Chapter 212: Chapter Two Hundred Thirteen

I'd met Abel a few times now, and every one of them he'd come across  as a carefree, somewhat loony man, who just did his own thing and didn't  much care what anyone thought. He was friendly, polite, and most likely  laughing at you behind that mask even if you couldn't tell, but not in a  malicious way. Seeing him here like this though, I didn't see any of  those things. The mask was still a black rabbit, it should have looked  ridiculous. It should have been impossible for him to be intimidating.

But  he WAS intimidating. Despite being a G-ranker standing before a higher  ranked enemy and a group of similarly ranked thugs, Abel Castleton  wasn't losing out to any of them in sheer momentum of presence. It  wasn't Impact, he only had the same twelve I did based on how he felt,  this was something less definitive. An aura of barely restrained  violence, of bloodlust and the willingness to do harm, as well as the  absolute certainty that harm WOULD be done if he chose to inflict it.  Standing in front of Abel was, almost ironically given his prey like  mask, like standing in front of an enraged predator on the hunt.

The  version of him I'd seen in the Labyrinth had been kind of scary, but it  was more wild. He'd been a big blunt instrument. Maybe with some edge,  like a heavy axe, but his presence had been impersonal. He was dangerous  and violent, but it was just a fact. Water was wet, the sky was blue,  and Abel was going to fuck you up if you gave him a reason. This was  much less universal. Abel wasn't radiating the ability to fuck up  everyone, he was radiating the INTENT to murder these robed assholes,  and that intent was much more terrifying for how controlled and sharp it  was.

There  was a shifting of stone in the background as the leader stood up from  the rubble of the building he hit with Abel's first blow. Even behind  his mask, I could tell that he was seething, and he staled back down the  street to take his place between the last two members of his entourage,  and among the unconscious and restrained bodies of the other six. As  one might expect, there was barely restrained fury in his stance as  well, though not the amount of fear that I felt was warranted here.

That  wasn't exactly a shock though. Abel's reputation wasn't exactly  something universal down here. People knew him, but he wasn't at the  front of everyone's mind after so long away. Most people just thought of  him as the wacky sausage seller. They had forgotten exactly who Spruce  Bunny used to be, but judging by the faces peeking out of windows in the  surrounding buildings, there were more than a few of them about to  getting a stern reminder today.

"How  dare you?" The leader spat. "Do you know who I am? What I am capable  of? How dare some pissant G-ranker put his hands on me. Do you morons  even comprehend what the rank difference is? I might as well be a god  down here. How dare you ignorant plebians sully my robes with your  filth, inflict your absurd delusions of relevance on me in the  discharging of my duties? I'm going to show-"

There  was a flicker, and another train sized fist smashed into him like an  oncoming locomotive. He didn't go flying this time, having dug his feet  into the concrete beneath him. He was still forced back easily a dozen  feet, tearing a long furrow in the ground as he glared through the  beaten bronze, nearly panting with rage. Abel just glared at him, so  angry it was almost palpable. "Are you done? Because I have to say, the  'you're all ants to me' monologue is hardly original, and I can't begin  to tell you how annoying it gets after the first few times you hear it."

The  leader sputtered with fury, so angry he had to take a second to form  coherent words. "I am PHANTASM you rodent. I've walked this world for  decades, wreaking havok and inflicting misery on my enemies. To think to  subdue me, especially with a rank difference." He reached up, removing  the mask to show a wild eyed man with pale features and green and purple  hair. "I'll enjoy crushing you, seeing the humiliation and shame in  your eyes when I murder your so called teacher right in front of-"

And  then Abel was gone. No. Not gone. Somewhere else. He'd used that weird  spatial fluidity to step across the intervening distance in a single  motion, appearing right in front of Phantasm and his cronies. Phantasm  reeled back, eyes wide as he threw up his hands, a wave of corrosive  black gas swallowing the area in front of him. Rather than try to break  it with force, Abel simply stepped to the side and kind of...swerved. It  was hard to understand as it was happening. I could only assume he'd  created a  sort of half moon shape of spatial lubricant and stepped into  it, because in a flash he'd looped around behind the other man.

A  fist smashed into Phantasm from behind, and it hit as if it was the  size of a bus, but due to Abel's ability completely avoided and  intervening space. It kind of made my head hurt just watching it. I knew  that even if Abel was punching him through a single fist sized hole in a  wall, he could still land that same titanic blow without damaging the  wall around his hand, it wasn't a size changing power after all. The  fist crashed into Phantasm, shoving him forward into his own corrosion,  which he hurriedly dispersed into wisps of mist as he caught himself.

Unfortunately  his footing was unsteady, and he caught himself in an unbalanced,  forward leaning state. Abel swerveds again, and drove his fist up as he  appeared. Due to his forward stumble and momentum, it almost looked like  Phantasm threw himself onto Abel's fist chin first. The ascending fist  exploded up from under the falling man with the force of a plummeting  mountain, and I heard a sharp crack as the hand made contact.

