Chương 47

The swamp went dead quiet. The ambient, chaotic noise of the Arc Kingdom mud flats—the croaking frogs, the buzzing insects, the bubbling methane pockets—was completely extinguished in an instant. The temperature plummeted. A heavy, suffocating chill saturated the humid air, turning Rudra's breath into faint clouds of white mist. Ten yards away, a massive, intricate magic circle glowing with deep purple mana materialized on the surface of the swamp.

It hissed violently as it reacted with the stagnant water, burning away the moss and leaving a foul, sulfurous scent lingering in the air. Yura stepped out of the portal. She looked entirely out of place. While Rudra's boots were caked in thick gray mud and his brown cloak was stained with swamp water, Yura looked like she had just stepped off a high-end fashion runway. She wore an elegant, perfectly tailored black suit with silver accents.

Her long, perfectly straight black hair cascaded over her shoulders without a single strand out of place. Her pale, flawless face carried an expression of mild, polite curiosity as her dark eyes scanned the gloomy tree line. She held a sleek, obsidian wand loosely in her right hand.

"Heavy brown cloak. Dark mask. Wooden staff," Yura repeated, her voice soft, melodic, but echoing with an unnatural clarity across the swamp.

"The Yatan Church's description was quite accurate. I am glad I didn't have to search this terrible place for much longer. The humidity is quite unpleasant." Elysia immediately stepped in front of Rudra. The Imperial Knight drew her longsword, the steel ringing sharply in the quiet clearing. She lowered her stance, her eyes narrowing as she sensed the sheer density of the mana rolling off the newcomer.

"A dark mage. And an incredibly powerful one at that," Elysia warned, her voice tight.

"State your business, witch, or I will cut you down where you stand." Yura didn't even look at Elysia. Her dark eyes remained entirely fixed on Rudra.

"I have no personal grudge against you," Yura said directly to him, her tone perfectly reasonable and polite.

"I am simply completing a high-priority faction quest. The Yatan Church has placed a massive global bounty on your head for stealing something of great divine importance from one of their hidden temples. They call you a Heretic. I am here to collect that bounty." Rudra's hand drifted instinctively toward his chest, where Kratos was sleeping soundly inside his inner pocket. The Yatan Church was still actively hunting for the divine beast cub, and they had apparently sent the absolute best to retrieve it.

"I don't have anything that belongs to a bunch of crazy, demon-worshipping cultists," Rudra replied, adjusting his grip on his heavy Abyssal Ironwood Staff.

"Lying is useless," Yura said calmly, tapping her obsidian wand against her thigh.

"I am a calm and reasonable person, and I dislike unnecessary, drawn-out conflict. So, I will offer you a fair compromise. Hand over the divine item in your possession right now. In exchange, I will kill you quickly and painlessly with a single, highly condensed spell." Rudra blinked. He looked at Elysia. Elysia looked back at him, utterly bewildered.

"This will ensure you only lose a percentage of your experience," Yura continued, speaking with genuine, polite sincerity.

"If we engage in a prolonged, chaotic battle, the durability of your equipment will suffer, and the erratic damage calculation might cause you to drop your equipped items upon death. My offer is the most optimal outcome for both of us." Rudra actually laughed out loud.

"Let me get this straight," Rudra chuckled, shaking his head.

"Your grand 'compromise' is that you only kill me once, and I should be grateful?"

"It saves us both valuable grinding time," Yura nodded, raising her obsidian wand until the tip pointed directly at his chest.

"Do you accept the terms?"

"I respectfully decline," Rudra grinned beneath his leather mask. His heart had been pounding when he first saw her name tag. [Yura - Lv. 99]. Rank 5 on the global leaderboards. The 'Blood Witch.' A player who could single-handedly wipe out entire parties. But as he stared down the tip of her wand, his brain finally caught up to his current reality. He had spent the last month running through hidden temples, fighting monsters twenty levels above him, and desperately fleeing from top rankers.

