Chapter 136: I hate her

Some were openly staring with slack jaws, their minds struggling to process what they were seeing.

Until this moment, everyone had a personal ceiling for how powerful someone could be. A private mental limit of what "strong" looked like. Sylva had just shattered it, ground it to dust, and casually swept the remains away.

They didn’t even need to know exactly how much damage each arrow could do the speed alone made their imaginations run wild. If something could move that fast, Ain’t it dangerous already?

For most in the arena, forming a single arrow of that complexity would require emptying their mana reserves, perfect elemental control, unshakable focus... and even then, there was a good chance they’d fail.

And yet Sylva had produced not one, not ten, but a swarm.

The old saying went, quality over quantity.

But what if you had both?

Down below, conversations broke apart into hushed disbelief. Some spectators couldn’t even manage words anymore.

Sylva didn’t care.

She wasn’t listening to the crowd. Her focus was on the man in front of her.

Her eyes scanned the formation she’d created, and a small frown tugged at her lips. "Ahhh... there’s still space for him to escape," she murmured to herself, the words almost playful, though her voice carried the edge of irritation.

"Better cover it too. Just a little. I mean... it would be embarrassing if he dodged again after all this, right?"

Her smile was thin now. Forced. This wasn’t about fun anymore not entirely. This was about pride. This irritating man had already avoided more than she liked, and if she failed again, the humiliation would be in front of the entire Empire.

"Yes... just a little. I won’t go too far..." she said, nodding to herself as if convincing her own restraint.

Her fingers curled around the bowstring and pulled it back further until the energy around it thrummed dangerously.

And then it happened.

A ripple burst outward from her bow, like the sky itself had been punched.

The air behind Razeal shifted. The sides. Above him. Below him.

More arrows appeared.

Everywhere.

From every direction east, west, north, south, even directly behind him the pink-lavender points of wind began forming in synchronized waves.

What had once been hundreds of thousands was now tens of millions.

They weren’t scattered lazily. They were tight-packed, so dense they resembled a rainstorm made of crystal light. Only... the "raindrops" were sharper than any sword, spinning at speeds that mocked the laws of nature. And the density was so great that if one compared it to rainfall, it had more arrows than actual drops of water.

Even the arena floor wasn’t spared. At Razeal’s feet, levitating inches from the ground, identical arrows formed and aimed upward, spinning with predatory patience.

He was surrounded. Above, below, and on all sides.

There was no space unclaimed. No breath of air that didn’t hum with killing intent.

Tens of millions of A-rank level attacks that wasn’t a number anyone could even process anymore. And yet, here they were, all waiting for the release command.

Nancy’s mouth hung open, her eyebrows twitching as she tried to find words. "Where the fuck... is she pulling all these arrows from? Her cunt?"

She didn’t even notice the words coming out of her own mouth. Her attention was fixed on the impossible scene unfolding above.

"Language, daughter."

Arabella raised her brows in mild offense, casting a sideways glance at Nancy who still stood frozen with her mouth wide open. The sky above had turned into a solid sheet of lavender light, and Nancy’s earlier crude comment clearly hadn’t been part of the etiquette lessons her mother had drilled into her.

She waited for some sort of recovery from her daughter, but Nancy remained transfixed, jaw slack. With a sigh, Arabella leaned back in her seat and lifted her gaze to the sky as well.

"This," she muttered under her breath, "is why I hate Faereliths."

Up above on the battlefield, Razeal tilted his head in every direction, eyebrows furrowing.

"Wow... she’s even aiming at my ass."

He looked up, then down, then to the sides everywhere he turned, there were more arrows forming. They weren’t just in front of him anymore; they surrounded him in a perfect 360-degree sphere. Some were even pointed from below, floating just above the ground and aimed directly at... well...

"She really wants to put a hole in my ass."

He made a disgusted face, lips curling in judgment as his gaze slid toward Sylva.

