“Grand Sorcerer Omalihas… a living fossil among humans… where might you be headed, honored master?”

A figure in night-lacquered armor barred their path, a slab of shadow breathing black vapor like damp smoke.

Under his heel sat a round “ball,” and in each fist he dangled another, as casual as fruit on a branch.

Blood trailed from the “balls” in ribbons, a dark stream painting the dust.

They were heads—three grim moons—one underfoot, two swinging, the iron scent thick as rain.

Omalihas’s memory was a steel trap; even in the storm, faces stayed clear.

Those three belonged to the ‘Heroes’ who stood with Devila, Eunice, and Bartley, a mirrored piece on the same chessboard as Omalihas and Feges.

He’d planned to prune the mortal branches while the ‘Heroes’ clashed, yet this black knight had reaped the harvest first.

If not for the cold edge of killing intent, he might have offered courtesy like tea; the air, however, tasted of knives.

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Baruya, former Grand General of the Kingdom of Lesenya,” the man said, voice like iron dragged over stone.

Baruya was the one Ouyang had spared, a man who crawled from death like a stubborn weed in frost.

He didn’t charge the ‘Heroes’; he hunted magic instead, chasing crystal like a wolf follows a blood trail.

The black crystal shard he carried hummed like a lodestone; he walked its pull and found more shards like stars drawn to a black sun.

“Grand Sorcerer, you’re top-tier even among humans,” he said, pride flaring like a banner. “Hand over your shard, kneel to me.

“When I become master of the world, I’ll give you rank and seal, a throne-leg to rest your bones upon.”

The stronger he grew, the more he prized talent like rare steel; among foes, aside from those unfathomable ‘Heroes,’ Omalihas was the sharpest blade he’d seen.

With such a spear at his side, ruling would be wind at his back, so Baruya offered olive branch and chain together.

“Kid, are you an idiot?” Omalihas’s voice was dry as winter reeds, disdain flicking like ash.

Silence snapped; black vapor thickened like stormcloud ink, and killing intent rolled in like frostbite.

In a blink, Baruya stood nose-to-nose with the sorcerer, grin torn wide, a beast’s smile in a wolf’s pelt.

His fist thrust forward with a rip, punching through flesh like paper lantern skin, then slammed the earth like a falling mountain.

Boom—shockwaves burst like thunderheads, and the two mortal teammates died where they stood, candles snuffed by wind.

When the dust settled like gray snow, Omalihas stood intact at a distance, his robes barely a ripple.

A straw effigy clung to Baruya’s fist like a drowned doll; the blow had eaten the decoy and not its maker.

“Not bad for a living fossil,” Baruya sneered, teeth glinting like knives held in a grin.

Among the high-born, they called him a living fossil with a touch of awe, a title like a weathered stele in a temple courtyard.

“I’m curious,” Omalihas said, eyes like old wells, “what put such crooked strength in your bones?”

His gut tightened first, caution like a coiled snake; his mind followed, counting the beats of the other man’s clumsy power.

Baruya fought like a baby piloting an adult body, swinging wild, strength spilling like wine in a cracked jar.

Still, even a novice in god-tier gear can smash a starter-zone boss; brute force makes its own grammar.

He wouldn’t meet force with force; he’d use years like a net and footwork like wind, set traps and let time gnaw.

“Naive,” Baruya barked, and punched the ground, a drumbeat that rolled out in waves like a falling tide.

The land sank for hundreds of meters, earth buckling like a rug yanked hard, and Omalihas’s heart thudded once like a warning gong.

He could break land too, but only with spells like borrowed lightning; he couldn’t do it with one bare fist.

As Baruya raged, the ground slicked and softened, turning to swamp like rice porridge left to rot.

“However strong you are, this mire won’t let go easily,” Omalihas said, hovering like a winter crane, his gaunt face carved in stone.

Baruya thrashed, and the swamp took him deeper, a hungry mouth tightening with each struggle.

Panic hit first, hot and sour, then thought followed, stumbling; with this much power, why was he neck-deep?

In his head, one punch killed the sorcerer like a melon smashed on a step, but reality tasted like iron and mud.

“I won’t accept this!” he roared, then the mire rose to his mouth like a cold hand, and fear went real and sharp.

He was strong, yes, but only if his fist found flesh; miss the target, and he was a dead fish washed ashore.

Omalihas had read him like old text; the power was stolen growth, tall weeds with shallow roots, control as thin as paper.

In theory, Baruya could fly for breaths at a time, skimming the swamp like a dragonfly; in practice, he floundered.

Gurgle, gurgle—the mire bubbled like a boiling pot, and the arrogant general sank, a stage villain dropping through a trapdoor.

He’d dreamed of dying to a mighty ‘Hero’ or another shard-bearer’s blade, not to a swamp hex that dragged like old grief.

Even Omalihas blinked at the anticlimax; the man had strutted like a final boss, and turned out a painted clown.

He thought the brute would outlast the storm, but he’d only come to strike a pose and drown in it.

Bubbles rose and popped like ghost-lanterns, and then a scatter of black-glowing shards floated up like dark koi.

Omalihas drew his own crystal shard from his robe, its violet, dreamlike light soft as dusk on water, and compared.

The floating pieces were shards too, their black radiance ill-omened, like eclipse light pooling on stone.

There were ten, ten stars of bad luck; somehow the man had gathered a decagon of darkness without stirring the pond.

“That strength came from those twisted shards,” Omalihas thought, chill first and reason after. “But something doesn’t add up.

“He had ten shards… and he drowned?” The irony felt theatrical, a silk banner torn in the rain.

Suddenly, the shards hummed like tuning forks in unison, black to purple, and the air quivered like plucked string.

They rose and drifted toward him, moths to a lamp, and his own shard began to darken like fruit bruising.

Instinct screamed like a night bird; he tossed the shard away, hand acting before thought could slow it.

He wasn’t Baruya; five centuries had weathered him like river stone, and experience bit like iron.

These shards had a problem, a worm in the core; the black light felt wrong, like rot under paint.

“When it comes to the crystals, the Nether Heroes know the truth,” he told himself, unease first and plan later. “I need answers.

“Something’s off… in that blank stretch of memory, I’ve touched this black vapor before.” The familiarity stung like smoke in the eyes.

He knew his memory had holes like moth-eaten silk; he felt the gaps, but he couldn’t name their shapes.

“Not good… leave, now.” The thought struck like a bell, and he moved like wind through reeds.

He watched the shard he’d thrown bruise toward pitch, and the sense of doom swelled like a storm at his back.

If it turned fully, escape would be a dream swallowed by night, so he fled before the sky could fall.