Chapter 403: Northern Vs Koll 2.0 [Part 1]
Koll moved again. This time, however, Northern's eyes followed through. It was almost instantaneous; even though under Chaos Eyes, everything was slowed, Koll was still fast.
He looked like he was running at the usual speed of an actual athlete.
Which meant he would have been at least ten times faster than what Northern was seeing.
'No wonder I couldn't even see him.'
Northern hurriedly raised the black sword as Koll's claws swiped down. He deflected it in a spray of sparks.
He shifted one leg forward and, from behind-low-slashed up an attack across Koll's torso. But the sword cut through empty air, and Koll softly landed on the ground, barefooted.
Northern narrowed his eyes.
'I didn't think this would be easy, but what is it with that speed of his? This guy is even faster than Cal.'
Once again, Koll moved, but not towards Northern; he went around.
Northern, having seen the attack coming from behind thanks to Chaos Eyes, swiftly turned back just as Koll's claws approached from different sides.
He deflected both attacks quickly, his sword becoming a blur.
Koll's hair whipped against the air in that moment, revealing his yellow horizontal eyes. He breathed-still closed in on Northern-the air seemed to slow down for a moment.
In the following beat, a furious series of attacks was unleashed upon Northern.
The man's movement was outrageous. Northern felt as if multiple hands were instantaneously attacking him.
Koll's speed was beyond anything Northern had ever faced.
Each swipe of his claws left a trail of afterimages.
Chaos Eyes strained to keep up, capturing every minute detail in the decelerated world, yet Koll's attacks seemed to slip through the cracks of reality itself.
With every block and parry, Northern's muscles burned.
The reverberations of their clashes traveled up his arms, his grip tightening around the hilt of the black sword. Koll's relentless barrage forced Northern to retreat, each step backward a dance of survival.
'If I don't change the flow, I'll be overwhelmed,' Northern thought, his mind racing as fast as Koll's movements.
He needed to find an opening, however small, to turn the tide.
But no matter how much he searched, there was none!
He was using one compartment of Chaos Eyes to scrutinize Koll while the other three focused on detecting and tracing every bit of his attacks.
There was no single opening that he found.
All of the being's attacks were like a seamless flow, one bleeding into the other.
Northern didn't even get the chance to breathe. His only option right now was to put distance between the two of them.
'If things continue like this, I am going to get tired quickly...'
He frowned, determination burning in his eyes. All four eyeballs of Chaos Eyes darted in several directions, simultaneously tracing every angle his claws were diving from.
The only reason Northern could hold out this long against Koll's speed of attack without a single scratch on his body was because of Chaos Eyes.
However, he feared that the moment he withdrew a little bit, no matter how little it would be, Koll's attack would hit before he got a chance to even teleport away from this position.
Teleport was instantaneous.
'And so is this bastard's speed!' Northern's eyes glinted with a soft blue light as an idea popped into his mind.
But he did not give it away. He continued to block Koll's series of strikes-that had been going on now for almost two minutes without pause-his sword moving as fast as Koll's hand
was.
Swish!
Koll was forced to retreat as a clone of Northern plunged from behind, with a lightning- clothed sword.
He flew over Northern and landed over twenty meters away with just a single leap-closer to
the prism.
Then he looked around.
Behind Northern were six other Northerns, all lined up horizontally.
But Koll didn't seem fazed by it at all. He opened both hands, and black and red lightning began to appear within his grip.
With a resounding sound, the lightning crackled for the last time and solidified into two blackish-red spears, each in his grips.
Northern summoned the Soul Taker to one hand, gave Dark Mortal to the clone holding Stainless, and held both swords.
Of course, Stainless was an odachi, slightly longer than Soul Taker, but he had his reason for this choice of weapon.
He moved his head slightly, and all five clones darted to the front.
All it took for Koll to defeat them all was a second.
Northern watched as Koll's figure disappeared here and appeared there. Each time he did, he swiftly swirled the spears and hoisted them into Northern's clones.
Then, with his final appearance-closer to Northern-all five clones fell to the ground at the same time.
However, what Koll did not know was that ten more were shooting towards him from behind.
He dashed towards Northern, his form practically disappearing. Before he could reach Northern, however, his movement suddenly stopped.
Northern's clones were holding his legs; two were pulling him back by his hair.
One even sat on his shoulder, legs twisting around Koll's neck.
Northern grinned and, without wasting time, shot forward. Becoming a streak of blue light himself, he lashed out with his sword-
Pang!
Pang!
Separating Koll's spear apart, he twisted his hand to bring down his sword, but Koll, in the
nick of that moment, grinned.
Northern did not complete that strike but instead disappeared and reappeared afar.
Just like how it had happened with Koll's first attack, it happened again.
Barely a millisecond after landing, everything around Koll went up in scarlet red flames.
Northern watched his clone evaporate with a terrified expression.
'Is that what would have happened to me?'
The moment the clones became smoke, Koll was on the move again, but Northern did not
seem fazed.
Out of thin air, his clones popped out and began to jump into Koll's way, but they barely slowed him down. His spears were almost like whips, blurring and slicing the clones with
ease.
Finally, Koll reached Northern. Their weapons clashed and blurred against each other in a vicious and ear-splitting clangor of metal.
Northern, mid-fight, opened his mouth and shouted, spewing forth a roar of black flames that consumed Koll's face. He twisted in the air and smashed him away with a back kick.
Koll was sent rolling across the white expanse, finally coming to a stop.
The black flame was still burning and didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon.
Koll's head suddenly went up in red flames; the red danced with the black until the black could
not be seen anymore.
Then Koll stood up as the red flame dissolved from his beautiful face and muttered.
"Chaos Flames? Although weak..." His voice rang with an almost touchable contempt.