Chapter 275

Arriving in front of the Brawler, Cynrik slipped under the first punch, a wide hook, and dished out a full power uppercut into the man’s ribs. Unfortunately, Cynrik was forced to jump back, as the instant he made contact with the man, the Brawler moved his body and counter-attacked with his opposite arm, a swift jab.

Cynrik’s eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the heavy metal gauntlet-covered fist zooming right toward his face. Dropping his right shoulder and rolling his head in the same direction, Cynrik stepped forward and crouched slightly, allowing him to duck smoothly under the incoming attack. However, this put him right into the Brawler’s chest, but that was where he wanted to be. As the more nimble fighter, Cynrik needed to close the distance, which was precisely what he did.

His vision flicked down to the Brawler’s ribcage, but this was just a fake, considering that Cynrik was targeting the Brawler just above his right knee.

Crack

Falling back into his old MMA habit, Cynrik sharply exhaled in a hiss as he whipped his left leg around and delivered a devastating Oblique kick driving the Brawler’s knee backward forcefully. Feeling the tendons strain against his shin, Cynrik spun around, narrowly avoiding a right overhand punch aimed for his head before circling around behind his opponent.

Gliding on the balls of his feet, Cynrik feinted a heavy left hook at the man’s body, which forced him to drop his arm to block. Still, as it was only a faint, Cynrik never intended to strike the body. Instead, as he moved, he flicked his right wrist counter-clockwise, chambered one of his Dark Infused Hidden Blades into the Blade shot mechanism, and punched forward into the back of the man’s shoulder.

Shoomm!

The instant Cynrik’s brace connected with the Brawler’s shoulder, Cynrik fired the hidden blade with 500 points of pure Dark Mana to propel the blade out of the chamber and into the man’s flesh. The blade pushed in through the arm until it scraped against bone and stopped.

Putting his weight on his toes, Cynrik kicked off the ground and dashed backward as he watched the spot he stabbed with [Mana Sight]. The blade was in the process of acting like a syringe and injecting copious amounts of Dark Mana into the Brawler’s shoulder, which soon started spreading throughout his body.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, as the man grunted angrily, ripped the blade out of his shoulder, and used his own blue Mana to cleanse his body from the invading Dark.

“Tsk, figures hehe,” Cynrik taunted, speaking in a self-deprecating tone as he performed several back handsprings, finishing them at the opposite end of the roof.

“I forgot you were one of those Shadow Bastards. Pitty, your movements say you have been trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat. [Aqua Ramid.]” Grimacing at the lingering pain in his shoulder, the Brawler punched forward, manifesting a hexagonal pyramid of condensed Water Mana and shooting it at Cynrik.

Standing his ground, Cynrik formed a claw with his left hand, manifested a condensed [Fireball], and launched at the hexagonal water pyramid. To his dismay, it was quickly pierced and continued forward, barely giving Cynrik enough time to dodge.

“Meh, it was worth a shot,” Clicking his tongue, Cynrik slowly circled with the Brawler mirroring his movements.

‘Fucking annoying that I cant use [Shadow Leap] because of the Headmaster’s skill. I feel like a cripple without it, which means I have become too reliant on it.’ Cynrik thought to himself as he analyzed the Brawler’s body language.

Slowing his heart rate by calming his breathing, Cynrik thought back to the interaction he had just had. ‘Every punch the guy throws triggers my [Danger Sense] telling me that if I get hit even once by those gauntlets, it’s game over. I would never have customarily targeted someone’s shoulder like that with a hidden blade, but [Detect Weakness] is showing me the gap in his leather armor and pauldrons.

Following the redlines leading to several small dots, Cynrik could locate each of his opponent’s weak points; the only issue was, in order to hit them, Cynrik would be forced to get in close and personal, risking his life just to do minor amounts of damage. The short round of combat had not only revealed one of the potentially many Affinities he had, but it also allowed Cynrik to get a grasp on the Brawler’s AGI and DEX stats, and the results weren’t good.

By Cynrik’s estimate, he was in the 800 or higher range for both, and if you add in how his [Danger sense] went nuts after each punch, Cynrik could only assume that either the Brawler dumped all his stat points into STR, AGI, DEX, or his distribution covered all three. The legit only reason he could even avoid the attacks was because of his passive skill constantly triggering, alerting him in the nick of time, allowing Cynrik to cut sharp angles and get out of the way.

“What’s wrong old man? Worried I’ll catch you again with a sneak attack, kuekue, some warrior you are, look at you. You’re practically shaking in that overly expensive shit-Tier gauntl….”

FWOOOSHH SHOOOM WOOOSHH

Before Cynrik could finish his taunts, three more aqua pyramids whizzed towards him. Luckily he had predicted this outcome, and between [Danger Sense] triggering again and Cynrik’s nimble nature, he could slip out of the grasp of the Grim reaper once again. All the while, a cocky smirk never left his lips as he twisted and flipped out of harm’s way over and over again. In his frustration, the Brawler continuously fired off attacks, with each of them missing by a hair margin.

