enjoyebooks Chapter 184: Chapter No.184 Banging Brothers (2)
Chapter 184: Chapter No.184 Banging Brothers (2)
Long Chapter. Enjoy✌️
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[Dominic's POV]
The man tried to pull his blade back.
It didn't move.
Not even a millimetre.
The man's grin twitched slightly.
"…Huh."
For a brief moment, there was something almost human in his expression.
Surprise.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Just recalibration.
Like the world had briefly violated an expectation he had relied on for too long.
I tilted my head slightly, still holding his blade between two fingers.
The metal continued to strain under my grip.
It wasn't just steel.
It was layered—reinforced with enchantment, compression seals, and something that felt disturbingly close to spatial anchoring.
And yet—
it still didn't move.
"Is that your full swing?" I asked calmly.
Silence.
Behind him, one of the seven shifted slightly.
Another rotated their blade once, slower now.
Observation replacing boredom.
The leader finally exhaled through his nose, grin returning—but thinner.
"Yeah," he said lightly. "That's the annoying part about you nobles."
I didn't react.
He continued anyway.
"You're never where you're supposed to be."
He twisted his wrist.
The blade didn't just strain now—it vibrated, trying to forcibly disengage from my grip using a recoil burst embedded in its spine.
A normal target would've lost their hand.
Or their head.
Instead—
I adjusted my grip by a fraction.
And the vibration died instantly.
"…Okay," he muttered. "That's not normal."
From inside the manor, Selene's voice rang out like an excited commentator.
"OHHHHH! HE DID THE TWO-FINGER DEFLECTION! THAT'S A MAIN CHARACTER TECHNIQUE!"
Ezravia's tone followed immediately, dry as ever.
"Stop narrating. It encourages him."
Valeria's voice chimed in next, far too amused for the situation.
"No, let him cook. This is kind of hot."
"Valeria," Zeraphira's voice cut in sharply, "focus."
"I AM focused."
"You are not."
"I am emotionally focused."
A pause.
Ravvy's voice followed after a bite of pancake.
"...I will go hungry mode if darling gets hurt."
"No!" Ezravia and Valeria snapped in unison.
Ravvy blinked at them slowly.
"…Why not?"
"Because 'hungry mode' is not a combat strategy," Ezravia said flatly.
"It is in my culture," Ravvy replied with complete seriousness.
"You don't have a culture," Valeria shot back. "You have trauma and pancakes."
"That is culture-adjacent."
Zeraphira exhaled sharply.
"Focus."
Inside the manor, the absurd domestic argument continued for exactly one more second before—
BOOM!
Another impact slammed into the outer ward.
The entire conversation cut off like someone had pressed mute on reality.
Outside, the leader finally rolled his shoulders again, as if annoyed the world kept interrupting him.
"Alright," he said, voice lowering slightly. "Enough testing."
The seven behind him shifted.
The two attacks came in at the same time.
Not from hesitation.
Not from coordination that required communication.
From instinct.
The moment their leader's tone changed, the group moved like a single organism that had decided subtlety was no longer worth the effort.
A blade from the left cut through the air—
not toward me.
Toward my arm.
A second strike came from above—
angled to sever the wrist holding their leader's weapon.
Clean.
Efficient.
Designed to force release.
Tch—
I let go of the blade.
Not because I had to.
Because it was more efficient.
The instant my fingers separated from the weapon, the leader's sword snapped backwards into his control like a living thing finally relieved of pressure.
"—There we go," he muttered, rolling his wrist. "Thought you'd be stubborn about it."
I didn't respond.
The two incoming strikes reached me at the same time.
Clang—!
My body didn't move.
Not backwards.
Not sideways.
The blade aimed at my arm. Observation Grid traced the trajectory of weapons.
The air screamed as Muramasa – Venomfang Replica met the incoming strike.
Not with impact.
With rejection.
Clang—!!
