Chapter 110: Battle Of Frames

「KOYA-KUN NO 😭😭😭」

「BRO GOT STABBED AND WE’RE JUST WATCHING??」

「SOMEONE DO SOMETHING」

「THE SUIT IS RUINED AND I’M DEVASTATED」

「KOYA GET UP RIGHT NOW」

Miyuki and Mio were not excluded from this… both of them yelled out his name at the same time and Takeru let go of the blade with a stagger while letting off deep breaths.

“I’ve done it… I’ve defended my—”

Koya clocked him across the face with an elbow.

The impact sent Takeru rolling backward, the momentum carrying him until he slammed into another tree with noticeably less force than before.

He slid down the bark and hit the ground.

“Just because you’ve stabbed me doesn’t mean you’ve killed me, damn spammer.” Koya said flatly, and reached behind himself and pulled the sword free from his own back.

It clattered to the ground and dissolved back into construct particles immediately. Blood soaked through his shirt and spread across the back of his jacket in a dark stain.

「Host is losing blood… however nothing vital has been damaged.」

’Well that’s good.’ He thought.

He was significantly stronger than Takeru… the gap wasn’t even particularly close in raw terms but Takeru had hax and that hax was genuine. Frame Skip alone was already a problem, and the ability to give no Intent on top of it had closed a gap that should have been uncloseable and now the one tool Koya had consistently relied on to navigate it, was compromised.

The thing with Danger Sense was that it read intent.

When an attack was launched, the intent behind it gave Danger Sense a window… even a fraction of a second was enough for his body to begin moving but what happened when the attack was moving faster than the skill could process?

When the step completed and the strike landed at the same moment the intent registered? Danger Sense had fired the moment he was struck.

’Well. He’s out of steps for now…’ Koya thought, watching Takeru drag himself back to his feet.

“I refuse.” Takeru said, coughing once and wiping blood from his lip.

His eyes were hard. “I absolutely refuse to lose to someone like you. I will be the one to protect Miyuki… you are an interloper and you deserve death for daring to even meet her in the eye. It doesn’t matter if I have to destroy my body to end you. I will do it with everything I have left.”

His crest flared and a new sword materialized in his hand.

’He’s still out of range.’ Koya thought and moved to close the distance but before he had crossed half of it, Takeru vanished.

A slash came through his side and sent him rolling to a stop but the cooldown hadn’t ended at all… Takeru was pushing his body instead.

“It doesn’t matter if I break my body.” Takeru reappeared, stepped, and Koya got Mana Mode up across his entire frame just in time to take the second slash on reinforced skin instead of open flesh.

It still cut through.

“I will push past my limits. I will be the one to kill you!”

Koya leapt back into the air but Takeru was already there mid-jump with the sword coming in at an angle that left no clean dodge window.

He materialized the Hereto Dagger and got it up in time to block, the impact driving him down and he hit the ground in a skid with his shoes carving lines through the grass.

Takeru landed a short distance away with his sword still raised and he was pale now, blood had also began trickling down from his nose so he was nearing his limit.

“Next time you won’t be so lucky.” He said, and stepped forward again. Koya looked at him and genuinely respected it for a moment.

’Plan B then.’ He thought. ’Let’s enter the Frame World.’

He activated Numb first and every pain signal in his body cut off simultaneously… the sword wound and any other pain he felt, all of it going silent in a single sweep then he pushed Speed Blitz inward and upward… past the limbs… past the core and directing the entire concentration of the skill up into his brain and holding it there at maximum.

The world shattered.

It went completely black for one full second and then came back different though it was not through his eyes, but through Sensory expanding into the new layer of perception that the elevated processing had cracked open.

He couldn’t see the frames but he could feel them. Each one a complete frozen snapshot of a moment with the gaps between them open and still and the entire world revealing itself as something constructed rather than continuous.

Sensory mapped it in real time and his body moved through the information it produced.

He was in the Frame World.

Takeru was directly in front of him with the sword already thrusting for his head, he was fully committed to the frame he had chosen however Koya parried with the dagger and the impact sent Takeru back out of the frame state entirely.

In the real world, Takeru’s eyes went wide as the parry landed.

“Wh… what?!”

「WAIT WHAT DID JUST HAPPEN」

「HE PARRIED IT?? HOW??」

「Koya what are you doing that isn’t normal」

「bro moved and I didn’t see him move???」

「Someone explain this to me RIGHT NOW」

“Ha.” Takeru said as he created distance between them before landing on the ground. “A fluke. I must be losing my edge… Let’s see if you can do it again.”

