The roar of the Fire Tornado was deafening. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated destruction, a pillar of crimson flame that turned the bottom of the crater into a miniature sun. The sand melted into glass. The air superheated, distorting into a shimmering haze.
Kage, the Shadow Monarch, was swallowed whole by the inferno.
The thousand spectators in the stands gasped, their hands flying to their mouths. Up in the VIP box, Lord Zilton shot to his feet, his face a mask of disbelief and horror.
"He... he used magic?" Zilton stammered. "He's not an Assassin! He's a Mage!"
The firestorm raged for three seconds, then dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind a cloud of black smoke and the smell of ozone.
Ren lay on the scorched glass floor, his chest heaving. The point-blank spell had drained nearly half of his Mana (78) pool.
As the smoke cleared, a figure stood in the center of the blast zone.
It was Kage.
His dark robes were singed and smoldering at the edges. His cowl had been burned away, revealing the face of a young man with sharp, aristocratic features and hair as black as polished obsidian. His skin was blistered in several places, but he was alive.
At the last possible second, his A-Rank instincts had screamed a warning. He had used a shadow-warping technique to shift his body backward, taking the brunt of the blast on his reinforced sleeves instead of his chest.
He was surprised. And he was furious.
"You hide your true class," Kage hissed, his voice losing its bored condescension, now laced with a cold, murderous rage. "A dirty little fire mage pretending to be an assassin. How dishonorable."
Ren didn't answer. He used the precious seconds of Kage's shock to open his Black Market Shop.
'Purchase: 2x Advanced Healing Potions.'
[-50,000 Yen / 50 Stat Points]
Two vials of glowing, emerald liquid materialized in his hands. He crushed them against his chest. The powerful healing magic flooded his system, snapping his fractured forearms back into place and sealing the worst of his internal injuries.
Ren pushed himself to his feet, his body aching but functional.
The crowd, seeing the "dead" boy rise from the crater, finally found their voices. A wave of shocked, disbelieving cheers echoed through the stadium.
Ren stood up straight, his Shroud of the Night Stalker fluttering in the hot wind. He looked at Kage.
"You talk too much," Ren said.
He raised his hand and launched a single, simple Fireball. It was slow, clumsy, and pathetically weak compared to the tornado.
Kage scoffed, sidestepping the projectile with contemptuous ease. "Is that the best your mana can muster? You are a one-trick pony, and your trick is spent."
Kage decided to end it. He wasn't going to play with his food anymore. He activated his full speed.
He didn't just run; he became a blur of intersecting black lines, moving in a crisscross pattern that was impossible for the human eye to track.
[Technique: Twisting Viper]
He was creating afterimages, disorienting his opponent before the final strike. He lunged from Ren's blind spot, his obsidian dagger aimed directly at Ren's heart.
Ren couldn't track him. His Speed (89) was high, but Kage's A-Rank technique was on another level. He couldn't dodge. He couldn't block.
So, he didn't try to.
Ren planted his feet. He remembered a scene from an old-world movie, a desperate, brutal move of last resort.
He pulled both of his hands back, channeling every ounce of his 106 Strength and his remaining Mana into his palms.
He clapped.
[Improvised Skill: Sonic Boom]
BOOM!
The sound wasn't a clap; it was a physical explosion of compressed air. A non-elemental, 360-degree sonic wave erupted from Ren's hands. It wasn't a targeted attack; it was pure, indiscriminate force.
Kage, who was moving at supersonic speeds, ran directly into the wall of sound.
The impact was like hitting solid concrete. The air was driven from his lungs, and his high-speed technique shattered. He was thrown backward, skidding across the sand for several meters, his ears ringing.
Kage landed on one knee, shaking his head to clear the ringing. He looked up, a thin trickle of blood running from a new cut on his cheek. His left arm, which had taken the brunt of the sonic wave, felt numb and mediocrely injured. He had been hurt. Twice. By a Level 10.
Ren didn't waste the opening.
[Skill Activated: Fire Tornado (Level 2)]
He unleashed another pillar of fire, this time aiming it directly at the disoriented Kage.
But Kage was an A-Rank for a reason. He recovered instantly. He didn't try to block the fire. He leaped straight up, soaring twenty meters into the air, flipping over the top of the tornado.
"Impressive," Kage snarled from above, his voice filled with genuine rage now. "But you are out of tricks. And I am out of patience."
He pulled a second, identical obsidian dagger from his robes. He held them in a reverse grip, the blades gleaming.
[Skill: Shadow-Fang Tiger]
Kage threw the twin daggers. They didn't fly straight; they spun through the air like black boomerangs, infused with shadow mana. One aimed for Ren's head, the other for his legs.
Ren's eyes widened. He used Shadow Step to teleport five meters to the left, dodging the initial trajectory.
But the daggers didn't hit the ground.
As they passed Ren's original position, they curved sharply in mid-air, the shadow mana guiding them in a perfect, impossible arc. They were now homing projectiles, aimed directly at Ren's unguarded neck from behind.
Ren had just used his teleport. The skill was on a 0.5-second cooldown. He was exposed.
He spun around, raising Eclipse in a desperate attempt to block. But he knew he wouldn't be fast enough. The daggers were closing in, the air around them humming with lethal intent.
The razor-sharp obsidian blades closed in, ready to sever his head from his shoulders.