SFS Chapter 176 : Chapter 176
Chapter 176 : Chapter 176
Chapter 176. Ifreles
Ifreles’s eyes lit up.
They shone even brighter than when he had looked at Alice a moment ago.
It was the look of someone who had just found a brother he had been separated from for years—or rather, the look of someone who had finally found his own kind.
He casually tossed aside Alice, who was on the verge of her last breath, as if he were throwing away a rag doll he had grown tired of playing with.
Alice crashed into Alectos, and the two of them rolled into a heap, yet neither of them dared move.
Ifreles straightened his slightly disheveled collar, then spread his arms toward Logaris atop the broken pillar. The motion was so elegant it looked like he was taking a bow at the end of an opera, and an absurdly exaggerated smile spread across his face—so twisted it could only be called savage.
“Ah...”
He drew in a deep breath of air tinged with Logaris’s scent, his voice filled with intoxicated delight.
“What a revolting aura.”
Tilting his head, Ifreles looked at Logaris, the man’s cold, stern face reflected in his crimson pupils.
“I never thought I would still be able to smell the scent of 【Pride】 in a place as filthy as this garbage heap.”
He ran his scarlet tongue over his dry lips, his voice trembling slightly with extreme exhilaration.
“It’s so nostalgic... it makes me want to vomit!”
Above the ruins of the tavern, the blizzard seemed to sense some horrifying will and poured down even more recklessly, shrieking like evil spirits.
Alectos did not even look back. He hoisted the unconscious Alice onto his back, his dragon blood surging to its absolute limit, and turned into a bloody afterimage as he sprinted toward the Dragon Mountain Range.
The beast-like instincts of a Dragon-Blooded Demi-Human were screaming warnings inside his mind: if he stayed here, he would die.
The only way to survive was to go for help.
Ifreles did not even spare the fleeing insect a glance. Standing amid the wind and snow, his gaze passed over the twin swords in Sylvia’s hands, cold and gleaming, passed over Aurora’s staff poised to strike at any moment, and stuck fast to Logaris.
That look was like a gourmet who had been alone for ten thousand years finally digging up a piece of top-grade Wagyu from a garbage dump.
“Don’t look at me with those disgusting eyes.” Logaris pushed up his glasses, the lenses flashing coldly beneath the snowlight. “I’m not interested in old men. I suggest you turn left when you go outside and check yourself into a psychiatric hospital. They should have a bed waiting for you there.”
“Heh...” Ifreles let out a low chuckle, his chest vibrating with a dull echo. His laughter sounded especially eerie amid the storm. “A sharp tongue is also part of the 【Pride】 trait. I understand. After sleeping inside that frail human shell for so long, it’s only natural that you picked up a few habits from lesser creatures.”
Sylvia’s brows knitted tightly.
“Since you can move through the Northern Territory as if no one were here, you’re clearly no nobody,” Sylvia said, flicking her wrists. Her twin swords, Moonfall and Starfall, carved two mournful arcs through the air, their tips aimed straight at Ifreles. “But barging into someone else’s territory and running wild like this—isn’t that a little rude?”
At the same time, Aurora slammed the tip of her staff heavily against the ground.
“Divine Spell · Wall of Light!”
A golden curtain of light rose instantly, isolating this area from the surrounding homes. If she had not done that, the aftermath of the coming battle would have been enough to flatten half the street.
Only then did Ifreles finally turn his head.
He looked at the two women facing him as if they were standing before a great enemy, yet there was not the slightest ripple in his eyes, as though he were merely looking at two somewhat larger stones by the roadside.
“Noise.”
The instant those two words left his mouth, he moved.
It was not spatial magic. He was simply fast.
So fast that the retina could not even capture the image. So fast that even sound was left trailing behind him.
Sylvia’s pupils contracted violently. In that instant, the dynamic vision she had always taken pride in failed her. All she saw was a blurred black shadow.
And in that same instant, the instincts of a knight forged through countless battles saved her life.
