Reborn with a Necromancer System-Chapter 186: Kai vs Redford - Part Two

Redford smiled, his teeth glinting in the half-light, and his hair, now untethered by gravity, floated upward in shimmering strands, drawn skyward as if charged with invisible static.

Kai tensed. A cold breeze tickled his arm, and then...

Shhk.

He gasped.

A blade was embedded in his upper arm. Deep. Clean. He hadn’t even seen Redford move.

Pain bloomed a moment later, delayed by sheer adrenaline. Kai yelped and stumbled backward, yanking the sword free in a splash of red. He clutched the wound instinctively, blood running hot through his fingers.

’What’s with everyone relying on speed lately?’ he thought bitterly, blinking rapidly.

He barely had time to recover before...

A flash of colour moved before Kai’s eyes.

Pain again. Another cut, this time slicing across his opposite forearm.

"Dammit!" he hissed. He hadn’t even had time to think, just stood there, trying to process the first strike.

This wasn’t going to work.

Kai dropped to one knee and slammed his palm to the stone floor. A flickering shell of dark energy bloomed outward, forming a faint, translucent dome. It wasn’t meant to block anything, no, not Redford’s speed. Nothing could match that. Instead, it rippled with Shade.

A sensory net.

A web linked directly to Kai’s awareness, like a spider feeling the tremors of an intruder.

He wrapped himself tighter in shadow, or more precisely, in Shade, his longest friend and his purest form of shadow magic. Threads of black wrapped his limbs and snaked along his spine. He bled essence into them, syncing them with the magic-fueled barrier around him. His vision dimmed slightly, but in return, he could feel.

The next movement came like lightning. Kai didn’t see it, but he felt it, like the vibration of a note struck on glass.

Kai moved just in time.

A sudden crack in the air, and Redford appeared again, his arm outstretched and blade whistling through space where Kai’s neck had been a second earlier. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

’He’s aiming for vital areas? Going in for the kill, just because there are healing mages on standby? Damn.’

Kai’s hand shot up and caught Redford’s wrist.

"Gotcha."

He twisted.

Muscles surged with strengthening magic, tendons screaming in his arm as he heaved Redford’s entire weight over his shoulder and slammed him into the ground. Dust erupted in a dull boom, the stone underfoot cracking beneath the impact.

Redford rolled twice before springing to his feet with the grace of a seasoned fighter, brushing dust off his chest like it was an annoyance. His expression was no longer smug.

Just... intrigued.

"You can see my Thunderstep?" Redford asked, brows raised.

Kai straightened, keeping his breathing even. His arms throbbed. The cuts still bled, but less now. He was pushing life essence into the wounds, knitting them slowly beneath the skin, slower than a healing spell, but enough to keep him from bleeding out mid-fight.

"Maybe," Kai said, voice hoarse. "Or maybe it was just a lucky guess?"

Redford shook his head, grinning again. "Nah. You can’t stop my Thunderstep accidentally. Not even once."

Then he vanished.

Kai didn’t wait this time. He let the barrier speak to him, didn’t bother trusting his eyes. He ducked low, spinning sideways, and felt the blade graze his shoulder instead of his throat.

They clashed again.

Redford’s strikes were brutal and erratic, like lightning trapped in flesh.

Every movement was a blur, every step followed by a near-silent sonic boom.

He didn’t even seem to touch the ground for more than a heartbeat. Just flashes of pressure, the scent of ozone, and the flicker of those floating strands of hair.

Kai kept up, barely.

Every parry required magic. Every dodge demanded focus. He couldn’t split his thoughts anymore.

He was healing, reinforcing his limbs, feeding essence into the barrier, and reacting all at once.

He cloaed his eyes.

The world was too distracting.

He’d named it auto-reaction magic in his head, but even that didn’t do it justice. It wasn’t just a passive defense, it was like growing another sense. Like being part of the air around him.

If he hadn’t created it, he’d be dead.

A blade came up from under Kai’s ribs.

He twisted and kicked, using Redford’s own speed against him.

The man staggered back, only for Kai to follow with a shoulder slam, raw and unsophisticated, but it bought space.

They paused.

Both bloodied now, both panting.

Redford looked positively giddy. "You know," he said, voice casual despite the bruise blooming on his chin, "this is fun."

Kai said nothing. He was too busy keeping his skin from splitting open again.

He didn’t know how much longer he could maintain this. Not without tearing something inside himself. But...

If he dropped the barrier.

If he lowered his guard.

He’d lose, or worse, he’d die.

So, he breathed deep, called on more of his inner pool of life essence, and watched the way Redford’s toes shifted on the cracked stone.

