Just as the most recent enemy fell, Cyrn felt a blooming pain come from the left side of his torso. A clean liver shot.
Cyrn fell to the floor, his body no longer responding to his brain. He felt like a puppet with no strings, totally limp.
Seconds later, motor function returned to Cyrn, and he dragged himself up, trying to quickly readjust, when another attack came and struck him against the back of his skull.
Stars swam in his vision, his mind drifting towards unconsciousness. He lay face-first in the field, his vision darkening, before awareness quickly returned to his mind.
Fuck, can't I even get up?
This time, Cyrn waited, pretending to be unconscious for a little longer in order to recover. After a minute, power returned to his body, and frustration was fueling his vengeance.
Just as Cyrn was rising, he saw something incredibly interesting. In a panic, a girl in his class had drawn their sword and slashed at her oncoming opponent.
The attack had connected, and a massive cut came to life on the boy's chest. The professor didn't respond.
The battlefield slowly froze, and people were trying to assess whether or not they wanted to start drawing blood instead of using blunt objects.
Cyrn didn't need to think; ⅓ of his Sword Technique was reliant on the opponent's blood. He drew his sword and charged at the bastard who hit him with a liver shot.
Vengeance drove the swing. His lead foot planted deep, all the momentum coiled into the edge of his blade.
It descended like a final judgment, and Cyrn took the boy's hand off cleanly. The professor looked up for a moment, then returned to his reading.
Cyrn licked the blood of the blade, both to gather information and to intimidate the surrounding students. He wasn't afraid to draw blood, to put his life on the line; he was actually welcoming it more than anything.
Cyrn's identity was overtaken for a moment, then returned. Feelings of shame, desire, lust, admiration, and disgust were flowing through him.
Huh, weird dude, this is what you feel most of the time. Yikes.
Cyrn was internally critiquing the emotional state of the boy whose hand he just chopped off, he gained some very valuable information.
His sword technique is basic and commonly used by commoners. I'll definitely run into this often.
Before Cyrn could think of his new boon, he was stabbed right through the back of his chest.
He turned his head to see a girl, face painted with fear, wanting to kill the boy who seemed ready to slaughter them.
Cyrn just grinned, unfazed by the attack. Her eyes began to tear up, legs shaking, hands trembling. Cyrn, however, just walked forward, letting the blade slip right out of him, as the wound instantly closed.
He turned around and gave the girl a deep gash from her right shoulder to the left side of her hip.
She stared at her new wound, possibly fatal. Her face went pale, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed right there. Cyrn soon lapped up more blood from his sword.
Longing, weakness, loneliness, drive, happiness. Much more normal than the last guy. Her technique is more uncommon, used by a lot of baronies. This'll be useful.
This pattern continued for ten minutes. Cyrn would get attacked; he would either take the hit or counter it, then respond in full.
During this time, Cyrn noticed something: people with fatal wounds or serious injuries had been disappearing from where they had collapsed.
Cyrn had no clue where they were going till he glanced at the professor, a pile of healed bodies sitting next to him, unfazed and still reading.
So he does care, huh? I guess he has a healing ability.
Soon, the crowd had thinned down to just two people. Cyrn, and a very familiar face.
"Thalen Fimblewinter, it's nice to finally meet you."
"Cyrn, what a pleasant surprise. I was about to be worried that there'd be no challenges amongst the people in this call. Thankfully, my worries were unfounded."
Before Cyrn could continue the conversation, Thalen was already upon Cyrn.
It was as if the world was moving in slow motion. The grounded stance Thalen had, the twist of his hips, gathering energy from the base of his feet, and moving it to his jagged, icy fist. The intent was clear. He was trying to kill him.
Cyrn saw this, yet couldn't react in time. The punch connected. Ribs turned to shrapnel in a matter of seconds. Bone shards flying into his lungs and intestines. He immediately coughed up blood, vision blurring at the edges.
Cyrn flew back some feet. His regeneration already started to heal him. He tried to stand up, yet soon his vision was filled with an icy blue knee.
His face crumbled in, now concave because of the blow. His regeneration at the torso slowed, now diverting energy in order to heal his face.
