Chương 391: Chapter 380 - The Pressure of Faith

Alonso felt the pressure rolling off his opponent. He was the second entity, after Jack, that he felt could threaten his life in this world. Yet unlike the Dungeon boss, the weight coming from this old veteran was controlled and refined, its edge sharper in both technique and Will. He expected nothing less. Now that he knew the old man understood Intent and could read patterns… he would have to layer his own deeper. But the real issue was that previous strike.

He usually relied on gauging distance to avoid getting hit, but Gregor's slash had shattered the concept of range entirely. He could not block that head-on either. Not without being torn apart. For now, all he could do was study the man's style, pry into every trick he had, and slowly, create an opening. Steadying his breath, he moved again. His form blurred across the arena as his microcapacitors flared, his body snapping into motion several times faster than sound.

Gregor tried to crush his momentum with sheer Will, but Alonso's own pushed back just enough to carve a thin cloak of resistance against the suppression around him. And for now… that was enough. He shot forward. CLANG! His blades met Gregor's massive sword in a shockwave that tore a crater beneath them. The air detonated outward, sheets of compressed wind ripping through the grass in spirals. Gregor didn't budge. He pivoted, redirecting Alonso's strike before launching a horizontal swing.

A crescent of Will-infused force screamed outward. Alonso ducked, the slash shaving a line across his cheek as it passed—skin splitting from the aftershock alone. Dirt behind him exploded as the wave burrowed a shallow trench through the clearing. Alonso twisted, stepping in close for a thrust aimed at Gregor's ribs, but the older man shifted his weight and, without looking. angled his blade to intercept the strike. CLANG-CLANG!

Alonso chained the thrust into a rapid flurry of slashes, each at a different angle, each masking a deeper intent beneath the first. Gregor parried them all. A wide grin spread across the Guild Master's face.

"Good! Again!" He pressed forward. BOOM! A single step from Gregor collapsed the ground. His sword came down like a falling planet. Alonso shot sideways, microcapacitors screaming as they overflowed, tearing into the fibres of his muscles. Pain lanced through his arms and torso, but he welcomed it. He twisted into a tight angle, using the collapsing dust cloud as cover. As Gregor swung again, Alonso slipped under the arc, pivoted behind him, and launched a brutal kick at the man's knee. The impact landed.

It felt like kicking a mountain. Gregor barely shifted.

"Not bad!" he barked as he spun with frightening speed for a man his size. A backhanded slash followed. Alonso crossed his blades and caught the strike. BOOM—CRACK! Even after absorbing and redirecting most of the momentum, the Will-infused impact slammed through him. He flew backward, skidding across torn earth until his heels carved a long gouge in the dirt. His forearms throbbed. He sensed hairline fractures crawling along the bone. He rose again, breath ragged. This absurd physical strength… could it be…

a Fourth Extreme Body State? Gregor charged this time, his pressure compressing the very air around them. Alonso darted around him, Path of Shards bursting into fractured afterimages as he moved, each shard placed to distort intent-reading. Gregor didn't buy it. He swung horizontally. A tornado of wind and Will roared down the centre of the clearing. Trees past the far end split cleanly in half, as though cut by an invisible guillotine. Alonso rolled beneath the wave, thrusting upward at Gregor's ribs.

The tip of his blade slipped through a gap in the armour, drawing a thin line of blood, but Gregor twisted instantly and countered with a palm strike aimed at his abdomen. Too close. Too fast. Alonso's focus sharpened to a point. Will Manifest… No-Strike The world thinned for an instant as his Will condensed behind his movements. Two spectral blades split from the physical ones, flickering into existence like afterimages catching up to reality. One of them swung toward Gregor's incoming wrist.

Gregor's eyes widened in surprise. He aborted the strike at the very last moment, pulling his hand back with a sharp recoil of force. The spectral blade passed millimetres from his forearm, slicing a thin line of air that detonated into a sharp crack. That hesitation cracked the exchange open. Alonso stepped inside the recoil, pivoting with instinct and momentum. His three remaining blades descended in a tight tri-angle assault: one toward Gregor's hip, one toward his shoulder, the third sweeping for the throat.

Gregor let out a low, delighted hum.

"That's quite the fancy trick." He tore his greatsword upward in a brutal, efficient arc, his speed increasing drastically, and caught all three blades in a cascade of impacts. CLANG—CLANG—CLANG! Sparks exploded outward. The ground split under their feet. Wind spiralled from the clash, uprooting grass and hurling dirt in every direction. Alonso slid back several meters, his boots carving furrows through the soil. His arms screamed. His ribs burned. But he stayed upright, eyes fixed on Gregor with sharp intensity.