The blade that aimed for my arm froze mid-path, caught against a sudden blackened arc of steel that hadn't been there a fraction of a second ago.
Armament Core activated instinctively.
Not flashy.
Not announced.
Just absolute reinforcement over my forearm and weapon hand.
The attacker's sword pressed in—
then stopped.
Completely.
Like it had hit a law of physics that refused to negotiate.
A sharp crack ran through the attacker's weapon.
Not breaking.
Warning.
Behind it, the second strike came from above—angled for my wrist.
I tilted Muramasa slightly.
Observation Grid mapped it before it even finished forming intent.
One step.
That's all I took.
The strike missed by a hair's breadth and carved into empty air instead, slicing nothing but displaced pressure.
"—Tch!"
The attacker clicked his tongue and rotated mid-air, landing lightly a few meters away.
The leader, meanwhile, watched me closely now.
Not smiling.
Not mocking.
Assessing.
"…Yeah," he muttered. "That's definitely not paperwork-level anymore."
From inside the manor, Selene's voice erupted again—
"OHHH HE DID THE INVISIBLE STEP! THAT'S AN EVASION TECH USED BY FINAL BOSS MINIONS—"
"Stop naming everything!" Ezravia snapped.
"It helps me cope!"
"It helps him evolve!"
Valeria chimed in immediately.
"Honestly? Let him evolve. I like the vibe."
Zeraphira's voice cut through all of it like a blade of ice.
"Focus."
Silence fell inside the manor again.
Outside—
the air tightened.
The remaining five hunters finally stopped playing at a distance.
"…I think the introductions are in order," the leader said, rolling his shoulder as he took a slow step back from the edge of my blade's range. "At least you should know the name of the one kill—"
He paused.
Then grinned wider.
"—the one who's going to kill you."
A lazy wind moved through the fractured space behind him.
Seven figures shifted again, tightening the perimeter.
Not rushing.
Not panicking.
Just… closing geometry.
Like the battlefield itself had been politely informed, it now had boundaries.
The leader cracked his neck once, rolling his shoulders as he finally stepped fully into the open.
"…Name's Karr," he said casually, as if introducing himself at a business seminar instead of a murder attempt. "Karr Vellum. Professional bounty retrieval specialist, occasional problem solver, full-time paid inconvenience."
One of the men behind him muttered.
"You forgot 'annoying.'"
"I didn't forget it," Karr replied. "It's implied."
Another voice, calmer, came from the right flank.
"Stop talking. Confirm target status."
Karr waved a hand.
"Yeah, yeah. Confirmed. Morningstar heir, standing, breathing, mildly disrespectful posture. All boxes ticked."
His eyes locked back onto me.
"So here's how this goes," he continued, tone light but blade-sharp underneath. "We break your pretty little ward. We take you. We leave the building intact if you cooperate. We maybe don't kill your… entourage."
He tilted his head slightly toward the manor doorway.
"Depends on how loud they get."
Inside the manor—
Valeria immediately shouted back.
"I CAN GET LOUDER!"
Ezravia grabbed her shoulder.
"Do not negotiate volume thresholds with assassins."
Ravvy raised a hand.
"I can also be loud. For morale purposes."
"No," all three said instantly.
Outside—
I exhaled slowly.
Karr noticed.
"Oh?" he said, amused. "That the sigh of acceptance or the sigh of planning something stupid?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Muramasa rested lightly in my hand.
The blade's blackened edge pulsed faintly.
Venomfang effect hadn't even started stacking yet.
Still early.
Still patient.
"I'm curious," I said finally.
Karr raised an eyebrow.
"About what?"
"You said 'retrieve,'" I replied. "Not kill."
A beat.
His grin widened.
"Oh. Smart boy notices wording."
Behind him, one of the hunters clicked their tongue.
"Don't engage in conversation."
"Relax," Karr said lazily. "He's not going anywhere."
Then he looked back at me.