Cyrn's mind was blank, unable to get his footing through the unstoppable onslaught of attacks.
Cyrn kicked at Thalen's chest, the boy blocking the blow with crossed arms, which allowed Cyrn to slide backwards, creating some space between the two.
Cyrn shot up to his feet, breath panting, and face almost healed.
Thalen chimed in, "What an interesting body you have. Such strong regeneration with such little SoulCurrent."
Before Cyrn could reply, Thalen swung an ice-covered shin towards Cyrn's right thigh. Cyrn tries to dodge, but trips on an unconscious student, and the blow connects.
Cyrn's thigh bone ejects out from his skin, blood and tissue flying out like a gory sprinkler system, his thigh bent in a way it was never supposed to. Cyrn falls to the ground again, and Thalen drives an ice-covered foot into the underside of his jaw, sending Cyrn flying.
During his sudden flight, Cyrn's mind went blank from the immense blow to the brain he just took. However, his body seemed to prioritize healing his brain before anything else, and consciousness came back to him.
Cyrn let himself roll against the ground when landing, needing as much space as possible to regenerate.
Thalen walked over, calm, slow, casual, and taunted, "Come one Cyrn, you practically beat Virelya, and she placed higher than me, shouldn't you win this?"
Cyrn stood to his feet, regeneration complete thanks to Thalen's taunts, and responded, "I need to take a few blows before I'm at full capacity."
Thalen smiled, "Let's test that!"
Thalen attacked again, the same punch that obliterated Cyrn's ribs, but this time it failed.
Cyrn stepped side-stepped, letting the straight jab flow right past him. He then used his foot to hook around Thalen's leg and tugged hard.
It's an incredibly strong punch; however, it carries so much energy that if he misses it, he goes totally off balance.
Thalen falls to the floor face-first, and Cyrn takes his sword and stabs it into the boy's right shoulder, mimicking what Virelya had tried to do to him in the entrance exam.
Thalen's shoulder popped out of its socket. As Cyrn pulled his sword out of the wound, Thalen sprang up and created as much distance as possible.
Cyrn licked his blade, trying to understand the boy's fighting style, when suddenly his mind was overwhelmed with memories.
Born incredibly talented, the boy was introduced to SoulCurrent from a very early age, and it was love at first sight. Battle was all he craved, a challenge to push him to new heights. A desire for strength that defines one's identity and carves them into the annals of history. A lost duel to a golden-haired boy—smiling, effortless, untouchable. A defeat so overwhelming, it carved itself into bone.
And a newfound fire to never lose like such again.
Cyrn stood, eyes glazed over, mumbling under his breath, "I am Thalen Fimblewinter…and I wish for my ice to last an eternity."
Cyrn quickly snapped out of it, thinking it was only a lick. His blood is almost as powerful as El's. And the boy he lost to was also El.
Before Cyrn could sift through Thalen's memories, the boy in question was upon him again, right arm loose at his side, and left arm swinging in a devastating upper cut.
Cyrn simply tilted his head upwards, letting the punch graze his chin, yet before he could counter, he felt a sharp, piercing pain erupt from his right thigh. He looked down and saw a glacial spike coming from the ground.
Thalen chimed in quickly, "It was the same with Virelya, your knowledge of your opponents' physical techniques is superb, yet your ability to deal with their spells is subpar."
This guy's a combat genius, how do you pick up on that from one fight!!
Cyrn was stunned that Thalen saw through the greatest weakness of A Vampire's Anamnesis.
It could perfectly read and predict someone's physical techniques, but since Cyrn had no understanding of SoulCurrent, he couldn't predict spells at all.
Thankfully, he had a stopgap for this occasion. Thalen assumed the ice spike would hold Cyrn there, yet the glacial frost soon cracked around the edges and then burst into snowflakes and small ice crystals.
Thalen was shocked beyond belief; he'd never seen this happen with his ice before. To just shatter from nothing had never happened, even when sparring with his father.
"H-how?" He asked, voice almost nervous
Cyrn shrugged, a small smile on his face. "Who knows?" Before swiping his sword across Thalen's chest, a fatal wound came to life on the boy, who soon collapsed from the same wound.