Soulbound: Dual Cultivation-Chapter 440: Deadly miscalculation

Lucas was being pushed back again.

Not in distance alone, but in control, in presence, in the very flow of the battle that had once briefly tilted in his favor. Every movement he made now was measured, cautious, his spatial distortions keeping him alive but failing to impose any real threat, and Dravok had already recognized it, already begun to capitalize on it with a cold and methodical precision that left little room for recovery.

The wind howled sharper.

Each blade carried intent, each strike placed to corner, to cut, to break him down piece by piece until there was nothing left to resist.

Suddenly the air changed.

A disruption in flow.

Dravok’s next wave of wind blades surged forward toward Lucas, fast and lethal as before.

But something intercepted them.

The blades faltered mid-flight.

Their trajectory bent, then they scattered.

Lucas’s eyes widened slightly as he shifted away from the disrupted attack, his focus snapping toward the source instantly.

The Ice Belle.

She stood a short distance away, her small figure calm as ever, her expression carrying that same faint, almost indifferent look she always wore, yet something about her presence had changed.

The air around her was moving.

Not wildly.

Not chaotically.

But with intent.

With control.

A faint current circled her, subtle but undeniable, responding to her just as the frost and ice always had.

Lucas blinked once.

"...Wind?"

Even from the distance, the reaction was immediate.

Lira’s voice came out in disbelief.

"She... she’s controlling wind too?"

Selene’s brows furrowed, her gaze sharpening as she watched the currents shift around the Ice Belle.

"That’s not normal..."

Henrietta let out a short breath, her arms tightening slightly.

"Of course it isn’t. Nothing about her is normal."

Even The King, who had remained composed through most of the battle, showed a flicker of surprise, his eyes narrowing as he studied the shift carefully.

"She’s matching him..."

Back in the center, Dravok had noticed it as well.

His eyes locked onto the Ice Belle, the wind around him pausing for the briefest moment before tightening again, sharper now, more focused.

"...You," he said slowly, his tone colder than before.

The Ice Belle tilted her head slightly, as though his reaction amused her more than anything else.

"What?" she replied casually. "You thought you were special?"

The wind surged again.

This time from both sides.

Dravok moved first, his control expanding outward, forming multiple compressed blades that shot forward in rapid succession, faster and more aggressive than before.

But the Ice Belle responded immediately.

Her hand lifted slightly, and the air answered.

Currents formed around her, not as violent as Dravok’s, but far more precise, intercepting the incoming blades, redirecting them, deflecting their paths just enough to neutralize their lethality before they could reach their targets.

Then she moved. A step forward and the wind followed.

A sharp current surged outward from her position, cutting through the battlefield in a clean arc, not chaotic, not overwhelming, but controlled to a level that made it just as dangerous.

Dravok’s eyes narrowed.

He countered instantly, his own wind clashing against hers, the two forces meeting in midair, distorting the space between them as pressure built rapidly.

For a moment, they held. Wind against wind. Control against control.

And for the first time since the element had been introduced into the fight, Dravok was not the only one commanding it.

Lucas watched it unfold, his breathing still heavy, his body still strained, but his eyes sharper now, a new realization settling in.

She wasn’t just fast.

She wasn’t just precise.

She wasn’t limited.

The Ice Belle stepped forward again, her voice calm, almost bored despite the intensity of what she was doing.

"This is better," she said.

Then her gaze flicked briefly toward Lucas.

"Try to keep up."

Lucas gave a short nod, his expression tightening as he steadied himself despite the strain building within his body, and without wasting another moment, he stepped back into the flow of the battle, aligning himself once more with the Ice Belle as they moved against Dravok with renewed coordination. The battlefield erupted again almost instantly, wind clashing against wind as the Ice Belle met Dravok head on, her control precise and unyielding, while Lucas slipped through the gaps created by their exchanges, his spatial distortions allowing him to reposition constantly, striking when he could, withdrawing when he had to, doing everything within his power to keep the pressure alive despite the clear limitations now placed on him.

The fight grew more intense with every passing second, not just in power but in complexity, as three different forces collided and overlapped in rapid succession, each trying to dominate the space in their own way, and for a while, it worked, the Ice Belle’s interference preventing Dravok from fully overwhelming them again, while Lucas found just enough openings to remain relevant in the exchange, even if his attacks lacked the weight they once carried. His movements became sharper, more calculated, his mind working at a relentless pace to keep up with the speed of the battle, reading trajectories, predicting angles, and relying heavily on his spatial awareness to survive each incoming strike.

But the pressure never eased.

Dravok had adapted fully now, his wind no longer just a weapon but a system, a flowing network of attacks that overlapped and layered in ways that made it increasingly difficult to navigate without error. Each blade was followed by another, each opening closed almost as soon as it appeared, forcing Lucas to operate at the very edge of his capabilities, where even the smallest mistake could prove fatal.

And then It happened. A miscalculation. Barely noticeable.

But in a fight at this level, it was everything.

Lucas shifted through space to avoid a pair of intersecting wind blades, his body reappearing at what should have been a safe angle, but in that exact moment, Dravok adjusted, his control over the wind reacting faster than Lucas had anticipated, forming another blade along a trajectory that Lucas had failed to account for.

There was no time to react.

No time to shift again.

The wind scythe struck.

It cut cleanly into the right side of his abdomen, slicing through his defenses as though they were nothing, his Qi barrier offering little resistance against the refined sharpness of Dravok’s attack.

Blood sprayed, not red. Black.

Thick and dark, it burst outward in a violent stream, staining the ground beneath him as the force of the impact carried him slightly off balance, his body twisting as he staggered back from the strike.

A sharp gasp escaped from the distance.

"Xavier!" Nyx’s voice broke instantly, panic flooding her tone.

Selene’s eyes widened in horror as she took a step forward without thinking.

"That... that’s not..."

Henrietta’s expression hardened, her fists clenching tightly.

"...Black blood?"

Lira’s composure faltered greatly , her gaze locking onto the wound as realization struck.

The corruption.

Back in the battlefield, Lucas felt it immediately. The sharp and deep pain, but more than that...The damage.

His hand moved instinctively toward his side, pressing against the wound, but the blood did not stop, it continued to pour out rapidly, far more than it should have, the dark liquid staining his fingers as it slipped through them without resistance.

His breathing hitched.

Just for a moment.

Then steadied.

But his eyes had changed.

He knew.

This wasn’t just a surface wound.

It was deeper.

Far worse.

The way the blood flowed, the sheer volume of it, the lack of resistance from his body’s natural control over it, all of it pointed to one thing.

An artery had been cut.

The realization settled in instantly, cold and precise, cutting through the pain and the chaos around him with brutal clarity.

If he didn’t stop the bleeding...If he allowed this to continue even for a little longer. He would pass out.

And in a battle like this...That would be the end.