Chapter 364: Blood and Flame

"..."

With the help of the Chariot, Wang Yu saw with chilling clarity the bullet he had fired vanish into the flames of Black Benn's potential. He frowned. After exchanging another blow with Black Benn, he was certain that his opponent had undergone a metamorphosis. This was unexpected, but sometimes such events were unavoidable.

"Ha! Splendid! It has been too long since I've savored the purity of slaughter!" Black Benn's laughter rang out, mad and triumphant. "Wang Yu, right? Things aren't over yet. Let's see which of us shall die here today. If I prevail, I will surely become a legend!"

The awakening of Black Benn's potential, born from a close shave with death, heralded his ascension. His flames were no longer shackled. His body teetered on the threshold of legend. Black Benn was now, in truth, half a step into that exalted realm.

A hiss split the air. Wang Yu's bloodforged armor ignited as if touched by invisible tinder. Searing heat erupted out of thin air, blackening and cracking the crimson plates that clung to his frame.

Black Benn struck like a storm. An aura of fighting spirit wrapped around his body, shielding him as he caught Wang Yu's punch head-on, then pivoted with merciless speed. His elbow crashed into Wang Yu's chest. The bloodforged armor shattered like brittle glass, exposing bare flesh.

Flames leapt eagerly into the breach, devouring skin and muscle. The stench of roasted flesh drifted into the frozen cavern air.

But Wang Yu did not flinch. With brutal resolve, he drove a kick into Benn's abdomen, forcing him back as he clawed at his own burning chest. He tore away the charred meat, casting it aside to reveal stark, white bone. Fresh blood welled into the wound, weaving itself into new armor and sealing the breach.

Black Benn only laughed louder as he surged back into the fray. The fire trailed around him like a curse. Wherever he went, blazing flames roared.

"..."

Against Black Benn, who was still roaring with laughter, Wang Yu hunkered down and focused. This was a battle to the death, one that could be decided by a split-second loss in focus. His priority was to prevent Black Benn's flames from spreading throughout his body.

The cavern shook with their clash. Flesh met flesh with sounds so fierce they resembled not mortal blows but the ringing of steel against steel.

Every collision cracked the ice underfoot, shattering frozen walls and turning snow to mist under sudden bursts of unbearable heat.

The battle between the two grand knights was a masterful display of strength. The manipulators of blood and fire were shocking in their intensity.

Wang Yu had lost his advantage. The Chariot could no longer suppress Black Benn's transformed inner potential. He no longer needed fuel, neither flint nor powder. His flames responded to his will directly and were kindled wherever his power extended.

Against such fire, Wang Yu was forced into constant retreat, into tearing away his own seared flesh before Black Benn's flames could consume him from within.

Each act of self-mutilation left him vulnerable, creating openings for Black Benn's relentless strikes. Blows wrapped in fighting spirit hammered into him, shattering armor, rending muscle, and rattling organs.

Wang Yu's counterattacks, on the other hand, struck only Black Benn's barrier of fighting spirit or were evaded outright. The true power of Black Benn's Cadaver Plating revealed itself. With it, Black Benn could abandon defense entirely, entrusting survival to his automatic bulwark of fighting spirit while unleashing his full fury on Wang Yu.

Focus was an intangible yet decisive concept in battle. It governed how finely fighters could wield and split their power in the heat of battle.

Every choice—every block, every counter, every retreat—consumed focus. To guard while preparing for a reprisal drained it faster still. Sooner or later, the mind would falter.

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

But a knight's secret art was different. It was a power fused to the body, instinctive as breath, as seamless as one's potential. It required no thought and no effort. This, now, was Benn's greatest advantage.

He no longer needed to worry about his defense; his secret art would absorb all of Wang Yu's blows on his behalf. His sole concern was slaying Wang Yu before his reserves of fighting spirit were spent. Single-minded, feral, and unrelenting, this secret art fit Benn's nature perfectly.

Wang Yu's body was torn apart and healed again and again. Strong though his regeneration was, it was not limitless. Even a machine patched and mended without end would one day break down. He could not endure Black Benn's inexhaustible assault much longer.

As Wang Yu ripped burning flesh from his shoulder, Benn closed in, his hand a blade aimed at Wang Yu's throat. Wang Yu blocked with one arm, barely deflecting the strike—only to be driven back by a savage kick to the gut. The sound of tearing flesh echoed as his body slammed into the wall of ice behind him.

Black Benn pressed forward without hesitation in a cloud of booming laughter. He lunged forward, fist aimed for Wang Yu's head. Wang Yu struck with fragments of his starsteel blade, only to be deflected by Black Benn's barrier again.

Even so, that was more than enough.

The fragments of Wang Yu's blade converged and transformed into the Spellweaver's Tome. Upon it blazed the spell matrix that Wang Yu had painstakingly inscribed in fleeting moments during the fight: the third-tier hypermagic Blink.

The spell flared. Benn's fist shattered the ice wall in a mess of fractures, but Wang Yu was already gone. His body reappeared in the warped shimmer of space some distance away. For the first time in a long while, he felt the blessing of magic.

"Heh! You won't escape!"

Benn vaulted from the broken ice, unsurprised, and charged at him again. It didn't matter what tricks Wang Yu employed. His own intent remained unchanged—he would kill, and keep killing, until nothing remained.

Wang Yu drew in a deep breath. His blood surged faster as it resonated with his bloodpool. It began to boil with anticipation.

Black Benn had broken free of the Chariot's suppression. His inner potential reborn, he had taken half a step into the realm of legend. Unlucky for Wang Yu—yet fortunate, in some respect.

