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Last Embryo Volume 4 Chapter 5 Part 4

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Now that he was aware of the threads around his neck, he pried his fingers underneath in an attempt to remove them, but it only resulted in them entangling themselves around his neck at high speed. No matter how hard he pulled on them, the threads simply refused to snap, which meant that they had to be made of a different material than all the others he has been dealing with so far, which placed him in a really troublesome situation.

He realized just now that this was probably his opponent’s real weapon that they were trying to conceal behind the façade of using weaker threads that were meant to make him drop his guard, and as much as Izayoi hated to admit it, that is exactly what happened. He thought that he was going to stay ahead of his opponent by carefully trying to analyze their movements and their intentions with the thread attacks, but it turns out that it was the enemy who was one step ahead of him this time.

Now that the enemy grabbed a firm hold of him, the threads shot high into the air, dragging Izayoi, – who was hanging at their end like a fish that has just been fished out of the water – along after them. When he was lifted sufficiently high up into the air, he was then slammed violently right back into the ground, leaving a small carter in it.

After repeating this attack two or three more times, the threads continued to pull him along the ground at high speed, leaving him little to no time to properly react to what was happening with him or around him. He tried to stop it by slamming his fist into the ground, but before he could do that the threads entangled themselves around his arm as well, preventing him from going through with that idea.

(That bastard! Whoever they are, could it be. . .  could it be that they known about the weakness of the {Gift of Leo}?!)

The Nemean Lion, which was the model for the Leo constellation which was the origin of the {Gift of Leo} was said to have been unable to be killed by any mortal weapon due to its golden fur being impervious to any form of slashing attack, but in the end its legend stated that it has been killed by Heracles who strangled it to death as part of his Twelve Labors. That is why either strangulation or strike attacks would be the two of the best ways to wound and kill Izayoi, who inherited not only Nemean Lion’s strengths along with the {Gift of Leo}, but also its weaknesses.

That is also why The Bull Demon King’s blows had a much better effect against Izayoi in comparison to Parashurama and her bloodied battle axe, to the point where he could still feel parts of his body aching days after the {Minotaur – Throne in Labyrinth ­– } Gift Game came to a close. However, Izayoi himself has rarely spoke about it even to his closest friends, and made sure not to show that weakness to anyone. But thanks to that, he was able to narrow down the potential people who could be the users of the threads which were now making him closely aquainted with the ground of the Lost Continent.

「You bastard. . .  I do not know exactly who you are. . . but at the very least you must be someone born in ancient Greece, and an acquaintance of Herakles, or something along thos e line, right?!」

「. . . !!!!!!???」

Izayoi did not know if that little provocation of his worked or not, but thanks to it the thread that kept his arm bound loosened up a little, allowing him to free his hand. Apparently it was not enough for him to have his neck freed from the threads that were still squeezing down on it even when the conditions for doing so were more in his favor, but for the time being it was more than enough for him.

With his hand now free, he could finally do what he was intending to do from the very beginning: he slammed his fist into the ground, forcibly bringing the movements of the thread user and their weapon to a halt. Now that freeing himself was no longer a viable option, Izayoi chose to do the next best thing: he pulled the threads towards himself one more time and stepped on them with his foot.

「All right, you will not be able to strangle me with this. Look, whoever you are, just stop this pointless game of tag and come on here to me so that we could see each other face to face. Then, I promise to only sucker punch you in your ugly mug once so that I could drag you to the natives so that you could apologize to them with your forehead polishing the ground in a nice dogeza! Do we have a deal?!」

After demonstrating his superiority in the fight where the tables have been turned on the mysterious assailant, Izayoi prompted them to surrender themselves peacefully. It was hard to say that he had the absolute advantage here, because the threads were still entwined around his neck and right hand, but since his opponent did not want to cut those threads away no matter what, then bringing them in closer was the only sensible thing to do.

Just like Izayoi thought, this is the opponent that he would not have any problems dealing with. . .  unless they were still hiding some sort of trick or a trap and were waiting for the best moment to bring it onto the playing field.

However, after a sigh and a brief pause, the thread-user spoke in a surprisingly light and casual tone.

「. . . Good grief, you got me there. I never would have guessed that my identity would be discovered so quickly. You are as rough mannered as I heard and your mouth is incredibly foul, but there can be no doubt about it: you really are that woman’s son.」

「Huh? What are you talking. . . . 」

「I am talking about this battle being your victory, Sakamaki Izayoi. The way thing are now, I definitely will not be able to defeat you, and that is why I am admitting my defeat. But before that, let us have a little chat, shall we?」

The threads around Izayoi’s arm and neck have finally been released and fell to the ground, where they quickly made their way back to their user with an unpleasant, scraping sound. And as for their user themselves, they finally appeared before Izayoi without hiding in the shadows.

The appearance of the one who was fighting against him up until this point was a youth who at first glance looked to be about the same age as Izayoi. Now that his freedom of movement has finally been returned to him, he looked at him carefully while making certain that their situation has returned back to square one.

His assessment was that even though this guy did not look like a seasoned martial artist, he was also not giving off the vibes of someone who was green behind the ears when it came to fighting, or at least that was the first thing that popped into Izayoi’s head.

If he had to describe him in simpler terms, then he would have to say that the air around this guy was giving off the vibes similar to the phantom beast subspecies of human beings, more commonly known under the name 「Wizards」whom he had a few run-ins in the past few years, but upon closer inspection, his atmosphere and aura were even more mysterious than theirs. . . that is right: no matter how Izayoi looked at him, he jus could not see him as a normal youth.

「Oi, you bastard. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you really the same guy I was fighting all this time?」

「Of course I am one and the same, although I do have to say that I am not as strong as I used to be. I was pretty amazing in the past, but in the present day I took the most of my power and distributed it between all of my disciples. To put it in more understandable terms, I guess you could call me a high-ranking hybrid of a half-man and half-demigod, a most peculiar combination that does not seem to exist at all in these modern times.」

The youth said, combing his hair back with what could only be described as a troubled expression.