The fact that [Apex Hunter] was completely silent for no apparent reason scared Velik more than he wanted to admit. The stranger was dangerous; that much was obvious just from watching him move. Ways to block [Identify] and other assessment skills weren’t common, and Velik had never met anyone who could defeat his. A high enough mental was sometimes enough, depending on the skill, but he would have felt some sort of feedback in place of the threat assessment letting him know his skill had failed.

This man simply didn’t exist, according to everything but Velik’s eyes and ears. He had no smell to him, no mana in him, no presence about him. He’d snuck up on both Velik and Torwin, a feat that should have been impossible. Anyone who could so completely hide themselves had to be insanely high level, and running into someone like that was never a good thing, especially not when the first thing he said was that he’d been looking for Velik.

“What do you want?” Velik asked.

“To see your blood.”

Ah, crap. Someone said something they shouldn’t have. Well, lucky for me, my blood is as red as any other human’s when I’m not in wolf shape. Better to pretend that I don’t understand what’s happening, though.

“My blood? Why?”

“You know why,” he said, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

One of his hands flexed, and the nails on his fingers extended somehow. Velik noted the movement and spared a moment to file that as one more weird thing about the man. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Velik told him.

“Who are you?” Torwin broke in.

The man’s eyes didn’t leave Velik. He ignored the question and took a step forward. “Show me you’re actually worth my time,” he demanded, “that I didn’t waste a trip into this stupid playground the gods made for you. I can smell hints of it on you.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Velik lied. “Whoever you are. But I don’t owe you anything.”

Practically nothing could move fast enough that Velik couldn’t track it. The stranger was, apparently, an exception. He might have teleported across the ground the way he just appeared, his hand already grabbing Velik’s wrist. Nails sunk in, easily puncturing skin that had shrugged off arrows without so much as a scratch a few hours earlier.

Red blood welled up around black nails, and the stranger looked disgusted at the sight of it. “Pathetic. All that effort, and you’re nowhere near ready. I should just kill you now.”

Velik’s dagger flashed up between them, lined up to slice the stranger’s chest open right up the middle. Instead of feeling it bite into skin, his hand stung and the dagger shot into the ground next to Velik’s right foot. Blood welled up from three shallow lines slashed across his fingers.

What the hell? How is he this fast?

Something struck his sternum, then his back. It took Velik a moment to realize the stranger had hit him with an open palm hard enough that he’d slammed into a tree ten feet away. Bark crunched and wood splintered from the impact. It hurt, but not enough to slow him down. His Life Giver’s Ring was already putting in the work to fix him back up, and when he landed on his feet, his spear was in his hand.

“I don’t know who you are or what you want, but this is your last warning to get the hell out of here,” Velik told him.

“As if someone as weak as you could make me do anything,” the stranger sneered. “Or do you think your buddy here is going to even the odds? He’s even weaker than you. All of you humans are pathetic. That’s why the gods made the Garden for you in the first place, because you couldn’t cut it in the real world. They had to hide you away here and make special rules to protect you from the monsters.”

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Velik lunged, his spear leading and [Dread Lance] sparking down its length. Even if it failed to penetrate flesh, he’d catch the bastard in the explosion. The only problem was that when the skill went off, the stranger was standing ten feet to the left. Torwin fired off a trio of arrows in less than a second, but the man’s form simply blurred as the arrows passed through him.

“Come on, you can do better than that, little system babies. Show me what you’re made of.”

Is this what those soldiers from earlier felt like when we went right through them?

There was no communication needed between Velik and Torwin. They knew each other well enough and could react near-instantly to the other’s actions. Throwing knives filled the air, caught in their own [Telekinesis] as they tried to harry the stranger. Arrows drove the stranger back, each one exploding in the air if it even got close to him.

If it bothered him, he gave no indication. Even when he was peppered with shards of magic, he ignored it. When Velik got back into melee range, he simply lifted a hand and slapped aside each thrust or slash. The other remained casually folded behind his back, unused and unneeded.

Minutes passed as the stranger played with them. Their best efforts amounted to nothing, not even enough to make him breathe hard. The longer the ‘fight’ went on, the deeper his scowl grew, until finally he snapped and dragged his nails down Velik’s face, blinding him with blood.

For an instant, he lost track of the stranger. Then he spotted him thirty feet away, slashing Torwin open with a powerful swipe of his hand. Blood spurted through the air in great gouts, and the old [Ranger] screamed as he spun to the ground.

“You’re annoying me,” the stranger told Torwin. “My business doesn’t concern you. Stay down if you want to live.”

Then he was back in front of Velik, powerful limbs moving in concert to keep his balance as he started swinging and kicking. “Fight back, damn it. This can’t be all you're good for. Even as an experiment, you’re a failure and a disgrace.”

What does he think I’m trying to do?! Velik mentally demanded, his eyes wide. He’d been trying to kill the man for the past five minutes. [Dread Lance] simply didn’t land when he tried it, and [Judgment of Penance] was barely speeding up his attacks. Its other function, to slow the target, hadn’t activated at all because he couldn’t get a hit on the stranger.

That left [True Form], but he needed a few seconds to complete the transformation. Against an opponent this fast, that was a complete non-starter, though he was reluctantly forced to admit that the man was toying with them. If he’d wanted to, the man could have gutted both of them back when the fight had started.

Then Velik felt it. The sun finished slipping below the horizon, and [Duskbound] flooded him with strength. The stranger didn’t seem too fast to keep up with now, and Velik almost laughed at the look of surprise on his face when Velik sped up to match his moves.

“Now that’s more like it!” the man said enthusiastically. His own body sped up again to match Velik’s pace, clearly unbothered by the change in tempo. “Don’t hold back. I need to give an accurate report on your capabilities.”

Velik gritted his teeth. Still playing me, you bastard! He thrust viciously, pulling all the knowledge he’d gained from the [Spear Mastery] skill so many evolutions ago. Its legacy rested in [Judgment of Penance] now, and even though it was buried beneath so many other skills, it wasn’t gone.

His spear flashed around, butt side striking at the stranger’s knee. It whipped about fast enough that it connected with a sharp crack, surprising the stranger. It didn’t seem to actually hurt him, but it was the first concrete hit Velik had landed. More speed flooded through his body as his skill drew on his mana to empower him.

The stranger wasn’t smiling now. Instead, a look of fierce concentration had taken over his features. Both hands worked to drive Velik back and a foot flashed out into a kick at the same time. The move was only possible because the man actually jumped off the ground to execute it, and while it looked ridiculous and should have been utterly ineffective, Velik found himself slapped twice before the stranger’s foot dug into his gut.

The pain wasn’t so bad this time. [Duskbound] increased his physical, and that included his resilience to damage. Before the stranger could land and reset his stance, Velik countered with a thrust of his own spear. It was aimed right at the man’s throat, but he somehow twisted in midair and slapped the tip aside with his open palm.

Oh. Fuck. That’s not good.

The fight paused as both sides stared down at the stranger’s palm. A single line stood out against his skin, blood welling up from the cut. He held it up and gave Velik a toothy grin. “Excellent. You might just be worth something after all once we get you out of this training ground. For managing to actually touch me, you’ve earned my name. You may call me Tesir.”

Eyes flashing in the twilight, the stranger raised his hand up to his mouth and dragged his tongue across the cut, licking the golden blood clean.