At dawn, Edward stood alone in full armor in front of the huge Vega mansion, which looked more like a roman temple than a place to live in. “QUINTUS, I CHALLENGE YOU! YOUR TYRANNY ENDS TODAY! NO LONGER WILL I FEAR YOU! NO LONGER GOBELIARD WILL FEAR YOU! THIS DAY MARKS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA!” Edward roared at the top of his lungs while unleashing his aura at full capacity.

The morning workers froze in shock, paralyzed by the strength of the aura downpour. Normal citizens and people at the quiescent stage were simply incapable of moving in front of such power. Sweat was gathering on their forehead while their instincts were screaming to run away. The effect was reduced for awakens, they were still able to move although they weren’t any less afraid. The aura projected by Edward made it clear that they weren’t on the same level.

Edward retrieved his aura waiting for Quintus’ answer. The populace in the streets ran away without ado. Meanwhile, the ones that had been made awake were rushing at their windows to glance carefully at the cause of this ruckus.

The soldiers in front of the open gates guarding the Vega mansion couldn’t help but shiver in fear. They took a step back but didn’t run away. However, they didn’t take the initiative to aggress or even question Edward, only waiting for Quintus to save them from this situation.

The latter didn’t take long to appear. He appeared sword in hand on top of the mansion’s front stairs as if he had teleported. He looked as stern as the first time Edward had seen him.

“YOU! I thought you dead already.” He laughed, recognizing Edward more with his aura than his appearance. The armor Edward was wearing was covering him totally, not an inch of his skin was visible. “You had the opportunity to run away, yet you came back here. I don’t know if I should commend you for your bravery or condemn you for your foolishness.” He frowned. “Somehow you have made it to the predator level. Don’t think that will change anything. I will take great pleasure killing you with my own hands. Now that you stand in front of me the Potentia and the Regalis family can’t stop me anymore!”

Quintus’ face turned into a wicked smile. “Rèng khwāmrĕw.” Edward immediately used his enhanced perception spell. He did well since he saw that Quintus was already midway to reaching him, his sword ready to cleave him in two.

It will be bad to fight in the streets. Civilians could be hurt. But this won’t stop this madman. Let’s bring the fight to his home instead.

Before Quintus’ attack could reach him, Edward teleported inside the Vega’s courtyard, on top of the stairs right where Quintus was a moment earlier.

Quintus’ face froze in shock, then anger as he realized that Edward had avoided him and their position had been reversed. “Coming to visit me?” Edward teased him as he was inside the mansion while Quintus was standing in the street.

Quintus snarled and accelerated again, charging at Edward. This time Edward dipped into his acceleration power and rushed right at Quintus. Quintus was slightly faster than Edward even when he was using his acceleration power. However, Edward had more control over his movements. Quintus’ perception couldn’t catch up to his own speed.

Edward avoided Quintus’ strike while grazing him with his dagger and drawing a line of blood on his cheek. Quintus brought a hand to his cheek, staring at him incredulously as it came back covered in blood. “YOU HAVE DONE IT NOW BOY!” he howled. His aura surged dangerously, and suddenly his sword extended with materialized aura until it reached five meters long. The guards that had stood at their post until now took it as the signal to run away.

Quintus swung his blade at Edward even though the latter was too far to reach. The aura left the sword as a wide energy blade and sped in the air without stopping. The attack was impressive but not particularly dangerous to Edward who only had to teleport to the side. The aura blade reached the ground and cut right through the pavement, rocks were projected on the side hitting the nearby houses and leaving impacts on the wall.

Edward winced. I may easily avoid such an attack, but with this power, one hit would be enough to cut me in two.

This didn’t alleviate Quintus’s rage, as he continued to send aura blades at Edward, only this time deciding to prevail speed over power. The blades were a lot smaller, only one meter wide instead of five, but Quintus wasn’t stopping. Edward teleported once to avoid the first ones but his teleportation was then on cool down. He had to rely on his own acceleration and ability to avoid the next aura blades. Cut and gashes appeared on the inner walls of the Vega’s courtyard.

Edward ducked under a blade, sidestepped to the side to avoid the next one, and punch the third one with his dagger, protecting it with his own aura. Quintus heaved loudly, tired by his output of continuous attack and seemingly calming down somewhat even though he had made a mess of his mansion. “It seems I have underestimated you. Let me show you the power that comes with the predator stage,” he declared sinistrally.

