Grand Ascension-Chapter 48: First Fight

"Berserk Warrior." A male voice spoke, stern, calm, and absolute. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

A man walked from where the fountain had been. Five foot ten, In his thirties, Lean built with Nothing special about him at first glance. Short dark hair, Plain jacket, Dark jeans and Brown leather boots worn from use.

But his eyes told a different story.

Anger flickered through his brown eyes.

He scanned the scene in seconds. The mother and daughter huddled on the ground, trembling behind the golden barrier. Then he turned his eyes to the small dog’s body, limp and broken near the bench. Lastly, he looked at the possessed figure convulsing on the pavement, black smoke pouring from burnt hands.

If he had been even a second too late, the mother and kid would have died.

He looked at what seemed like empty air and spoke.

"Celine. Take care of their memories."

He paused, then turned his head in another direction.

"Ryan. Behind me."

"Yes, Mark."

Two voices resounded, one female, one male, unseen but present.

The man, his name was Mark Kane, third-grade Initiate, Warrior Route, and a field agent of the VEB.

He flashed forward.

In one fluid, practiced motion, his hand dipped into his coat pocket and came back up gripping metal.

A Desert Eagle.

Black. Heavy. The kind of gun that doesn’t belong in civilian hands. Etched along the barrel were faint silver runes, blessed by a second-grade Elite Architect. Every bullet was spiritually enhanced. Every shot carried weight beyond the physical.

Click.

He cocked it, eyes locked on Makun with the kind of focus that came from years of killing things that should not exist.

For half a second, it felt like everything froze.

The water in the fountain, suspended mid-fall. The myriad of entities in the form of smoke around Makun’s body, hanging in the air like sculpture. The leaves on the trees, motionless. Even the sound stopped.

The atoms held their breath.

BANG. BANG!

Then the sound shattered everything.

Sharp cracks tore through the air, loud and disorienting, echoing off the trees and buildings around the park. The muzzle flashed twice, bright in the pre-dawn dark.

Makun’s possessed body moved.

Not like a normal person dodging. Instead, controlled by entities, his body moved like something that could see the bullets.

His torso jerked left. Then right. The entities inside him laughed, their voices layered and mocking, shrieking through his throat.

Taunting him. Letting him know that earlier was luck.

Mark’s jaw tightened. He had seen this before. Outer-layer possession. Reflex prediction. The entities were reading his intent before the trigger pull, not the bullet trajectory. They were faster than his arm, not faster than the round.

The first bullet flashed past Makun’s shoulder and hit a tree ten meters behind him.

FWOOOM.

The tree ignited.

Not burned, but Ignited. The bark exploded into white-hot flames that climbed the trunk in seconds, crackling and spitting embers into the air. The blessed silver coating reacted with spiritual residue in the wood, amplifying the burn.

The second bullet missed by inches, clipping the edge of the bench Makun had been sitting on.

The wood detonated. Splinters flew outward like shrapnel. The metal frame twisted, glowing red, then white, before collapsing into a molten heap.

MarK did not flinch, he kept moving. His only goal was to close the distance as fast as possible.

He had to end this worthless threat before it escalated further.

They worked for the VEB, the Veil Enforcement Bureau. Since Naija City was a remote city, and due to the tiny number of mystics, the forces positioned here were lackluster. The highest-tiered practitioner stationed by the Suppression Bureau in Naija City was a third grade Adept.

After receiving notice of mystical operation by the AI and seeing the tier of the threat as someone who just underwent initiation, they deemed it not worth sending anyone powerful and dispatched three third-grade Initiates to take care of the situation.

However.

Flash

Makun moved.

Not with the calculated precision of a lucid human being. Nor the disciplined form of a trained warrior.

He moved like a beast.

His body twisted unnaturally, bones cracking as the demonic entities inside him forced his limbs to bend in ways no human should. He dropped low, impossibly low, his spine arching backward as another bullet whistled over his head.

And then he lunged forward.

CRASH!

Makun’s fist drove into Mark’s ribs with the force of a battering ram.

The impact wasn’t just physical. It carried spiritual weight. Dark energy exploded outward from the point of contact, and Mark felt his rib crack. Not just fracture. Crack. The sound echoed inside his chest like glass breaking.

He was thrown backward, his boots skidding across the park’s soil, tearing up dirt and grass. His back slammed into a tree. Bark splintered. His breath left him in a sharp gasp.

Mark’s eyes widened. That strength—

He ran the estimations in his head. A first-grade Initiate, freshly awakened, possessed by outer-layer entities, should not possess such strength. He was aware of berserk warriors, aware of their circumstance.

However this still went beyond normal circumstances. How could he know the Deep has forcefully increased Makun’s route core? How could he know the chains bound to Makun kept attracting entities into his body?

He could not tell.

Makun didn’t give him time to think. He was already moving, closing the distance in three bounding steps. His movements were wrong, Jerky and Animalistic. Like a puppet with too many strings being pulled in different directions.

But they were fast.

So fast that he had already reached Mark a second time, his hand clenching into a fist. Dark smoke trailed from his fingertips, and within the smoke, the faces of demonic spirits shrieked, their mouths stretching impossibly wide.

Mark saw it coming. He dropped.

"NOW." Mark screamed.

Bright shining ropes erupted from nowhere. They formed glowing circles around Makun, tightening rapidly, wanting to trap him. Silver light pulsed along their length. Ryan’s Binding Technique, a Ruler Route restraint ritual designed for entities up to second-grade Apprentice level.

Marcus cocked his gun, ready to neutralize Makun the moment the ropes locked.

Fwoosh.

Mark’s eyes widened as he saw Makun duck to the ground at a speed he could not describe, leaving afterimages behind. His angle was so odd that the ropes, hoping to trap him, closed on nothing.

The entities inside Makun laughed harder.

Makun, who now saw blood, continued rushing toward Mark. His already clenched fist shot forward like an arrow, smoke erupting from it.

Mark knew that with his already broken rib, if this connected, it was bad.

He did not think. He just fired.

CRACK.

The gunshot echoed through the park. The bullet ripped through the air, aimed at Makun’s chest.

The bullet caught Makun in the side, just below the ribs. Blood sprayed.

But then it ignited.

Flames erupted from the wound, crawling across Makun’s torso like living serpents. They wrapped around his ribs, his chest, his right arm. The smoke around his fist flickered violently as the fire met it. The demonic faces shrieked, their mouths stretched wide in agony as the flames consumed them one by one.

Makun’s hand was burning now. Not just from the spirits. From the bullet. From the fire eating through his skin.

But Makun did not slow down.

BLOOD. BLOOD. BLOOD. The entities were still screaming for blood.

They had to get it.

His fist connected.

Mark’s eyes went wide. Time seemed to slow. The impact drove the air from his lungs. He felt his second rib crack. Then his third. His body lifted off the ground, weightless for a single, agonizing moment, before gravity dragged him back down.

He hit the dirt hard. His vision blurred. Blood filled his mouth.

He coughed, tasted copper, and forced himself to look up.