My SSS-Rank Grim Reaper System
Chapter 230: VIKTOR’S FIGHT (2)
The hunter processed that.
And attacked again — but this time not with the chain enchantment. With his body, without magic, directly, because if Blood Magic could read magical attacks through adrenaline, non‑magical attacks didn’t generate the same signal.
Viktor was expecting it.
Not because he could read a physical attack without a magical signal.
But because it was the obvious decision, and Viktor had learned to anticipate obvious decisions before the enemy reached them.
[Blood Weapon — activated]
A hardened‑blood knife appeared in Viktor’s right hand — formed in the exact second the hunter lunged, timed so the hunter was already in trajectory and unable to change it.
The knife found the level‑85 hunter’s shoulder.
Not deep — enough.
[Level‑85 Hunter — right shoulder damage]
[Toxin Mastery — weakening poison — active]
The poison Viktor used in Blood Weapon wasn’t the fast‑action paralysis poison from Blood Needles. It was the weakening poison — slower, more specific, designed to progressively reduce the target’s ability to sustain active enchantments.
The area immobilization seal the hunter was maintaining began to lose coherence at its edge.
The hunter felt the cost of sustaining it rise.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
[Immobilization Seal — coherence: 80% → 65% → 50%]
The level‑85 hunter looked at Viktor.
Viktor stood on the dock with the blood knife still in his hand and the expression of someone in no hurry because the poison was working for him.
"How long has that poison been active?" said the hunter.
"You already feel it."
"How long until the seal collapses?"
"It depends on how much energy you dedicate to sustaining it." Viktor. "If you put all your energy into the seal, another minute or two. If you split your energy between the seal and an attack—"
"It collapses sooner."
"Yes."
The hunter evaluated his options with the speed of someone used to evaluating options in situations where time was scarce.
A level‑79 hunter lay on the ground, out of combat. A level‑82 hunter had reduced mobility and a destroyed primary enchantment. And he himself had Viktor’s poison in his shoulder, the seal costing more and more to sustain.
Facing a level‑88 who had used Hemomancy, Shadow Meld, Blood Whip, Blood Needles, Blood Weapon, and Assassination Arts in the last two minutes and showed no sign of having reached his limit.
The hunter deactivated the seal.
"Who are you?" said the hunter.
"Viktor." Nothing more.
"From the Circle?"
"Yes."
The hunter processed that.
"The Temple has records of the Circle." A pause. "There’s no Viktor in those records."
"I know." Viktor put away the blood knife. "I worked forty years to make sure of that."
---
The level‑82 hunter came to the 85’s side — limping slightly from his ankle but operational.
The two looked at Viktor.
"The Fragment bearer isn’t here," said the level‑85 hunter.
"No."
"Where is he?"
Viktor didn’t answer.
"Are you going to let us go?"
Viktor evaluated them — the 79 on the ground with the paralysis still active but with no permanent damage, the 82 with reduced mobility but no serious wounds, the 85 with the weakening poison that would wear off in hours.
"The 79 needs attention in two hours, or the paralysis becomes permanent," said Viktor. "There’s a healer in San Corvo’s north sector. They charge high, but they’re good."
The level‑85 hunter looked at him.
"Why are you telling us that?"
"Because I didn’t come here to kill Temple hunters." Viktor. "I came here to keep them from reaching the boat."
A pause.
"We already reached the boat," said the hunter.
"And you’re leaving without what you came for." Viktor. "That’s enough for now."
---
[South Dock — after]
Max arrived with Raven five minutes after the hunters had left — the 82 and 85 carrying the 79 between them toward San Corvo’s north sector as Viktor had told them.
Max looked at the dock.
No trace of the fight except a few stains on the wood that could have been water or could have been dried blood.
"What happened?" said Max.
"Three Temple hunters." Viktor picked up the coffee he had left on the dock before the fight. "They’ve already left."
"On their own?"
"On their own."
Max looked at him for a second.
"You’re level 88."
"Yes."
"And you handled three Temple hunters alone while I went to get backup?"
"You went to warn them," said Viktor. "Which is what I asked you to do."
Raven had been silent since arriving.
She looked at the dock. The stains on the wood. Viktor’s posture — completely the same as before the fight, no visible sign of effort, coffee in hand as if he had spent the last ten minutes waiting for water to boil.
"Blood Needles," said Raven.
"Yes."
"And Shadow Meld?"
"Also."
"Hemomancy?"
"To absorb the 79’s first enchantment and convert it into fuel."
Raven processed that.
"You taught me those techniques when I was sixteen," said Raven. "You said they’d taken you ten years to learn."
"Yes."
"And how long did you take?"
Viktor took a sip of coffee.
"Five."
Raven looked at him.
"Why did you tell me ten?"
"Because at sixteen, you would have tried to learn them in two and hurt yourself." Viktor. "Ten years was the minimum I could tell you without you taking it as a challenge."
Raven processed that.
"And the real time to master them completely?"
Viktor looked at her.
"Forty‑two years."
Silence on the dock.
"Do I have them mastered?" said Raven.
"You have some." Viktor. "The ones I judged safe to teach you first." A pause. "The ones I haven’t taught you yet are the ones that require understanding exactly what you’re willing to pay to use them."
"Why didn’t you teach them to me?"
Viktor looked at the horizon.
"Because at sixteen, you didn’t have that answer yet." A pause. "Now you do."
Raven looked at him.
Viktor didn’t look back — he kept looking at the horizon with the expression of someone who had just said what needed to be said and didn’t need confirmation that it had landed.
Max stood between the two, evaluating the exchange with the discretion of someone who clearly had none but who at this specific moment had decided to try.
"When?" said Raven finally.
"When you leave San Corvo," said Viktor. "We have time until the Eastern Island."
---
[Boat — Shipyard — later]
The team gathered at midday with the news of the encounter.
Alex looked at Viktor with the evaluation of someone recalibrating an important variable.
"Level 88 with full Blood Magic," said Alex.
"Yes," said Viktor.
"How long have you been at that level?"
"Fifteen years." Viktor. "I rose slowly because I never needed to rise fast."
"And now?"
Viktor looked at the team — at Raven specifically, then at the rest.
"Now I have reasons not to fall behind."
Seraph from the side, without taking her eyes off the boat being inspected:
"The Temple has active oceanic trackers." She said it with the tone of someone confirming a variable she had already suspected. "Which means they know approximately where we are."
"Does that change anything?" asked Kira.
"It speeds up the final crossing." Seraph. "We can’t take more time than necessary between San Corvo and the Eastern Island."
Maya already had the map in hand.
"If we leave this evening instead of tomorrow at dawn—"
"We leave this evening," said Alex.
Maya marked the time on the map.
---
[San Corvo — South Dock — 5:30 PM]
The boat repaired.
The team boarding with everything they had gathered in San Corvo — Maya’s maps, Raven’s bones, Emily’s plants, Jessica’s twenty‑two pages of notes, the young sailor’s grandfather’s parchment.
Viktor was the last to board.
Max was already at the helm.
The shipyard master stood on the dock watching the boat sail away with the expression of someone who had repaired many boats and could tell which ones would need to return and which wouldn’t.
This one, the master thought, probably wouldn’t return.
Not because the work was bad.
But because those on board had the specific posture of people going somewhere they wouldn’t return from the same.
The boat left San Corvo’s port with the last light of day.
The ocean to the east.
The Empty Fleet somewhere in that ocean.
And beyond — the Eastern Island, the Silent Threshold, F7, and whatever it was that Grim recognized without understanding what he recognized.