He wasn’t done.

And neither was Redford.

Kai staggered back a step, his breath ragged and limbs heavy.

[Life Essence: 7,096 / 115,000]

It flashed across his inner vision like a final warning.

He grit his teeth. His body screamed in protest with every movement, blood crusted over his arms in patches, his muscles trembled from overuse, and even the act of standing upright took deliberate focus.

The past few days had whittled him down. Each and every fight.

But this fight... this one had devoured him.

The reactive barrier, shadow magic, reinforcing his bones and skin, and force-feeding life essence into torn flesh.

Every moment with Redford had been survival by a thread.

And that thread was fraying.

Redford was too fast. Too fast.

His technique, Thunderstep, wasn’t teleportation.

It was something worse.

It bypassed the very act of perception.

Teleportation could be followed with Mana Sight, but moving faster than sound was harder or even impossible to track.

Even Kai’s precognitive barrier, synced to his soul and reflexes, couldn’t see it. It could only feel it, barely.

And even that slight feeling felt like trying to catch lightning in his palm.

Sure, the barriers around Kai dulled the edge of Redford’s strikes. The strengthening magic in his skin kept the wounds shallow. His reflexes and experience did the rest.

But he still bled.

The fight dragged on.

Seconds became minutes. Blades clashed, feet slammed into stone, and grunts of pain echoed under the cheers of the crowd.

Sweat blurred Kai’s vision.

His knees wobbled.

He could feel the end coming, an invisible pressure descending around him as his life essence dwindled.

He drew in another breath and nearly choked on it.

[Life Essence: 0]

Empty.

Nothing left.

He felt it all at once. The sensation of being unplugged from himself. The barrier shattered like brittle glass.

His healing stopped, his wounds raw and aching.

The shadow magic receded like water down a drain, his limbs now exposed, his body unguarded.

He stood there, swaying.

The world dulled. His heartbeat pounded in his ears.

He was out of tricks.

"Alright," he muttered, raising his chin. "Let’s end it."

Kai squared his stance, muscles tight, ready to meet Redford’s final strike head-on, even if it took his head off.

But nothing came.

The barrier, though crumbling, gave no alert. No tremor. No warning.

No step. No breath.

Nothing.

Kai opened his eyes.

Redford was sitting cross-legged on the arena floor, both swords discarded on the tiles, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. His normally impeccable hair clung to his forehead in damp strands.

"I’m spent," Redford muttered, dragging a wrist across his mouth. "If I go another second, my muscles and tendons’ll snap like thread. You win, Alex."

Kai blinked. "I... I win?"

Redford didn’t respond immediately. He just gave a short nod, then leaned back on his hands, still panting.

Then the voice of the announcer boomed above them from the elevated platform:

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN IN THE STANDS! What a turn of events! Just when it looked like Alex Trunsdale was about to fall, Redford forfeits! That means we’ll be seeing our underdog in the finals, against either Quinn or Grim! But let’s be honest, folks... I think we all know who’s the crowd favourite now!"

The roar that followed shook the stadium.

Kai didn’t care. He slumped down onto his ass, groaning as relief crashed into him.

Then he laughed. Exhausted, wheezing, disbelieving.

"You know..." he said, resting his head on his hands, "if you had one more second... you would’ve won."

Redford let out a short, humorless chuckle. "I know. I could feel it. But when I tried to move, nothing happened. My body just... refused. Thunderstep’s got one weakness. Burns out your body like kindling."

Kai turned his head, looking at him. "Next time, try focusing your strengthening magic on your tendons and muscles. Might help against the strain."

Redford turned to him, brows raised. "Wait... focusing it on specific parts of my body?"

Kai paused. "Yeah. You’re not doing that already?"

Redford blinked. "No. Just... blanket coverage. Let the magic do its thing."

Kai stared.

’That’s not normal?’

He scratched his head, which made him wince. "Well, maybe give it a shot. Who knows, maybe next time you’ll actually beat me."

Redford grinned, a little blood still on his teeth. "For a kid, you’re pretty damn smart."

He stood slowly and extended a hand to help Kai up.

Kai took it.

"I’ll tell the Guildmaster myself," Redford said. "You’re silver sigil material for sure. Maybe even gold or eclipse, one day. Keep training, Alex."

Kai stood tall, shoulders squared, despite the pain in his bones and the blood staining his shirt. The applause from the crowd faded into a distant hum.

’Maybe I can win this. But I’ll need more life essence before my fight tomorrow. I can’t be spending my time watching Grim fight. I need to prepare.’