Gregor hadn't moved from the centre of the clearing. That sudden burst of speed… was it a skill? Or had he been holding back until now? Gregor rolled his shoulders, grin widening.

"I must admit, lad, in all my years this is the first time I have seen such an odd manifestation and skill. Which School of Faith are you from?" Alonso blinked. School of Faith? Was it related to Will? He considered the idea and it made a certain sense. He had always felt that Will was tied to belief, and belief could easily be described as a form of faith. Perhaps this was simply how the natives referred to it.

There was also that comment the bandit had made about the existence of the Church and religion in this world. Yeah, better to stay cautious and avoid saying anything foolish. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Apologies, but I cannot answer that question."

Gregor frowned slightly.

"Keeping up the mysterious air, hm. Suit yourself." He said nothing more, but his confusion ran far deeper than his expression suggested. Where in the world had this young man come from? He walked the Knight's Way yet wore no proper armour. He wielded a Manifestation of Faith unlike anything Gregor had ever seen. And how in blazes could someone with Silver-rank skill still be using Grade 1 gear? The notion was absurd.

Some of the pieces he carried were entirely unfamiliar too, and Gregor prided himself on knowing the drops from nearly every standard Dungeon in Brithelm. Perhaps the lad was a foreigner? From the East, maybe. Or the South? But crossing such vast distances with such poor equipment… that suggested someone hiding from a very serious threat. He wondered whether registering the boy here was wise.

The Adventurer Guild as a whole had few reasons to fear anything, yet small branches had been erased overnight before, leaving nothing but rumours. Situations like this were often how such misfortunes began. Gregor let out a quiet sigh. The young man was talented though. Ridiculously so. Reaching that level of combat awareness and swordsmanship at his age meant he could only be called a prodigy. His Faith was strong as well, perhaps too strong for someone at his level.

Gregor was certain the young man could reach Gold-rank quickly with the right guidance and gear, and he had a very real chance of climbing to Mithril one day. He stared at Alonso for a long moment, trying to pierce the mystery around him. The more he looked, the less he saw the signs of someone on the run. There was no panic, no desperation, nothing that hinted at fleeing danger. Only a steady and composed young man who looked entirely unbothered by the weight he carried.

After several seconds, Gregor chuckled quietly to himself. Age truly was creeping up on him. Since when had he grown nervous of uncertainties? And if he managed to train a second adventurer to reach Mithril… he could already imagine the looks on the faces of those old bastards he called friends. Would they dare call it luck again? But first, he wanted to see everything this lad had to offer. The ability Alonso had shown so far certainly sat within Silver-rank, yet it hovered at the lower edge of that tier.

Gregor had a strong suspicion the young man had not revealed his full hand.

"Well then, lad. What do you say we step it up a bit?"

Alonso stayed quiet for a moment before giving a small nod. The gap between them was obvious, yet he had no intention of stopping here. Opportunities like this were becoming rare. He found fewer opponents who could truly push him, and it seemed Jack had been the greatest challenge this local region had to offer Dungeon-wise. He might as well take full advantage of this one.

"Great," Gregor said.

"You showed me one of your tricks. Let me respond in kind." As the Guild Master spoke, Alonso saw the spectral sword behind him rise slightly. Its momentum thickened in the air, as though the world itself shifted around it. Then… the pressure detonated. BOOM! A sudden pull hit him, far stronger than this world's gravity. It did not drag him downward. It dragged him forward. The entire space seemed to bend toward the suspended spectral weapon, as if a black hole had formed centered in Gregor.

Alonso gritted his teeth and forced his Will Manifestation to brace against the distortion. Yet still, the pressure bore down on him in a steady, crushing pull. It did not feel like Gregor simply overpowering him in terms of Will. The sensation was different. It pressed from every direction at once, thick and immovable, as though the man's Will simply filled more space than his own. Alonso could feel the difference in scale the way one feels the weight of a deeper current beneath shallow water.

Is this what a wider foundation feels like…? There was something else layered into it too. It did not feel like simple application. It felt like an actual skill. He dug his boots into the earth, driving EM into his capacitors and forcing his stance to hold. The ground cracked beneath him as he resisted the drag. Yet even with that effort, one truth settled into him with cold clarity. If he had to push this hard just to stand still… how was he supposed to fight?

A crowd control effect this strong made close-range combat a death sentence. Gregor laughed lightly.

"Still on your feet. Good. Not many manage that." Despite the force he exerted, he looked completely relaxed, as though maintaining the pressure cost nothing at all.

