Requiem Of A Failed Hero

Grimly, Raith rose to meet the challenge.

"I can't give in now, can I?" He said to the monster, not caring if it actually understood him.

"If you will be giving me such an arduous task. It only makes sense that I match the energy right." He cracked his neck bone and other joints around his body.

"I thought of using [force] that way you probably wouldn't even be able to land an attack on me. But nah, I want to become stronger, so I want to do this without all those extras."

A colorless aura seeped out of his body, immediately, a red light appeared and slowly became red flames becoming black as they consumed every injury on his body and disappeared.

Raith's body was as good as new. Although there were tears in his clothes, his skin was as white as when he had walked into the place. Raith glanced up, hoping that Thard - Harl had not noticed.

Raith grinned and finally got ready. "Let's go at it. I will match everything, every style you throw my way!"

The monster with a deep frown etched on its blackness face, lunged at Raith, throwing strikes at him. Sliding back from a flurry of jagged-edge strikes, he riposted with a low sweep followed by an uppercut.

His fist glanced off the wraith's chin. For all its skill, it seemed surprised by such a basic counter. Raith allowed himself a thin smile before mods were hammering at him again, relentless as ocean waves.

The exchange quickly devolved into a chaotic melee as the shadow figure ripped through a dizzying array of fighting styles.

It attacked Raith from every angle with precise stabs, unpredictable swaying charges, swooping joint locks and brutal nerve strikes.

Raith abandoned structured reaction, instead giving himself over to raw intuition - twist, duck, counterstrike in the instant of each attack's launch.

He drew deeply on his own vast fighting experience - fencing footwork, brawling instincts, dirty tricks.

Against the onslaught of a hundred battle arts, his approach was no art at all but adaptable, unbridled combat.

He took blows trying to find holes in the creature's defenses between style shifts. A broken rib here, bloodied knuckles there.

But Raith was slowly getting a feel for its transitions. As it flowed from strikes too similar to a previous moveset, Raith would launch into counter combinations it had already shown reaction for, causing vital delays in its responses.

Yet even exhaustion seemed not to slow the shadow warrior.

Its depths of skill were unfathomable. Meanwhile Raith bled from a dozen wounds, movements increasingly leaden as the nightmare duel stretched into hours.

He had to turn the tide or be swallowed by the dark tide.

In a flash of insight, Raith recalled the very roots of Neofut as Thard - Harl had first described them - a style embracing all styles, able to absorb and redirect any incoming force.

Had he been too focused on forms while the core truth was encoded deeper.

Flow with the opponent's momentum... redirect it rather than oppose directly...

Raith stopped resisting the strikes raining down. He twisted and turned, rode their force rather than clashing against it.

Flipping away from a crushing stomp, he converted his moving evasion into a scything elbow blow from an unexpected angle.

Adapt.

Flow.

Redirect.

Like a stalk of grass bending away from the storm rather than trying to stand rigid against winds that would snap it in moments.

Gradually, Raith moved less and less on his own initiative, instead allowing his enemy's movements to dictate his responses.

He became a leaf drifting on the raging currents of combat, utilizing them rather than fighting.

Flitting ever out of reach, turning the shadow warrior's own offense against it.

In fleeting instances between exchanges Raith perceived something at his core - stillness.

As if the external chaos of battle could not touch this innermost seat of awareness. Though his body spun and struck like a dervish, some space within remained mysteriously at peace.

The shadow warrior launched another blistering combination - now Integrating Raith's own counter moves, so recently turned against it.

But before conscious thought could take hold, Raith's body was already in motion, unraveling movements guided by wordless intuition.

Like a man stepping smoothly around obstacles while lost in idle daydreams, Raith nimbly flowed past the attacks without interrupting his own inner quietude.

Another petal on the raging storm winds, effortlessly where others would have strained.

Raith's foe paused its assault, wavering, as if uncertain what to make of this untouchable opponent drifting gracefully through its most ruthless techniques like smoke.

Sensing the opening, Raith completed his spin and drove his fingers tipped with aura into seven vital points across the creature's torso in rapid succession.

It let out an ear-piercing shriek as the focused impacts tore massive damage through its coalesced form.

Dropping low as it lashed out in reflexive retaliation, Raith exploded upwards from his crouch, howling fury fused with profound calm.

His uppercut hammered through the shadows, scattering them into nothingness... for now.

Breathing heavily as silence reigned once more Raith analyzed his ragged state with detached clarity. Compared to before, the blood cut on his body had reduced.

'I'm improving' They were signs for him.

He had crossed some threshold during the nightmarish battle - landed upon the insight that was Neofut's deepest foundation.

Settling into a balanced ready stance, Raith closed his eyes, feeling the way his frame would unfold smoothly in response to any disturbance with minimal effort.

Though shattered in places, his body had become a vessel to channel rather than oppose external forces. He nodded to himself.

He was ready for the next time the vile creature would be coming.

There was scarcely time to prepare before the shadows charged again, now revealing a huge, indistinct shape rather than a roughly humanoid configuration.

Massive slabs of muscle rippled under a coarse hide as the agglomerated bulk shifted with deceptive speed to rush Raith.

He flipped up and over the creature as it passed beneath him like a runaway battering ram. It skidded to an eventual halt, bellowing in rage.

Clearly brute force had served it sufficiently thus far against previous victims. Raith almost pitied what it lacked… finesse. But there was no room for distraction in this limitless war of attrition.

He flitted around the monster - for it could no longer be called an adept battle master - letting it wear itself down trying to smash or grapple with his evasive form.

