The sword imbued with Fearless Spirit repelled the stones controlled by psychokinesis, then also cut off the source of the intense wind. The dust eventually settled and revealed the never-extinguishing torches that lined the halls once again.
Wielding his sword, Chromie turned his head to observe his surroundings. After Darr had kicked up some dust, he disappeared completely from this hallway.
Chromie looked up to see the unexpectedly high ceiling of this area, which was about 10-meters in height.
Since there weren't any torches to light up the ceiling, it was completely dark, combined with the various pillars and beams of the structure, there were quite a few places to hide in this hallway.
Thanks to his psychokinesis, Darr was able to levitate himself, as well as covering his entire body in psychokinesis to ensure that he didn't give off any noises or traces.
Chromie was cautious, he could see how offensive the other party's ability was, so if he didn't react in time, it wouldn't be strange for his body to be literally ripped apart by their power.
He was also constantly breathing, as this place was Darr's escape tunnel, he should have come here at least once before this occasion, which would leave traces of his spirit. Although there weren't any clear objects for him to accurately track, Chromie's Spirit Vision would still trigger after spending a bit of time.
Soon, the past of this location appeared in Chromie's mind through Spirit Vision.
A pure white moon and the towering Moon Tree hung in the sky above.
It seemed that this underground ruin had yet to sink underground at the time.
The scene quickly changed to depict a large number of elven figures. Their average height was around 3 meters, some especially powerful elves might even reach 5 or 6 meters tall.
From afar, their physique could only be described as perfect. They filled the surrounding hallway, devoutly performing an elven dance, seemingly dedicating their everything to the Moon Tree in the high sky.
After that, the sky suddenly broke open, and a large number of humans jumped out from the crack. Although their outfits appeared different from the present, a relatively clear link could still be seen.
War, a war between two worlds had occurred.
The perfect and beautiful elves lost completely, mercilessly slaughtered by the humans as their glittering neon blood splattered all over the ground, even the young and small elves were killed without a shred of pity.
This city itself was also 'killed', sinking into the ground. A few people had discovered this place long before the present, but none of them stayed for too long or returned, not until a certain image appeared within the Spirit Vision.
Darr, the latest visitor to the ruins, took away the wealth hidden here by some unknown person, then arranged various traps: a mechanism beneath the floor, piano strings between several pillars, as well as heavy objects hung from the top.
When he saw this, Chromie silently muttered 'oh no'. The sound of several mechanisms could be heard being sprung from afar as a barrage of arrows shot towards Chromie. The power of psychokinesis could be seen flashing for a brief moment before it vanished, but the immense psychokinetic force had already caused the arrows to accelerate.
Without much time to think, Chromie opened his eyes. Although he might have seen a lot from his Spirit Vision, it didn't actually take much time in reality. He also decided to not leap back to avoid the arrows like his instincts told him to.
This was because within the Spirit Vision, Chromie had seen a line of razor-sharp piano string rigged between two pillars behind him. If he carelessly fell into them, the sharpness of the string could easily slice through a person's flesh and blood.
Without hesitation, Chromie rolled to the side, which triggered a spot on the ground to sink in, collapsing and revealing the sharp spikes below.
However, Chromie was already prepared for this, as he grabbed onto the edge of the pit and swiftly leapt out.
…
What happened? I've already disguised all of these traps, so merely being recognized shouldn't have been enough to render them useless.
Hiding behind one of the pillars, Darr continuously pondered the information he had obtained now and before.
So he has some sort of supernatural information gathering ability, which also allowed him to bypass my deception and found me earlier?
"Give up on your greedy thoughts, Mister Farnate" Darr's voice resounded from a different direction through the psychokinetic tunnel he created.
"Without my help, you will never be able to rescue Miss Olga, and we aren't enemies in the first place" apparently recalling something, Darr's voice appeared sarcastic: "Not to mention, can your one-sided salvation truly be considered salvation at all?"
…
"That's none of your business" Chromie's eyes flickered, the scene of Olga suddenly collapsing on the street seemed to have flashed through his gaze once again.
He stabbed his sword into the ground, then quickly swung it upwards to fling the dirt on the ground towards where the voice had resounded from.
It was rare for Chromie to see such a tough enemy to dispatch. If it weren't for his Spirit Vision allowing him to see some of the other party's arrangements beforehand, he might have fallen into several of the other party's traps already.
As some noises came from above, Chromie instantly recalled the heavy object being propped on top of the pillars that he saw from his Spirit Vision, a piece of rock that almost blended into the ceiling.
However, according to what he remembered, the piece of rock wasn't directly on top of him, but rather on the other side.
As the rock above trembled a few times, it was pulled by something and swung down towards Chromie like a pendulum.
With a single strike, Chromie slashed the rock in half, but suddenly felt something coiling around his body and heavily pulling him backwards, causing him to lose his balance. At the same time, the sound of wind could be heard from behind his head; quite obviously, Darr had taken this chance to deal him a fatal blow.
Chromie then noticed what the thing tying him was: the piano string that was used as a trap earlier, under the control of psychokinesis, it had scored several bloody marks onto his body.
…
After assuming that Chromie had a supernatural ability to scout information, he changed his game plan to use the previous information against Chromie.
Since his opponent knew about the existence of the traps, he should also know about the heavy object in the ceiling, taking advantage of that exposed trap, Darr would be able to draw the other party's attention.
Darr used his psychokinesis to silently take off the piano string from its original trap and silently attached it to the falling rock, using the moment that Chromie attacked the rock, he tied the piano string around his body.
Chromie's sword wielding hand instantly reversed the grip, and stabbed towards his body. Ignoring the bit of flesh that was flayed off, the blade of the sword immediately cut through the piano string while the imbued Fearless Spirit also stopped the attack coming from behind him.
As Darr saw the piano string being cut, he suddenly felt a scorching sensation. The scene of Chromie's sword slicing off his own flesh flashed through Darr's mind, perhaps it was at that time that some blood splashed onto him.
…
Sacrificial Magic (single-use): By sacrificing a portion of one's blood, that blood would become incredibly corrosive. If the blood hasn't left the body, the sacrifice ritual would consider the user to have sacrificed their entire body's worth of blood, turning them into a corrosive bomb; only by separating the blood from the body would the user be able to partially perform the sacrifice.
…
Chromie had already sacrificed his sense of pain a long time ago, so he couldn't feel the pain on his back at all, the wounds left on his body from the piano strings left him bloody all over, almost like a devil from the Unrepenting Abyss.
"It's my win this time"
Watching Darr writhing in pain from his skin being corroded by the corrosive blood, Chromie raised his sword and swung down without hesitation.