Sylva’s eyes caught his expression and her head tilted slightly.

"Ehh? He’s still making that face? Not scared... not crying?" She blinked rapidly. "Ahh... did I misjudge him?"

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Maybe I should increase the output more? Just a little... to be sure..."

It was the same energy as a spoiled child wondering if their prank needed more glitter.

"Girllll~"

The voice came out of nowhere airy, amused, and deeply unimpressed. "He’s just a kid. Calm down, will you?"

Sylva paused mid-thought. "Ahhh, yes yes, I know, but I was just.."

The voice sighed. "Nope. Don’t bully kids. Did we train you for this day just so you could bully kids? This is enough. Doing more would just be overreacting."

Sylva’s cheeks puffed slightly, like a child caught red-handed.

"They’ll say we raised you to be unreasonable if you keep this up," the voice continued, gentle but firm. "Attack with what you’ve prepared. Know the age and gender of your enemy. We are not bullies. Okay?"

"Yes, yes, I understand..." she mumbled, pouting.

"Heyy," Sylva’s tone shifted, playful again as she called out, "are you ready?"

Razeal didn’t answer immediately. His eyes swept the killing field around him, every sense alert, mind already calculating dozens of possible paths and finding none.

Ready for what? he wanted to ask. But he bit it back. Somewhere deep inside, an uninvited, primal urge whispered: Kill this bitch.

"Good," Sylva smiled, ignoring his silence. "Now dodge. Then I’ll believe you. This is impossible, and if you still manage it..." She smirked. "I’ll give you a kiss."

She winked once and let go of the bowstring.

Buzzzzzzzzz!

The sound hit first. It was like the air itself had started to vibrate, an endless hum that clawed at the bones. And then motion.

Every arrow fired simultaneously.

From above, below, behind, and every side, they came in blinding streaks of lavender, each spinning so fast it looked like the air was tearing apart in their wake.

Even the audience didn’t have time to blink.

Inside that storm, Razeal’s focus sharpened to a razor’s edge. He didn’t waste a heartbeat watching the swarm approach his eyes slid shut.

His perception expanded outward, sensing the faintest disruptions in air pressure, the micro-vibrations each arrow produced. He reached the absolute peak of his flow focus, muscles coiling, every nerve screaming with readiness.

And then he moved.

His hands clapped once, twice then hundreds of times in the space of a second. Each clap wasn’t random. They were placed with surgical precision, bursts of sound and force that created ripples in the air exactly where he needed them.

Every clap altered the flow around him shifting his body fractionally, tilting him out of one trajectory and into another. It was a dance, but one only he could follow, his movements threading perfectly through the microscopic spaces between annihilation and survival.

Vveeeeerrr!

A sharp tearing sound filled the air as the sky itself seemed to condense.

From the outside, the sea of pink-lavender arrows appeared to suddenly curve inward, sucked toward a central point where the sound rippled from.

The light changed the pale glow turned into a deep, dangerous magenta as the concentrated energy compressed toward impact.

It didn’t take a second. Most spectators didn’t even see it happen.

But Razeal felt every fraction of the moment. He flowed with the ripple.. his own ripple weaving between death at impossible speed. At times, arrows passed within centimeters of his skin, the sheer force of their spin tugging at his clothes, threatening to shear through the fabric.

Razeal’s body twisted midair, searching for the perfect spot to slip into. His instincts screamed that holding still for even a breath would mean death. Just as he settled into a safe angle, his senses flared another arrow, faster and meaner, was cutting straight into his escape route.

Without hesitation, he adjusted. He flowed not just moved ..following the residual sound ripples of his own earlier claps, letting them guide him like invisible stepping stones. His momentum bent in unnatural arcs, his body folding into a strange, almost contorted posture. One arrow whistled past between his legs; another slid by so close to his neck that the rush of wind burned his skin.

Then another. And another.