"Yeah. Retrieval contract," he confirmed. "Dead or alive is optional, but alive pays better."
I tilted my head slightly.
"And who signed that contract?"
Karr shrugged.
"No idea."
Silence.
That was… expected.
But still irritating.
Inside the manor, Selene whispered loudly:
"THAT'S LITERALLY CORPORATE ASSASSINATION!"
Ezravia replied flatly:
"Yes."
Valeria added:
"I feel like I should unionise against this."
"You are not employed," Zeraphira said.
"I am emotionally employed."
"That is not a thing."
"It is in my heart."
Ravvy nodded.
"I support emotional labour rights."
"No," everyone again.
Outside—
Karr sighed dramatically.
"You know, I was hoping you'd be difficult in a fun way," he said. "But you're doing the 'questions first' thing. Makes it slower."
He lifted his blade slightly.
"Let's skip ahead."
The impact didn't feel like a fist.
It felt like a cannon.
BOOM!
My body shot backwards across the air, tearing through space in a straight line like a thrown fragment of reality.
The world blurred.
Not from speed alone—
But from force, trying to rewrite the trajectory.
"—Tch."
Air ripped past my ears.
Below, the manor shrank in my vision for a fraction of a second.
Above, fractured space bent like glass under pressure.
Then—
I stopped.
Not because I recovered.
Because something caught me.
Observation Grid flared instantly.
A second strike.
From behind.
"Behind you, Mr. Protagonist," Selene's voice echoed faintly from the manor, unusually sharp now. "That wasn't a punch—that was a setup!"
Clang!!
Muramasa snapped upward on instinct.
The blade intercepted a descending strike aimed directly at my spine.
Sparks didn't fly.
They vanished.
Like the collision erased heat itself.
My boots skidded across mid-air as I stabilised my position using Armament Core for a split second.
The attacker clicked his tongue.
"Fast recovery," he muttered. "Annoying."
I exhaled once.
Slow.
Controlled.
My arm tingled.
Not injured.
But pressured.
Like the strike wasn't trying to break bones— it was trying to measure resistance.
'Testing phase is over,' I thought.
Below—
Karr's voice floated upward, amused.
"Oy, oy," he called out. "Don't die yet. I still need you conscious for paperwork."
I looked down at him.
He stood casually at the edge of the fractured perimeter, one hand in his pocket, the other resting his blade over his shoulder like this was all mildly inconvenient.
Behind him— the seven hunters adjusted formation.
No panic.
No aggression spike.
Just refinement.
Like the punch wasn't an attack.
It was a calibration.
"Still standing?" Karr asked.
I didn't answer.
Instead—
I adjusted Muramasa in my grip.
Black membrane along the blade pulsed faintly.
Venomfang effect began to stir.
Slow.
Dormant.
Waiting for sustained contact.
"Alright," I said quietly.
Karr raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? You finally speaking properly?"
I tilted my head slightly.
"You talk too much for someone who said this is 'paperwork.'"
A grin.
Wider now.
"Paperwork is boring," he replied. "I like making it interesting."
BOOM!
Another figure moved.
Not Karr.
Left flank.
A hunter blurred upward like a streak of compressed intent, appearing above me in an instant.
Blade downward.
Execution angle.
I twisted.
Armament Core surged.
Black reinforcement wrapped my forearm and blade like a second skeleton.
Clang!
Impact.
The force drove me downward this time.
Web-like cracks spread on the manor's outer spatial boundary—not breaking it, but deforming it under pressure.
For a split second, gravity felt optional.
Then—
I steadied myself mid-air.
Observation Grid flared, mapping the attacker's recoil trajectory before they even completed the follow-through.
Too clean.
Too rehearsed.
Not instinctive.
"Left flank confirmed," I muttered under my breath.
The attacker clicked his tongue.
"Tch. He adjusts fast."
From below, Karr's voice carried up again, almost cheerful.
