CH 6

The Purple Smoke Doesn’t Billow

I crouched down, launching myself off the cobblestones and into the air. As the wind rushed past my face, I kicked off the brick wall on one side of the alley and, with perfect timing, rebounded myself off the opposite wall before gravity could pull me down. I soared high into the sky before landing smoothly on the roof of a nearby building. Without losing my momentum, I kept running across the rooftops in the direction the thief was headed. This was the quickest way to cut the thief off, as he was still winding his way through the maze of alleyways below.

Jumping from one rooftop to another across the houses, I let myself succumb to gravity as I recognized the fountain plaza below me. I landed at the entrance of the plaza with a dry thud. A thief who had emerged from the alleyway in front of me momentarily contorted his face in shock, but he hesitated for only a moment before he pulled out a short knife hidden in his jacket.

Observing this, I relaxed my lips and said, “As expected of a former mercenary, how shortsighted.”

The man rushed at me, holding his deadly blade, intending to break through by force. However, “You lack the killing intent.”

I dodged his knife by arching my body backwards and grabbed his arm with my left hand. Then, I turned around, twisted to the left, lifted his tailbone with my right elbow, and shifted my entire weight far forward. The man’s face contorted in pain as his foot lifted off the ground, supported by my right elbow.

It wasn’t just an elbow throw.

At the moment I launched the man’s body into the air, my right arm had already fulfilled its role as the pivot point. I locked eyes with the man as he realized what was happening, and I grinned in response.

In the next moment, my right fist, propelled by the force to pierce the heavens, struck the man’s face.