{ A FEW SEDS EARLIER... }

  Vi advanced slowly through the wild clearing, his ruthless gaze fixed oh ahead.

  The tie, transformed into a deadly on, hung rigid like steel, yet softly ed around his right palm.

  A shadow of madness glinted in his eyes as he obsessively followed the bloodstains scattered orees and the ground. These red marks were the only trace left of the young Prin flight.

  But the tracks suddenly stopped, dissolving into a mog nothingness.

  Without a trail to follow, Vi halted, his face twisted into a snarl of anger.

  ‘Damn it! Where is he hiding?’ he thought, gritting his teeth.

  Frustration ed him, but he did not allow himself to lioo long. He took a deep breath and resumed walking, following the instinct that guided him along the same path he was already on.

  ‘I still ’t believe he escaped my first attack, especially sidering he was turned away!’ Vi reflected, thinking back to the moment when the young Prince had eluded the fatal blow. ‘But it doesn’t matter! Lucky or not, he has no escape now!’

  Suddenly, a noise shattered the silence of the forest: the soft crag of leaves being stepped on.

  Vi’s eyes darted to the source of the sound, and his urned with the speed of a predator.

  Before him, a tall, dense bush swayed slightly o a gree trunk.

  A mog grin spread across Vi’s face.

  "Heh! You shouldn't have moved, young Prince..."

  With measured, inexorable steps, Vi approached the bush.

  However, the rhythm of his walk made it clear that he wasn’t in a hurry.

  Or rather, he was, but the true pleasure of the hunt—something he would never let slip away for any reason in the world—y in the very moment before the assured victory.

  His elegant bck shoes creaked on the damp ground, a sound that seemed amplified in the oppressive silence of the forest.

  Each step relude to the end.

  Arriving before the bush, Vi stopped. His eyes sed the se with a mixture of pleasure and morbid curiosity: the young Prince y on the ground, face down, his body half-hidden by a b of leaves. His chest her rose nor fell.

  The stillness was plete, almost spine-chilling.

  “Is he dead?” Vi murmured, tilting his head, as if evaluating a poorly done work of art. “No, perhaps he’s just unscious. Well, it doesn’t matter. The Boss wants his head, and he’ll get it anyway.”

  With an almost theatrical gesture, Vi lifted his sword-tie. The on shimmered uhe dim light filtering through the foliage, the tip poiowards the low clouds that seemed to be dozing above the forest.

  The tension in the air alpable, a suspended moment before the final strike.

  A cruel smile spread across Vi’s thin lips.

  “Goodbye, young Prince!”

  And with a lightning-fast movement, Vi lowered his arm, determio sever both the bush and the lifeless body of his prey in one swift blow.

  The air split, heavy with a foreboding sense of blood ah.

  ‘Now!’ Mirac ordered himself, his mind w faster than the beat of his heart.

  At the st moment, before Vi's on could crash into him, Miraged into a roll to the right. His body snapped with determination, rising to his feet before Vi could react.

  Vi's tie-sword embedded itself into the ground with a dull thud, a blow that echoed like a hammer striking stone.

  Vi found himself off bance, caught off guard by the ued maneuver.

  "What the hell-!" he excimed, his face a mix of surprise and anger.

  But he didn’t even have time to finish the sentence before Mirac immediately went on the terattack!

  With lightning speed, Mirac’s right hand shot toward the pile of leaves scattered on the ground. Finally, as his fingers closed around the hilt, he drew his sword—the same ohat had appeared suddenly behind him earlier, almost as if in respoo his desperate need, when he was still hidden behind the bush.

  ‘A sword?!’ Vi’s face perfectly expressed his fusion. ‘Did he hide it uhe leaves? But where did he find it?!’

  However, Vi didn’t have time to find answers. He was too busy trying to free his sword-tie, which had gotten stu the ground after his st strike.

  And that moment—that brief moment in which Vi struggled to recover his on—recious opportunity that Mirac couldn’t afford to miss!

  The young Prince didn’t waste any time: he gripped the sword’s hilt tightly, eling all his determination to pensate for the ck of his left hand. It was the first time he had been forced to fight with only one arm, but he couldn’t allow uainty to take over.

  With a muffled shout, Miraged forward, delivering a quid precise ssh at Vi, aiming for his stomach.

  Vi, however, with a feline leap backward, mao narrowly dodge the attack. Just at that moment, with a burst of strength, he finally freed his sword-tie from the ground, gripping it firmly with both hands.

  However, that burst of strength caused him to momentarily lose his bance, f him to take a few steps back tain his footing.

  Mirac, at this point, did not stop!

  He begalessly attag the enemy before him, with a ferocity that seemed unusual for someone his age.

  His bde sliced through the air multiple times, in an incessant series of strikes that tested Vi's agility.

  The tter, still slightly off baaggered backward, trying to keep a safe distance from the young Prince.

  Every strike from Mirac was fast, precise, imbued with the experience gained over the past year, a tribute to the hard training and his will to survive.

