Soulbound: Dual Cultivation

Chapter 437: Lucas getting cornered

Dravok did not relent.

Now that he had seized control again, he pressed it without hesitation, without mercy, his attacks no longer carrying even the slightest hint of restraint. The battlefield had become his domain once more, the earth responding to his will with terrifying precision, every movement calculated, every strike placed with intent.

And this time...He focused Lucas.

The shift was subtle at first.

A slight narrowing of attack angles.

A heavier concentration of pressure in Lucas’s direction.

But it quickly became obvious.

Lucas felt it.

The space around him tightened, the ground reacting faster, sharper, the attacks no longer just forcing him to move, but guiding where he could move, cutting off options before he could even take them.

Another spike surged up beneath him.

He vanished and reappeared.

Only for the ground to erupt again, closer this time, faster, leaving him with barely enough space to react. He twisted mid-step, narrowly slipping past the jagged edge as it tore through the air where his torso had been a fraction of a second earlier.

His breathing grew heavier.

Not uncontrolled.

But strained.

Dravok had adapted.

He was no longer reacting to Lucas’s movements.

He was predicting them.

Guiding them.

Cornering him.

Lucas shifted again, appearing further to the side, but the moment his feet touched the ground, he felt it the delay.

Just a fraction.

But enough.

The earth beneath him trembled...

And rose.

He barely managed to push off in time, but the angle forced him back, not forward, not sideways, but exactly where Dravok wanted him.

A trap forming layer by layer.

Across the battlefield, the Ice Belle saw it.

Her eyes narrowed.

"...He’s locking him in."

Lucas moved again, but now there was less space, less freedom, every step calculated not just for evasion, but survival.

For the first time since the duel began...

Lucas was being cornered.

A jagged wall rose behind him, cutting off one direction entirely. Another formation surged to his side, forcing his next movement into a narrow opening that was already beginning to close.

His chest rose sharply.

Sweat ran freely down his face now.

"This is where it ends," Dravok said quietly, his hand lowering slightly as the earth around Lucas began to converge, sealing paths, collapsing space, tightening the noose.

Lucas shifted...

But this time...He was late.

A jagged formation tore upward, grazing his side, ripping through fabric and drawing a thin line of blood across his ribs.

He landed roughly, sliding back a step.

He had been touched.

Back in the ranks, Lira gasped.

Selene’s eyes widened.

Nyx’s expression hardened instantly.

"He’s losing space," she said under her breath.

Henrietta clenched her jaw.

"Damn it..."

Back in the valley, Dravok took a step forward.

The pressure intensified.

Lucas steadied himself, but his movements were no longer as fluid, his positioning no longer as free.

He was being pushed into a corner.

And Dravok knew it.

Another surge began to form beneath him...Then...

It stopped.

Frost spread.

Fast and violent.

The ground between Lucas and Dravok froze over in an instant, the rising structures halting mid-formation as ice forced its way through the cracks, disrupting the flow of Qi that sustained them.

A sharp wave of cold surged forward.

Dravok’s eyes snapped to the side.

The Ice Belle was already there.

Her speed cut through the battlefield like a blade, her presence arriving before the attack itself, her hand thrust forward as a concentrated burst of ice slammed into the structures surrounding Lucas, shattering portions of them and forcing the rest to destabilize.

The pressure broke.

Just enough.

Lucas felt it immediately, the space to breathe and he didn’t waste it.

He pushed off instantly, creating distance, his chest rising sharply as he pulled in a deeper breath than he had been able to for several exchanges.

The Ice Belle landed lightly between him and Dravok, her gaze cold, her posture steady.

"You’re slow," she said without looking back.

Lucas exhaled once, steadying himself.

"...Took you long enough."

Dravok looked at them both now, his expression darker than before, the brief interruption clearly not something he appreciated.

The frozen ground cracked beneath his feet as his Qi surged again, breaking through the interference.

"You won’t get that chance again," he said coldly.

The Ice Belle tilted her head slightly.

"We’ll see."

Behind her, Lucas straightened.

His breathing was still heavy. But his eyes were sharp again. The fight wasn’t over, not yet.

Lucas steadied his stance, drawing in a deeper breath as the brief opening the Ice Belle had created allowed his body to reset, if only slightly, yet even in that moment of relief, something else stirred within him, something far less forgiving and far more dangerous. He could feel it clearly now, the familiar burn rising from deep within his core, subtle at first but growing with each passing second, spreading through his meridians like a slow, consuming flame that refused to be ignored.