He moved and vanished and Koya entered the Frame World again, pushing Speed Blitz into the brain at maximum concentration.

’Yesterday I thought about this.’ He moved right and the side slash passed through where his ribcage had been, Takeru turning immediately to fire several quick strikes at different angles.

Koya took three steps back and let them pass. ’Speed Blitz can be applied to any part of the body. So why not the brain?’

Using it on his eyes would allow him to actually see the Frame World with full visual clarity but there was a near fifty percent chance of permanent blindness, because Kurohane blood was what enabled natural Frame World sight and his blood didn’t carry that.

The brain was easily the safer route… It elevated his processing speed enough to feel the frames through Sensory, which in turn elevated his bodily response time.

He wasn’t moving through the frames the way Takeru could but he was faster than he had been and he could feel where each step was going to land before it completed.

Takeru inhaled sharply as more blood came from his ears.

His steps were clean but the cost was accumulating visibly now. He was spending health he couldn’t get back to maintain the one advantage that had been working.

’I refuse to believe this!’ He thought and dashed forward, burning through several frames in rapid succession, materializing in front of Koya with an overhead slash coming down with full weight behind it.

Koya dismissed the dagger and punched him in the gut.

The impact landed before the sword did and it was so strong that it knocked Takeru completely out of the Frame World and back into the real one.

In the real world, Miyuki blinked.

One moment Koya had been standing completely still… the next he was mid-motion and then his fist connected with empty air and the air shattered and Takeru was there, folded around the punch and coughing blood as well.

「Wait… was Koya actually IN the Frame World just now??」

「There is literally no way that’s possible, Frame World access is a Kurohane exclusive bloodline ability and I will die on this hill」

「I need a scientist in chat RIGHT NOW」

Takeru moved back from the fist and went down on one knee, looking up at Koya from the ground.

“You can see the Frame World?” He said with a pale frown on his face. “You defended against me inside it and you even forced me out of a frame. That can only be done by someone with a natural talent for it.”

He rose slowly to his feet. “What the hell are you?”

“I spent years mastering this technique!” Takeru shouted out. “I spent years of my life honing every element of it. I developed Zero Intent from my brother… specifically to counter someone reading my intent before I moved. It worked. It worked on you and you still have more.” His voice climbed. “What the hell are you, huh?! I did everything right and you just… learned it! In the middle of a fight! WHAT ARE YOU?!”

「Ok I actually feel bad for him ngl that’s a valid reaction」

「Years of work and this man just learned it on the spot 💀」

「Genuinely a reasonable response to this situation」

His sword had shattered on the punch and he projected a new one from his crest immediately.

“I don’t care anymore.” He said quietly. “I don’t care about Miyuki… I don’t care about the people watching…”

He looked directly at Koya. “I just want to kill you!”

His crest began glowing differently… It was slowly flashing into blue and this was the phenomenon of a rank-up.

Sometimes the body recognized that it had been pushed to a threshold it hadn’t reached before and the crest responded to the pressure of combat the way a crest was made to… By ranking up, every Awakened ranked up differently but for Takeru, it seemed to be this way.

A Gold-liner crossing to Blue… Under normal circumstances Takeru would let it complete, let the new ceiling settle, and emerge stronger in a clean transition but instead he seized the energy while it was still mid-process and drove it directly into his bloodline skill.

The waste of it was almost painful to witness but it worked.

“Frame Skip!”

The world shattered and Takeru’s movement through the frames had a completely different power to it.

The rank-up energy had multiplied his output mid-activation and the result was immediate and obvious.

A slash came through that opened the ground in the real world along a twenty-meter line and Koya barely got out of the full path of it with the edge catching his shoulder and spinning him sideways hard enough that he had to use the rotation rather than fight it.

’Fate keeps doing the most.’ Koya thought as he stabilized. ’The probability of a Gold-liner of his level ranking up to Blue mid-fight is genuinely low and it happens now.’

“I’ll slaughter you!” Takeru drove forward and Koya had no clean answer… he materialized both Hereto Daggers and crossed them in a block.

The force behind the strike was enormous and they were both sent tumbling through the air with the shockwave carving through every tree in the surrounding distance in the real world and trunks splitting from the displaced force.

Koya kept flipping and assessed.

He was emulating Frame World access… he was not native to it.

Takeru now had rank-up energy fueling his steps and the only reason he was alive was brain acceleration but it wasn’t enough to outpace someone running on breakthrough energy and the Heal skill was repairing the brain damage in real time but at this rate the damage was accumulating faster than the repair.