Suddenly Quintus’ aura expanded to cover the whole courtyard including Edward. He felt a weight on his shoulders, having trouble moving around. Quintus walked slowly toward him, the pressure on Edward intensifying with each step. However, Quintus didn’t seem to be too well himself. He wasn’t walking slowly to enjoy his feeling of superiority but rather because he was unable to go faster, his brows were frowning in concentration.

As he was getting closer step by step, Edward tried to teleport away but realized with horror that it wasn’t working. Somehow Quintus’ aura was blocking his teleportation and he was aware of it. “You thought you knew everything about what being a predator meant? Don’t think you can escape now.” Quintus smirked viciously.

Edward gathered his resolved. Fine, I can’t teleport away. It seems his aura can somehow suppress my power. Then let’s fight. Edward released all of his aura at once, pushing against Quintus’s control. At the frontier between the two auras, small pebbles were floating in the air due to the confrontation of energy. Quintus stopped his advance. “How can your aura be so strong already?!” he shouted in confusion.

“You would know if you had spent more time hunting monsters rather than defenseless people.” Edward retorted ferociously. His aura wasn’t the match of Quintus since the latter had been at the predator stage for far longer than Edward. However, he had managed to push it a little, freeing some space around him.

“This doesn’t change anything. You are not my match!” Quintus snarled. He didn’t take another step forward but sent another aura blade while maintaining the rest of his aura restraining Edward.

However, Edward had regained enough control already. He managed to move aside avoiding the flying blade. Quintus’ concentration could only last for so long. His control broke and Edward was totally free of his restraints. He used the opportunity where he had regained his freedom of movement and Quintus was still exhausted from his energy expenditure to counterattack.

Edward teleported right in front of him and impaled him in his chest with his right dagger. The aura-enhanced dagger pierced right through his armor. Despite the injury, Quintus gathered enough force to gather aura along his sword and swing it at Edward forcing him to evade and open the distance. Quintus throw a mouthful of blood as his chest was getting covered in blood. He shakily searched for something at his side before seizing a familiar-looking syringe.

Edward’s eyes opened wide. “Oh no, you don’t!!”

Quintus blasted his aura around him creating a physical impact, it stopped Edward for a moment preventing him from moving closer. Quintus used the opportunity to stab the syringe next to his injury, injecting its content. His heavy injury stopped bleeding, and frail pink new skin grew on top of it, sealing it in an instant. Quintus threw another mouthful of blood but gave Edward a bloody smile. “You didn’t expect that, did you?”

Edward couldn’t really blame him since he had planned to do exactly the same if he got injured, but it was extremely frustrating to watch his opponent recover when he was on the brink of victory. “I overcame you once. I only have to redo it.”

Quintus’ smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Edward charged at Quintus. He wanted to finish the fight, frustrated that Quintus had managed to heal himself. Also, fighting at close range should prevent Quintus from throwing a wall of aura blades at him even though he would be able to avoid them if he needed to. More importantly, it would prevent him to focus long enough to congeal the whole area with his aura. It was the first time that Edward had encountered a situation where his teleportation had been blocked.

Until now he had relied on his teleportation as a safe way out. No matter what happened he would still be able to back off from the fight to avoid an attack or to regain his bearing. It was akin to a second life. In the short moment it had been blocked, he realized that he would die if he didn’t fight back, there was no more escape. Luckily, it seemed very taxing on Quintus to use this ability and he hadn’t been able to use it for long.

So, Edward went all out, not giving Quintus a chance to escape or to use his ability. His enhanced perception was still active, and he also tapped into his acceleration power. Quintus’ acceleration was faster than his and he had more experienced, but without an enhanced perception, Quintus would lack control of his accelerated movements.

Everything happened in a flash, the few onlookers left, mostly inhabitants watching from their windows, weren’t able to discern their movements. Both Edward and Quintus were using their acceleration. Quintus managed to ward off the first hits but quickly faltered against Edward’s onslaught. He had to rely on his experience to predict where Edward would hit him in order to react in time, and he only had one sword to fight against two daggers. He was on the back foot, and quickly small wounds appeared on him, one after the other.

In order to change the flow of the fight, he blasted his aura one more time to create some space. Immediately after he charged his aura alongside his sword to send a huge aura blade at Edward. However, Edward hadn’t used his teleportation in his offensive precisely for something like this. He teleported behind Quintus, avoiding his attack, and pierced him one more time with his aura-coated dagger. The blade pierced through Quintus’ torso and got out from his chest. Not letting him recover, Edward used his aura to grow the blade of his left dagger and swiped it at Quintus.

His head, still frozen in a shocked expression rolled on the floor. There was no applause, only stunned silence.