Chapter 486: Tactical Battle (Part. II)

The tiger stopped testing and began to kill. The next movement was a pendulum with its forepaw that created a pressure cut in the air—there was no physical blade, but the space was sharp. Vergil crossed his forearms and let the wave carry him, cushioning himself with his body and rolling to break the inertia. Still, his forearm tingled: the skin had split open in two long, shallow scratches, burning like icy fire.

He smirked, savoring the pain as a given.

“Cuts the air. Outer layer vibrates with a serrated frequency.”

The next roar brought a shower of shells and a red flash in the beast’s eyes. It came in low, its head almost grazing the ground, and halfway there, it leaped, twisting its body to crush it with its entire weight. Vergil dug his heels into the ground and, instead of retreating, took a step forward—just enough to get under its trajectory. He pressed his shoulder against the invisible “wall” of the tiger’s chest and delivered a short, sharp right to the same armpit. A muffled crack, like wet wood splitting. The barrier wavered again and, for a breath, thinned. Vergil saw fur, saw skin. He reached out his left hand like a claw and dug in his fingers… and the field returned. He touched only heat.

The tiger swatted the back of its paw as if swatting a fly. The fly swatter threw him against three trunks in succession. The last tree snapped. He fell to his feet, saw stars for a second, and the world tried to fold in half inside his chest. He expelled a dark red jet and stood up in a single movement, as if his body weren’t breaking.

“Brute… and growing.” He felt the forest pulse. “If I stretch, it rises. So… reduce windows. Accelerate.”

Vergil slumped his shoulders, lowered his chin, and went light on his heels. He stopped trying to “gain space.” He began to move in and out like a piston blade—two short steps, impact, two exit steps at an angle. He wasn’t looking for a pretty blow: he hammered the same three nodes like an impatient blacksmith. Armpit, base of neck, between shoulder blades. With each set, the barrier whimpered, but reconstituted itself. He varied the rhythm. 1–1–2. 1–2–3. 3–3–1. He began to synchronize with the monster’s breathing, searching for the exhale like someone listening to music in a noisy hall.

The beast sensed his insistence and changed its dance: it stopped chasing in a line and began to surround. Side steps, tail working as a rudder, claws scratching the ground to anchor and pivot. The field reoriented with it, flows shifting like veils in the wind. Vergil adapted. He kicked the front ankle to stop the spin, a short punch to the collarbone, a palm to the muzzle to push back—the barrier repelled, but the direction of the push influenced the orientation of the protection. Small collisions, small steals of angle.

Still, the difference in mass took its toll. When the tiger struck, it struck. A downward swipe caught Vergil’s forearm and threw his body in a nasty arc. He fell to his knees, his arm throbbing, his hand numb. The monster took advantage. It advanced to crush. Vergil planted the scabbard in the ground like a stake and, in a split second, used it as a pivot to spin beneath the falling body. The beast’s chest passed where he stood. The impact sent a tremor that sent leaves flying fifty meters away. He emerged on the other side and hammered the rib with a falling right. The sound was almost satisfying—almost. Still a barrier.

The tiger’s red eyes met his for a moment. There was malice there. There was… recognition. As if the beast were assessing: “You’re stubborn.”

“And you’re stubborn and heavy.” Vergil took a deep breath. The air stank of iron and ozone. “Okay. Let’s play nastier.”

He opened his left palm and slashed at his own canine with a simple gesture. Thick blood oozed and dripped onto the blade before Yamato released the scabbard again. Not to cut; to touch. He quickly drew three lines in the air that were less runes and more habits—micro-cuts of emptiness that created temporary turbulence. They wouldn’t penetrate the barrier, but they could foul the flow.

He went back to his fists. The difference now was subtle: each punch came with a vortex of dust and displaced air, “grabbing” the field for a moment before striking. In two movements, the armpit node vibrated at a different frequency. The tiger responded with haste. Good. Haste creates error.

Miss, he didn’t miss. But he bared his throat in an impatient roar. Vergil leaped into the vacuum of sound, one step, two, a very short hook aimed at the soft spot under the jaw. The barrier was still there—but thinner. His fist grazed it.

That was the closest he’d come.

The reward came immediately: a shoulder-to-shoulder collision that would have crushed a wall. Vergil saw the gray wall fill the world and only had time to cross his forearms to keep his head. He flew. He crashed through a rock. He landed on his back, the breath knocked from his chest, a line of pain ran from his ribs to his teeth.

And he laughed softly.

“It’s getting better.”

He staggered to his feet. His vision doubled for a second, then settled. The tiger wasn’t panting. It was a mountain on the march. The aura continued to rise, and the distortion at the edges of his vision suggested the entire forest was vibrating to the beast’s rhythm.

“Sustained disadvantage.” He adjusted his stance, fists again, blade lowered. “Keep pressure on the nodes, force error, survive every exchange. No vanity. No flowers.”

The beast came—and he went. One step closer to death, as always. The next shock ripped the ground, cracked stones, shook trees. The world became rhythm, calculation, and pain. Yamato sang low without cutting, the scabbard hammered like a baton, his fists sought invisible stillness. And yet, no matter how much precision he applied, no matter how much science he extracted from the chaos, the truth insisted on biting him: it was one-sided. For every ten hits he got, the tiger got one—and every “one” the tiger got was worth twenty.

Vergil wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and went back in, eyes cold, smile small, accepting the obvious as if it were an old friend:

“At the base… he crushes me.”