Starting out as a Dragon Slave-Chapter 157 : Difference in Power

In an imperceptible breath, Livia vanished from her position, leaving behind a void that seemed to absorb light itself. The air no longer bore any trace of her presence, as if reality had erased her existence from that precise moment. Only a slight ripple in the atmosphere betrayed the passage of her body, like a mirage fading in desert heat.

A whisper of movement caressed Mordred’s left ear a phantom touch, almost tender in its discretion. His senses, sharpened by the recent metamorphosis that had rebuilt every fiber of his being, caught this tremor with crystalline acuity. He remained perfectly still, a black marble statue planted at the center of the cell, his feet having not moved a millimeter since the beginning of their confrontation.

She burst forth like incarnate lightning, her silhouette shooting forward in a deadly ballet of supernatural grace. Her muscles contracted and relaxed in a symphony of controlled power, each movement optimized for speed and lethality. Her arm was like a blade she wielded, glinting briefly in the gloom, hungry for flesh and blood, her flesh resembling polished steel that reflected the few rays of light filtering into their underground prison.

Mordred only tilted his head, a movement so subtle it seemed almost involuntary, and the steel tasted only void, hissing its frustration in the thick air. His posture hadn’t changed, his feet still perfectly aligned, his shoulders straight, as if dodging a mortal attack was just a negligible detail in his day. Livia glided behind him in a fluid movement, her feet barely grazing the cold stone floor, surprised by the disconcerting ease with which he had nullified her first assault.

- "Impressive," he murmured, his voice resonating with an almost insulting tranquility in the confined space. His blazing pupils fixed on the huntress whose satisfied smile illuminated her face, but in that incandescent orange gaze, a glimmer of amusement danced, almost predatory. He was like a feline observing a little mouse, waiting to see how far this demonstration would go.

- "I’ve only scratched the surface of my true capabilities," she purred while circling around him, studying his posture, seeking a flaw in that perfect immobility. "You haven’t even moved your feet. Arrogance or confidence?"

She leaped toward him without waiting for an answer, transformed into a storm of murderous grace. This time, she didn’t settle for a simple attack. Her arms traced complex arcs in the air, her blade-arm describing deadly patterns as she chained together a series of strikes that would have pulverized any ordinary adversary. Each movement was a poem of violence, each rotation a stanza of death.

She attacked first from the right, a quick thrust aimed at the heart. Mordred pivoted his torso slightly, no more than a few centimeters, and the blade passed beside him as if it had been deflected by an invisible force field. Without pause, Livia followed up with an upward movement, seeking to disembowel him, but a simple backward movement of his bust by a few millimeters made the steel meet only air. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

She then pivoted on herself, using her momentum to generate additional power, her blade tracing a deadly horizontal arc at neck height. Mordred tilted his head backward, just enough so that the metal whistled above his Adam’s apple without even grazing his skin. His feet still hadn’t moved, anchored to the ground like millennial roots.

Frustrated but not discouraged, Livia intensified her attacks. She threw herself forward in a series of rapid stabs, varying angles and heights. Low blow toward the kidneys—Mordred slightly twisted his hips. Strike toward the shoulders slight shoulder movement sufficed. Attack toward the temple he tilted his head to the side. Each dodge was minimal, economical, as if he calculated to the millimeter the movement necessary to survive.

The huntress leaped back, panting but her eyes gleaming with growing excitement. This immobility was more troubling than a brutal counterattack. She felt like she was fighting a mountain immobile, imperturbable, eternal.

- "You’re better than I thought," she admitted, her slightly breathless voice betraying her effort. "But let’s see if you can maintain that statue posture against my true speed."

She took a deep breath, concentrating on her mana. Energy began to circulate in her veins like a river of liquid fire, her muscles gorging themselves with supernatural power. Her body seemed to vibrate with contained energy, ready to explode in a blast of pure speed.

Suddenly, she disappeared. No blurred movement, no trace of displacement she simply ceased to be where she was. The air closed over the space she had occupied with a discrete little "pop."

She reappeared instantaneously to Mordred’s right, her blade already in movement, aiming for the floating ribs. But before she even arrived halfway through her strike, he had turned his torso a few degrees, and the blade passed through void. She disappeared again, materializing this time behind him, attacking the nape. A simple flexing of Mordred’s knees, and she struck the air above his head.

The deadly dance intensified. Livia literally teleported around him, appearing and disappearing like an avenging phantom. To his left dodge with a simple shoulder movement. Above him he ducked slightly. In front of him he pulled back his bust. Behind he leaned forward. His feet, however, remained nailed to the ground, as if they were welded to the stone.

- "Impossible!" gasped Livia after a dozen fruitless teleportations. She materialized a few meters from him, breathless, sweat beading on her forehead. "How can you follow me? I move faster than the human eye can perceive!"

Mordred smiled slightly, his eyes blazing with quiet amusement.

- "Because you don’t yet understand the nature of true superiority," he replied in his calm voice. "You believe that speed can compensate for the fundamental difference between us."

Stung to the quick, Livia gritted her teeth. She tensed all her muscles, concentrating her mana until her azure aura became almost blinding. Her eyes took on a supernatural tint, and when she moved this time, she reached a speed that surpassed everything she had shown before.

She split herself, creating residual images of herself that persisted for a few seconds in the air. Five, ten, fifteen copies of Livia surrounded Mordred, all real, all attacking simultaneously from different angles. It was her ultimate technique, the one that had made her reputation in the world of assassins.

The fifteen blades converged toward Mordred at the same time, creating a deadly dome of hungry steel. A wall of pure death was closing in on him, theoretically leaving no possible escape. Every angle of attack was covered, every vital point targeted, every millimeter of space occupied by a sharp blade.

Mordred closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, and when he reopened them, they shone with new intensity. Time seemed to slow around him, each movement becoming perceptible, each trajectory visible like lines of light in space. He saw the fifteen Livias converging toward him, he calculated the speed of each blade, the angle of each attack, the force of each strike.

Then, in a movement of supernatural fluidity, he danced.

But his dance was different from Livia’s. Where she was expansion, movement, conquest of space, he was contraction, economy, absolute mastery. His body undulated like water, bent like a reed in the wind. His head tilted to the side to avoid a blade, his torso twisted to dodge another, his shoulders rolled to let a third pass.

A blade aimed for his heart he drew his chest inward. Another sought his throat—he pulled in his chin. A third wanted to slice his belly he contracted his abdominals and arched slightly backward. Each movement was measured to the millimeter, each dodge calculated to the closest margin.

And during this entire deadly dance, his feet didn’t move a hair’s breadth. They were like the roots of an immemorial tree, anchored in the earth, unshakeable. His entire body danced around this fixed point, this absolute immobility of his lower limbs transforming his dodges into a demonstration of mastery that surpassed human understanding.

The fifteen blades passed around him without touching him, creating a whirlwind of steel that sang its frustration in the air. Livia rematerialized as a single entity a few meters from him, staggering, exhausted by this superhuman effort. Her eyes were wide with total incredulity.

- "You... you didn’t even move your feet," she murmured, her voice trembling. "How is that possible?"

This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