"Oy! Don't get impressed, Rael. You're making me look bad."
The man who had just struck me flipped backwards through the air and landed on a fractured layer of space like it was solid ground.
"I'm not impressed," Rael replied flatly. "I'm annoyed. There's a difference."
"Same emotion, different vocabulary," Karr said lazily.
Inside the manor—
Selene's voice cracked through the open doorway again.
"OKAY, THAT WAS DEFINITELY A MID-BOSS JUMP ATTACK PATTERN!"
Ezravia snapped instantly, "Stop analysing like it's a game!"
"It is a game!" Selene shouted back. "Just with permanent consequences!"
Valeria leaned out slightly from the doorway, eyes sparkling.
"He's kind of good though, right?"
Zeraphira answered without hesitation.
"No."
Valeria blinked. "That was fast."
"He is not 'good,'" Wrath continued coldly. "He is coordinated."
Ravvy tilted her head. "Can I try coordinating him into a bite-sized piece?"
"NO," all four replied in perfect sync.
Gabriel looked nervously between them. "Why is everyone so calm? He just got thrown across space…"
Carmilla's voice drifted softly, almost amused.
"Because that," she said, "was not the dangerous part."
Outside—
Karr stretched his neck, eyes still on me as I re-stabilised mid-air.
"Alright," he said. "Enough warm-up. You're tougher than the briefing said."
He sighed dramatically.
"I hate when the paperwork lies."
One of the hunters behind him spoke.
"Engage suppression layer."
A pulse moved through the group.
Not magic.
Not aura.
Something structured.
Like a lock clicking into place across reality.
The air around me tightened instantly.
Gravity reasserted itself—not fully, but enough to drag.
My feet dipped slightly mid-air.
"…Oh," I muttered.
Karr grinned.
"Yeah. That's the part where you stop floating around feeling special."
BOOM.
Another strike hit from above.
I raised Muramasa on instinct—
Clang!
—but this time, the force didn't just collide.
It stacked.
Pressure layered on pressure.
My arm dipped further.
A second later, another strike came from the right.
Then left.
Then behind.
Four angles.
Simultaneous.
Observation Grid lit up like a storm warning.
'Coordinated suppression formation,' I thought.
My boots hit air-pressure that now felt like ground.
Zeraphira's voice cut from inside the manor, sharper now.
"They're compressing the battlefield."
Grayfia added calmly, "They are forcing Dominic into a fixed engagement zone."
Selene shouted, "THAT'S A TRAP CIRCLE WITHOUT A CIRCLE!"
Ezravia muttered, "That's just called tactical positioning."
Valeria added, "It looks like he's getting hugged by violence."
"That is not—" Gabriel started.
"Focus," Zeraphira cut her off.
Outside—
Karr lifted his blade slightly.
"It's Alive or Dead, though I prefer Alive, I don't mind—"
He paused mid-sentence.
Tilted his head.
Then smiled like he had just remembered something mildly inconvenient.
"—but my employer prefers you breathing, so try not to ruin my day."
The suppression field tightened again.
The air around me felt denser.
Not heavier in the physical sense—
More like the concept of "movement" had just been taxed.
I exhaled slowly.
"Your employer seems very invested in my well-being," I said flatly.
Karr shrugged.
"Rich people have hobbies."
BOOM.
Another impact slammed into the upper angle of the suppression grid.
This one wasn't testing anymore.
It was reinforcing.
The hunters weren't trying to break in now.
They were locking the space shut.
Like a cage forming around a bird that hadn't realised it was already inside.
"Enough."
The moment my voice dropped—
the air changed.
Not explosively.
Not violently.
But fundamentally.
A pressure that wasn't physical spread outward in a clean, undeniable wave.
Not mana.
Not aura.
Will.
Pure intent given shape.
The suppression field that had been tightening around me shuddered.
Not broken—
but questioned.
