"You!"

Yoha took a deep breath in, forcing himself to calm down. Moon had almost made him lose his cool and that was a difficult thing to do.

Moon’s sword rose once again and purple lightning erupted from the tip of the blade.

The amplification the sword provided turned every bolt into a strong projectile that streaked toward Yoha.

’I cannot control him just yet. His soul is still strong enough to resist my mental attacks, I need to weaken it.’

The first bolt caught Yoha across the ribs making him grimace in pain.

Yoha tried to raise his sword, but Moon’s blade was already coming for his side at the same time a lightning bolt was clearly being charged.

Yoha’s brain made the calculation. The sword cut would open a vital organ that would weaken him greatly and although the lightning hurt like hell, it wasn’t nearly as dangerous.Yoha changed stances in order to block the sword, sacrificing his body to a lightning bolt he could survive rather than a cut he couldn’t.

Moon’s sword came down and Yoha’s blade caught it. The two edges scraped and screamed against each other in protest.

Another bolt of lightning left the tip of Moon’s sword mid-clash, angled up into Yoha’s exposed shoulder.

Yoha jerked from the impact. Purple current crackled across his upper body, tearing into a soul that had already been strained by numerous bolts from before.

Moon disengaged and stepped back.

Then, he raised the sword again.

Yoha understood the plan immediately. Every attempt to defend against a sword cut left him open to a lightning strike from the blade.

Every attempt to dodge a lightning strike left him open to a sword cut. His two arms weren’t enough to handle both threats simultaneously anymore, and his mana reserves were too low to layer proper defenses.

Moon was destroying him from two directions at once. His body was already taking cuts. His soul was taking the lightning.

The soul damage compounded fast.

Every bolt Moon channeled through the sword landed on his weakening soul. Yoha’s mental defenses cracked further with each hit. The steel-hardened core of his mind began to fray at the edges.

Moon fired another bolt.

Yoha decided to defend against it and he paid the price by receiving a massive gash across his shoulder that made him hiss in pain.

"Damn it!"

’I can’t do anything about his plan... even thought I know it!’

Moon’s next lightning attack hit him in the guts, forcing him to collapse to one knee. Yoha’s sword arm was trembling greatly, and his breathing was incredibly shallow.

His eyes lifted to Moon’s.

There was nothing behind them anymore. His eyes were hollow, he was on the verge of giving up.

"You will not get what you want... Outlaw!’ He raised his dagger and plunged it into his heart.

Before the dagger could penetrate deep enough into his chest, Moon’s lightning struck once again. Moon used that moment to cast Cleanse on Yoha, and disarm him from his dagger.

’Curse!’

With Yoha still bleeding, Moon activated his skill a second time.

The skill struck Yoha’s soul within a matter of moments. This time there was nothing with Yoha to push back with.

The soul defenses that had thrown off the first attempt had been shredded by the constant lightning damage. Yoha’s mentality was at an all-time low. Somewhere in the last minute of the fight, he had begun to seriously consider taking his own life. It was the only escape route his training had left him with once the physical fight became unwinnable.

Death was a cleaner outcome than being converted into a puppet on the wrong end of a Curse. A dead assassin couldn’t be interrogated. A dead assassin was an assassin that had his pride and ego intact.

That was the moment Moon had been waiting for.

Telling Yoha about his intentions during the fight had been a deliberate move he thought of carefully. Moon had known from the first Curse attempt that this Surpasser’s soul was too strong for a direct hook. The only way to weaken it enough to force compliance was to make Yoha weaken it himself, it made things much quicker.

Fear worked. Despair worked better. Suicidal intent was the deepest crack a fighter’s soul could open.

The moment Yoha’s mind reached for that door, Moon’s Curse slipped through it.

The thread hooked in cleanly, threading through the weak points that were now wide open for exploitation. Yoha’s eyes went blank for a moment. His sword slipped free of his hand and dropped to the rubble at his side.

Then the blankness in his eyes faded, replaced by the previously calm and composed expression of his.

Moon grinned, "Surpasser lapdog. Can’t say I hate the sound of that."

Moon activated Minor Mend on Yoha, healing him once again. The healing energy settled into Yoha’s wounds, closing the worst of them, restoring the shredded muscle across his chest and shoulder.

The cuts didn’t fully seal, but they stopped bleeding, and the immediate risk of collapse was gone.

Yoha’s body began to rise from the crater beneath him. His movements were smooth. He picked his sword back up from the rubble in a single fluid motion, before raising his head up.

Moon met his eyes.

"Help me kill the rest of your ex-teammates."

Yoha did as instructed without question.

His posture reset. He turned his attention toward the reinforcements still trying to push through Emma’s perimeter, his gaze sweeping across their positions, picking his targets.

His remaining strength was still low, but a Surpasser at low strength was still a Surpasser, and the reinforcements were mostly Four and Five-star fighters who had never expected to face a Surpasser of their own former allies in combat except.

As for the Surpassers, Moon decided to help with them himself. His mana reserves were still quite high, and his Life Burn skill had just under five minutes left.

That was more than enough time to change the shape of the battlefield around him one more time.

He raised his sword.

"Move."

Yoha moved.