Free Web NovelChapter 74: Symbols 1
Oinaru chuckled lightly.
"This will be easy."
He raised one hand.
Fire surged outward in a straight wave, not spreading chaotically but compressed into a dense, focused front that distorted the air as it moved. The heat arrived a moment before the flames, pressing against skin and stone alike.
Maya reacted instantly.
She lifted her blade and braced it with both hands, rock armor reinforcing her stance as layers of stone tightened around her shoulders and forearms. The fire struck her guard head-on.
The impact pushed her backward across the stone floor, boots scraping hard lines into the ground as she was forced to absorb the pressure.
Heat poured over her.
Not just surface heat, but something deeper, like the flame was trying to occupy the same space as her body.
She gritted her teeth.
So refined.
So controlled.
Not wild fire.
Condensed force.
Oinaru stepped forward as if the exchange was nothing more than a casual stroll. His posture remained loose, shoulders relaxed, gaze uninterested.
Another burst of flame snapped outward from his hand.
Maya shifted her stance just in time, angling her body so the rock armor took the brunt of it. The stone cracked under pressure, thin fractures spreading across her shoulder plate and down her arm like veins of weakness.
She adjusted immediately, tightening her footing, lowering her center of gravity, refusing to let the damage dictate her movement.
Then she swung her sword.
A clean, committed strike.
Oinaru barely moved.
A thin barrier of fire formed in front of him, not a wall but a shaped shield, curving just enough to catch her blade at the exact angle needed to redirect it harmlessly aside.
The force slid off without resistance.
Like her attack had simply been dismissed.
He flicked his hand downward.
Fire pressed into the ground beneath her feet.
The stone reacted instantly, superheating, warping the surface.
Maya dropped to one knee as the pressure forced its way up through her stance. The rock armor absorbed part of it, but not all. Her arm trembled under the strain.
For a moment, she stayed there, breathing hard.
The chamber felt smaller than before, not physically, but in the way space became irrelevant when pressure filled it.
She couldn’t keep trading like this.
Not at this pace.
But stopping wasn’t an option either.
Across the chamber, Yuto stood frozen for a second. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Not from fear exactly.
From recognition.
It wasn’t even close.
Oinaru wasn’t rushing.
Wasn’t reacting desperately.
He was simply operating on a level where every motion looked effortless, while everything opposing him required full commitment just to survive.
If this was him not trying, Yuto thought, then there wasn’t any meaningful concept of "trying" left to measure.
Beside him, Tami stood still, eyes locked on the fight.
Shinto was there too, slightly further back, watching without panic.
Yuto noticed something odd.
Neither Tami nor Shinto looked impressed in the way most people would be.
They weren’t overwhelmed by Oinaru.
They were watching Maya.
Not as someone struggling.
But as someone managing to endure something that should have ended already.
Maya forced herself upright again.
Stone shifted around her armor as she reset her stance, cracks still visible along the reinforced plates.
Oinaru lifted both hands.
Fire condensed.
Not into waves this time.
Into shape.
Two curved blades formed from flame, each one flickering with controlled density, edges sharp enough to distort the air around them.
He moved forward.
First strike came down.
Maya blocked.
The impact forced her backward immediately, heels carving lines into the stone as she absorbed the force through both sword and armor.
Second strike followed without delay.
Then a third.
The rhythm changed the moment he committed to pressure.
No longer testing.
Just controlling space.
Each exchange pushed her further back, closer to the edge of what her stance could support.
Her arms burned, a deep, spreading ache that settled into muscle and tendon, not just from heat, but from the relentless force of impact traveling straight through bone and joint like a shockwave with nowhere else to go.
Each breath came sharper now, measured and tightly controlled, but strained at the edges, as if even air had become something she had to fight for.
Keep it steady. Don’t let it break rhythm. One mistake and it’s over.
The thought stayed locked behind her focus, quiet but insistent, keeping her from slipping into panic.
Still, she did not give ground fully. frёewebηovel.cѳm
"You’re slowing," Oinaru said casually, as if commenting on weather. "Perhaps you’re having regrets."
Maya didn’t answer.
She stepped forward instead, the motion cutting cleanly through the established rhythm of defense like a line drawn where none had existed before.
One step, but it changed everything, leaving the pattern behind as if it had never fully belonged to her in the first place.
Breaking rhythm.
Across the distance, Oinaru’s gaze tightened. His eyes narrowed slightly, not in alarm, but in assessment, as if something unexpected had just shifted in a calculation he was still updating.
He lifted his hands, slow and deliberate, as if the motion itself was the trigger for something already waiting beneath the surface.
The air tightened.
Heat surged outward in an instant, compressing the space between them before it could even react.
A wall of fire erupted between them instantly,
It wasn’t just a barrier.
It was active pressure, expanding outward in controlled bursts, meant to push her away from his position entirely.
Maya reacted by moving along its edge.
She ran parallel to it, using the distortion in heat and light as partial concealment. Her rock armor absorbed bursts of stray flame as she moved, small fragments breaking off under sustained exposure.
Oinaru tilted his head slightly.
Then he adjusted.
The wall shifted outward, expanding to cut off her path.
For a fraction of a second, there was an opening where the flames had not yet fully connected.
A gap in the pattern.
Maya saw it immediately.
She didn’t hesitate.
She pushed off the ground and moved through it.
The fire closed behind her almost instantly, brushing her armor as she passed through the narrowing space.
She landed cleanly on the other side.
