As she shot forward, Seth brought his arms up in a cross-block.

Her fist slammed into his forearms with a hard thud.

The force of it sent a shock up to his shoulders.

He pushed back, shoving her arm away, and tried to counter with a quick jab at her ribs.

Miss Brown twisted, taking the hit on her side with barely a grunt.

She immediately grabbed his extended arm, pulling him off balance, and drove a knee towards his stomach.

As the fight occurred, Seth realized a problem...

Although [Null Presence] made him passively stronger and faster than a normal person, it was just a general boost...

Meanwhile her ability, [Blessed Body and Mind], was specialized!

Her body was unnaturally tough, like hitting hardened leather over stone...

Her mind was constantly clear and focused, immune to the disorienting effects of a fast-paced fight.

He was enhanced, but she was basically built for this.

They exchanged a flurry of blows in the dim alley—blocks, parries, quick strikes.

Seth was faster, slipping past some of her attacks.

But every hit he landed felt ineffective, while every hit he took rattled his bones...

Seeing an opening, she threw another heavy punch at his head.

Instead of blocking it fully, Seth let it graze his raised forearm.

He used the momentum, letting the force spin him around and push him several feet back, finally creating some space between them.

Her cold eyes tracked him from behind her mask.

She shifted her stance, ready to rush him again and finish it.

This time, as she lunged forward with another powerful punch, Seth didn't try to block.

He ducked under the blow, getting inside her guard.

At the same moment, he focused and activated [Fate Consumption].

He didn't try to see her whole fate.

He reached for the most immediate, present thread he could feel : her intent to attack him in this very moment!

Miss Brown sensed the invasive, wrong feeling immediately.

She halted her assault mid-motion and barked another command.

"Cease!"

But it was too late.

Seth had already taken it.

He had consumed the sliver of her fate that contained her immediate, aggressive intention toward him.

The effect was instant and strange.

Miss Brown stumbled, her fighting stance falling apart.

She looked at her own hands, then at Seth, with sudden confusion.

The burning need to attack him was just... gone.

She felt a wave of apathy.

Why was I fighting Mister Black? The thought floated through her mind, clear and unsettling.

At the same time, due to her "Cease" command, Seth felt a compulsion to stop all hostile action.

But he also felt a new, foreign urge bubbling up inside him... the intention he had just stolen from her.

It had nowhere to go but turn inward.

A sudden, sharp desire to hurt himself flashed in his mind.

'The backlash of Fate Consumption really does vary...'

He thought, a chill running down his spine.

His own will to survive wrestled with the alien impulse to claw at his own face or punch himself.

Luckily, his self-preservation was stronger than the stolen aggression.

He crushed the strange urge after a second of internal struggle.

He had a brief moment to analyze his surroundings.

Miss Brown was disoriented, standing still and confused.

The gun was on the ground, but it was on her side of the space between them...

He couldn't reach it without getting close...

But he didn't need to, his [Authority of the Meaningless] had a range of around one to two meters!

He bent down and snatched up a dry, brittle leaf from the alley floor.

He focused on the gun, about three meters away.

He activated his Authority, targeting the gun's most basic purpose: to fire a projectile.

He felt the conceptual thread of that purpose snap away from the metal weapon.

He then immediately redirected that "purpose" onto the leaf in his hand.

The leaf didn't change.

It was still a dry, dead leaf. But now, in a metaphysical sense, it held the "purpose of firing."

He pointed the leaf at Miss Brown, who was still shaking her head to clear the confusion.

"Bang."

CRACK!

A deafening gunshot echoed in the alley.

The leaf in Seth's hand disintegrated into dust from the strain of fulfilling a purpose it was never meant to hold.

But the bullet, conjured from nothing but stolen purpose, was real.

It flew straight for Miss Brown's center of mass.

Just before it hit, the shadows behind Miss Brown moved.

A pair of pale, slender arms, seemingly made of darkness and smoke, shot out from the wall.

They wrapped around Miss Brown's torso and yanked her backward with incredible speed.

The bullet meant for her chest tore through empty air and buried itself in the brick wall with a spang.

The shadowy arms retracted, pulling a stunned Miss Brown into the solid wall itself.

One moment she was there, and the next, she was gone, absorbed into the darkness of the alley as if she had never been there at all.

Seth was left alone, breathing heavily, holding the crumbled dust of a leaf, staring at the spot where his target had vanished.

'This…'

Someone had been watching the entire time!

The moment the effect of Miss Brown's command, "Cease," finally faded, Seth felt the pressure lift from his body.

With her attention no longer on him, the restriction on [Null Presence] disappeared.

He activated it at once, his presence dissolving as he turned and fled the area without hesitation.

He did not slow down until he was far away.

…

Seth sat on a low concrete step in a quiet backstreet, his back resting against a cold wall.

His breathing was steady now, but his mind was anything but calm.

He replayed everything that had happened, piece by piece, refusing to skip over any detail...

'I should be more careful next time…'

He lowered his head slightly, staring at the ground.

The way Miss Brown had been pulled away was still fresh in his thoughts.

The timing had been too precise and the intervention had been instant, as if whoever acted was waiting for the exact moment to move...

'The ones who saved her just now were most likely her allies tasked with investigating the demonic traders as well...'

'The reason they didn't join in the fight means that their relationship isn't that great, and they will only help each other when necessary?'

The conclusion that he was not able to detect anyone's gaze on him left Seth with another idea of his weaknesses...

Though he was good at stalking others, he was not good at detecting others who were capable of stalking him as well!

Seth's eyes narrowed.

'No wonder I couldn't activate the invisibility brought by [Null Presence] despite Miss Brown not having her gaze on me all the time... It's because someone else was watching...'

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