Dust Explosion

It turned out that holding his breath seemed to do little against Aleppo's ultimate move.

Lude suddenly felt dizzy, and the world before his eyes seemed to put on clothes. He staggered back several steps against the wall, punched his thigh hard, then, finding that insufficient, bit his tongue. Only then did he manage to refocus his mind.

Well, damn. Lude thought. That potion was actually a potent anesthetic—and it could even affect this body!

Aleppo's voice came from beside his ear. "This is an alchemical anesthetic designed specifically to Influence souls. A single drop can knock out a mammoth or an Iron-Hide Rhino, and it has already seeped through every mucous membrane in your body and entered your circulatory system."

"Stop struggling, you nest-stealing monster. Surrender now!"

"Heh." Lude responded with a sneer. Pinching his nose, he swayed and abruptly flung his arms twice. After feinting, he charged straight into the kitchen so quickly that even Aleppo failed to keep up. He slammed the door behind him and locked it.

"Ha! A trapped beast still struggling. How laughable. Where do you think you're running?"

Without a second thought, Aleppo turned into a wisp of mist and slipped through the gap in the closed kitchen door. To him, Lude's actions were plainly those of someone panicking and fleeing blindly. If Lude had smashed through the window and jumped into the street, Aleppo might have hesitated over whether to pursue him.

But the kitchen? Such an enclosed space was far more suitable for him than the better-ventilated dining room!

The gas lamp in the dining room was cut off by the closed door. Inside the kitchen, only mottled moonlight streamed through the window lattice, driving back the darkness. The first thing Aleppo saw after entering and reforming into human shape was Lude apparently dragging a sack down from a shelf.

Once Aleppo's eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw the sack in Lude's hands, he could not help but laugh.

"Ha! You monster, the climate in this cold region is damp and frigid, but even the lingering warmth of daylight couldn't have cooked your brain. Did worms crawl into your head while you slept and eat your brains? Otherwise, how did you possibly decide to make a last stand with a sack of flour and a kitchen knife?"

Yet in the face of Aleppo's wild laughter, Lude merely stared at him in silence, the corners of his mouth lifting calmly.

Aleppo's laughter gradually faded, replaced by uncertainty and suspicion. For some reason, he found the expression on Lude's face familiar. He felt like he had seen it somewhere before, on someone he knew very well... Wait?!

Aleppo finally remembered. It was the confident smile he wore only when facing prey with nowhere left to run!

In an instant, Aleppo felt chills crawl over his skin.

He was no fool, nor did he imagine his opponent was one. Any spellcaster who thought that way would have died to their own arrogance long ago.

That was precisely why he was terrified. At this moment, he knew full well that Lude had formed some sort of plan, and that he himself was already in danger.

But he could not think of where that danger could possibly come from.

That sense of the unknown was the most frightening part!

And in that very instant, Lude swung his arm like a baseball pitcher, hurling the sack of flour in his hand viciously at Aleppo!

The ten-kilogram sack shot forward at high speed. Aleppo had no time to mount an effective defense before it struck him in the chest.

He instantly transformed into a cloud of mist. The flour sack smashed into the wall behind him and burst apart, scattering a vast cloud of white flour throughout the kitchen.

Within the flour-shrouded kitchen, Aleppo was utterly bewildered.

He could not understand what Lude was trying to accomplish, yet his sixth sense was screaming warnings. Then he saw Lude raise the kitchen knife and aim it at... the iron storage rack beside him!

At that moment, realization flashed through his mind.

In an enclosed space, when dust hung suspended in the air and mixed with air or oxygen until it reached its explosive limit, enough heat would cause it to burn rapidly. The air would expand violently, resulting in a... massive explosion!

"Goodbye, Mr. Aleppo," Lude said with a courteous smile.

Aleppo hurriedly condensed his body from mist back into flesh, but he could not reform as quickly as Lude could swing his blade.

The steel kitchen knife struck the iron surface, sending bright sparks flying. Flames erupted and surged in an instant!

"No—!!!"

The next moment, blazing fire engulfed them both, and the fierce explosion blasted a third of the third-floor room into fragments that filled the sky.

The roar echoed across several streets, waking the exhausted horses in their stables.

Second by second, time passed. Only after the dust settled did a figure rise from the ruins.

Lude coughed up a mouthful of scorching blood, enduring the internal injuries caused by the blast wave as moonlight fell over his muscular body.

Step by step, he made his way to the center of the rubble. After identifying what he was looking at, he kicked away a collapsed section of brick wall.

A charred body was revealed on the ground, its limbs already gone.

Yet Lude did not let down his guard. Limping, he approached Aleppo.

After silently assessing the motionless Charred Corpse for a moment, he raised his foot and stomped down hard on Aleppo's head!

"Splat—!"

This time, his attack did not miss. Aleppo's skull shattered beneath Lude's stomp like an overripe watermelon. Clearly, like a nail hammered into a door, Aleppo was thoroughly dead.

Aleppo was dead—his enemy was dead. His powerful enemy was dead, killed by his own hand!

This was his first battle since coming to this world, and his first battle against an Arcanist. He had won overwhelmingly, and an uncontrollable sense of pride surged up from the depths of his heart!

This godlike feeling of wielding power over another's life made him want to throw back his head and howl!

"Yaaah—!!!"

Like an infant's first cry upon entering the world, Lude felt an indescribable exhilaration.

For far too many years, he had lived every day trapped in fear and anxiety—whether it was the confusion and helplessness of having nothing, or the constant worry of losing everything after achieving success.

But at this very moment, that unease was swept away by the tangible power he possessed!

In this near-euphoric state, Lude felt his five senses sharpen considerably.

And because of that subtle, almost imperceptible change, Lude suddenly caught a grayish-green gleam from the corner of his eye. The caution honed into his mind over countless years forced him out of that euphoric state in an instant.

He leaped backward and landed lightly atop the stove before turning toward the source of the light.

From Aleppo's blackened corpse, a cluster of grayish-green flames was slowly peeling away from his chest.

Lude was very familiar with those flames, because a similar flame floated within his own spiritual world, though its color was somewhat different.

Unlike the steadily burning Soul Fire, however, these flames were gradually being stripped away thread by thread.

It was about to go out... or rather, be scattered by the tides of the mortal world.