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Then  Abel proceeded to beat him. It wasn't flashy, or awe inspiring. It was  brutal. Phantasm didn't even have a chance to react. Where Alden had  been barely managing to exploit openings and weaknesses, Abel was  methodically hammering every weak spot the other man had. Not just  obvious ones either. Each blow set up the next, and the one after,  creating openings that hadn't been there and exploiting them before  Phantasm even knew they were there.

It  wasn't a power difference, as much as it looked like one. Oh, granted,  Abel's Might was probably in the higher end of G-rank, and I imagined he  had a dozen Skills to improve and heighten physical damage, but that  was irrelevant. I think even with my strength he probably could have  managed it. He could see exactly what the other man was going to do and  each move was designed to restrain Phantasm before he could get a speck  of momentum.

The  purple and green haired man tried to kill him too, multiple times, but  he could never bring his power to bear for more than short bursts,  because Abel was ringing his bell hard enough to make conjuring any  significant amount of concentration impossible. The worst part was I was  pretty sure Abel could have killed him with the first blow, but he  didn't. He DESTROYED him. Every blow broke something or caused  excruciating pain, and Abel just kept hammering away.

The  others tried to help, though one of them died pretty quickly, his head  melted off by a burst of black gas Abel effortlessly avoided. I felt my  stomach turn at the sight. He wasn't the first person I'd seen die, but  even the head exploding in the underground arena hadn't been quite as  gruesome as this. The rabbit masked man killed the other one with a  sharp punch to the chest, hitting him so perfectly that I only realized  he'd actually stopped the mans heart when the body fell over, seemingly  undamaged.

Even  then, he didn't stop. Phantasm became less and less able to resist, his  attempt to fight back wilder and more violent, but none of them touched  Abel, despite the horrible corrosion damage to the street around them,  and the few times I saw him try to target Alden from a distance Abel  attacked hard enough to force him to reorient. Eventually the other man  was lying on the ground, seriously injured, even his Vitality overcome  by the sheer amount of damage inflicted despite lower ranked wounds not  being as effective.

He  stared up at Abel in horror, blood bubbling from between his ruined  lips as his eyes shone with fear and pleading. "I...I'm sorry. I didn't  know someone like you was here. Please. I'm with Sanctuary Hall, please  don't kill me. We can pay you! We can give you healing, resources,  anything you want. You don't need to do this." His voice was choked and  labored, his eyes streaming tears, but credit to him, he didn't try to  threaten or bully Abel. I think he could tell as well as I could that it  wouldn't work.

Abel  just stared down at him from behind his mask. The fury was still there,  but it wasn't hot anymore, it was cold, and I felt the icy chill of  death radiating off him as his voice rang out, a single clipped syllable  with such a frigid hate radiating through it that it scared me just  listening to it. "No." Then his foot lashed out like a striking snake,  catching Phantasm's head at a very specific angle and twisting it along  the rotation of his neck, snapping it and killing him instantly. Abel  stared down at the body for a moment, breathing heavily, and I could  almost so the bloodlust inside him clawing to get out.

But  instead, he took a long, slow breath, and it all just...vanished. The  anger, the hate, the violence, it all melted away like that ice had been  exposed to the bright summer sunshine, and as it did,Abel pretty much  transformed. Between one breath and the next, the terrifying predator  vanished, and Spruce Bunny, the friendly sausage seller, was back. His  shoulders drooped, his smile became more friendly, and a dozen other  imperceptible things shifted, turning him into a completely different  person in the blink of an eye. I blanched. If anything, that was the  scariest thing he had done tonight, and I'd just watched him literally  beat a higher ranked Ascendant to death with his bare hands over the  course of several minutes.

He  shot me that same friendly smile from when I'd been to the sausage  cart. "Well, hello there! Sorry I seemed to have missed your friends. I  appreciate the effort you went through to help my teacher." He cut a  sardonic look at where Alden was laying, healed up from that least heal  burst after being left alone for so long, but obviously absolutely  exhausted as he lay on his back, gasping for breath. "The old man is a  bit of a busybody, but he dotes on his students, and it's always good to  see that kind of loyalty repaid."

Casually  sauntering over to where the bearded man was wheezing on the ground,  Abel knelt down, looking into the eyes of the exhausted man with a grin.  "Just can't help sticking your nose in everyone else's business huh  Alden? What exactly did Mel do this time? You're too old and careful for  me to believe this is your fault." Alden didn't answer and Abel rolled  his eyes. "Fine. I'll ask her myself." Alden's eyes widened, and mine  along with them, as Abel extended a hand and pulled him to his feet. "I  suppose it's time to go home."

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