“First Evon, then my brother and now me?” Kai looked back at Kiyu who had just kicked him out into the circle of Violence.
“At this rate, I think she is going to the circle of Treachery instead of me.” Rex added with a hint of amusement as he was still ‘allowed’ on the elevator.
“Oh, Rex, I would not dare!” Kiyu defended herself with a sexy smile, but somehow it did not appeal to the two remaining men.
“Without a doubt, she is going to betray you, Rex. You better take the chance to kick her out when you reached the circle of Heresy.” Kai advised before the door had closed. Right before it went shut he saw Kiyu stuck her tongue out in defiance.
“Seriously, that girl.” Kai shook his head and later turned to see that this stage was clearly not meant for her. “Then I guess it was a good choice that Kiyu let me out here. She would not stand all this meaningless bloodshed.” Kai thought as he saw dead rotting corpses all over the place.
A broken down knight was sitting on the highest pile of bodies and looked at his latest challenger condescendingly.
“You did this all by yourself?” Kai asked, but the knight did not say a word. He merely picked a random weapon from the pile of dead people and charged forward. “Huh, a berserker?” Kai managed to dodge the first attack but was surprised his enemy was skilful enough to make a follow-up attack that scraped the surface of his skin.
“This guy is no simple berserker!” Kai thought to himself as he quickly took his sword to cross blades with the raging knight. “Shouldn’t you be in the circle of Anger rather than Violence?!”
“RAHHHHHHHH” That’s all the knight answered in return. He smashed around his sword even harder than before.
“System would like to point out that anger and violence are two different things. Anger is a psychological state of mind, while violence is the physical manifestation of the ill controlled emotions of anger and aggression.”
“Since when does the almighty System deigned it worthy to call us lowly foxes?” Kai asked out loud sarcastically since it did not matter to the aggressive knight right in front of him.
“System likes to give a timely reminder to every fox that Jin is now engaged in fighting against King Baal, and the System wishes to have every advantage in its disposal. Please hurry to capture the Dungeon Core to reduce the power of King Baal.”
“Hah. No wonder.” Kai replied as he assumed that the System was merely addressing his concerns so he could fight without any distractions on his mind. The Black Wolf decided to listen to the System and used a relatively simple Intermediate Sword Art, Dual Cross Slash to break the knight’s sword.
However, to his surprise, the Broken Knight was able to follow and counter the Cross slash until the third slash where his sword was unable to hold against the impact and broke from the chi pressure.
It resulted in the Broken Knight’s armour getting cut, leaving a rather deep slash on his shoulder. What’s even more surprising was that the wound closed at a speed visible to the naked eye. Usually, going berserk was a double-edged sword which provided one with a boost in terms of their attacking prowess at the cost of their defence, yet apparently the one in front of him had a way to negate that.
“Regeneration is a pain in the ass.” Kai cursed as he angled his sword.
“But not entirely uncommon in this current age and the past. Advanced Sword Art. Triple Star Slash.” Just like the name implied, Kai was slashing the knight five times as if he was drawing a star from all the hits.
Once he connected all slashes into a star shape, his sword art amplified its attack as if it was a combo finisher. The strength of the attack got stronger by six-fold if he managed to connect all three-star slashes in one period. That was why it was an advanced sword art despite its simplicity. If one of the sword slashes were parried, the ‘combo finisher’ would not be activated.
Before the Broken Knight could even retaliate by picking up another weapon, Kai had already thrown in fifteen slashes all aimed against his vital points. His legs, arms, hands, phalanges and neck were cut into pieces. Blood rushed out from all the openings available as his body parts were like lego bricks disassembled.
It was then Kai realised something when he looked around the pile of dead bodies. There were not many ‘varieties’ of corpses, and most of them appeared to be the same. It later struck Kai that they all wore the same type armour as the Broken Knight he just fought.
“Do not tell me he can split himself even after being cut?” Kai held onto the sword firmly as he discovered the phalanges was the origin point of regenerating an entire body out of it. More of the Broken Knights were formed, and each of them shouted senselessly.
“I see…as long an atom of him still resides in this space, he will never die. But still, won’t that make an infinite amount of Broken Knights instead of dead ones?” Kai thought to himself as the original Broken Knight regenerated fully and charged towards the Black Wolf.
“So…if he killed every single opponent and yet he was left with one when I appeared, that could mean a few things.” Kai deduced as he began to analyse the Broken Knight while parrying and dodging the blows in order to stop the knight from making even more copies.
“The copies will die out eventually… Or…” It struck Kai that this was the circle of violence. “They fight and kill each other until the last one remains. If that is the case, the only way to kill him is for him to kill himself.” Kai believed that was the theory behind this, particularly unique monster. “Man, if I capture him, we could literally make a dummy bag out of this monster.”
In order to prove his theory, Kai swiftly went behind the Broken Knight and used his sword to stab his arm and hand from the side. It looked as if the knight had an ingrown sword from afar. Despite the roaring of pain or anger, Kai ignored them and used his free left hand to grab the Broken Knight’s. Like an amateur puppet master, he used the sword as the handle to move the Broken Knight’s right arm and pierced the incoming broken knight.
Fortunately, it worked just as Kai had theorised. The Wolf Clan Fox was unsure whether it was the forced act performed by the knight that killed all its clones or if it was the Broken Knight’s blood that had any effect against it. Either way, he continued without the intention to experiment and eventually every clone was turned to dust, and only the main one was left.
“Is this considered self-suicide? Or assisted suicide? Whatever. I just need the Key.” Kai physically broke the knight’s arm and pushed the sword with his arm and plunged it into his neck. Of course, there was resistance throughout the whole puppetry, but Kai felt satisfied after having killed the most unique opponent in his life.
“Thank goodness, he could not think much,” Kai said as he went in search of the dungeon core key.
