Silence and Awakening

Hit's eyes flew open, his pupils contracting to pinpoints.

A force beyond explanation, utterly impossible to resist, suddenly pierced through his entire body.

It was not a simple impact. It felt more like a star had been born in his chest, only to go out in an instant.

It was as though an invisible giant hand had seized his internal organs, kneaded them, then violently flung them aside.

The pain came too quickly. Before he could cry out, he had already lost control of his body and was sent flying backward like a blurred afterimage.

His body shot through the air like an arrow loosed from a cosmic bow, violently tearing through the floating rubble and dust in its path before crashing at a horrifying speed into a massive dark rock mountain several kilometers away.

BOOM—!!!

The instant the mountain was struck, the entire massif shook violently.

Countless enormous cracks rapidly spread outward from the point of impact like a spiderweb.

Then, amid a silent yet breathtaking collapse, the thousand-meter-tall rock mountain caved inward as a whole.

Trillions of tons of rock came crashing down, raising a rolling dust storm that blotted out the sky and completely swallowed Hit's figure.

Only dust filled the air, slowly churning and settling beneath the cold light of the distant star, drawing a silent end to the battle.

The shattered rocks formed a collapsed gray hill, and dust hung throughout the deathly still wilderness.

Jagged stones lay scattered everywhere, their crevices still marked by scorch traces from the energy impact.

Right in the center of the ruins, Hit slowly pushed himself upright.

His movements were slow, yet carried an unyielding steadiness.

With every movement, bits of rubble rustled down from his shoulders and hair.

His distinctive cloak was now badly tattered, its hem torn into strips that fluttered feebly in the dust-laden breeze.

The fabric was covered in pale gray rock powder and dark bloodstains, mottled beyond recognition.

His exposed purple skin—still firm despite the passage of a thousand years—was covered in scrapes and bruises.

At the center of his chest, where his clothes had been torn apart, a distinct fist mark was deeply sunken in. The surrounding skin had turned an unnatural deep purple, and each rise and fall of his breathing brought waves of heavy pain.

The pain was both unfamiliar and real. It pierced through the numbness forged by a thousand years of battle and struck directly at his nerves—this was the first time anyone had inflicted such tangible damage on him.

Yet Hit's back remained straight, and his legs did not waver in the slightest, as though rooted to the ground.

He tilted his head and spat out a mouthful of blood reeking of iron. The bloody foam splattered over the rubble at his feet, spreading into a small patch of dark red.

He slowly rolled his stiff shoulders and neck. His bones made faint yet distinct cracking sounds, as though he were recalibrating an ancient, precise weapon.

As the dust settled somewhat, it revealed his ever half-lidded eyes.

At this moment, rather than dimming from his injuries, those eyes had become like blades wiped clean of dust—colder, sharper, their purple glow fixed firmly on the figure ahead.

"Good punch."

Hit's voice was low and hoarse, yet it still clearly crossed the distance between them, sending a faint echo through the empty battlefield.

Su Bai stood on a relatively flat patch of scorched earth, his hands behind his back. His white robes fluttered gently in the lingering energy waves, immaculate and untouched by dust.

His expression was as calm as a deep pool as he watched Hit emerge step by step from the rubble, his footing steady, each step making the stones beneath him softly crunch.

The corner of Su Bai's mouth lifted almost imperceptibly. It was not mockery, but a quiet interest at encountering a formidable opponent exactly as expected.

"Can you still fight?"

Su Bai spoke in a clear voice, neither loud nor soft, yet carrying a penetrating force.

"Of course."

Hit answered without hesitation.

He raised his right hand, slowly clenched it into a fist, then gradually relaxed it. His knuckles crackled sharply as they rubbed together, as if awakening a sleeping power.

"This has only just begun."

His tone was calm, but it carried an unquestionable resolve.

Su Bai gave an almost imperceptible nod, and a trace of faint approval flashed through his deep eyes.

He knew very well that this legendary assassin who had lived for over a thousand years, a legend within the universe's shadows, would never be so easily finished by a single punch.

The slaughter and survival accumulated over a thousand years had never been limited to the power displayed on the surface.

Hit said no more and took a deep breath.

With that inhale, it seemed as though he had drawn some invisible energy from the surrounding space into his chest.

Then, the aura around him began to change.

It was not the blazing, radiant sort of eruption, but a deeper, more restrained surge.

The air became viscous, the light around him subtly warped, and an invisible pressure spread outward from him, heavily pressing down on every inch of space. Even the floating dust seemed to slow.

Su Bai raised an eyebrow slightly.

He sensed it clearly—this was not a simple increase in power level, but a fundamental shift in the rhythm of battle, a subtle adjustment at the level of rules.

"Time-Skip has more than one use."

Hit spoke slowly, his voice seeming to carry the echoes of time itself, every word clear and deliberate. The moment he finished speaking, his figure vanished without warning.

There was no sound of air being torn apart, no afterimage. It was as though an invisible eraser had wiped him completely from reality.

This time, Su Bai's keen senses caught the anomaly—the "fault line" in time.

It was not a visual remnant caused by extreme speed, but time itself being forcibly "skipped" for an incredibly brief instant.

Within that gap in time, which did not exist for ordinary people, Hit completed his movement, adjusted his posture, and gathered his strength.

Su Bai reacted almost the instant he sensed something was wrong. Relying on instincts forged through countless battles, he swiftly dodged to the right. His movement was smooth and rapid, leaving behind a faint white afterimage.

But Hit's attack did not miss as it had before.

It was as though he had predicted the dodge. The fist emerging from the temporal fault line abruptly changed trajectory in midair!

The punch no longer traveled straight ahead. Instead, like a living dark-purple viper, it twisted sharply through the air and lunged after the direction of Su Bai's evasion with flexibility that defied all physical logic.

The air rippled faintly under the pressure of the fist's path.

Su Bai's placid eyes narrowed slightly.

"Sssht—!"

Su Bai was already incredibly fast, yet Hit's fist still grazed the fabric over his left shoulder.

There was no solid impact, only the slightest brush, but the white clothing over Su Bai's shoulder instantly turned to ash, exposing the skin beneath.

More importantly, he clearly felt an extremely condensed force brimming with destructive intent sweep past him—more than twice as powerful as during their previous exchange.

"Time Skip Charge."

Hit's low voice suddenly sounded directly behind Su Bai, as though he had been standing there all along. His tone was calm and unruffled, yet it carried an indifferent understanding of the rules.

"Within the gaps in time, the world's flow is almost completely still to me."

"I can accumulate and compress my power without interference until it reaches a certain limit... then release it all in the instant I return to normal time."

"It consumes tremendous physical strength and mental energy, but its power—"

He paused and said no more, choosing instead to explain through action.

His right fist shot out soundlessly once more, hurtling toward Su Bai's back.

The punch did not seem fast, yet it carried an eerie pressure that made it feel unavoidable. The air around the fist warped and collapsed completely, forming a miniature dark vortex.

Su Bai turned again, sliding aside with only a hair's breadth to spare.

The fist grazed past his waist without hitting him, then slammed directly into a solitary dark-brown rocky mountain more than a hundred meters behind him.

There was no deafening explosion, no boulders flying in every direction, not even much sound. There was only a soft crack, like glazed glass shattering.