Chapter 108: Blood Tastes Better Fresh

Chase scoffed and stepped forward, the lazy amusement on his face sharpening into something hungrier.

“Commander,” he said, rolling one shoulder as he moved into the open court, “I hope you don’t mind if I go first.”

Adriana studied him for a brief moment, then gave a single curt nod.

“Go ahead, Chase.”

The look in his eyes changed at once. It was no longer playful. There was eagerness in it now, the kind that belonged to someone who genuinely enjoyed testing what other people were made of.

“Ever since I met you, Jagger Ashton,” Chase said, flexing his fingers once, “I’ve wanted to have a little chat.”

Inside Jagger’s head, Ophilia’s voice slid in sharp and cold.

’Be careful. He is more than double our level, and I doubt that is the only difference between you.’

Zumthor answered with a savage growl.

’Let me out. I will peel the flesh from his bones and wear it like a coat.’

“Quiet,” Jagger muttered under his breath.

Chase’s smile widened.

“Talking to yourself again, new boy?”

Adriana stepped to the side of the court and clasped her hands behind her back.

“Hand-to-hand combat only. Skills are permitted. No crippling blows. The match ends when a yield is given, or I call it.”

Her tone was calm, clipped, and final.

The others shifted back, clearing the court without being told twice.

Jace folded her arms and moved beside Adriana, posture still and unreadable, though her attention had sharpened noticeably. Grace took up a place a little further off, feet spread shoulder-width apart, broad shoulders relaxed but ready, like a fighter who never truly stopped measuring distance. Leo had finally forced himself upright, but only barely. He hovered near the edge of the training mat with his hands buried in his jacket pockets, shoulders caved inward, his pale face tight with a tension that looked almost painful.

Chase rolled his neck once. Then again. “Let’s see if you’re as tough as you talk, little assassin,” he said. “Don’t disappoint me.”

He did not charge.

He vanished.

One moment, he was ten meters away. The next, the air snapped in front of Jagger, and Chase was already there, his right shoulder turning as a brutal uppercut tore up toward Jagger’s chin.

Jagger reacted on instinct.

He leaned back hard, spine arching just enough for the fist to miss by a breath. Air whipped across his face. Chase’s knuckles passed so close to his jaw that Jagger felt the force of it like a slap.

He barely had time to recover.

Chase planted and spun immediately, his body unwinding into a high roundhouse that came around with terrifying speed. It was not wild. It was clean, balanced, and vicious. His shin cut across the space at head height with enough force to fold Jagger in half.

Jagger raised his arms, right arm covering one side of his face, left hand braced against his elbow. He hunched down, tucked his chin, and took the kick on his guard.

The impact was monstrous.

Pain detonated through both forearms. The force lifted him off his feet anyway. He twisted with it on instinct, hit the mat shoulder-first, and rolled hard across the floor before coming up in a crouch several meters away, breath tight in his chest, both arms throbbing from wrist to elbow.

Across the court, Chase had already reset his stance.

“Surprising,” he said lightly. “Most fresh meat would still be kissing the floor after that.”

Ophilia’s voice cut through the ache. ’He is fast. Too fast. Your reflexes are enough to survive the exchange, but not enough to control it. If you fight him straight, you lose.’

Jagger wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then whispered to the system.

“Add ten points to Strength. Ten to Agility. Ten to Dexterity.”

The response came instantly.

[Stat points have been distributed.]

Strength: 35 (+17)

Agility: 30 (+17)

Dexterity: 30 (+17)

The change hit him in a rush.

It was not flashy. It was immediate. The ache in his arms remained, but it no longer felt crippling. His balance sharpened. The mat beneath his feet became more defined. Chase’s posture, weight shifts, and breathing all snapped into slightly clearer focus. His body felt lighter, tighter, better synchronized.

On the sidelines, Jace’s eyes narrowed.

She saw it.

The way Jagger’s stance settled. The way the tension in his shoulders was redistributed. The way his center of gravity sank and stabilized as if his body had quietly recalibrated itself in real time. ’That won’t be enough.’

Grace noticed it too.

Her expression did not change, but her attention sharpened differently. Until now, she had been watching a reckless level seventeen with a bad attitude. Now she was watching a level seventeen thinking. ’He’s allocating points,’ She thought, not taking her eyes off the fight. ’Mid combat.’

Even Adriana’s gaze tightened by the smallest degree.

