God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Chapter 200: Calio vs Manny: A Battle of Wits and Skills.

"Please! Please, Spare my Life!"

"I have children, a sick wife, a dying grandma, and a dog with only three legs at home! If you kill me, they are all doomed to die by starvation!" Tears streamed down Calio's face as he led through his teeth.

"Kill you? Don't be silly! Hahaha!" Manny burst out laughing once he heard Calio's words.

"I wasn't going to kill you. Sure, you would have lost a limb, but that's all good, right?" Manny said with a smile.

'Damn it! Not only is he a demon, but he is also a freaking mental patient?! I've had it with these crazy people!' Calio thought to himself upon hearing Manny's words.

"You don't plan on killing me?" Calio said, wiping the tears and snot from his face.

"Hmm... Depends on how useful we find you to be. Now come with me..." Manny said, reaching for Calio's collar.

A sly look flashed in Calio's eyes suddenly...

"Mana Strings!"

Like magic, Manny watched as Calio slipped out of his grip like he was dragged away by an invincible hand.

"Eh?!" Manny stated at his empty hand in shock...

"Although I would have loved to stay longer with you, I'm severely allergic to madness. Thank you, and do have a nice day." Turning to his left, Manny stared at Calio, who was now a good distance away from him.

'What magic spell did he use?' Due to his momentary negligence, he was unable to see what exactly Calio had used to escape.

Sensing Manny's confusion, Calio thought it would be funny to explain,

"Seems like you are still a novice despite your strength. Tsk... Rather than linking my mana to an element, I chose to keep it fresh. That way, it is more malleable and ductile. By creating {Mana Strings} that can adhere to surfaces, and also have nearly infinite elasticity, I can quickly escape from difficult situations, no problems."

With a wave of his hand, a few more magic strings appeared on his fingers. They traveled very quickly through the air and quickly adhered to a tree a few miles away. With a slight tug, he was sent in the direction of the tree.

"Incredible... Such a simple, yet efficient way of using mana." Manny was incredibly impressed with Calio. As such, he did what he always did when he found something of interest.

He chased after him...

'Damn! He wants to chase after me?' Looking behind him and seeing Manny chasing after him did nothing good for his heart.

It's another swift motion of his wrist, the {Mana Strings} adhered to a tree that was even farther, about a full kilometer away. It took only a few seconds for the string to cover such a large distance and settle on the trunk of a tree.

Immediately, with a flick of his wrist, Calio was sent off once more, this time, traveling farther than he had last time.

'With my wonderful skills, it's only natural for that demon lunatic to struggle.' Calio thought to himself as he traveled even further.

Calio's {Magic Strings} ability was truly a useful one as it managed to capture the true essence of the words, 'Flight over fight'.

Unlike the region of the school where Cain and the others were coming from, the central region had much fewer trees and vegetation, with most of it being around the beach that had developed due to the recent terraformation.

There were more buildings, but most of them had turned partially destroyed due to a multitude of reasons.

'Although I don't want to, it seems like have to go contact that bitch and her posse of bitches. I'm sure they will have a lot of fun with this demon.'

Fully intent on throwing his woes onto another, Calio attached his magic threads to a nearby abandoned building and prepared to slip away. In the darkness of the night, the tall buildings and distant skyscrapers seemed like a forest of their own...

Just as he was about to swing away, that same feeling of intense danger that had flooded his heart not too long ago enveloped him once again...

Without even looking behind, Calio spun on his heels and jumped horizontally, twisting midair. Attaching a magic thread to the ground, he was able to suspend himself in the air for a fraction of a second.

In that same fraction of a second, A green streak filled his vision. Thanks to his absurd danger sense, he was able to avoid the danger in time.

BANG!

The ground beneath his feet turned into rubble immediately after.

Falling to the ground, Calio landed on his feet and quickly deactivated his {Maguc Threads}.

"Where do you think you're going?" Although it was a simple question, the soul-piercing stare that accompanied it was enough to make Calio go weak in the knees.

Starting at the man that had eluded him more than once, Manny couldn't help but feel a bit amused. Despite him not putting in his all, he was surprised that with his speed, he still wasn't able to apprehend him easily.

"Err... To visit the family? It's my 25th wedding anniversary..." Calio said with a smile that spread from ear to ear.

"You are not a day older than thirty," Manny said flatly.

"Thirty?! Why the hell would you think I'm that old?! I'm not a day older than 20, alright?!" Calio yelled angrily.

"Ha! Knew it," Manny said with a victorious smile.

'Damn! I've been had.'

"Seems like you want to escape from me. Relax... Your life isn't in any danger. All we want is information." Manny said calmly.

