Chapter 631: One Last Lesson
He grinned at his joke as he looked at Ryuk’s downcast expression, but then an idea came to Ryuk and he spoke up.
“Speaking of the guns,” He brought out the weapons, “They…”
He was about to continue when—
[Not Anymore.]
‘Huh?’
[You want to complain about how the Abyssal Howlers drain your bloodline energy, right?]
[Well, you don’t need to anymore. That was only an issue when your bloodline energy was too low. Right now, even if you kept firing the most draining bullets from that gun, it would take approximately 523 years for your current bloodline energy to be depleted.]
“…are both really incredible!” Ryuk said to MadWhite, changing his words at the last second as MadWhite turned to look at them.
“The Abyssal Howlers,” MadWhite said.
“You still remember their names…” Ryuk muttered.
“I never forget the names of my creations,” The Man replied as Ryuk placed the guns back.
“Just wanted to mention that they’re really good. Saved my life more than once…” Ryuk said in a low voice.
MadWhite nodded heavily before replying,
“They’re the least I can do for a personal intern of mine.”
“And speaking of internships, if I can give you one more last lesson…” he said, drawing Ryuk’s attention as the Abyssal Howlers returned to the system shop.
“What is it?” Ryuk asked as MadWhite placed down his half-filled cup before raising his hand toward Ryuk.
“There seems to be more action going on in your hands than in your brain,” MadWhite stated, moving his fingers, and Ryuk’s brows furrowed.
“What do you mean?” He asked confusedly.
“During that little fight, I could sense you were holding back a lot.”
“You refrained from punching or kicking and simply focused on gunshots.”
“Which I understand, since a tiny release of your true aura could probably blast me and this entire building to the deepest depths of hell.”
“But really, I don’t think you tried to predict my next move. And if that was you also still lowering your strength… then why did you seem, I don’t know, just a bit predictable to me?” MadWhite said, in quite a corner way, as if trying not to offend him, but Ryuk spoke up.
“If you tell me what’s wrong, MadWhite. Sure, it may hurt my ego, but it’ll save my life. And I bet you, of all people, should know which is better.” He said, and MadWhite’s expression focused.
“I predict your actions—in real-time, in real fights—and you never disappointed me, not even once.” He said, and as Ryuk tried to think deeper but he explained.
“When I shoot, I imagine how you’ll dodge, and you dodged exactly how I wanted you to dodge.”
“When you collapsed through the floor and I shot a single bullet, I imagined you would move your head to the left.”
“And guess where you moved your head?” He asked and the scene flashed in Ryuk’s head, as he remembered how he had truly dodged to the left when MadWhite had shot at him.
“And when I throw a move and you react the way I want, you know what happens, my next attack becomes more precise.”
“When you dodge to the left like I wanted, I was able to aim exactly where your eyes would be next.”
“You were able to dodge with your incredible speed, but if you leave Endearth, you’ll be fighting people whose speed matches yours.”
“That bullet to your eyes? You’d be too slow to react, and you’d have your eyeballs blown to dust.”
“Even if you had the life tenacity of a cockroach, losing sight of the world for even a second on a battle of that scale would be fatal,” he explained lengthily,
When Ryuk truly thought about it, he realized the truth.
‘When I fought him, I really did lower all my stats to his level. My speed, my strength… I lowered everything to be able to match him.’
‘But still, throughout the battle it was like…I never really attacked at all.’
‘He was the one who was attacking all through, and I never really planned for things to go that way.’
‘From the gunshots to the shurikens, to grabbing my neck and sending me flying down the floors, to almost blasting off my eyes, right up to when he arrived a meter before me and fired both guns at my chest.’
‘Every action of his was deadly precise.’
‘He even had the guns on both sides of my chest and fired.’
‘Zar’kul targeted my left chest, thinking that would be where my heart is, but Madwhite?”
“MadWhite targeted both chests.”
“In that situation, it doesn’t really matter where my heart is. It would still be the exact dead point. If his attacks had the same power as Zar’kul’s.’ Ryuk thought as he watched the system notification panel flash.
[He had full control of the battle from the beginning, but only because he acted first and predicted every one of your reactions, and his thoughts were spot on.]
[He’s a very gifted fighter.]
“What am I supposed to use then, MadWhite?” Ryuk asked.
MadWhite pointed to his head.
“Here. It all happens here, in the brain.”
“Any human fight worth watching probably involves more brain than brawn.”
“When the other races came, they had brute strength. Claws, fangs—the same for the mutated beasts.”
“But you know how we survived? We used our brains.”
“That was the one thing we had better than mutated beasts or other races.”
“So we fought mentally instead.”
“We don’t punch that hard. We lack strength.”
“So instead, we try to predict patterns.”
“When you dodge, do you dodge right more often, or lean left? We watch for repeated habits.”
“Like the beasts and the werewolves—they swing their paws.”
“And by knowing they’ll swing their paws ahead of time, their horrifying strength becomes less scary,” He explained as Ryuk hummed silently.
“Sometimes we manipulate emotion. Strike their soft spot and make them angry. A calm mind will always beat an angry one.”
“And sometimes, we fake attacks to throw the enemy off. We use the factor of unknown.”
“Like I fake throwing one shuriken at you, then quickly send twelve more.”
“You dodge it, but just when you think it’s over, those shurikens had a bomb in them. Did you ever expect those shurikens to contain explosives?” he asked, as he once more grabbed his cup and took a gulp.
Ryuk slowly shook his head.
He had even bitten down on the first one with his teeth.
If he’d known there were bombs inside, he would’ve chosen to dodge instead of biting it.
And that was when he realized another mistake.
‘I bit down on a bomb!?’
‘If my strength wasn’t overpowering enough, it would’ve exploded in my mouth.’
‘But why?’
‘Why did I even bite it like an animal? I could’ve just tilted my head down,’ Ryuk thought silently.