Chronicles of Forgotten Extra-Chapter 317: Learning new skill mid-battle.

Rexica looked at her opponent with ferocious eyes.

For some reason, she could sense a familiar scent from this human, a scent she had failed to notice during orientation but now it was clear as day...

The scent of one of her kind.

Such a smell coming from a human could mean only one thing, the human had somehow formed a contract with the Feline Beastmen tribe but no one from her tribe would have entered such a contract of their own free will.

That meant the boy standing before her had been involved in a slave trade involving her kind.

She didn’t even think any other reason as her kind being subjected to such trades for human pleasures wasn’t new.

Fury surged within her but she didn’t let even the slightest trace of it show on her face. She wasn’t here representing just her tribe, she was representing her entire race and she refused to embarrass them by acting on personal emotions.

Still, that didn’t mean she intended to go easy on him. She had decided to show him no mercy the moment he stepped into the arena.

She went all out from the start, attacking at her full speed, so fast that even those a few ranks above her would have trouble tracking her movements. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

So how...?

How was this boy, someone disowned by his own family for being incompetent was tracking her movements with his eyes so effortlessly?

She had known he was a monster but wasn’t this too much?

His crimson eyes moved with her every step, following each movement precisely even as the boy barely shifted from his spot.

She enhanced her body and went even faster, now running across the arena on all fours like a nimble cat and then the boy stopped tracking her movements.

Can he finally not see me...?

Relief washed over her as her nails elongated as she lunged at him from behind but in the very next instant, the boy turned toward her, extending his hand in her direction.

Her beastly senses screamed in warning.

Immense danger.

She saw his shadow stretch unnaturally, his palm coming closer to her becoming far larger than it should have been as his crimson eyes stared at it without any emotion.

"How boring..." He muttered in a neutral voice.

It was enough to send shivers down her spine as she jumped back a few paces.

What the hell was that?

Her breathing turned rough as she felt her life flash before her eyes for a brief second. Even though she knew she couldn’t die and that she would be pulled out of the match and sent to the infirmary before that, the fear was very real.

"Is that all you’ve got?" The boy asked, his voice eerily calm. "You know, I actually expected more from you especially since you managed to scratch my finger that day and after all that trash talk before the match."

A smirk appeared on his face.

"But it seems you’re nothing more than a blabbermouth who doesn’t know her place."

Normally, he didn’t care much for mind games or trash talk but this time, he was curious about the trick the girl had used back then and that curiosity was exactly why he wanted to make her angrier.

The girl, Rexica, had been too fast for her rank but for Alden with his Spirit Domain her movements were too slow like a snail. He was confident to dodge them with his eyes closed.

Rexica, meanwhile, gritted her teeth. "Fine. You wanted this."

She let out a strange sound, and red energy engulfed her from head to toe. In an instant, a kimono replaced the battle suit she had been wearing before.

What is this transformation show now?

If I wasn’t curious, couldn’t I have attacked during her transformation?

It’s not like there’s some fanatic stopping me from committing the blasphemy of interrupting a transformation.

Alden mused inwardly.

But true to his thoughts, the time required for the transformation was exactly why Rexica rarely used her special ability.

Moon-Slashing Swordsman.

An ability that allowed her to travel through and slash across different dimensions of space for a few minutes by embodying an ancient ancestor of her bloodline.

A deep red katana appeared at her hip as she opened her now crimson pupils. Within seconds, her body vanished as she reappeared right in front of Alden, crouching low, her katana already slashing toward his abdomen at a speed far greater than before.

Damn it.

Alden frowned, barely throwing his body backward as his Spirit Domain sensed the attack at the very last moment.

That was close.

He glanced down and saw his battle suit torn near his stomach, a thin horizontal gash cut across his skin, crimson blood slowly dripping from it slowly.

Before he could even adjust his posture, Rexica appeared behind him, striking directly at his neck and this time as well, he couldn’t sense the attack until the very last second.

Again, a small scratch appeared.

But Alden didn’t care about such minor injuries, he could easily heal them later with light elements. He could have defeated her easily at any point even now but he wasn’t because what mattered to him was how she was using this technique.

He had an affinity with space and he could feel the fluctuations caused by her movements but that sensation always came a moment too late.

He wanted to get used to such spatial disturbances before defeating her as he felt they could be quite useful to him in the future.

After a few more such attacks, his body, paired with his Supreme Ability, Limitless Ascension, which allowed him to adapt far more quickly, started to get the hang of it.

Second by second, he began reacting faster as he felt his spatial elemental affinity being integrated into his Spirit Domain and Eyes of Supreme.

He could now slowly perceive things not just in the physical realm but also across the dimension Rexica was using.

Still, it wasn’t perfect as seeing even a single square meter of this another dimension through his domain required most of his focus but it was enough for now. He had gotten the hang of it and the rest, he could always learn on his own.

I guess it’s time to end the battle.

He thought for a moment, then stopped his body completely. Closing his eyes, he focused entirely on his Spirit Domain. He didn’t try to peer into other dimensions this time as he concentrated only on the basics.

Just like before, the presence was felt too late but he didn’t panic and instead, he lightly tapped his foot against the ground. His shadow rose instantly, solid enough to block the incoming blade and in the same motion, he twisted around, his sword’s hilt already in his grasp as the sharp edge stopped right at Rexica’s neck.

She froze immediately.

"How...?" She asked.

"Honestly, you were way too damn predictable." He replied calmly. "Attacking the same spots at fixed intervals, did you really think your opponent wouldn’t notice?"

He looked at her steadily.

"Next time, try to be a bit more unpredictable, will you?"

With that, she dismissed her special abilities as her sword vanished and her clothes returned to normal.

"I give up."

She raised her hand as the referee finally announced,

"Alden is the winner."