"Oh, I forgot to pause." Gray mentioned once he saw his fist go through it.
Despite that, he didn't seem bothered at all. He was smiling.
Feeling that it was being mocked, the shadow moved its weaved to the right to get Gray's fist out of it's head before it swung both of its bladed arms, horizontally at his neck.
Once it was just a few centimetres off [Physical Form], the shadow returned to it's physical form in order to cut through him.
[Trajectory Shift]
Gray's body shifted to the side, he weaved to the right, barely avoiding the swing.
Simultaneously, a side hook was delivered towards the shadow.
*Swoosh*
The swing missed, just barely grazing and cutting off a few strands of his white hair. The side hook on the other hand-
*BAM!*
Connected cleanly to the side of the Shadow's face.
[Fast-Forward]
A barrage of side hooks followed after, like a machine gun. His fist instantaneously rammed itself over five times to the side of the shadow's face.
The shadow's head cocked to the side's repeatedly before it swung back down at Gray's face, filled anger in its expression.
Gray's expression on the other hand, grew colder.
*CLANG!*
Gray parried the sword swing with a horizontal one of his one.
His power far exceeded the shadow, knocking it back, as it was in its physical form, and leaving its defences open from the waist down for a short instant.
That instant was all he needed.
[Fast Forward – Pause Step Skill Chain]
"Execution." He bluntly muttered.
[Execution]
*Slash-*
Gray's figure disappeared and reappeared behind the shadow with his back turned to it.
The shadow tilted its head to the left in confusion before its body began convulsing as if it were having a seizure.
A split second after, deep dark cuts appeared throughout its body. It coughed out blood through its sketched mouth and face, before looking down at the dark blood seeping out of it.
It slowly turned to Gray and one by one, bloodshots eyes began to appear all throughout its body.
Gray turned to the shadow only to find himself staring face to face with it's true form.
*SCREEEEECH!*
It let out a loud screech, sending a slight shockwave at his undisturbed face and forcing his hair to sway back.
Its form was now less humanoid, it had the head shape of a monster, a large dark shadow resembling that of a wolf.
Dark crystals manifested throughout its body, and a dark radiant core which emitted dark energy was now visible at the middle of its waist.
It grew taller, and now had much more defined, muscles with fur covering its entire body. It still stood up straight on two legs.
"Oh~ A power up-"
Just as Gray was about to finish the sentence, a side kick rammed into the side of his stomach, sending jolts of pain throughout his body before launching him away.
*Cough*
He wiped the blood he coughed out from his mouth as he soared through the air, the grin on his face grew. "Guess I managed to piss it-"
Gray was interrupted once more, as he noticed a barefoot approaching his head from the sides.
Its nails were uncut, and large. There was no doubt, that it could effortlessly pierce through his entire skull, especially at the velocity it was moving.
But Gray didn't even flinch.
[Trajectory Shift- Immobile Fortress Link]
Gray's body shifted forward as he leaned in, allowing him to avoid the clawed feet in the process.
To Gray's expectations, whilst going by him, the shadow kneed the back of his head, only to be frozen in place.
[Immobile Fortress – Any attacks dealt by the attacker while the user is pause will force the attacker to freeze whereas the user remains paused in place]
The knee rammed into the back of Gray's head, yet he didn't move even an inch.
The shadow on the other hand was suspended in the air, frozen in a stretched-out kick position.
[Cancel Fortress.]
*WHAM!*
Gray's head cocked forward, he was clearly injured by the knee as steam was released from the new wound which had appeared on the back of his head.
Still, it didn't bother him, the wound was shallow and healed in an instant.
"Now that you're paused... I'll ask you a question."
Gray took a step in the Shadow's direction and leaned in towards it with his Katana gripped tightly in his arm.
"...On second thought. Just die."
Not bothering to wait for the answer, Gray swung the sword down at its neck.
*SWOOSH!*
His eyes narrowed as he watched his sword slice right through. Once again he felt no contact.
THe shadow had left it's [Physical Form] Just before he could.
'So it can still do that while paused...'
[Unpause.]
Gray leapt backwards, Unpausing it as he did so and watched as the shadow leapt towards him with a widened grin on it's face.
It knew keeping it paused would just waste Gray's energy since Gray wouldn't be able to hit him.
Gray's skill in this case, was completely useless against him.
The shadow had already began thinking it was it's win.
*SLASH!*
Once the shadow reached him with his leap, Gray leapt away once again to gather some distance, but the Shadow was on his trail, quickly gaining up on him with every step.
[Shadow Leap]
[Pause Step]
The Shadow appeared above him, a long spear had manifested in Its arms, the arms which were shaped as a blade were no longer.
With the extra reach, he thrust the spear downwards at Gray from above.
But Gray had [Pause Stepped] at the same time, appearing above his head with a sword Swing in motion.
He was aiming to cut off the shadow's neck while it was still in its [Physical Form.] before it could be aware.
*SLASH!*
Gray appeared behind the shadow with a sword swing in motion, yet the arm which had gone flying off was his.
[Fast-Forward]
Gray appeared as far away from the Shadow as possible, he quickly glanced to the left only to find it missing. Blood was gushing out of the wound.
He looked back up, and the sharp end of a spear could be seen heading right for his eyes.
*SWOOSH!*
Gray weaved to the right, a cut dragged itself along his cheek as the spear missed.
Gray who thrust his Katana towards the other end of the Spear was surprised to see that the Shadow wasn't there.
*WHAM!*
Gray was kicked from the right, just when he wasn't looking.
*CRACK*
His rib cage broke.
The power of the kick was condensed, the shadow had without a doubt gone stronger, so much that it made Gray burst away, spinning around numerous times in the air.
[Shadow Leap]
The Shadow appeared a distance away in the direction where Gray was heading, it wasn't long until they would collide.
Gray's pained expression slowly grew calmer, [Pause Stepping] was bound to fail again if he just rushed it in. He needed to think.
He knew the longer he'd take, the less time he'd have available. The Shadow was charging up an attack on the other end, waiting for him to come.
While he spun around, through the corner of his eyes, Gray could see it. Death staring at him.
'It hurts... The pain threshold here is twice or three times as bad compared to normal.'
'Just breathing is starting to sting, and I'm running out of time on the transformation.'
Gray tucked in his rotating body, he could [Pause] himself to cancel the momentum, but to the System's surprise, he didn't do that.
'I have to end this now.'
Instead, he kept heading towards the shadow.
[Pause Martial Arts: Sword Stance]
The glowing system orb watched intently as Gray was about to perform his sword stance.
'Pausing it won't be effective... It'll just leave its physical form.'
'I need to find a way to deal with it before it can even react...'
'In that case...'
With just a second before collision, Gray could fully see the shadow's face. They stared at each other eye to eye.
The Shadow's arm was enlarged, the spear was vibrating and it had veins running all across it.
Whatever attack it was going to pull off, there was no doubt in Gray's mind that it would be deadly.
"One Hundred..."
But still it didn't stop him.
[Time-]
"Scatters." He muttered.
[Stop]
Just two words.
That's all it was.
Yet the time it took for those words to be said, far exceeded the time it took for the attack to be carried out.
A split second?
A fraction of a second?
It was neither.
The attack involved time being stopped and multiple attacks being carried out in its duration.
The correct answer was: An instant.
The Shadow blinked, just a single blink.
What it was supposed to see was Gray's organs spilling out from a huge hole in his chest from the spear piercing right through and consuming him.
Yet all it could see after were pieces of its body scattered and suspended in the air above it.
Confusion, that was the last emotion it felt before it gave its last breath.
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