  However, despite Mirac’s efforts, none of his blows nded.

  He was running out of breath, and the weight of fatigue grew with each missed strike.

  ‘Shit!’ Mirac cursed to himself, sweating coldly in a desperate attempt to nd any kind of blow on his oppo.

  And then, suddenly, the iable happened.

  Vi regained his bance, pnting both feet firmly on the ground. The tie-sword was now firmly in his hands, aension of his murderous instinct.

  With an evil grin, Vi began parrying Mirac's blows with a strength that immediately turhe tide of the battle.

  "You bastard!" Vi roared, as he attacked with increasing ferocity.

  Mirac was forced to retreat, his strikes growing weaker. His body, still young and strained by the battle, was beginning to give way.

  Although Mirac had stopped the bleeding from his amputated arm, he couldn't say the same for the internal injuries he had likely sustained.

  Step by step, blow by blow, Vi forced Mirac to retreat until he was back at the bush that he had used as a hiding spot.

  The assassin showed no signs of slowing down, each blow vibrating with relentless ferocity.

  "I don’t know where you got that sword," Vi snarled, "but it's pletely useless! It’s over now, young Prince!"

  The words struck Mirac almost more harshly than the bde that stantly threateo pierce him.

  With a swift and precise movement, Vi disarmed the boy, making him lose his grip on the sword. The on flew away, nding far out of Mirac's reach.

  ‘Shit!’ thought the young Prince, falling backward.

  His body was now exhausted, every muscle taut with pain and fatigue. He felt his knees give way and his back hit the hard ground, his chest rising and falling with bored breaths.

  Vi didn’t waste any time. With a fierce lunge, he closed the distao Mirac, raising his sword-tie. His eyes gleamed with lethal light, and the cruel smile on his lips seemed carved from ice.

  "DIE!!!" Vi roared, as he delivered the final blow, a sweeping cut desigo decapitate the young Prin a sirike.

  The air thied with tension. The world seemed to suspend itself in aernal moment.

  ‘Good…’ Mirac thought, with a spark of determination fshing across his eyes in that split sed. ‘It’s time to move to the phase!’

  With almost superhuman speed, he k. Not just to lower himself and dodge Vi’s attack, but also to stretch out his right hand, aiming to grab another object he had hiddeh the leaves: another sword!

  Earlier, in the few but precious seds Vi had taken to approach the bush, Mirac had devised a bold and intricate pn, a trap desigo surprise his enemy not once, but twice!

  Indeed, using his “Multiplicative Touch” ability, Mirac had decided to duplicate the sword that had magically appeared behind him.

  Although the calcution required had been slightly more difficult than the oo multiply the magical gauze, Mirac had mao solve the operation just in time.

  Thus, after murmuring the correswer, the sword had begun to vibrate faintly in the palm of Mirac’s hand, until it split in two like a cell undergoing mitosis.

  The charm of the splitting process had left Miraentarily stunned by his own powers, but he had quickly regained his posure.

  After geing the sed sword, Mirac had hidden it quickly under a b of leaves, along with the first one and his body lying on the ground.

  His pn had been well calcuted: on one hand, Mirac had wao simute a state of total iia to lower Vi's guard; oher, he o ceal his ons, thus preparing the double lethal terattack.

  And now, after the first sword had flown away, Mirac grabbed the sed one.

  But he had no more spare ons, so this was his true and final bsp;

  Making a mistake would meaaih!

  And Mirac definitely did not want to die!

  "This is for Mr. Foss!!!" the young Prince shouted, with a fiertensity that revealed his thirst for vengeance.

  With a lightning-fast jump to the left, Mirac positioned himself strategically.

  He ged his grip on the sword, spinning it skillfully as he prepared to strike.

  With a half turn, he unched a direct attack, aiming to pierce Vi's head. The bde cut through the air with incredible speed, a silver fsh that seemed destio end the fight.

  For a moment, Mirac felt a smile spread across his face, a spark of triumph.

  ‘It's done!’ he thought, already sav the victory.

  But reality proved to be cruel and unfiving.

  The instant the tip of the sword was about to strike its target, Vi raised his left arm with chilling precision, proteg the right side of his head.

  The bde, which should have pierced Vi’s skull, instead impaled the palm of his left hand.

  Blood spttered, but Vi showed no sign of weakness. On the trary, a vicious grin twisted his face, as if the pain were nothing more than an annoying invenience.

  ‘SHIT!’ Mirac was frozen, uo believe it.

  For aernal moment, he watched the enemy, who still had his sword impaled in his hand.

  Mirac’s pn had failed.

  But before the tter could release his grip on the sword and attempt another desperate escape, Vi lunged again with the speed of a predator.

  His foot moved in a powerful arc, hitting Mirac straight iomad making him spit blood.

  The impact of the kick was devastating: an explosion of force that sent Mirac flying backward.

  In the blink of an eye, his body smmed violently against the rough trunk of a tree, the sound of the crash eg like thunder in a storm.

  And after that, the battle was now over.