Levi unleashed a powerful Aetheric shockwave that sent the nearby pile of firewood and the kettle flying into the treeline.
’Night Jaw!’
Instantly, Nurah launched her counterattack, believing she still had a chance while he remained frozen... alas, the moment Levi bought himself those precious few seconds, Nurah’s ultimate could no longer contain him.
He threw himself sideways using nothing but pure, overwhelming force, leaving Nurah’s heart frozen cold... it was a level of strength she had felt only once before: against <strong>Fang!</strong>
The only difference was that Levi had merely activated his Star-Forged Skeleton for a brief moment, and that alone was enough to break the lock!
<i>Whoosh!</i>
The ground where he had been standing was consumed by a massive panther-like shadowy jaw, which snapped shut a heartbeat too late.
"Tsk." Nurah’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "You’re no fun anymore."
"And you’re slow." Levi dusted off his sleeve, smiling tauntingly. "Is this everything the Blackthorn Prodigy has at Warden Rank?"
He still recalled his first fight against Nurah and how she had rested a dagger against his neck... at the time, he had still been a fledgling, believing Nurah was the pinnacle of strength among people his age.
But now... times had changed.
"Hmph! I was taking it easy on you because you’re cute... but no more."
Her laughter rippled across the camp... then it split, doubled, quadrupled, until a dozen Nurahs were laughing from different directions.
<strong>Night Reaver Waltz!</strong>
The shadows of the cottage, the trees, the overturned crates... all of them peeled away from their owners and rose, stretching into slender figures with daggers where their hands should have been.
They circled him in a lazy, drifting waltz, and every single one wore her smile.
’Her hair... she doesn’t need darkness anymore.’
Through his Harmonic Spine, Levi noticed that each shadow was connected to her by a long strand of living hair... while ordinary shadows possessed no frequencies, these’Living Shadows’ interacted physically with the environment, producing vibrations he could detect.
Any other opponent would have been finished right there. A dozen assassins capable of passing through steel and hardening on a whim, with the real Nurah hidden among them and seemingly no way to distinguish her from the rest.
It was a terrifying assassination ultimate... but not against Levi.
He danced amidst the shadows, evading their daggers with effortless elegance... the instant Nurah tried to make a move personally, Levi pointed two fingers behind his left shoulder and fired a concentrated Aetheric combustion bullet.
<i>Boom!</i>
Nurah yelped and recoiled, but she was a fraction too slow. The bullet tore through her right shoulder and imploded within before she could switch forms!
She was ripped out of the waltz and hurled across the camp, her clones bursting into smoke as their anchor lost concentration.
Yet, she twisted in midair like a cat, her boots skidding through the dirt upon landing.
"How...? My soul is perfectly erased while I’m in my shadow form."
"Living Shadows still make sounds, albeit inaudible ones." Levi shrugged.
Nurah’s mouth opened... then closed... then her expression turned utterly annoyed.
’Guys, you can have him!’
Four inked portals manifested around Levi... across the ground, underground, and even in the sky!
Levi raised a brow in surprise at the sight of his own little brother, Jasmine, and the girls emerging from the portals with expressions set on defeating him once and for all.
But then he chuckled... <i>Bring it.</i>
A crimson spire pierced through the soil three inches from Levi’s heel, followed by another, then twelve more, all curving inward as they rose like a fist made of bleeding ribs.
Shia’s first ultimate:
<strong>Bleeding Peaks!</strong>
Levi leapt, attempting to break free... but Shia had a different idea.
<i>Whoosh!</i>
The crescent blade came around on a rope of blood, humming as it carved a wide arc that covered every escape route above the cage!
Shia stood at the far end of the clearing, sunglasses off, one arm extended, her fully crimson eyes drinking in the daylight without reflecting a single ray.
"Blood Ring of Damnation!"
Her voice arrived faster than her blade as Levi repelled it with a concentrated soundwave released from his palm!
Yet, the impact still drove him down to one knee, forcing him to remain still!
’Her attacks have gotten heavier.’
"Not bad..." Levi admitted, brushing the dirt off his knee.
Yet, their ambush wasn’t even close to being over... a stream of wooden prayer beads emerged from the ground beneath his little blood prison and began bouncing violently between its walls, seeking to beat him senseless.
Levi blocked what he needed to and avoided what he could, but the area was too confined for him to evade them completely.
Some distance away, Jojo sat cross-legged in the air with her remaining beads floating in a slow halo around her bald head.
She bowed slightly with her hands clasped.
"Namaste, Captain."
"...Jojo."
"You’re marked." She called out with a faint smile. "Anything you do to us will come back to you later. So please be gentle with me; I bruise easily."
’Is this a new technique she actually created under the Zenith Constellation Aspect on her own? Or an unlocked ability?’
