Ovaal’s eyes widened as he skidded to a stop. He wasn’t hurt at all, but stopping Terran when he had suddenly brought out so many Epic Vector Class items at once would be far from as easy as it would have been before. He didn’t seem to care about overloading his Neural Frame at all.
Using Active Sync and this many items at once was bound to leave lasting damage. It would take either an exorbitant amount of wealth or an exorbitant amount of time to heal from something like this.
’DAMMIT!’ Ovaal roared. "STOP!"
Given Terran’s speed, just that gap was enough to get to Grey.
The blow that Ovaal had used to incapacitate Grey wasn’t a normal one. It was a control type skill from his Body Combat Abilities that coated a fist in a curse energy. When it landed, it ripped all the oxygen out of a person’s body and made them feel like they couldn’t breathe for a moment.
You didn’t have to use much strength at all.
It usually took as much as a second even for a Vanguard Class to rip themselves free. A powerful Vector Class would probably take anywhere from three to five seconds to recover. Though Grey was only a Proving Class existence, Ovaal had still subconsciously put him in the latter bucket.
Three to five seconds wasn’t much, and he felt that would be about enough time to force Grey into a corner without actually harming him in the long run. But now that might as well have been an eternity.
Ovaal’s feet finally skidded him to a stop and his eyes snapped toward Grey to find him on his hands and knees. He didn’t seem to see Terran coming at all.
Guilt and rage ripped through Ovaal’s heart, but he was going to be too slow. He knew he was going to be far too slow.
**
Grey felt darkness all around him. The realization that he had failed pushed him past the point of just fury, his mind went completely blank.
He had experienced so much in these last few days that felt like they had stretched on for months. Every moment was another helpless attempt at survival, and he just managed to do so by the skin of his teeth.
Every time he smashed his head against a brick wall, every time he died, every hardship he experienced, somehow made him less furious than he was right in this moment.
It was like wrath incarnate was bubbling up in his chest, spiking his blood with poison, turning his veins black with rage.
His nails didn’t just chip anymore as they scraped against the debris laden ground, they bent back, peeling themselves away from his fingers, and yet it was like he couldn’t feel that pain at all.
What was this benign, mundane pain when he had experienced the worst tortures known to man.
"I’m going to kill you." Grey spoke the words softly but they echoed hollowly in his ears. It was like Terran wasn’t roaring right now, like Ovaal wasn’t yelling at him to stop.
The entire world had ceased to matter at all. All he could hear was the echo of his own heart.
And it sounded oddly like a cascading echo of war drums he had heard before.
Tendrils of crimson rose from Grey’s body and whatever enlightenment he had been receiving from Center of Balance seemed crushed beneath a far heavier weight.
The weight of blood.
Terran appeared by Grey’s side at that moment, kicking out with all his might. He had every intention to make Grey suffer, to break every bone in his body, skim his flesh from his skin, and hang him from the city walls by his own intestines.
Every thought he had was nastier than the last.
BOOM.
His foot slammed into a wall of crimson black. It cracked almost instantly, but his momentum was cut down by more than half, a hand appeared and grabbed his shin before his foot could make it any further.
Grey slowly pulled himself up from the ground.
Terran’s balance was thrown off, but he quickly thrust at Grey’s head, but it was like Grey had already seen the future. His head tilted to a side and Terran’s spear only nicked the fat of his cheeks and earlobe.
BANG.
Terran fell to his back. He barely caught the sight of a foot descending from Grey before he vanished in a blur of gold and appeared a meter away.
He looked at Grey incredulously, but when he saw the tendrils of crimson coming off of him as though the solar flares of the sun, Terran’s eyes widened.
That sinister aura.
"DARK KIN!" Terran roared.
Ovaal’s eyes also widened in shock as Grey activated his Vampire Lord Frame. But it wasn’t just that.
Grey had more than one Frame? How could a Dark Kin have such a pure and holy Frame at the same time? What was going on?
Grey, however, didn’t give a single damn anymore.
Joaquin’s worthless spear vanished and his palms opened to reveal a pair of fang daggers and a necklace danced around his neck.
The words he had spoken earlier didn’t need to be spoken again. He could still hear them echoing in his ears even now.
He was going to kill Terran.
No matter the cost.
BANG.
Grey shot forward and Ovaal didn’t even know what to do. The shock of Grey recovering from his control skill didn’t even register at this point. He didn’t even know what to do.
Nothing he had been taught made any sense at all. The Savages were treated so poorly just because of their proximity to the Dark Kin, and now a Dark Kin was wielding a Frame that could suppress a Holy Knight Frame as powerful as Terran’s? What the hell was going on?
He didn’t even know who to protect anymore.
Grey’s sabers became almost like powder coated cast iron, radiating tendrils of crimson and a bloody light. They greedily sucked at the air, wanting for blood.