Mismatch

"Where did you get that drug from?"

The air stirred.

That presence alone was enough to send shimmering waves of power through the air, clearing the dust with nothing but the pressure from the young man's aura.

Douglas tilted his neck to glance upwards, his lips forging a sardonic grin at the sight. Atop one of the spikes protruding from the fissure stood his target, made distinct by a full head of luscious silver hair. Cuts and bruises were visible through the small tears in his attire, but aside from that, Cyril was unharmed.

"Keh—I'll tell you if you stay still." Douglas' face twisted into a grimace. Cyril couldn't tell if it was from the snakelike veins bulging beneath his skin or if the man was simply that bloodthirsty.

It's probably the latter, Cyril thought to himself, unloading a sigh.

"Fine, I'll beat it out of you." The words, spoken with unshakable conviction, rang loud and clear—much to the irritation of the less-than-strategic terrorist.

With a powerful roar, Douglas plunged all ten fingers into the ruptured patch of soil. His body, already surging with ambient mana, felt no strain as he tore through the earth. What looked like a mere flick—albeit a superhuman one fueled by the terrorist's mana—was enough to capsize a massive slab of bedrock and hurl it at his target with herculean force.

His tactics were a bit nonstandard when compared to a typical magician, but nonetheless, such a maneuver couldn't be called anything but magical.

The patch of land closed in at a ruthless speed, hurling through the air like an off-course meteor. It had more than enough destructive power to blow Cyril away alongside his makeshift footing, an outcome he refused to let come to pass. Not when his teammate was busy fighting beyond the wall to support him. Thus, he lunged forward, his body shooting forth like a rocket.

The [Unique Skill: Juggernaut] has augmented your acceleration.

Cyril clenched his fist, hardening it like a boulder as he wound his arm back. The moment his fist met the massive slab of earth, a deafening crack echoed through the air. The stone shattered on impact, fracturing into countless shards that exploded outward like shrapnel. Dust and debris billowed in all directions, but Cyril barely flinched—his momentum carried him forward and propelled his body through the chaos like a spear.

With his acceleration augmented, there would be little point to stopping now. The earth magician was already in the midst of conjuring several slabs of stone to protect himself, but none of them would last. Like a meteor striking the ocean's surface, all of his half-formed earthen shields crumbled from the striker's assault.

The impact sent a powerful shockwave through the ground, leaving a deep crater from the explosion that blasted everything in its immediate vicinity—magician included.

"Gaaagh!!" Douglas howled in pain.

His body was sent skipping along the ground like a carefree stone until he managed to regain his balance after being knocked back a good ten meters or so.

"Looks like I overdid it. Maybe I really do need more practice with this thing." Cyril said, his hand whipping away the dust with an unnaturally strong breeze.

His opponent, the frantic terrorist was no longer able to stand. It was partly because of the damage he took from that last explosion, but all Cyril needed was one good look to know that wasn't the true cause of his agony. He was spewing far too much blood for someone who hadn't been hit directly.

Close quarter combat was widely regarded as the bane of magicians, but it would be a stretch to apply that kind of logic here.

Douglas coughed up a fresh clump of blood, the crimson splatter staining his chest. Kneeling was the best he could manage at the moment. His body trembled under the strain, wracked by shivers and blood loss—yet none of it was enough for the half-dead terrorist to concede defeat.

"I'm going to ask you one more time. That drug—Nectar. Tell me where you got it." Cyril approached Douglas where he kneeled, wrath lurking in his tone. After bulling through a vicious, and particularly bloody fit of coughs, the first thing the terrorist did upon swiping away the viscous smear dripping from his chin was laugh.

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He planned on doing no such thing, of course, the reasoning behind the wicked expression contorting the mans face was far simpler— he was ecstatic.

"Hehehe...that's how...it oughta be..." he growled, the words slithering out like those of a scheming villain. "....as deviants, we have the right to take whatever we want...by force. That's...how it...should be..."

The words, broken and disjointed, held no particular meaning to an average person. Yet, even so, the tenacity burning brightly in those bloodshot eyes carried enough weight to convey his convictions—convictions that would never be fully understood.

