The sky over the city of Lundomere was choked with clouds of coal and blood, while the Split Moon cast its pale crimson light upon the slanted rooftops. In a narrow alleyway behind the Royal Opera House, Sylvan stood over the lifeless body of a nobleman, coldly wiping his fluid blade, Ouroboros.
There was no remorse in his eyes; to him, the nobleman's life was merely a "coin" spent by the sword to grant Sylvan a glimpse into the immediate future.
"People weep for the dead because they fear their own turn. As for me, I see corpses as nothing more than rungs on the ladder of my ascent. There is no absolute evil, only absolute impotence," Sylvan thought, sheathing his sword as the black butterflies faded back into the leather hilt.
Suddenly, his senses flared with an abrupt chill—a cold that did not belong to the damp winds of Lundomere. The air froze in his lungs, and the brass pocket watch against his chest let out a sharp, metallic cry.
"Tick.. Tick.. Stop!"
Sylvan threw himself aside with the raw instinct of a hunted animal. At that precise moment, a bullet encased in azure frost pierced the stone wall where his back had been. The bullet didn't explode; instead, it turned the stone into a mass of brittle ice that shattered upon contact with the air.
Atop the opposite building, amidst the thick fog, a slender silhouette appeared, wearing a long coat white as a funeral shroud. He held a massive sniper rifle with a Katana blade forged along the length of its barrel, gleaming with a terrifying, icy brilliance.
This was Farys of the Frost. The man rumored to have consumed the "Hunter's Decoction" of the Fifth Rank, binding his soul to a legendary blade that fed on the warmth of living bodies.
"Your movement was slow by 0.2 seconds, Watch-bearer," Farys said, his voice calm, like the rustle of snow over graves. "In the law of sniping, that is enough time to tear your soul into shards."
With a cold, fearless smile, Sylvan unsheathed Ouroboros once more. Black ink began to flow from the blade, and the black butterflies swarmed around him frantically, devouring the light from the alley.
"Farys of the Frost... the sniper who betrayed the Church of 'Absolute Silence' to live as a frozen shadow," Sylvan said, activating his "Probability Algorithm" ability.
Reality split before Sylvan's eyes. He saw himself freezing in a hundred paths; he saw Farys's bullet piercing his heart in two hundred more. Farys wasn't firing ordinary bullets; he was firing "Frozen Will" that defied the laws of physics.
"Why are you hunting me?" Sylvan asked, his mind searching for the Golden Path to survival. "Did the Church tempt you with the Fourth Rank Decoction?"
Farys let out a dry laugh. "That Church is but a flock of sheep led by a wolf wearing a crown. I do not hunt you for them. I hunt you because your watch contains the 'Time-Ghu'-the only substance that can melt the ice beginning to consume my soul."
Farys raised his rifle again, placing his hand on the integrated blade. Suddenly, his eyes turned a pale, vacant white, and an aura of frost erupted, transforming the entire alley into a forest of jagged ice needles. This was the technique: "Ice Blade: Silent Death."
"Then we are alike," Sylvan countered, pressing a button on the Ouroboros watch. "Both willing to burn the world for our survival. But the difference between us, Farys... is that you fear death. As for me... I consider death a failed investment that I will not allow myself to fall into."
Golden light erupted from the watch, colliding with the wave of blue frost. In that moment, time stood still for a few seconds, as if the world were being torn between "Black Ink" and "White Ice."
High above the rooftops of Lundomere, under the gaze of the Split Moon, the dance of death began between the blade that cuts through probabilities and the rifle that harvests souls.