Chapter 528: He is HIM [Part 1]
Northern was in no great mood to answer the question. Moreover, as the man asked, several more hijackers poured out of the ship's cabin.
At a glance, Northern could tell they were of a different caliber from the ones he had just dealt with on the ship.
'Those ones were supposed to be distractions?'
Perhaps they had wanted to significantly reduce the number of drifters on the ship, or tire them out.
Because they wouldn't have sent these lots to attack with those easy-to-kill bastards.
Northern let out a bitter smile. He felt his mouth sour with pity as he watched a confident grin rise up the man's lips because more people surrounded him.
He glanced down. The rifleman had stopped moving, just intermittently shivering like he was having hiccups.
Northern didn't feel bad for him, or for any of them but he thought of what he was going to do to them right now...
His mouth contorted bitterly.
However, a man has to do what a man has to do, doesn't he?
"It doesn't matter if you can't speak. You just walked into your own grave. Get him!"
Northern's lips curled into a faint smirk as he watched the hijackers shoot towards him at the command of the cloaked man.
He opened his hand, a swirl of black sparks appearing and, in a matter of heartbeats, coalescing into a black sheen metal.
'This is a great opportunity to test out that Blood Reaver thing.'
Northern shifted his stance, feeling the familiar surge of energy coursing through his veins.
Now that he had become a Master, he could feel and control wakingly the activity and flow of his void essence.
Such things as reinforcing his body with his essence were now possible.
But Northern had another idea in mind.
He had seen the result when he reinforced the sword with Black Flames, but he was very curious how it would look if he reinforced it with his essence alone.
Not to mention, this was a good time to put to test the limits of Chaos Footwork, since he had not used it in a while.
Northern could hear the sound of his breath-however, not that a perfect decorum existed. As the new round of hijackers ran towards him shouting, he settled into the first stance.
His mind found a room of perfect focus even in the roaring atmosphere.
It did not matter; silence settled into his heart as his eyes locked focus on the coming crowd. It made their noise begin to drown into the background of his beating heart.
Then before his eyes and vast area of spatial awareness, everything seemed to be panning out before him.
While the hijackers took their next footstep, he was already seeing two more ahead of them. It, in fact, seemed like he was living in the future, while they were two steps behind in the present. From his vantage point, they were that two steps ahead.
And as he moved, he moved to counter that two steps ahead.
Blending with the Chaos Footwork and his eyes, a perfect synergy of flow waited to be unveiled as the hijackers approached him.
'Why are they taking forever?'
Their steps were just too slow, perhaps because he was from a futuristic viewpoint?
Finally, the first hijacker reached him. He lunged forward, his blade slicing through the air toward Northern's neck.
In a heartbeat, Northern's form blurred.
He sidestepped gracefully, his movements almost lazy, yet impossibly swift.
The attack passed harmlessly by, and before the assailant could recover, Northern delivered a sharp elbow to his ribs.
The man crumpled with a wheeze, dropping his sword.
"Too aggressive," Northern noted, his voice barely above a whisper.
Two more attackers charged in tandem, one swinging a heavy mace while the other thrust a spear. Northern's Chaos Eyes flickered, as he perceived their intentions before they themselves fully committed to the attack.
He flowed between them, his feet tracing an intricate pattern on the deck.
The mace struck the spot he'd occupied moments before, splintering the wood, while the spear grazed the edge of his coat.
"Better," he mused.
As he moved the Dark Mortal Blade-even with the slightest movement-he felt its cold weight balance perfectly in his hand. The blade's dark surface seemed to absorb the light.
As the mace-wielder stumbled from his missed swing, Northern brought the flat of the blade against the back of the man's head, rendering him unconscious.
Northern swung a clean arc across the spear wielder, but he had jumped back, making Northern tilt his head.
"Did I just miss or is it that you have good instincts?"
The spear wielder felt his entire body tremble from fear; his action was just one prompted by the flight response of fear.
'If I hadn't moved...'
Before he could complete his thought process, Northern's blade plunged out of his back with
a squelching sound that expunged blood in a burst.
The man's eyes widened, blood streaming down from them.
Another from behind slashed down his sword on Northern, but Northern's form blurred, leaving an afterimage.
Northern's blade flashed. The Dark Mortal Blade sliced cleanly through flesh and bone, severing the man's arm at the elbow.
Blood sprayed in a wide arc, the crimson mist painting the deck in gruesome streaks.
The man shrieked in agony, clutching at the stump of his arm as he collapsed to the ground,
writhing in pain.
Another hijacker, horrified but determined, rushed in from Northern's side.
This one was smarter, using the distraction of his fallen comrade to attempt a quick stab at Northern's back.
But Northern had already seen it-two steps ahead, his eyes showing him the chaos in the
future.
With a smooth pivot, Northern twisted his body, raising his blade to intercept the attack.
The hijacker's sword clashed with the Dark Mortal Blade, but the moment their weapons met,
a pulse of Void essence erupted from Northern's sword, disintegrating the hijacker's blade in
an instant.
The man barely had time to register his shock before Northern drove the point of the blade deep into his chest.
The sickening squelch of flesh tearing apart filled the air as the blade penetrated his torso, skewering him from chest to spine.
The hijacker's eyes went wide with terror, blood bubbling at his lips as he gasped for breath.
Northern twisted the blade, eliciting a grotesque cracking sound as the man's ribcage shattered under the pressure.
With a single pull, Northern ripped the blade free, and the hijacker slumped lifelessly to the ground, blood pooling beneath him.
He could feel himself rejuvenating with energy as he harvested blood from his opponents. "Good, good," he muttered, "This is very good."