Path to Transcendence

Colten POV

He felt more perplexed than anything else. In all of his years, he hadn't quite met a target like this one. It was like the boy didn't care that he was trying to kill him. It was as if his life didn't matter at all.

It was deeply concerning, and it was obvious that his target had some deep mental issues. Colten would have tried to help him if he hadn't been in the middle of trying to assassinate him. However, he must do his job, which he was hired for, so he kept throwing his darkness-aspected blades at him.

However, it was quite unexpected that the boy was still alive even after a couple of minutes of Colten attacking him. He was much faster than the reports said he was. This was concerning because the boy was supposedly only at Tier 3.

That said, what was most intriguing was that the black-haired boy had some type of perception skill that could sense his attacks coming, even though they were invisible.

Even if he had some advanced mana-based skill, it was unlikely he could have detected the attacks before it was too late. The skill might have been the upgraded version of [Sixth Sense]. He had heard from others that the epic version has specialized aspects of fate magic, which allowed it to aid the user in avoiding attacks. But that still didn't explain why he was still alive.

Colten was good. That wasn't arrogance either. When it came to other Tier 4s, he was toward the upper ranks, especially when it came to sneaky battles like these. The fact that his opponent was still alive, even after a couple of minutes, was an insult, and he could imagine that the others would laugh at him for not being able to kill a Tier 3.

Gritting his teeth, he ramped up his mana and threw more of his blades. Each one started to scream through the air with more speed, one after the other. His [Dark Gate] skill allowed him to basically attack from any angle as long as he could create a gate. It was an overpowered skill, one that allowed him to kill many other powerful people and monsters in the past.

It was one of his staple skills and one that always caught his opponents off guard. Yet, for some reason, it wasn't working on this target. He had injured the boy, but for some reason, each wound he managed to inflict only made his target smile more widely.

What was even more unbelievable was that he believed that the boy might have been actually training his movement skills as he was under attack. He could barely comprehend what he was seeing. Here he was, a Tier 4, trying to kill him, and the kid was more concerned with practicing his skill.

It was an insult and only made Colten increase his attempts with more fury. However, no matter how much he tried, he was still unable to.

Aggravating. That was one word that described what he was feeling at the moment. His previous feelings of pity for the boy were no longer present. They were fully focused on just finishing the job.

His skills used a lot of mana and willpower. He couldn't use them indefinitely and had to end this quickly.

And so he increased his efforts, swarming the lone boy with everything he had. However, suddenly something changed. The black haired youth was no longer satisfied with dodging his blades and started to make his move.

A barrier made of mana appeared around the teen. This further proved his belief that the youth hadn't been taking Colten seriously the entire time. His blades smashed against the barrier, and he frowned when they didn't slash through.

The barrier was quite durable and managed to take several more of his attacks before it started showing signs of damage.

That wasn't all, though. He sensed a gathering of mana and instinctively threw his Authority as the source. The black haired boy was trying to create a mana construct over his shoulder. But Colten's eye twitched in surprise when his Authority washed over the construct, barely able to do anything.

He wasn't able to break it down or even stop the activation. He could only watch as a spike of swirling blue mana weaved into existence. He knew right away that this construct was a threat. The amount of power coming from this construct was something he had only seen from other Tier 4s.

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He was no longer sure that this boy was Tier 3 like the reports said he was and he was beginning to realize why the last attempt had failed. The Elder who had come to him with this mission had admitted that a team of three other Tier 4s had tried to kill the boy, but the Elder believed that it was because of the interference of other parties.

Colten had agreed with this as well. Beating a Tier 4 as a Tier 3 was extraordinarily difficult, he had beaten a Tier 4 monster with his team at Tier 3 before, so he knew that from personal experience. However, three Tier 4s were another story.

It wasn't possible. Even if the Tier 4s were weaker than normal, the gap was just too wide.

Yet, if the person who had beaten them was in fact already Tier 4, then that was a different question. If that was the case, then it was definitely possible.

Thankfully, he had played it safe and decided to attack from a distance using his gates as proxies. His opponent couldn't hit him with this scary construct if he couldn't figure out where Colten was. He was ashamed to admit that he gave a sigh of relief as he thought of it.

So he watched in confidence as the boy sent the construct ripping through the darkened night sky at a completely random position. At least that was what he had thought initially. He belatedly understood that the direction wasn't random at all.

It was exactly where the last gate was placed.

With frantic movements, he did his best to close the gate. But he was too late and had to use his own movement skill to avoid the spike, which had entered through the gate and almost pierced his chest.

If that wasn't bad enough, the explosion, when the spike released the fire mana, exposed his hiding place on the edge of the barrier he set up.

His stealth skill took a long time to set up, and he no longer had the time to channel it again. he wasn't able to hide within the darkness again; he was forced to dodge the next half dozen spikes that came screaming his way. Their swirling blue mana felt much more dangerous now that he was exposed.

He activated his bracelet attached to his wrist, and a powerful barrier appeared to protect him from the spikes he was unable to dodge. The barrier was able to tank the spikes and used the excess force to power the secondary enchantment it had.

His item was one of his most valuable tools in his possession. He got it from a noble he had killed several years back. It saved his life many times over the years. Protection magic and such wasn't his strong suit, which was why he needed the item's assistance.

The issue was that he no longer had the element of surprise and was forced to confront the boy directly.

Dodging another volley of spikes, he dashed in and took out his actual blade from his storage ring. He sent out a burst of darkness mana at the boy, trying to shroud his vision. Yet somehow his opponent was still able to sense where he was swinging from and managed to lean away from his blade.

It was then that he became confident that this boy had some ridiculous perception skill that didn't rely on sight alone. Perhaps it was a sound perception skill or something uncommon like that, but whatever it was, it was annoying for Colten. Doubly so because his skill set revolved around depriving his opponents of their eyesight and being sneaky.

He kept up the aggression though. Each swing of his blade was methodical and swift. The black haired youth, no matter how fast he was, he wasn't faster than Colten. That was one thing that he was grateful for.

If he had been faster, Colten didn't know if his pride could take it.

He continued pushing the boy backward, and made sure his opponent wasn't able to counter and to find his footing. The young kid was forced to place all of his attention on deflecting the blade with small barriers and his fists which were covered in mana constructed gauntlets.

He was doing very well in keeping Colten at bay. Much better than he had seen from many other Tier 4s and certainly better than any Tier 3 he had ever met. If not for the circumstances, he would have been very impressed.

However, at the moment, he could only think about how annoying the boy was. He wanted to end the fight, but couldn't find a way. And there was another problem: his initial attack had used a lot of his mana. His stealth skill required a large upfront cost. A cost that he was feeling at the moment.

It was why he was making sure he was conserving what he had remaining and why he was confused why this brat was still going strong.

Colten was faster and had injured his opponent quite severely at this point. Large pieces of flesh were missing from the boy's entire body. His skills, which further exaggerated these wounds, didn't help the youth's cause. Yet this didn't seem to bother the young boy. The same calm grin was on his face as he battered each of his strikes away.

It was like fighting a golem in a weird way. His opponent never flinched and never hesitated. Colten had the advantage in almost every category. He was faster, he was stronger, and he was certainly more experienced, still he could never figure out a way to finish it.

Then suddenly, once he started to feel his own fatigue setting in, he sensed a rush of mana flowing out of the boy. A powerful surge of life-aspected mana bloomed, unlike anything he had ever experienced.

Then, before his very eyes, the wounds he had worked so hard to inflict were healed within seconds. The blood that was flowing down was stopped, and he could only watch in horror as the boy grinned at him with amusement evident in his eyes.

"You gotta be shitting me," Colten muttered to himself.