Levi was surprised, having expected her to struggle far more after what he’d learned about the Aspect... he soon realized if she learned the technique on her own, she might get accepted by Brahmin Zen after all.
Levi sighed woefully. "I came bearing a gift for you, Jojo, and this is how you welcome me?"
"Gift? Really?"
Jojo’s eyes instantly brightened... and in that brief moment when her focus broke, Levi let out a low chant, fueled by natural frequencies that matched those of the prayer beads.
With a single clap, the agitated prayer beads instantly lit up with green energy before exploding in unison above Levi’s head like a shotgun blast!
The tremendous force ripped the Bleeding Peaks from the ground and hurled the entire structure tens of meters away, where it landed only a couple of meters from Shia.
Levi had stolen control of Jojo’s Prayer beads... briefly, but still.
Annoyed... Jojo and Shia stared at Levi, who didn’t seem to have wasted even one percent of his energy yet.
"Arthur! Your big brother is looking down on us!"
Hearing his name, Arthur came charging through the treeline shoulder-first... a wall of muscle behind a wall of dark metal, smashing through everything in his path!
A true Juggernaut!
The Nine Gemheart Shield was already glowing at its center with a slit of poisonous green.
"Sorry, big bro... they bullied me to do it!" Arthur shouted his ability’s name as always. "Heaven’s Breaker Art: Vaelith’s Petrifying Gaze!"
The green beam caught Levi square in the face within a split second and turned exactly... nothing to stone.
"..."
"..."
"..."
The girls were left speechless while Arthur skidded to a halt a couple of meters away from Levi.
"...Oh."
"Take your time," Levi said, his expression stern.
"Cough... I forgot."
"I noticed."
"I FORGOT, OKAY?!"
Arthur’s ears turned scarlet as he swung the shield around, the green slit dimming while the black gem at its heart awakened instead. "It works on literally everyone else!"
"It’s a gaze, Arthur."
"I KNOW WHAT IT IS!"
Arthur charged anyway... because whenever thinking failed him, charging headfirst had never let him down.
Rebound Engine... fully on!
Levi’s low chant broke the instant the shield slammed into his chest. His vision flashed white as the impact hurled him backward, sending him crashing straight through the wall of his own cottage.
Wood, plaster, and an entire bookshelf collapsed on top of him.
Shia was already vaulting over the ruins, her weapon swinging. Nurah’s shadow poured up the broken walls... Jojo’s beads spun into a ring as she channeled her ultimate.
Nurah linked their four shadows the same way she had during the rope game, and from that moment onward, they stopped fighting like four separate people and started fighting like one beast with four sets of teeth...
Shia’s blood controlled the sky.
Arthur’s shield controlled the ground.
Jojo sat at the center of it all and ensured that every counterattack Levi threw at them eventually turned around and bit him through her latest technique:
Karmic Retribution.
He managed to land one solid hit on Arthur... only for Karmic Retribution to return the favor four seconds later, hammering the same impact into his own ribs.
By the end of it, Shia’s blood tentacles, Nurah’s shadow binds, and Jojo’s spiritual chains had Levi hanging upside down from the large tree beside the camp... three layers of bindings, each maintained by their full focus and energy.
They believed not even Levi could free himself unless he went all out... and they knew he would never do that against them.
Meanwhile, the camp around them sat completely undisturbed... the firewood neatly stacked, the kettle upright on its hook, and the crates arranged in a tidy row against the cottage wall.
Nobody looked at it.
"Talk... where have you been these past few days? You think we wouldn’t notice that you left Jasmine’s territory?" Nurah asked sweetly while spinning him around.
"You’re enjoying this too much." Levi chuckled in amusement.
"I’m enjoying this exactly the right amount." She stopped him with a raised finger before her expression turned faintly disappointed. "Levi, I thought we were friends... so why have you been hiding the fact that you’re a Nocturnal Ring Rifter from us?"
Levi said nothing... even his heartbeat remained unchanged.
Truthfully, he had expected the girls to catch on sooner rather than later. They weren’t idiots. Even if Jasmine’s territory was massive and locating him within it was difficult, his little brother wasn’t exactly skilled at lying without showing obvious signs.
Against someone like Nurah, who had been trained in investigative techniques from a young age, a single question about Levi’s whereabouts was enough for Arthur’s behavior to raise suspicions.
He simply hadn’t expected the girls to be this proactive with their’questioning’...
As for the ambush? Levi understood exactly what they were trying to tell him.
They weren’t weaklings who needed him to hide the truth about his identity simply to protect them.
That was also why he had prepared to send Jojo away for training... Levi had finally realized that it wasn’t practical to keep them in the dark while simultaneously searching for opportunities to help them grow stronger.
He couldn’t have it both ways.
"Tsk, you think we’d envy you or something?" Shia tugged his cheek in annoyance. "I would’ve cheered for you just like I always did."