He was so used to being the underdog that he forgot to check his own math. Wait a minute, Rudra thought, his grin widening. Why am I treating her like a raid boss? He mentally opened his status window. He was Level 100. Because of his absurd title multipliers, his constant physical suffering, and the massive stat boosts from cooking Rare and Epic meals, his core stats were broken. His core stats was over 400. His total Health pool sat at a massive 7, 150. Yura was Rank 5. He was Rank 4.

Furthermore, Yura was a Black Magician. It was a notoriously difficult class that boasted the highest raw magical damage in Satisfy, but suffered from the absolute lowest physical defense and health scaling. She was the ultimate glass cannon. I out-level her. I out-stat her. I'm literally the bigger monster in this swamp, Rudra realized.

"I suppose we do this the hard way. A pity," Yura sighed softly. Her God-tier control was instantly apparent. She didn't chant. She didn't wave her wand in grand, theatrical circles. With a mere twitch of her wrist, the shadows beneath Rudra's boots suddenly erupted. [Shadow Bind (Lv. 4) has been activated!] Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Thick, inky black tendrils shot out of the mud, wrapping tightly around Rudra's calves and locking his boots to the ground. Before Rudra could even react to the root mechanic, Yura was already casting her primary attack. [Dark Bullet (Lv. 6) has been activated!] Three dense, spinning orbs of condensed dark magic materialized around her wand. The air around the orbs distorted from the sheer gravitational pull of the mana.

With another flick of her wrist, they shot toward Rudra with the terrifying, crackling speed of sniper bullets.

"Rudra, brace!" Elysia yelled, still watching Rudra as he fought and only planned on intervening if he was about to die. Rudra didn't panic. He didn't even try to cast a defensive spell. He simply crossed his arms over his chest and flexed every muscle in his body. BOOM! The dark bullets slammed directly into his leather armor, exploding in a violent, concussive cloud of purple smoke and swamp water. The sheer force of the blast tore up the mud around him, sending a shockwave rippling through the clearing.

Yura lowered her wand slightly, her eyes tracking the smoke. Black Magicians specialized in overwhelming burst damage. A triple-cast [Dark Bullet] from a Level 99 player was enough to instantly kill any standard mid-level warrior, let alone a player wearing light leather armor and holding a wooden staff. She waited for the golden notification confirming the Heretic's death. It didn't come. The purple smoke slowly cleared. Rudra was still standing in the exact same spot.

He coughed once, waving the smoke away from his face, and casually dusted a patch of soot off his heavy brown cloak. [-450 Health] Yura's perfect, calm expression finally cracked. Her dark eyes widened slightly in pure, unadulterated shock.

"What...?" Yura whispered, her flawless composure slipping for the very first time. She didn't know about his [Man Who Touched Heaven] title, which passively neutralized 10% of all dark magic. She didn't know about his First Stat Awakening, or his massive stamina pool. To her, it looked like her strongest, fastest spell had just hit a solid brick wall.

"Nice cast," Rudra said, cracking his neck.

"My turn." Rudra flexed his legs. With over 400 points in raw Strength, he didn't need to use a spell to break the [Shadow Bind]. He just ripped his boots upward. The thick, magical tendrils snapped like brittle twigs. He channeled mana into the soles of his boots and kicked off the empty air. [Abyssal Step (Lv. 3) has been activated!] An invisible platform cracked under Rudra's boot. With his massive Agility, he didn't run—he vanished.

He crossed the ten-yard gap in a fraction of a second, rocketing through the air like a cannonball. Yura gasped, her analytical mind struggling to process a mage moving with the explosive speed of an elite assassin. As Rudra materialized right in front of her, casting a massive, terrifying shadow over her elegant suit, he raised his heavy Abyssal Ironwood Staff high above his head. The heavy ironwood staff descended with the force of a falling boulder.