"But we are not here for a staring contest." As his words settled, he raised the two-handed sword. Will gathered along the edge, thicker and sharper than any strike before. Alonso tightened his grip on his blades. Dodging under this suppression would be impossible. Gregor was too experienced, more than capable of adjusting his angle mid-strike to track him. A feint through Intent would fail as well. Blocking, then?

Even with Will Manifest: No-Strike, even if he only caught the Will echo rather than the metal itself, the force behind that strike was no joke. Blocking the next one head-on was not an option. There was no choice left. He had to go all-out. Alonso steadied his breath. His lungs tightened as he held it, bracing for what he was about to unleash. The microcapacitors in his body flared. EM surged through them, far beyond the safety limits, and kept climbing until the circuits within his flesh screamed.

Pain exploded through him. A violent, electric jolt tore across his nerves. Sparks of raw EM flickered beneath his skin like lightning trapped in muscle. His back arched from the shock as his teeth clamped down hard enough for the taste of blood to rise in his mouth. His body was beginning to tear itself apart from the inside. He shut down the pain receptors at once. If he did not, the overload would scramble his mind before he could even take a step. This technique was brutal.

It was the sort of method a person used only when every other option failed. He had developed it after taking inspiration from Leonie's ruthless Dark Star approach, shaping it as a crude alternative, something that pushed what he already possessed rather than adding anything new. The flaws were obvious. The imbalance it created brought far more issues than benefits. The gain in strength was limited. He could remain in this state only for a very short time before it killed him outright.

It was a technique he disliked using, one that did not fit his balanced style in the slightest. However… he had no other option now. His body's sensitivity to EM spiked sharply. Every thread of energy within him vibrated with dangerous intensity. He forced his Will into Path of Shards, pushing for resonance, tightening the field until it wrapped around his form like a living circuit.

The suppression snapped for a heartbeat as his body tore free, and just as the earth-shattering strike descended, his form blurred aside. The trailing wind of the blow clipped his heels and sent a shockwave up his legs as he hit the dirt and rolled. He anchored his stance before the world could steady. There was no room for hesitation. The technique did not allow any waste of time. He launched himself toward Gregor. Yet the moment he moved, the pull intensified.

A faint flicker crossed Gregor's eyes, and the invisible force dragged harder at Alonso's centre, trying to wrench his balance away. Alonso forced his Will to surge outward, breaking the sensation for a heartbeat, and then the two collided. BOOM! The blade descended with a force that distorted the very air. Alonso met it with a cross-guard of four overlapping blades. The impact tore through him. His bones vibrated. His muscles strained as fractures crawled across tendons and ligaments.

The earth cratered beneath his feet. He did not fall. He did not even step back. He pushed forward. The technique was destroying him from the inside, but the clarity it granted cut through the haze. Vectors began to form in his mind, emerging from instinct and pattern. Lines of movement. Shifts of balance. The smallest changes in Gregor's stance echoed into predictions. I can see it. I can read him. Gregor struck again. A sweeping arc aimed to divide the clearing.

Alonso redirected the edge with a grazing parry that shattered three trees behind him from the redirected shock. His ribs cracked. His shoulder tore. Blood welled in his throat. He did not stop. He struck back in a rising combination. Two cuts toward Gregor's hip. One thrust at the throat. A final slash directed for the man's sword arm. Gregor blocked them all, yet not without cost. A thin line of red opened across his armour near the ribs. Gregor's expression changed once more.

Alonso felt the tempo rising inside him. His rational mind tracked every vector with cold precision. His emotional side burned just as fiercely. His heartbeat thundered. His desire to win sharpened. His confidence in his path ignited. The combined force flared into his Will Manifestation until the void behind him expanded so intensely the air rippled. He became faster. He became stronger. He matched Gregor strike for strike. Their blades clashed in a storm of metal and Will. The ground buckled beneath their feet.

The pressure of their Wills turned the clearing into a field of shattering stone and exploding dust. Pain lanced through Alonso's limbs. The technique was shredding him. Every collision deepened the damage, yet the burning rhythm inside him refused to falter. He would not stop. He refused to stop. He saw an opening. Gregor leaned slightly forward, weight rolling onto his left foot, his shoulder dipping by the smallest fraction. Alonso struck for the exposed collarbone. He was about to— Cling!

Suddenly his sword collided with a hard barrier, and—"That's enough, lad." Alonso felt a heavy hand press against his shoulder and the motion snapped him out of his state. Right… this is just a spar… Gregor's words lingered for the briefest heartbeat. He deactivated the state as his legs buckled. Darkness crept at the edge of his vision and a burst of blood forced its way up his throat, but he kept himself upright, fighting for consciousness as he took a step back. Gregor stared at him for a moment…

and eventually smiled.