Chase raised an eyebrow, clearly sensing the shift.

“Well now,” he murmured. “Let’s see if those stats make up for a lack of experience.”

Then he moved again.

This time, he came in lower and tighter, no wasted movement, no flourish. A left jab snapped toward Jagger’s face. A right hand followed immediately after, then another left, all fast, probing, designed to read defense before breaking it.

Jagger saw them now.

He deflected the first with his forearm, brushed the second off-line with his right hand, then dipped under the third and stepped inside Chase’s guard.

His elbow drove up and in, aimed at the ribs.

It landed.

A solid thud echoed through the court as the strike bit into Chase’s side. “Ugh…”

For the first time, Chase’s expression flickered with genuine surprise. “…Playing rough now, are we?”

Jagger kept moving. “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

He pivoted left, forcing Chase to turn with him, then snapped a short jab toward the jaw from just over his shoulder, tight and mean and faster than before.

“Quit playing around, Chase. Put him in his place,” Just before it could connect, Jace’s voice cut across the court.

Chase slipped it by a hair. “Fine. Playtime’s over.”

His head rolled just enough for the punch to skim past his cheek. At the same time, his own body folded inward with liquid precision. His arm hooked around Jagger’s body and fist connecting just under the ribs, not wild, not heavy, but perfectly placed.

Jagger’s breath caught.

Before the pain could fully register, an orange light exploded around Chase’s feet and lower legs.

“Eruption.”

Heat shimmered around his calves.

He planted, pivoted, and drove a vicious side kick straight into Jagger’s torso.

This time, the force was different.

It was not merely an impact. His legs connected, which was followed by a compressed blast of violent energy detonated through the strike, and Jagger felt it all at once, the kick, the heat, the wave of force following behind it like a second hit.

He crossed his arms and braced, digging his feet down into the mat.

It did not matter.

His body shot backward across the training floor, slides shrieking uselessly against the rubber surface. He fought for purchase, leaving ugly streaks behind him, but the force carried him all the way into the reinforced wall.

He hit hard enough to rattle his teeth.

The impact boomed through the court.

Dust shook loose. A faint web of stress marks flashed across the wall panel before the material stabilized.

Then silence dropped for half a second.

Jagger stayed there, back pressed to the cold surface, chest rising once, sharply.

Chase lowered his leg as the orange light around his feet faded.

“Impressive,” he said, and this time there was no mockery in it. “Most people would have flown. You slid. Level seventeen, taking a level forty skill like that and staying upright? Not bad.”

Jace’s arms remained crossed, but her posture had gone tighter.

She did not like what she was seeing.

Not because Jagger was losing. That had been expected. What bothered her was the way he was blocking and taking the attacks for a hunter double his level.

Grace’s jaw was set, her eyes narrowed as she analyzed the exchange.

Adriana just smiled. ’He’s definitely not an assassin class. The way he fights is too raw.’

“Yield?” Chase called, already sauntering forward.

Jagger pushed off the wall slowly.

He spat a thin line of blood onto the mat.

Then he laughed.

It started low in his chest, like something cracked open and wrong. Not amusement. Not relief. It climbed up out of him in a jagged, brittle sound that bounced off the lights and walls and made the court feel colder instead of warmer.

Chase stopped walking.

Jace’s eyes sharpened instantly.

Grace straightened a fraction.

Leo flinched.

Adriana did not move, but every line of her attention locked on Jagger at once.

The laugh kept going for another breath, then broke into silence as Jagger lifted his head.

There was something feral in the way he looked at Chase now.

Not wild in the mindless sense. Worse. Focused. Hungry. As if the pain had excited something instead of discouraging it.

“Slaughter Claws.”

Darkness had crawled over his fingertips.

Black material hardening over his hands in sharp, jagged growths that looked less like weapons and more like predatory bones forged from shadow. The claws curved wickedly from each finger, glossy and light-drinking, their edges seeming to distort the air around them.

One of his claws reached his mouth and traced it. “Blood tastes better fresh, don’t you say?”

Jagger dropped into a low, wide stance.

One hand touched the mat for balance as blood dripped from its tips. His head tilted at an unnatural angle as he looked up at Chase through a grin that showed fangs that were not there a moment ago. Crimson eyes glowed in the low light, faintly but unnervingly.

“Come on then, Warbreaker,” he said, voice low and edged with something far darker than confidence. “Let’s play.”

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