Yura's eyes widened, but her hands moved with flawless, precision. She didn't panic. [Dark Shield (Lv. 5) has been activated!] A thick dome of hardened, crystalline dark mana materialized directly above her. A normal warrior's strike would have bounced right off it, leaving them wide open for a fatal counterattack. But Rudra's strength was by no means like a normal warrior. CRASH! The staff slammed into the barrier.

The shield held for exactly half a second before shattering into a million glowing purple fragments. The sheer force of the blow carried through, sending Yura sliding backward through the thick mud. Her perfect balance wavered, her boots dragging trenches in the swamp. His physical attack power... it rivals a top-tier berserker! Yura's analytical mind raced, rapidly discarding every combat assumption she had made. He possesses heavy magic resistance, extreme agility, and overwhelming strength. A hybrid class?

No, this level of raw output is abnormal. She backpedaled gracefully, her obsidian wand weaving through the air. As a Black Magician, her defense was virtually nonexistent. If that wooden staff connected with her body even once, she would lose at least half of her health pool. She needed to kite him. She needed distance. She flicked her wand, silently casting [Dark Wave], sending a crescent of repulsive dark energy sweeping across the mud to push him back. Rudra completely ignored conventional combat spacing.

He simply ducked under the wave, rolling through the muddy water, and rushed her again. He didn't use any elegant sword techniques or precise assassin footwork. He swung the heavy ironwood staff in wide, brutal, unrefined but strangely deadly arcs. It was pure, chaotic street-brawling, heavily subsidized by boss-level stats. Yura was forced onto the extreme defensive. She ducked a horizontal swing that completely shattered a nearby swamp tree.

She sidestepped a vertical crush that buried the staff two feet deep into the mud. For the first time, a spray of filthy swamp water splashed across her pristine black suit. It was infuriating. It was impossible to predict his attack patterns because he clearly didn't have any. He was just swinging with absolute, terrifying violence. Yura managed to pivot around a heavy thrust, finally putting three yards of space between them.

She couldn't use instant-cast spells; they weren't strong enough to break his strange magic resistance. She needed something absolute to stop his ridiculous movements. She planted her feet, raised her wand directly at his chest, and took a sharp breath. She parted her lips to chant the quick-cast incantation for her highest-tier binding spell.

"O shadows of the deep—" Rudra saw the dense purple mana gathering at the tip of her wand. His staff was completely out of position from his last wild swing; it was too heavy to bring back around in time to block or strike. So, he didn't use his weapon. Rudra simply closed the distance with his absurd Agility, reached out with his free left hand, and slapped her right across the cheek. SMACK. The sharp, echoing sound of bare skin hitting bare skin rang out across the silent swamp like a gunshot.

Yura's chant instantly died in her throat. Her wand dropped an inch. Her head snapped sharply to the side. The entire swamp seemed to freeze in absolute, brain-breaking disbelief. A bright red handprint slowly blossomed on Yura's flawlessly pale, highly publicized, universally adored cheek. For the first time in her entire gaming career, Rank 5 Yura—the Blood Witch, the idol of millions, a player who commanded respect from the most ruthless rankers in the world—was completely and utterly dumbfounded.

Her mind literally stopped processing information. Elysia, standing safely by the tree line, dropped her jaw. Her Imperial Knightly code actively rebelled against what she had just witnessed.

"You... you brute!" Elysia yelled, her voice cracking in pure horror.

"What are you doing?! She is a maiden! You do not slap a maiden in combat!" Rudra blinked, quickly pulling his hand back as if he had just touched a hot stove. He looked at Elysia, then looked back at the stunned dark mage standing in front of him.

"She was casting a spell!" Rudra argued defensively, gesturing wildly with his staff.

"You never let a mage finish their chant! I didn't have time to swing my staff! It's just basic logic!" Yura slowly turned her face back toward him. Her dark eyes were wide, trembling with a volatile mix of profound shock and a rapidly rising, very un-polite fury.

"Besides," Rudra shrugged, unapologetically defending his utterly shameless tactic.

"I'm a firm believer in true gender equality. My hands are rated E for Everyone."