He scratched the back of his neck. "What the fu..."