Though not inherently curious, Cyril couldn't help but wonder what kind of devotion could drive so many people forward like this. First, it had been the incursion, and now this...

"I guess that's a no, then," he muttered, his tone flat. He was only three steps away now, poised to do the unthinkable to an opponent who was already teetering on the brink of destruction—or at least, that's how it should have been.

"Haaah!!" Douglas slammed both palms into the ground, sending a pulse of mana through his fingertips. The earth wobbled and swayed beneath him, like a viscous wave in motion.

Despite the small tremors, Cyril's stance never faltered; he remained firm, as though rooted to the ground by some strange power. He could feel the lingering effects of Douglas's desperate move—the traces of his mana had seeped into the earth, shaping the terrain to his will. That was all Cyril's senses could pick up on their own, but he needed more insight to fully understand what Douglas was trying to do.

[The [Mobius] skill has been activated.]

Responding to his will, the skill activated within Cyril's mind and enhanced his perception by a factor of severalfold. The [Mobius] skill always granted him a heightened sense of his surroundings, but not to this degree. This was a deeper level of the ability he was learning to consciously control—one that was usually dormant, only accessible when he chose to process the vast amounts of information his environment conveyed.

The mana around Cyril trembled, and the subtle vibrations of the manites were deciphered and interpreted in an instant. A message formed: he was being targeted by a spell.

With a sharp crack, two stone spikes shot out from either side of him. The conjured bedrock pikes zeroed in on his body with terrifying speed, both aiming to lodge themselves in his vitals. The maneuver was abrupt, but one he had anticipated.

Cyril loosened his joints and immediately leaned his upper body back to evade the pike coming from his right. In one fluid motion, he extended his left hand to intercept the other spike aiming for his neck. The tapered slab of earth struck his open palm and crumbled like a brittle twig, shattering from the force of impact against something far harder.

"I—Impossible!" Witnessing the boy's near-inhuman reflexes, Douglas barked, the shock of his failure momentarily overpowering the pain that had been coursing through him.

"For your sake, I suggest you don't do anything stupid, unless you—!!"

Cyril's sentence was cut short by another earthly rumble. The small shockwave was the result of his opponent plunging his forearms into the ground and flinging another slab of bedrock—roughly the size of a small truck—into the air. Of course, that wasn't all he'd done. He also took the liberty of encasing Cyril's feet in a tight rocky coffin that snaked up from below to smother his legs.

"Die!" Douglas howled the cruel command as soon as gravity took note of the large mass of bedrock cutting through the air. Like clockwork, the slab of earth, weighing more than a ton, came crashing down to crush its captive.

[A sufficient fault has been identified. Commencing augmentation of structural flaw.]

Suddenly, the coffin of jagged stones clinging to Cyril's feet shattered all at once, as if it had imploded from within. Cyril didn't hesitate with his counter. Magical energy filled his form as he took a powerful step forward and spoke:

"Augment density."

That was all he needed to say before swinging his fist upward.

The one-ton mass of bedrock careening down toward its target suddenly shattered from the force of Cyril's uppercut, its fragments scattering in all directions. The debris didn't even have time to settle, it was all quickly blown away by the forceful gust created by his hand—a byproduct of augmenting the air's velocity.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it..." Douglas muttered through gritted teeth, his bitter string of curses doing nothing but hurting him further. Blood poured from his eyes, mouth, and several other orifices, a clear sign that he was no longer in any condition to keep fighting. And yet...

"Now that it's come to this, I'll just go all the way!!" Douglas snarled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the last of the strange red tablets he possessed. He opened his mouth, preparing to swallow the final dose. But before the small capsule could even fall, Cyril moved first. His speed was so immense that he left a trail of dust skimming along the ground in his wake.

A splurge of blood shot from Douglas's mouth as air was violently displaced from his lungs. In an instant, Cyril had closed the distance between them and slammed his foot into the man's chest, driving him into the ground with tremendous force.

The shock of impact was too much for Douglas to process. His eyes glazed over as he sank into the human-shaped crater he had created with his own body.

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