The Dragon’s Inferno.

Lucas clenched his jaw faintly, his expression tightening for the briefest moment as he recognized the cause. The strain from earlier, the relentless output, the constant shifting and pressure he had forced his body through, all of it had begun to awaken that volatile power again, eating away at him from the inside with a quiet, dangerous persistence.

He exhaled slowly, forcing his breathing to remain controlled despite the growing heat beneath his skin.

Not now.

He could not afford to lose himself to it here.

Across from them, Dravok’s gaze had changed once again, no longer carrying the same steady dominance he had regained moments ago, but instead something sharper, more analytical, as though he had begun to reassess the battlefield entirely.

His eyes lingered on the Ice Belle.

Then on the frozen ground.

Then on the remnants of his disrupted constructs.

A realization settled in.

His earth element, no matter how refined, no matter how powerful, was being interfered with too consistently, too effectively, by the Ice Belle’s control over cold. The battlefield itself, which should have been his greatest advantage, had become unstable, unreliable, constantly contested in ways that prevented him from fully asserting dominance.

And Dravok was not the type to cling to a disadvantage.

His expression hardened.

Then, without warning, the pressure in the air shifted.

The ground stilled.

The trembling ceased.

For a fraction of a second, the battlefield felt... empty.

Then...

The wind came.

A sharp, cutting current that swept through the valley, subtle but unnaturally precise, carrying with it a force that did not rely on weight or mass, but on speed and sharpness. The air itself seemed to tighten, compress, as though invisible blades had been drawn across its surface.

Lucas’s eyes widened slightly.

"...He switched."

The Ice Belle’s gaze lifted, her expression unchanged, though her focus sharpened.

Dravok raised his hand.

And the wind answered.

The first blade came without warning.

A thin arc of compressed air sliced forward, nearly invisible, moving faster than any of his previous attacks. Lucas reacted on instinct, shifting his body to the side, but even then, the edge of it caught him.

A sharp sting tore across his arm.

Blood followed instantly.

His defensive Qi had not held.

Not fully.

He barely had time to register it before the next attack came.

And the next.

Wind scythes formed in rapid succession, curving through the air with lethal precision, their paths unpredictable, their speed overwhelming. They did not rise from the ground like earth, nor did they announce themselves with force.

They simply appeared and cut.

Lucas moved...Again and again.

But this time, evasion alone was not enough.

A blade slipped past his guard, slicing across his shoulder.

Another grazed his side, reopening the wound that had only just begun to settle.

His Qi barrier flickered under the pressure, failing to fully absorb the attacks as they tore through it with frightening ease.

His breathing hitched slightly.

The difference was immediate.

Earth had been overwhelming.

But this was relentless in a different way, more difficult to read.

And far more punishing to someone already under strain.

Another wave came.

Lucas raised his arm, reinforcing his Qi instinctively, but the wind blade cut through it, reduced only slightly before carving a shallow line across his forearm.

More blood.

More strain.

Across from him, Dravok stood with cold focus, his control over the wind precise, efficient, each attack placed with intent to wound, to weaken, to break him down piece by piece.

"You relied too much on your movement," he said calmly, his voice carrying through the cutting air. "Let’s see how long that holds now."

Lucas gritted his teeth, forcing his body to keep moving, to keep reacting, even as the Dragon’s Inferno burned hotter within him, clashing against the mounting damage from the outside.

Not far from him, the Ice Belle moved through the same storm of attacks.

Yet the difference between them was clear.

Where Lucas was being cut, pressured, forced into constant defense, she remained largely untouched, her speed and control allowing her to slip between the wind blades with minimal effort, her movements precise enough to avoid the worst of it without strain.

The wind did not overwhelm her the same way.

It did not disrupt her rhythm.

It did not break her defense.

But Lucas

Lucas was different.

Another blade came.

He twisted, but not fully in time.

It cut across his ribs again, deeper this time.

He staggered half a step before catching himself, his breath tightening as the pain set in.

And still...The attacks did not stop.

They only came harder, sharper and more relentless.

The wind blades and wind scythes easily cut through the defensive Qi barrier of Lucas, thereby hurting him in many places.