Fallen Fate Online

Chapter 228 The Gaze

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Toruf was an experienced fighter, so when he realized that Zayne actually had a chance of passing the Chaos Trial and that it wasn't suicidal for him, he gave him that opportunity.

Toruf purposely put his back to Zayne's punch, which would have easily knocked him to the ground. However, in order to do so, Zayne would have to quickly realize what he needed to do and dodge the horns moving at him.

'Shit! If I don't stop him, he'll just make two holes in me!" Zayne internally exclaimed, reaching forward with his arms and grabbing Toruf's horns.

Because of the effort he exerted Toruf's horns slowed down slightly, but it wasn't enough to stop him. Pretty soon the horns would reach their target and Zayne would lose the ability to pass the Chaos Trial, Toruf would simply return him to the Empire's territory, and that would be it.

'Damn it, I can't stop him like this! I can't run away either, I need to think of something immediately! Zayne was wary, looking at his hands, which were bleeding due to the powerful pressure.

Then, he clenched his teeth tightly, exerting even more strength than he had, but it did little to help. Toruf was as unstoppable as the true bull he was.

'If only I had more strength! Just for one moment to be strong enough to knock him down! That would be enough for me!" Zayne growled to himself as the tips of the horns dug into his skin.

'Then... Do it...' A calm voice sounded in Zayne's head.

'Agh...?

'Come on. You're usually thinking much faster than you are now, especially in critical situations like this. You have a way to get a significant boost in physical strength, just use it.

Zayne's eyes went wide, the voice was right, but it still couldn't help him significantly, for the only suitable skill was his dance. Sacrificial Path could give him a boost to all stats, however, it wasn't enough.

He needed a dance, but he had already used one and still had a few moves left, first, he had to spend them to activate a new one.

'Wait... I've never done this before, but there's nothing wrong with using the same skill twice, right?' Zayne pondered, then mana began to circulate faster through his body. 

His eyes turned darker, as they should have, and then one of his eyes shone brightly with a blue light and the whole world froze. Zayne's consciousness plunged into darkness where he saw one single thing.

Two azure threads with dots on them floated in front of Zayne. One thread was quite short, with only two dots, these were Zayne's remaining moves from the first dance. The second thread was much longer, with eight dots.

Then, the two threads joined and now Zayne had a dance of ten movements, however, the darkness was not gone, allowing him to act here.

'Wait... I can control them?' Zayne was puzzled as he swung his hand and one large thread turned into two, each had five dots in it.

Zayne didn't know what this place was, there was only darkness around and his consciousness was working much faster here than in the real world.

Then, Zayne decided to try something else.

'If I can separate them, that means I can also change the threads, right?' Zayne internally muttered with a slight smile. He reached out his hand again joining the two threads, then he grabbed it by the tips.

Zayne spread his hands apart, stretching the thread without any resistance. Eventually, instead of ten dots, there were twenty. However, each dot was much smaller.

'I see... Now there are more movements, but during them, I'll get a slight increase in strength at the beginning and an equally slight increase in energy and speed at the end... In that case, what about this?' Zayne grabbed the ends of the thread again, but, now he was trying to squeeze it. 

The dots connected to each other, soaking in and becoming much larger, but they were just as reduced in number. Zayne continued to squeeze the thread until it completely disappeared, leaving only one massive sphere.

This sphere was the embodiment of the power of the ten movements of his dance alone. Perhaps during a long battle, it was extremely ineffective, but different situations required different solutions.

Zayne was about to leave this strange place, however, right before he was about to leave, the sphere shook slightly.

The sphere externally split into two parts, one was dark, and the other shone brightly with a blue light.

Zayne's gaze became more serious. He understood what this meant. He had to choose whether this sphere would give him physical power by taking away all his energy, or whether it would make him fast and endow him with immense magical power.

"Hah, considering that in a second a huge bull is going to impale me with its horns, the choice is pretty obvious, isn't it?" Zayne smirked before swinging his hand.