“Teehe, Haha,” uttering his creepy laugh passed down by Ragnar, Cynrik blurred out of sight, dashed to the edge of the roof, jumped off, and didn’t forget to wave goodbye as he fell two floors to the ground.

Refusing to back down and let his opponent flee, the Brawler hurried to chase after Cynrik, but just as he dove off the roof, his eyes went bloodshot, and he was forced to cross his arms over his chest.

BOOOOM

The instant Cynrik jumped off the roof, he manifested two miniature suns, one in each palm, and fired them upward, predicting that the Brawler wouldn’t let him go so easily. His speculation came true less than half a second later as the two basketball-sized suns slammed into the man’s body, sending him flying upward before an explosion occurred.

Standing below the lip of the Dorm roof, Cynrik began a cycle of condensing fireballs and hurling them up at the Brawler one after another.

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOM!

Every time one of the fireballs hit the Brawler, the concussive force of each explosion threw him higher into the air. But Cynrik didn’t stop there; thanks to the HUD floating in his vision, he could see that each attack was doing minimal damage, 200-300 points at best, so he tried something that was only in its theory phase of experimentation.

First, Cynrik manifested one of his condensed [Fireballs], compressing the particles as tightly as possible and forcing them to increase in temperature. Next, the flames turned from their bright orange into a sickly purple and finally a deep shade of black. Holding the black condensed ball of fire in one palm, Cynrik continued hurling more of the generic ones at his target, pushing him further into the air.

Gritting his teeth, Cynrik moved the ball between his hands, slowly expanding the distance between them, causing the black ball to grow in size, from a baseball to a basketball, then to the size of his torso. Then looking up to where the Brawler had begun his descent while covered in smoke, Cynrik crouched down, putting his weight onto his left knee, which was bent, and moved the fireball to his right hip.

“Shadow Kaaaaa,” smirking at the absurdity of what he was trying, Cynrik continued charging Mana into his attack. Oddly enough, he didn’t feel any heat coming from the massive ball mere centimeters from his body.

“MEEEEE!” Cynrik’s eyes drifted to the center of the falling shadow. As expected, the Brawler’s HP had only dropped by 25 percent, even after taking all those hits.

“HAAAAAMEEEEE,” Slashing out his arms, the Brawler cleared the smoke, revealing the damage and scorch marks on his black armor; his mask and hood had disappeared, and burn marks could be seen on the man’s tan skin.

Looking down at Cynrik with fury in his eyes, the Brawler covered both his gauntlets in a thin layer of water, but when he saw Cynrik charging up some kind of giant black fireball, his pupils constricted.

“HAAAAAAAA!!!!!” Swiftly thrusting his arms forward and pointing his hands at the Brawler, Cynrik finished his weeb reference and blasted the black fireball, which at this point was nearly the size of his whole body, at his target.

“FUCK! ARE YOU INSANE!” The Brawler howled as the layer of Water Mana coating his arms expanded, forming a barrier around his entire body.

“Hehe, yeah, a little bit, ENJOYYYY!” Cynrik chuckled as he kicked off the ground and rushed to get clear of the blast area.

FWAHHH BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

“Oh, SHIT!” Was all Cynrik could say as the force of the explosion sent him hurtling through the air. Meanwhile, the Brawler was fairing much worse; the second the condensed black fireball slammed into his [Water Barrier], it exploded due to its unstable nature and the conflicting Mana types. The force of the impact was so intense that it blasted him away so hard that he crashed full speed into the confinement cube. Between the effects of his back hitting the space skill, or the force from Cynrik’s attack exploding in his face, his barrier shattered, and he was dealt a massive blow, draining 30% of his HP and knocking him down to under half health.

The explosion between the two opposing elements was so fierce that the entire Core Area shook, drawing the attention of everyone present, including the Headmaster, who was still floating above the containment cube.

Not far away, Selene, Benny, and the Spearmen stopped their battle and looked in the direction the sound came from. However, unlike the Spearman, who seemed to be enamored and worried by the sound, Selene and Benny found it to be par for the course. They went on the offensive, rushing forward together and launching a combination attack, Selene with two [Shadow Lance’s] and her damaged make-shift spear, and Benny with his arms formed into water tentacles, an upgraded effect of his [Water Whip].

Using the man’s lapse of judgment and combat awareness to their advantage, the two lashed out, dealing heavy damage to the man. Unlike them, he had been forced to rely on his keen sense of hearing the entire fight due to being practically blinded by Selene’s [Domain of Shadows]. Thus their attack completely caught him off guard, and as a result, he was stabbed twice and had even lost his right arm thanks to Benny sharpening his tentacles with compressed water pressure.

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