This was the most common sort of breakthrough, but also the least refined. Knights who broke through via life-and-death struggle gained raw power without corresponding improvements in their physique. Their bodies had yet to adapt to their newfound strength. Black Benn's potential might have improved dramatically, but his flesh remained unchanged.

"Then let's end this quickly..."

As Black Benn charged forward, Wang Yu muttered an incantation beneath his breath. No longer restraining the flames upon his body, he raised both arms high before sending them slashing downwards.

The next moment, his bloodpool burst open. Space itself seemed to split, revealing a rift into a sea of blood. From it poured a crimson deluge, a waterfall crashing down to engulf Benn. The bloodpool, having been expanded by countless refinements of Wang Yu's body, now held tenfold the blood it once did.

Right before the flood struck its mark, the liquid ignited—not from Black Benn's inner potential, but by Wang Yu's own hand. He had kindled it with his Cursed Fire.

Some of the high-energy blood detonated, scattering the torrent into a blazing maelstrom. Fire roared outward in a storm of incandescent fury, drowning the cavern in a sea of flame.

Instinctively, Black Benn unleashed his inner potential—but to his shock, the fire refused him. The flames that filled the cavern did not heed his call. His dominion over fire was repelled, overridden by a force that was somehow more exalted.

"The sting of flame—how long it has been!" Black Benn bellowed as he charged through the inferno, laughter turning to a hoarse roar. "Your power is truly strange and wondrous. Come, then: either kill me, or be killed yourself! Let's see whose fire burns out first!"

The blaze scorched Black Benn's body. His shield of fighting spirit unraveled under the relentless assault as the pain of burning flesh gnawed at his nerves.

Yet his senses were sharpened to their utmost. He caught the faintest disturbances in the fiery air, the whisper of footsteps amidst the roar. He knew where Wang Yu was. Wang Yu was coming for him.

"Come!"

Black Benn's shout was like a roar of thunder. The two figures, both wreathed in fire, slammed together. Wang Yu's body was cloaked in scarlet Cursed Fire that fed off his own life force. What should have been a force of destruction became instead his armor, his shield, and his weapon.

The clash of flesh against flesh now began in earnest. Black Benn's barrier of fighting spirit had been consumed by the cursed flames, and Wang Yu's with his ignition of Cursed Fire. The two combatants fought each other with only the fighting spirit that their bodies were generating on the fly.

Black Benn burned with the nameless flame born of his potential. Flame against flame, conflagration against conflagration—the two grand knights drove their fires onward, attempting to smother and consume the other's while enduring the agony of each other's blaze.

Inevitably, the fires they had kindled would ultimately consume themselves. Thus the battle descended once more into a war of attrition—though this time it seemed, on the surface, more "fair."

Black Benn's breakthrough should have granted him an overwhelming advantage, yet it failed to manifest in full. Wang Yu's frenzied self-healing clashed against Black Benn's hardened frame, strengthened by the hellish training he had endured. Who would endure longer in this brutal struggle remained uncertain.

Fists and feet collided. Flames roared upward. The two savaged each other without restraint, their blows reducing all around them to ruin.

The fire in Benn's heart blazed hotter and hotter. With every surge of passion, the flames he commanded swelled in heat and fury.

Meanwhile, Wang Yu's Cursed Fire grew darker, hotter, and more ravenous, scouring his flesh with frightening speed.

Would his own fire devour him first, or would it be Wang Yu's fists and crimson blaze that felled him? Or would they kill each other, perishing in the flames they could no longer command? Until the very end, no one could say. Yet in truth, this battle had never been fair.

Their fists met. Both staggered back a step. To Black Benn's own surprise, regret flickered in his eyes. Their strength was fading. The fight that had perfectly fed his hunger for violence was drawing to its close. Whether he lived or died, the ecstasy of battle would be gone.

"Too quick..." he murmured, almost mournful. "Even if I win, it'll have been far too brief a fight..."

Then, once more, he hurled himself at Wang Yu, reveling in his frenzy, straining with every last ounce of his might to crush his foe. He struck and sent the weakened Wang Yu flying—but in that instant, Wang Yu's body vanished.

"?"

Confusion flashed. Black Benn's instincts made him whip his head around, but he was far too late. A crushing force seized his neck. He strained against it, muscles flaring with desperate death throes. It availed him not.

His neck snapped like dry kindling. Black Benn collapsed at Wang Yu's feet. A final rush of lifeforce flooded into Wang Yu, confirming the knight's death.

"So this is true combat... too swift from any perspective," Wang Yu whispered.

He gathered his will and sent his burning blood back into his bloodpool. A reserve of unignited vitality, set aside for this very moment, flowed back into his body to stave off the Cursed Fire's consuming hunger.

Charred flesh sloughed away. New flesh regenerated at a startling pace, faster than Wang Yu should have managed. The reason hung above him in the void: the Chronostasis Hourglass.

In the brief moment when his Cursed Fire had blinded all sight, Wang Yu had called upon the Lady of the Night. She in turn summoned Avia, who passed her the hourglass. The Lady then delivered it into Wang Yu's hands.

With it he had seized an eightfold increase in speed. He had circled behind Black Benn, wrenched his neck, and ended the fight in a single motion. It was crude and abrupt—but that too was characteristic of battle.

Wang Yu still had other trump cards up his sleeve, but there had been no need to gamble. He wasn't about to give Black Benn a chance to retaliate. As he had sworn, it would be a swift fight to the end.