’Unless I can actually enter the Frame World properly.’ He thought as he landed and skidded, barely avoiding the tree behind him while deflecting another slash that split three more trees and scattered Familiars in every direction. ’System, is it possible?’

「It is possible. However we would be emulating Frame Skip, not accessing it natively, and your current skills are insufficient to withstand the—」

「Ding!」

「Unique Skill: Enhanced Strength (C) → Unique Skill: Mutant Strength (B)」

「Unique Skill: Enhanced Speed (C) → Unique Skill: Mutant Speed (B)」

「Unique Skill: Calm Mind (C) → Unique Skill: Clear (B)」

「Unique Skill: Heal (C) → Unique Skill: Blessing (B)」

「Unique Skill: Speed Burst (C) → Unique Skill: Overdrive (B)」

「Unique Skill: Sensory (B) → Unique Skill: Domain Sense (B)」

Six notifications at once and all of the skills he had entered B-rank.

’You were saying?’ Koya thought, and pushed Overdrive into his brain at maximum output.

CRACK.

In the real world, Koya’s body faded entirely… it was not a blur but rather his outline dissolved from the real world’s frame of reference as he crossed into something above it.

…

He blinked.

Without Sensory as an intermediary layer, the Frame World looked completely different from how he had been experiencing it.

Every frame was a distinct visible panel with the world constructed from crystal-like layers stacked at slight angles to each other and light fracturing through each one in a different direction.

The gaps between them open corridors of absolute stillness that went on in every direction and time didn’t move here.

Everything that existed in the real world existed here too but frozen mid-moment, caught between one instant and the next… A leaf that had been falling was suspended at a perfect diagonal while a bead of Takeru’s blood was hanging motionless in the air between them.

It was a bit beautiful.

“So you can actually reach here.” Takeru said from somewhere ahead of him, his breathing audible in the silence.. “Good. Then…”

A new notification appeared in front of Koya’s face and he ignored Takeru.

「A strange energy is entering your body. Your bloodline is reacting.」

「You have attained Unique Skill (B): Frame Skip」

「Frame Skip allows you to enter the world of frames and move along them. Your time here is limited and over-extension will cause serious consequences.」

’Again with this bloodline.’ He thought, watching the notifications settle.

First the bloodline ability to sleep with someone to permanently acquire their elemental affinity, which was already a power system that raised questions he didn’t particularly want answered and now Frame Skip activating mid-fight because his body decided the situation warranted adding a Kurohane bloodline ability to the list.

’At this rate I’ll find out I’m some kind of genetic experiment built from the strongest traits of every clan that ever existed.’

That was a completely stupid theory… even for a third-rate manga.

Right?

Right?????

He looked at Takeru, who was still mid-speech about something, and lined himself up with the frames between them.

’It doesn’t matter… I can move now so I’ll end this.’

…

’Pale, where’s Koya-kun?’ Mio thought, keeping her arm around Miyuki’s waist and steering her to the side of the clearing.

The girl had taken a knock to her leg at some point during the exchange… probably when the shockwave had swept through and was limping slightly.

“Hubby is giving that man a beating.” Pale’s astral form said, tracking something above and ahead of them that Mio couldn’t see. “They’re in the Frame World right now which means they’re one step above the human plane and just one below the Astral so I can see from here fine.”

The goddess paused.

“Duck!!!”

Mio immediately pushed Miyuki and the Silkstrike Mink down to the ground and suddenly, every tree at the edge of the clearing was cut in half at the same height as animation frames shattered across the visible world and a figure was blasted out of the frame layer and into the real one, carving a crater into the ground on landing.

Koya materialized standing over it.

He looked down at Takeru, who was face-up in the crater with his eyes looking unfocused and his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.

Koya kicked him in the face.

“Oi.” He said. “Wake up. You aren’t allowed to die yet… You still owe me money.”

Takeru made a sound that was technically a grunt though he was knocked out completely and Koya let out a sigh of relief.

’I thought I killed hi…’

A cry split across the entire Isle, it was not an animal sound exactly and more like the sound a building made when its foundation gave way.

Koya straightened up and turned around.

The mountain range at the far end of the Isle had come apart.

The whole face of it had split open and what was inside was coming out.

There were sixteen legs descended from the opening one by one and each one was the length of a building laid on its side and the body followed which was enormous and dark filling the space where the mountain had been as it pulled itself fully into the open air.

Every Familiar within visible range had gone completely silent.

It oriented itself and all of it’s eyes flicked over to the group in the forest, Koya specifically and he gulped.

’What the fuck did I do?’

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep