Chapter 16: Confrontation

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'What the hell...?' a single exasperated thought lingered solely in Huey's mind as he heard the not-so-distant voice of an unfamiliar figure.

"Intruders. You Wall Devils should have known better to hide behind your little barricade." 

The next moment, he felt the strange person's intent surge with animosity and bloodlust directed at him from his position.

But Huey lingered, lost in thought even.

'Fast...that was really fast, I almost wouldn't have noticed if I weren't paying attention. Uwa~, what the hell is up with these stupidly quick people? They win the Olympics or something?' he thought back to the first night he had killed three days before.

"Die!" Meanwhile, the burly man flexed and his massive figure hazed, the ground he stood on shattered into a tapestry of cracks and opened into a deep groove 

At the moment, Huey was wedged into a crumbled building among the rubbles. After getting punched at almost the speed of sound, he felt a strange sense of lethargy and listlessness seep into his mind. The actions and words of his attackers remained a backdrop in his mind and attention.

He wasn't hurt or injured, Huey had suffered no damage from that powerful blow. 

He...was just felt too lazy to move.

'Mehn...' Earth has really become a dangerous place while I was gone. It's all ambushes and surprise attacks. What happened to the good old days of chivalry and honor, and... and...all other bullshit like that?' Huey casually thought with half-opened eyes, while the attacker's chain-wrapped fists were coated with translucent flickering energy that surged with power.

"Well...," Huey raised his head with his eyes still lowered, "I can't say I blame them...,"

The massive figure of the attacker formed with a thrown fist forward directly before him. The large fist ripped the air like a descending astroid coated with rippling blue flames as it drew a large path toward its target head.

"After all," he silently voiced.

Huey raised his head entirely and completed his last thought:

"... What's honor and chivalry when your life's on the line?!" A twisted smile graced his lips, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Huey's left arm shot out at a startling speed to meet with the pulsing fist of the attacker.

"?!" The massive attacker looked into the mad red eyes and faltered for half a second before a rocking shockwave ensued and swallowed them both from the impact of their collided fist.

[BOOM]

The remnant of the building Huey was wedged into exploded into scattering debris.

The ground ripped apart while the air howled in shrieking defiance. A storm seemed to ensue at the very position the two confronted, once more scaring the broken Planet.

Eventually, it was the attacker to lose out first.

Simply overwhelmed, or lacking short in pure mindless power, the massive man was blown away by the shockwave and landed a hundred meters away from the center of the storm. Even then, the ferocious wind still howled and the power of the earlier impact still reached his body.

By the time it was over, a kilometer within the area was ensued in a slowly dispersing dust cloud, revealing the attacker to be on one knee, holding his trembling right arm.

'What power.' he thought with a grimace then raised his gaze forward.

Huey lightly stepped out of the dark clouds with all the leisure in the world. His white skin and striking red eyes were a deep contrast to the black dust clouds that hovered around him.

His face was still and aloof while his figure seemed to carry all the grace the entire world had to offer. He stood out like a beacon...a dreadful beauty amid all the chaos and destruction that surrounded him. The contrast between the two, immortalized, would leave all those who gazed forth with dreadful awe.

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Meanwhile, Lyra had her battle.

Whips of glowing azure chain smacked the air and pierced through with resounding bangs toward her.

"Addy, run!" 

"B-but...!" Lyra grabbed the little girl's arm before she could voice her protest and dashed inside one of the few buildings that narrowly escaped the single cataclysmic exchange between Huey and the big man.

Their pursuers didn't relent and quickly came after them. Their azure eyes glowing sharply in the dark stood out coldly like the gazes of hunters... predators.

One of the women sprinted forward and unraveled part of the chain wrapped around her arm. The links lit up with an azure halo as the chain drew a sharp and straight path toward the running back of its target.

The chain rattled and tore a loud bang through the air as it flew forward at a mind-boggling speed. 

Lyra's instincts trained as a hunter for years quickly judged she couldn't outrun the approach chain or evade it. She pushed the little girl out of the way as she came to a sudden stop and pivoted sharply on her heel.

Without failing to use the acquired momentum, Lyra's left arm sprung forward, In her grasp was a makeshift dagger carved out of Elder God's bone.

Her azure eyes glinted at the rattling chain and she rose the bone dagger to deflect the attack at the very last second. 

The chain was heavy, the speed applying even more force. Lyra suppressed a grunt as she was forced to shift on her feet from the force of deflecting the azure chain safely.

