“Damn it! Damn you! Damn the gods! You can’t trust anyone in this fucking world!” Lucius's anger exploded inside, and all of it went through his mouth as shouts and curses. He picked up the knife and pointed it toward Adrien, his face boiling with wrath. His skin as red as demons in hell. “You think that whatever the gods promised you! Will they fulfill it?! No! YOU’LL END JUST LIKE ME!” Shouted Lucius as he waved the blade around.
Adrien knew the truth, he knew that he was a pawn just like Lucius. His hands eased the grip on the blades for a second as he looked for the resolve inside him. “I only chose a path that let me live the longest…”
Even though what he heard was the truth, it made him angry; he tried to hold his feelings away and keep them in check, but that was a trigger. For taking a peek inside, Adrien thought a punishment should be delivered for that wrongdoing. His hand whistled, and with one swift move, he sent a knife flying at Lucius’s foot.
Luicus stepped aside just in time, a grunt of surprise let out his lungs, but he got confidence from that. “I may be the head of some rich family… But we used to be renowned warriors!” Strada threw the knife right at Adrien, which he effortlessly caught between his two fingers. The colors came back to the world around them as Adrien lost his focus on his power for a second.
“And I am no mere man.” Snickered Adrien, but when he was focused on the knife, he didn’t notice that Lucius moved from the place where he stood. Seeing a shadow, he quickly turned around and saw Lucius flying toward him with a thick book, its cover made out of hardwood.
With barely any time to react, Adrien watched as the wooden hardcover smashed against his head. The force of the attack surprised him. “With that swing and the force he put into it… Almost as strong as her.” With his head still dizzy, he thrust his knife forward. As Lucius's feet touched the ground, he used every fiber of his muscles to immediately jump away. That split-second movement made Strada move away with only pierced skin, a single drop of blood running down his leg, hidden by his black pants.
With a bit of blurry vision, Adrien chased Lucius, who barely avoided all of his attacks. Waiting for a chance to strike again, but he was losing patience as he watched how close each attack was to heavily injuring him.
Beside them, there was one more presence watching them fight in the library. None of them knew, none of them could see her, but she was there on the couch, lying and observing. Invisible to their sight, but she could see them clearly in both worlds. The woman in a dark dress and veil enjoyed the show put in front of her by those two men.
“You aren’t fighting an average man, dear assassin. In front of you stands a man from a powerful bloodline of Strada. He may not seem like it, but in his veins runs a blood of people who were as strong as Drowned without a blessing from the gods. No drowning killed them. It was the first war, a Hidden War as we call it. House Strada and a few other families of warriors faced an army of newly Drowned warriors. Forces of Gods completely lost, but it wasn’t in vain. The dynasties of warriors crumbled, leaving only a few of them alive.” The woman thought amusingly as she watched Lucius stand on his own against Adrien, slowly getting the hang of it as the fight continued.
Lucius’s clothes were cut all around, but his wounds weren’t as many. As they got closer to the reading area, Strada picked up a chair and swung it at Adrien. It was the first attack in a long time, but there was something different about it. There was much more strength behind it, more comparable to Godan’s strength. Adrien avoided the attack, but even a few inches away, he felt the force put behind it. If he got hit, he would be sent flying into the wall.
“I always face opponents much stronger, but he is different. He seemed weak. He was weak. How… No. It doesn’t matter how. I just have to kill him. That’s my only objective.” The stone-cold focus came back to Adrien as he jumped away, toward the closest bookshelf.
“Samonus’s assassin isn’t very strong compared to the rest of the Drowned… But he is unique. While others advance with strength or the power of gates, he uses his mind. With the information I gathered, I know that his gate may be simple, but if used correctly… It's the most powerful ability in the whole world.” The woman in a veil watched closely as Adrien picked up a book and ripped its pages off, sending them flying all over the library. As the thin paper slowly hovered above them, he activated his Monochrome Mirror gate, draining the room of all its colors.
For Lucius, the flying pages seemed harmless, completely ignoring them, he advanced forward with the chair in hand. He imagined the chair breaking along the assassin’s head, letting him finish the man and save his own life. Adrien was ready to meet Strada’s attack, but it was only an act. He was calm and tried to make a big deal out of the book he just ripped.
“There is no need for provocation like that! I am coming for you no matter what!” Shouted Lucius, annoyed by the destruction of his possession.
“That was no mere provocation…” Whispered Adrien, his cold gaze watching as the paper wobbled to the sides as it fell beside Lucius. He completely ignored the page right beside his hand.
The thin paper cut Strada’s fingers off his hand like a guillotine. Making the man stop and scream in pain. He dropped the chair and grabbed his injured hand. His instincts were enough to tell him that those weren’t just sheets of paper. Those were blades ready to prey on his flesh.
He quickly moved away from the reading area where the paper was falling to the ground. Getting himself to safety, he watched Adrien disappear right behind a piece of paper. As he looked forward, he couldn’t see the colors of the world, but the shelf he was standing behind was brown.
“Call me impressed. It’s the first time you've made a trick like that. He must’ve learned it just now.” The woman in the veil could see the colorless realm not moving like it used to, its center always moving with Adrien, but this time the realm slowly moved behind him, letting him reach the end of the colorless world and appear from thin air right in front of Lucius, two knives aimed at his chest.
Strada coughed out blood right at Adrien’s face, staining the dark clothes with his blood quicker than he could realize he had been heavily injured. Both of his lungs were punctured with knives. Yet that wasn’t enough to stop him from throwing one more punch straight to Adrien’s head. Sending him flying right at the bookshelf, breaking it apart, and making all the books fall on the man beneath the rubble.
Lucius took only one step before falling to his knees. His body lusted for air, but his injured lungs couldn’t quite gather that. The missing air in his body made him weak, his vision became blurry, and his own thoughts unclear.
“What… Happened?” He asked himself as he looked at his hands, not a sign of injury on them, forgetting to check the rest of his body and the wounds hidden by his extended arms.
The man couldn’t move and was forced to watch his assassin rise from the rubble, blood flowing from his head into his left eye. He couldn’t quite stand on his own two feet as he wobbled to the sides, but the assassin was moving forward to finish his task. To kill Lucius Strada. One of the last true human warriors.