"Hmm... What do you want to know?" Calio said, finally calming down.

"Well, I have no idea what questions to ask, so it would be best if you followed me back to the shore. The one with the questions is waiting back there." Manny said.

"Alright. Let's go..." Calio said with no hesitation.

With a nod, Manny turned around and prepared to leave. However, just as he took a step forward, his body shifted.

"Blade Paradox..."

Like an apparition, his body disappeared from where he stood previously and was three inches away from Calio in a split second.

{Blade Paradox}, a technique Manny had invented in the early stages of the apocalypse. It was a skill that had improved over time as he had experienced his fair share of growth. The technique shockingly had nothing to do with the wind element.

Instead, it was a technique born from his understanding of the way of the sword. His understanding of how best to confuse the senses of his opponents by combining more than a few elements

Just as its name proposed, the skill, {Blade Paradox}, was just that. A paradox...

In its base form, it wasn't an attacking skill. Instead, it was more of a utility skill. By utilizing things such as his breathing, rhythm, eye-to-hand coordination, and temperature, he was able to use magic to create a link between himself and his opponent.

Through this link, he was able to see, or rather, feel the best path of attack against his opponent, becoming a blade that could slice through anything. The reason why he was able to disappear and appear so quickly wasn't even due to his speed.

Instead, he was able to sneak through his opponent's blind spots and quickly enter through their defenses.

Such a technique would only be useful to those who could process large amounts of information at once, and relay them to their body in a split second.

Without saying a word more, Manny grabbed at Calio. Without a way to react to this sudden attack, Calio was left with no time to respond at all. Grabbing onto his left wrist, Manny kicked Calio's legs to the side, then dragged. With a single smooth motion, he lifted the now airborne Calio from the ground and slammed him back into the earth.

Calio coughed out some blood as the impact rattled his organs a bit.

"This is just to stop you from running away again. Don't worry, we have a healer, so any injuries you might have sustained will be fixed.

"You bastard! Don't screw with me!" Calio's eyes glowed a deadly green as his fingers began to move very rapidly.

"Dance, Marionette!"

Suddenly, Calio's body which had been driven into the ground by Manny moved like it was being dragged by an invincible hand.

"Hm?" Sensing something odd, Manny attempted to move back as fast as possible. However, even he wasn't fast enough.

Caluo's body stopped and chased after Manny faster than the latter could expect, appearing before him very quickly. Jumping on the air like it was a flat surface, he delivered three hard kicks straight to Manny's chest, forcing him backward. Without even waiting for him to recover, he pulled an arrow from his quiver and fired a deadly and precise shot to Manny's temple.

'Crap!'

"Tempest Blade!"

With a roar, Manny pulled his blades out and slashed forward. A streak of green flashed on the surface of the blade, splitting the arrow that was approaching in half. However, Calio had used this time to close the distance between the two.

"I'll make you pay for underestimating me," Calio said coldly. His eyes let off a chilling glow in the darkness of night, and there were numerous threads of mana wrapped around his body like a layer of scaffolding, forcing Manny to come to a realization.

All this time, he fought like he would when fighting mutant beasts. Since they weren't too smart, it didn't take a lot of planning and thought to defeat them. However, his current opponent was a human. A human that was smarter and more cunning than regular humans.

Letting his guard down and fighting in such a manner, he had only himself to blame if he lost...

Manny's eyes quickly steeled over, and his emotions quickly settled down.

"Is that so..."

Calio's heart quickly skipped a beat, leading to him stopping his charge. His hairs stood on their ends as he started at Manny who stood under the very faint moonlight with a smile on his face and his blades pointed to the ground...

His mind was quickly overwhelmed with a single thought,

'If I had taken one more step, he would have killed me...' The more this thought stirred in his mind, the more focused Calio actually became. Seeing that his opponent didn't seem to be backing down, the smile on Manny's face grew wider.

"Seems like I underestimated you too much and mistook you for a beast. From now on, I'll fight you properly..." With a flick of his wrists, Manny pointed his blades at Calio, his fighting spirit instantly soaring high into the sky.

A smile made its way to Manny's face, 'If he thinks taking me down would be so easy, let's give him something good to think about.'

Starting straight at Manny, Calio also began to smile, his grin turning darker and darker with each second that passed.

"I prepared this skill in the hopes of using it against a certain strong somebody in the future. I hope you are strong enough for me to actually put it to a test..." Calio said, a bit excitedly.

"Bring it on..." Manny said, the green in his eyes burning like a fire.

In a soft voice, Calio activated his skill;

"Dance, Black Marionette..."