She felt her wrist sprain, and using a quick second to gaze at the bone dagger, she noticed the chipped edge and could only curse internally.

[Bang]

[Bang]

[Bang]

The other women wouldn't wait for their opponent to recover her footing and three bangs simultaneously resounded as they sent their chains forward all at once.

The swift azure chains were like sharp blue needle streaks as they crashed with heavy force into the ground at the same point.

The ground rumbled as the ruined building shook from the weight of those chains.

Lyra had managed to quickly leap out of range of the attacks, at the sacrifice of her left ankle, and fell to the ground, holding her head.

"Sis!" Addy cried from the sidelines, the pursuers withdrew their chains and slowly circled their targets.

"Kill her." One of the women said coldly with a dark glint in her eyes and the others unraveled their chains.

Lyra's eyes sharpened and the bone dagger flickered through the air.

The pursuers underestimated the young woman...they underestimated her and that was why the very next second Lyra's bone dagger flashed with a red trail of blood in her hands.

"Kuack-!" 

Lyra had slit the throat of one of the women. It was a shallow cut as the bone dagger couldn't reach through to the carotid artery, but it was a fatal blow regardless.

The woman gargled forward and fell to her knees under the befuddled gazes of her sisters.

The eyes of the second woman sharpened as he reinforced her guard and readied her chain 

But it was too late. Lyra was faster.

For someone with a sprained ankle, Lyra moved as swiftly as a shadow. Her azure eyes glinted with a cold, sharp focus as she repositioned her dagger and drew an ascending arch from underneath the woman, from her blind spot.

'When did she...?!' the pursuer halted immediately her thoughts to focus all of her attention on evading the approaching blade.

'It's too late, I can't move back!' she concluded, managing only to narrowly evade a fatal blow at only the cost of her left eye.

"Keugh-!" The attacker grunted as she peered into the lightless azure eyes of her opponent before she felt someone forcefully pull her back and out of range from a follow-up attack Lyra was already preparing!

'She's already flowed into another follow-up attack?!' Her final thoughts were of surprise as the following second she heard the voice of her other companion come from behind.

"Sister, step back!" The third and final woman pulled back her companion and threw a heavy fist wrapped in chains into Lyra's mid-section with ferocious power.

Lyra was too slow to react. The fist wrapped in those heavy chains glowed with an azure halo as it impacted her ribs, shattering them and fracturing her sternum.

Lyra's consciousness shook dangerously as the wind was knocked out of her lungs and her mind was overwritten with blinding pain.

The punch connected with a resounding bang and Lyra's figure was sharply propelled across the barren room at almost the speed of a bullet.

[Bang]

She crashed into the wall furthest at the back, feeling many of her joints pop and bones shatter, and her eyes rolled back into her head. If before the pain was overwhelming, now it was all Lyra could feel.

"Sisters, are you okay?!" The last lady quickly turned to her two wounded companions and panicked.

"Yes, I am fine," the first woman said, getting up to her feet with a hand over her left eye, "it would have been worse if I hadn't been quick to dodge it. It's a shallow wound that'll close quickly."

"I... I'm fine too," the second woman coughed and spat out blood, putting pressure on her slit throat. Amazingly, the bleeding was mostly stopped, and the woman could stand upright and speak okay.

"Tsk. That vile wall Scum...we underestimated her just because she ran first." The third woman spat out in disgust.

"Yes. if there's one thing I'll commend her for...," the second woman with the wounded eye shifted her gaze across the room, "it's that you're relentless."

Over across to the other side, before the surprised gazes of the women, Lyra crookedly stood on her feet, hunched over and battered.

Red streams of thick blood flowed out of her mouth into a large puddle from her wounded innards. But Lyra's dislocated right arm still held the bone dagger tightly in her grasp.

"... Don't..." Her voice was hoarse as she stumbled forward on her feet.

She raised the dagger weekly and raised her head. Lyra's azure eyes were dark and lightless with only a cold focus on her opponents.

"... Don't underestimate me..."

On her own two feet, Lyra Diego still stood.

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This Author apologizes for the delay once again. I've already started on the next chapter. I know some of you were really looking forward to Huey actually fighting, but I had to devote this chapter to Lyra's actual capabilities.

I've started on Chapter 17: DESOLATION, so it'll be out either later today or early tomorrow. Let's hope for the former.