Each dodge was delicate to the point of absurdity the kind of movement no normal human body should be able to execute, each one chained into the next with no pause to think. The sheer complexity of his calculations in that single, unbroken instant would have melted most people’s brains.

Even so, there were consequences. A few strikes kissed his skin a graze here, a tearing line across his thigh there. Tiny flecks of flesh vanished where the sharper passes made contact, the blood threatening to flow... but never quite having the chance. His S-ranked healing activated instantly, knitting wounds closed almost before they could form.

The real damage was on his wings.

Those massive shadow wings each longer than his body were pocked with gaping holes as the arrows punched through them again and again. Shadows bled away into the air, the ragged gaps looking almost skeletal for fleeting moments before the darkness bled back in, reforming the missing pieces. Razeal didn’t have the luxury of protecting them. His full attention stayed on keeping his body intact. The wings could take the punishment and repair themselves; his flesh couldn’t.

From the outside, it felt like the whole world had slowed down. To the spectators, the battle blurred into a storm of pink light and black shadow, too fast to track. Many gave up trying entirely their eyes simply couldn’t follow what was happening.

And then, in a single heartbeat, the sound began to fade.

The vicious slicing of the air dulled, the hurricane’s hum collapsing into stillness. The sky cleared as the last of the lavender rain shot past its mark and vanished into the distance.

Sylva stood on her perch with a satisfied smile and then froze.

Because there he was.

High above, framed against the fresh blue sky, Razeal still floated.

He bore small cuts along his thighs, across the tops of his feet, a few lines at his shirt’s edges but every serious strike had missed. Some had come close enough to leave blood on his skin, but there were no deep wounds. No shattered limbs. No collapse.

His shadow wings looked like someone had taken a shotgun to them, but they were already filling in, dark tendrils knitting the holes shut.

And his posture...

He looked relaxed.

Fhewwww. Razeal exhaled, running one hand through his hair and pulling it back into a ponytail. The motion was casual, but his voice betrayed a flicker of nerves.

"That was just scary... almost got a free haircut out of that. That would’ve been fucked up."

On the ground, Sylva’s mouth made a perfect O.

Fuck me. She wasn’t used to seeing her attacks evaded especially not that attack.

Razeal’s gaze met hers. He’d heard something she’d said earlier, and couldn’t resist. A teasing smile curved his lips.

"So... where’s my kiss now?"

He didn’t mean it, not seriously. But he enjoyed watching the tiny twitch in her expression the way her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, her easy smile sharpening into something else.

"Ohhh..." she said slowly, "you’re mistaken about something."

Her irritation was subtle, but it was there. "That wasn’t a one-time attack, you see."

Her bow tilted sideways. The movement looked harmless almost lazy until her fingers hooked the string again. The disc of pale lavender embedded at the bow’s center pulsed, a ripple of light flowing across its surface.

That light surged into the weapon, running like molten silver along the lines of stone and shadow until the whole thing glowed with an almost painful brilliance.

High above, the millions of arrows that had vanished into the horizon suddenly stopped.

Instead... they began to turn back.

Buzz... buzz... buzz.

The sound was low at first, almost like an insect swarm in the distance.

Razeal’s ears twitched. Slowly, he turned his head.

And saw it.

The sky.. no, the world was filling again with pink light. Millions of arrows reappeared, streaming from every direction he’d sent them past. They didn’t just come straight this time they zigzagged, their paths weaving like serpents, each one unpredictable, designed to destroy any escape pattern he might try to repeat.

His face fell.

"I hate her," he muttered under his breath...

----

Alright guys, 4.4k words this time.

First off sorry for the late update.

And these two Chapters are thanks to one big sacrifice from one of the readers. He earned it. Honestly, I’m never doing this again. I was literally just joking in the Discord server when I said, "Two Chapters if anyone calls me daddy." I thought it’d be funny to mess around, but... yeah, here we are.

So, send your thanks to your boy Everlasting (currently On Strike and demanding blood).

Thanks for reading!

---