When gaps in its offense appeared he darted in to deliver merciless precision strikes only to dance nimbly out of range once more.

Like a hornet stinging a maddened bull, Raith became an incarnate of concentration and quick movement. Even exhausted, battered and running on fumes, some well of clarity seemed ever replenished each time he drew from it.

Inevitably, openings widened in proportion to the hulking beast's mounting frustration as it failed to land a single blow.

Raith slipped past a claw swipe and planted his leading foot, his entire body uncoiling with the force of a compressed spring instantly released.

"COILED STRIKE!" He screamed.

His heel smashed up under the chin of that massive nightmare head. He felt the crunch of fracturing vertebrae shockwave up his leg.

The shadow creature's head whipped back at an unnatural angle... yet still it stood. Raith swore he could see the murderous hatred smoldering in its eerie white eyes.

Not daring to hesitate, Raith chained more flexible indirect kicks to strike at odd angles, keeping his opponent turning and unable to fix on a target even as ossifying weariness threatened to lock his own joints.

Just a little more... he had to push beyond all limits. He dare not surrender here in this pit where even death might not offer respite.

Drawing on those strange depths of tranquility underlying the violence, Raith inhaled and launched another devastating technique - this one his own devising, melding the condensed force and flexibility of his hard-won personal style.

His foot described a deceptively trailing crescent, suddenly morphing with explosive torque into a piston-like side kick that caught the creature full in the torso with the sound of crumpling iron.

Raith felt its sternum cave in like soggy wood. Simultaneously, he was thinking of a perfect name for it. But couldn't dwell too much inside his head.

Howling soundlessly, the battered figure toppled with dreamlike slowness to smash face-first against the dark stones. It lay motionless in a spreading pool of black ichor.

Raith watched for long, tense moments, wary of some other diabolical form emerging from the murk. But the battle seemed done... for now at least.

Nearly doubled over in pain and exhaustion, Raith stumbled away from that unmoving mountain of flesh.

His own reserves neared empty. Raith focused on slowing his heaving breaths, regaining equilibrium between each gasping inhale and long exhale. Like circling back to the balanced foundation points of Neofut's teachings.

Having witnessed but a fraction of this shadow's dangers, he understood there would likely be no respite.

But he had unlocked something ineffable about the way of adaptability, absorption, responsiveness. Each demanding trial only honed his reactions beyond what rigid forms and techniques could provide.

Dark shapes already encroached at the edge of his vision, stalking nearer... but Raith's expression was only more stern.

He had found his center here in this endless night. No matter the terror, he would turn its energy as his own.

Sinking into a deceptively casual stance, leading leg lazily extended, Raith raised one hand in subtle beckoning challenge.

Slowly his energy began to release, let out an ethereal but colorless glow that shrouded him like an invisible cloak. The darkness that loomed beneath the corpse of the monster looked like it was searching for where to go.

With Raith's [soul force] extending towards it. The darkness quickly turned to him and slowly began to crawl towards Raith. Upon first contact, the whole shadows raced into him.

Not just of the monster. The darkness in total began to seep into his body.

[Dark Borne is in effect]

[All darkness will be consumed]

[All darkness will find a home in you and will be converted into shadow force]

[You have gained shadow force]

[You have gained shadow force]

[You have gained shadow force]

[Calculating all shadow force gained]

[...]

[...]

[Lost souls have been found]

[Lost souls of millenia have been found]

[Lost souls will be converted into shadow force]

[A strange lost soul has been found]

[You have gained +1,971 shadow force]

Raith narrowed his eyes. This was very very new.

Shadow force? Luminous force? Raith could relate them to one thing. Soul force!

And seeing what just happened, Raith sort of understood what [Light Borne] and [Dark Borne] did. If [Dark Borne] consumed all darkness, does that mean [Light Borne] consumed light?

'Nah… I doubt that is how it works.'

The description of [Dark Borne] did mention that he is a vast sea of darkness, seeking to consume all. But [Light Borne] said he is an element of light. He has a light that only reflects the truth.

Thinking about it now, only ached his head. He had gone through so much and it feels like it had only been a minute.

But Raith was aware that so much time had passed. He frowned and sat slowly on the ground.

As he sat down, he saw something laying down amidst the decaying carcass of the shadow creature.

A pitch black orb. Raith recognized it immediately.

He slowly and painfully picked himself, crawling over to the place to pick the black object.

[You have gained a monster core]

[Do you want to absorb]

Raith paused for a few minutes. He looked up where the asura should be then looked at the black core in his hands.

'...what could a god need this thing for?'

"Sage, what is the grade of this core."

[This core is of the "bête noire" grade. Which is the highest grade of a monster's core]

[Within earth standards, this core is a monster that can be found level 29 dungeon]

Raith cocked his head. 'What do you mean level 20… there's no level 20 dungeon'

[The calculation is based on multiplying the difficulty of the monk golem dungeon a ten more times]

Raith eyes widened but creased back in the next second.

"No way… I almost died several times when fighting the golem monk."

[...]

Sage kept a few minutes of silence.

Then the realization slowly hit Raith, he looked at his wrist and ankles. The manacles were still on… he totally forgot about them.

[You have grown considerably compared to when you fought the monk golem. I think the you now will easily lay waste to the monk golem]

"Wow… I defeated a strong monster like that?"

[Yes]

Raith's eyes was filled with so much glee. While he was preoccupied with his achievement. A black mass of darkness seeped out of his skin.

His hand slowly transitioned to a black mass. The orb he was holding sank into it and it reverted back to normal immediately.

[Greed has consumed an extremely high grade monster essence]

"What?!!"