She crossed her twin swords before her chest on sheer reflex, her battle aura erupting without reservation.
CLANG—!!
A deafening impact rang out, loud enough to shatter eardrums.
Sylvia felt as though she had been struck head-on by a high-speed magitech train. The bones in both her arms let out agonized cries that set her teeth on edge. Her body flew backward beyond her control. Even though her feet dug desperately into the ground, she still slid more than ten meters, carving two deep furrows into the hard stone street before finally smashing through a wall and barely coming to a stop.
“Cough...” A trace of blood spilled from the corner of Sylvia’s lips, her eyes full of shock.
That had only been a casual blow as he passed by?!
Yes. Ifreles had not even paused.
His figure had already passed Sylvia.
He had only one target.
On top of the broken pillar, Logaris felt a chill run down the back of his neck. The sense of danger that came from being locked onto by an apex predator made his heart seize.
“Disintegra—”
Logaris raised a hand, and the red light at his fingertips had only just begun to glow—
when a slender, pale hand was already resting on his shoulder.
“Too slow.” Ifreles’s voice sounded right beside his ear, tinged with the teasing amusement of a cat toying with a mouse. “And your spatial perception—was it just for decoration?”
The tone sounded exactly like a stern mentor scolding a disappointing student.
The next second—
that hand suddenly tightened, turning into claws as it lunged straight for Logaris’s heart!
Rip!
The sound of claws tearing cloth was especially piercing in the silence.
The breath of death rushed straight into his face.
At that hair’s-breadth moment, Logaris’s mind went blank. But some instinct carved into the depths of his soul seized control of his body faster than thought itself.
【Phase Shift】.
His body abruptly turned insubstantial, flickering like a television screen with bad reception, and he forcibly shifted three meters to the left.
Ifreles’s hand caught nothing but air, tearing off only a corner of Logaris’s trench coat.
“Oh?”
Ifreles looked at the small scrap of black cloth at his fingertips, and the red light in his eyes burned even brighter. That excitement was almost overflowing now.
“Such powerful spatial talent. No incantation, no guidance, purely instinctive... Hahahahaha!” Ifreles threw his arms wide and burst into wild laughter amid the blizzard. “I knew it! You really do carry a few traces of 【Pride】!”
Not far away, Logaris’s figure solidified again.
He clutched his chest, gasping for breath as he stared fixedly at that madman. Cold sweat slid down his temples and soaked the frame of his glasses.
Damn it.
What a freak.
Logaris cursed viciously in his heart.
This bastard kept saying the word “Pride.”
But he had no time to think about that now.
This man... was strong in a way that made no sense.
In that instant just now, if his reaction had been even a little slower, his heart would already have been ripped out.
“Attack!”
Sylvia steadied herself and shouted sharply.
The twin swords in her hands erupted with blinding silver light. It was the secret Moonphase Swordsmanship passed down within the Astrelia royal family.
“Full Moon · Severing Flow!”
Dozens of silver sword auras wove themselves into an airtight net, sealing off every possible route of evasion for Ifreles. Every single sword aura was sharp enough to slice through steel.
At the same time, Aurora stopped holding back.
“Divine Spell · Gravity Shackles!”
“Divine Spell · Slowing Aura!”
Two debuffing divine spells landed on Ifreles with perfect precision. The ground collapsed instantly, as if an invisible mountain had crashed down onto the shoulders of the man in black.
However—
Ifreles’s movements... did not change in the slightest.
He could not even be bothered to dodge those sword auras, much less resist the gravity that was enough to crush an elephant.
He simply stood there with both hands in his pockets, letting those sword auras—powerful enough to carve apart magitech armor—slash across his body.
Clang clang clang—
A dense series of sharp impacts rang out, like a shower of rain striking broad leaves.
Sparks flew everywhere, brilliant as fireworks.
A layer of dark red sheen spread across Ifreles’s skin. As for the ordinary-looking black formal suit he was wearing, it did not even tear open by a single seam.