The Survival of an Inferior

Haren stares at me from head to toe as I walk closer. 

"Who are you?"

I instantly leap at Haren and send a dropkick, shooting Haren through the cobblestone wall into the starry night. 

"You-"

I jump to Haren and activate a teleport scroll, bringing the both of us to the outskirts of Hira where mountains and forest spread

*Thud* 

Our bodies roll across the dirt before Haren hops away. 

Floating in the sky with a condescending gaze, thousands of different projectile magic fly around him. Fireballs, javelins, and swords of different auras circles. 

"I will not ask again, who are you? Why do you know my name?" says Haren. 

My reaction to that is to pull out my gun and aim at him. 

!

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!* 

Haren barely avoids that sudden attack. "What the fuck-"

I give him no time to recover as I leap at him with my sword. An aura spirit of a person holding a sword materializes behind Haren and blocks my attack, ejecting a powerful shockwave that pushes both people back. 

Haren extends his hand and thousands of mana swords rain from the sky. I use clumps of mana as a foothold to change my momentum and travel in the air, dodging every sword quickly. 

My monstrous speed sends another slash at Haren. It was deflected again. I follow up with a shot to the mana avatar behind Haren. It raises its arm to block the bullet. 

That single gap gave me the opening I need to swoop in. Releasing my demonic mana, I thrust a powerful energy at Haren. 

Haren puts out many barriers but to no avail. The small needle cuts through like paper and pierces into Haren's shoulder. 

"UCK?! D-Demonic mana?!" 

Haren grits his teeth and clenches his fist. The mana around me trembles as if imitating Haren's frustration. The atmosphere pressure spiked tenfold. 

*BOOOOOOOOOOM!* 

Many random combustions burst around me. Similarly, the mountains around me break and crumble into many pieces that hurl themselves. 

With a hurricane of things going on, it is difficult to understand the chaos. 

Yet, I could perfectly see each projection and flawlessly slip through the gaps, zapping across nature's grasp to Haren. 

Haren swings his arms aside expelling a strong shockwave. I cut through the shockwave with demonic mana, sending a crescent slash. Some magic circle glows in front of Haren and absorbs the demonic energy yet cannot defend my hasty advance. 

*BOOOOOOOM!* 

Haren could only put up his arm and take my hit. He flies back and crashes through the tip of a mountain. 

"Huff huff huff..." I pant as I let go of my sword, it disappears and goes back into my storage ring. 

I currently stand mid-air on a mana platform amongst the fountain of rocks and dirt falling back to the ground. 

Haren was weaker than I thought. Was it because he came 2 years earlier? Nonetheless, the best way to defeat Haren is to barrage him with hasty attacks. 

Albeit being a mana manipulator, he still has the weakness of every ranged user, distance. 

He has a lot of tricks but what's the point if I don't allow him to use them? 

I leap across the mountain to find Haren just to be faced with a huge blazing sun. 

"Wha-"

*BOOOOOOOOOOM!* 

The glaring sun explodes surrounding nature into bright fractures. The aftermath is a raging wildfire across plants. 

Haren is nowhere to be seen. 

"Fucking hell, he escaped," I mumble. 

Suddenly, I can feel several heavy presences approaching the area. They most likely are from the Imperial army or the Bureau of Virtue. They left me no choice but to leave the fire site. 

================================== 

"Shit..." Haren mumbles as he grasps his bleeding shoulder. 

Leaning against a tree as support, he tears a part of his coat and wraps the cloth around his wound. 

"Who the hell was he?" 

Haren noticed that his mysterious attacker wasn't particularly strong. However, the attacker's instinct transcended the norm. It was as if Haren was being read like a book. 

Still, it doesn't matter. Everything is going as planned despite failing to kill King Lucas. 

The painful tattered body he has forces Haren to trudge through nature until he reaches a road. 

A carriage is parked beside a small camp. 

Haren walks to the small carriage and finds a man with brown hair and red eyes alone cooking something on the campfire. 

He materializes a magic dagger and sneaks up to the man. 

"Are you the coachman? Is there anyone with you?"  Haren asks, putting the dagger at the man's throat. The man shoots his hand up. 

"Y-Yes? I'm alone."  

"Bring me to Libra." 

"A-Alright! Please don't hurt me!"  The man says. 

Haren follows the coachman to the carriage and gets on. 

*BING* 

Suddenly, a magic circle activates above the roof, releasing a purplish gas. 

!!!!

One sniff of it is enough to seep all energy.  

"Ngh?! What the hell..." Haren says. 

The mysterious man pulls off his face mask to reveal himself as the attacker from before. 

"Y-You?" 

I sigh. My body has a layer of mana barrier so the gas won't affect me. 

"Don't walk into a stranger's carriage so easily."

"B-Bastard..."

And Haren falls unconscious. 

...

I scratch my head and climb into the carriage to disable the magic scroll. Unfortunately for Haren, he was execrated as extremely annoying by the community of "Elvis Arcane". Thus, everyone came together to build measures against Haren. This poor guy even has compilations of him falling into different traps on social media. 

The trap I used is the infamous "Candy Van", it became a meme for being one of the most stupid traps of all time. Some players even decorated their carriages like a van with signs of "Free Candy".

Depending on how the player executes this trap, Haren will have a different reaction. 

"Pfft..." 

Thinking about it sends a smile to my face. 

I take out the communication orb as I tie Haren. 

"Liam, prepare the room I told you about."