The sphere went completely dark, just like his eyes, then the darkness began to fade, bringing Zayne back to the real world.

At the same moment, Zayne's eyes became deep, almost completely losing their color, and all of his energy vanished without a trace.

Unconsciously, Toruf's body went goosebumps, as he had never seen such a thing. Just now, Zayne's hands were blazing with blue energy and a powerful aura was emanating from his body, all for the sake of stopping the horns.I think you should take a look at

'Wait... Did he just use his dance once more...?' Toruf internally muttered in disbelief, 'Idiot! The energy will tear his body apart!'

Toruf began to truly panic. He didn't want it to come to this, he couldn't lose, but he also didn't want to kill or seriously injure Zayne. The worst part was, there was nothing he could do now, it was too late.

Crackle.

Zayne's hands clenched tightly around Toruf's horns. Zayne's veins swelled, muscles tensed to the limit as he exhaled hot steam like he was ready to stop an entire mountain if necessary.

Then, Zayne stared at Toruf with his dark eyes and the ground beneath his feet trembled. Toruf was still moving forward, but now he was slowing down considerably because of how tightly Zayne's feet were clamped into the ground.

In a short period of time, he was able to completely quell the powerful inertia and stop Toruf, which had seemed something impossible before.

"Damn... You actually did it..." Toruf muttered with wide-open eyes, "Just how strong did your dance make you...?"

Zayne didn't answer anything, besides the dance he also had the strength of a wolf, which boosted his physical stats to a greater extent.

Crackle. Crackle. Crackle.

Zayne's sharp claws clenched around Toruf's horns, leaving scratches on them, it was a dead grip. Then, Zayne took a step forward, tilting his body slightly.

"Wait..." Toruf's pupils narrowed as he realized what Zayne was about to do now, "Your body can't take it!!!"

However, Zayne wasn't listening to him, he was using everything he had for this one action and more. He didn't know before that dancing could be manipulated and now he was going to show what he was capable of. 

"Agh..." Zayne exhaled steam with a cold stare before his hands rushed upwards.

At the same moment, Toruf felt something that hadn't happened to him in years. His legs, both front and back lifted off the ground and Zayne was the cause of it.

'No way... A Terror Grade youth that is ten times smaller than me lifted me off the ground!!!' Toruf inwardly exclaimed, unable to believe what was happening. This was something he couldn't even expect from an ordinary Crusader.

"AAAAAARRGGGHH!!!!" Zayne roared like a beast, collapsing Toruf to the ground.

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

Once Toruf's body touched the surface, cracks went through the dark earth as if a meteorite had hit the center of the forest. The ground shook, frightening the flocks of crows that had been perched on the branches for a long time, now, all of them soared into the air, trying to avoid the impending disaster.

"Agh... Agh... Agh..." Zayne fell to his knees, breathing heavily.

His appearance was returning to normal as well as his dark eyes that were once again filled with blue light with round human pupils.

For a while, Toruf lay on the ground. He wasn't hurt, it was just a hard fall, nothing more, hardly even bruised.

However, his mind was in a real state of shock at what had happened, he just didn't expect this to happen.

'I deliberately set myself up to get hit, but in the end, he just lifted me up... Damn, I wanted him to win with tactics, but, he chose brute force and it worked...' Toruf pondered, looking at Zayne.

Toruf was sure that Zayne would be able to pass the test, he helped him by setting him up and giving him the monster's heart. However, things didn't turn out the way he'd hoped.

Zayne shook his head, took a deep breath, and got down on one knee, struggling to rise.

As soon as he tried to take a step, his eyes went wide and a stream of blood rushed from his mouth. Dozens of wounds opened up all over his body, flooding him with blood. Zayne's eyes went blank as he fell to the ground, unable to even move a finger.

"Zayne!" Toruf shouted out.

Crackle.

Somewhere in the distance, sat a person that had been watching the fight the whole time, slowly eating a red apple.

"Ah... Looks like I'll have to intervene after all..."