As if reality itself had briefly been asked whether it was certain about its current configuration.
Karr's grin faltered for the first time.
"…Huh," he muttered, voice lower now. "That's new."
Behind him, one of the hunters clicked their tongue sharply.
"Don't hesitate. Maintain compression."
Another voice snapped back immediately.
"It's destabilising the lattice—"
"I can see that."
Grayfia's eyes narrowed from inside the perimeter.
"…Master's authority is interfering with their formation."
Zeraphira stepped half a pace forward, heat curling tighter around her frame.
"…That's not just interference," she said quietly. "That's dominance pressure."
Selene, unusually silent for half a second, whispered from the doorway.
"…Oh. That's a king-type aura."
Valeria blinked. "He has those?"
Ezravia replied flatly, "Apparently."
Gabriel looked between them, confused and a little awed.
"…It feels heavy…"
Ravvy nodded slowly. "It feels like food is afraid."
"Ravvy," all of them said at once.
Outside—
Karr rolled his shoulder once, exhaling through his nose as the suppression field flickered again.
"Okay," he said slowly, voice less casual now. "Alright. So that's what we're dealing with."
He tilted his head slightly, studying me like a puzzle that had just gained an extra hidden layer.
"You're not supposed to have that kind of will-pressure," he added.
I didn't answer immediately.
Muramasa in my hand pulsed faintly, as if reacting to the shift in atmosphere.
My Conqueror's Will pressed outward again—steadier this time.
Not a burst.
A declaration.
"I already told you," I said calmly. "I'm getting tired of introductions."
A thin silence followed.
Then—
Karr laughed.
Not loudly.
Not mockingly.
But genuinely amused now.
"…Yeah," he said, rolling his neck. "That's fair."
He lifted his blade slightly off his shoulder.
"And here I thought this would be boring paperwork."
Behind him, Rael spoke quietly.
"Field integrity dropping by twelve percent."
"Yeah," another hunter added. "He's overriding the compression layer just by existing."
Karr exhaled.
"…Annoying," he muttered, though his tone had shifted. Less playful. More focused. "Alright. New plan—"
"Conqueror's Coating—"
I pumped Conqueror's will into Muramasa like crazy until I felt enough.
The world narrowed to a razor's edge.
Muramasa screamed.
Not audibly — not for the ears — but through my bones, my nerves, my marrow. The blade became a conduit, a channel forced open by my will, flooded by the violent royalty of Conqueror's intent. The black membrane of Armament thickened, deepening into a void so dense it swallowed the ghostlight around it.
Cracks surged outward from my feet.
The stone moaned.
Even the gravity recoiled — not from fear, but from recognition. Like an insect acknowledging a storm can crush them all and choosing instinctively to bow.
"DIVINE DEPARTURE!"
The moment the words left my lips, the world bent.
Muramasa cleaved forward — not as a blade, but as a decree.
The air ruptured.
A crescent of annihilating will exploded outward, black and gold entwined, reality twisting along its path as if existence itself were being peeled open by an invisible god.
The crescent didn't travel.
It arrived.
Space between me and the hunters simply ceased to agree on continuity.
KRAA—
The suppression lattice shattered in a single, fractured breath.
Not broken like glass.
Broken like a rule that had suddenly been proven incorrect.
Karr's eyes widened—just slightly.
"…Oh," he said again.
But this time it wasn't amusement.
It was recognition.
Too late.
The black-gold arc tore through the air, swallowing distance, chewing through layered space like it had been declared invalid.
The first hunter on the left tried to pivot.
He didn't finish.
His blade met the edge of the technique—
—and evaporated.
Not destroyed.
Deleted.
The second hunter raised a barrier.
It folded.
The third attempted spatial displacement.
The space refused.
The crescent passed through them like a verdict.
BOOOOM!!!
The sky above the manor cracked open in a silent ripple as the impact propagated through layered dimensions.
***
Stone me, I can take it!
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