With each step she took, she could feel her muscles straining as her AGI stat increased too fast for her body to handle. Gritting her teeth and ignoring the pain, Gabby stutter-stepped and bolted right toward the Fire Mage, suddenly appearing like a shadow, and plunged her blade towards his chest.
With wide eyes, the Fire Mage knew he only had one option if he wanted to survive. Since his [Blink] was still on cooldown, the man angled his body and leaned forward just enough so that when Gabby’s blade bit into his flesh, it hit his right shoulder, just below the collarbone instead of his heart.
“AHHH!” Howling in pain, with bloodshot eyes, the Fire Mage caught Gabby by the shoulder and punched her square in the nose, causing it to erupt in blood, spraying himself all over his face and torso. However, although it hurt like hell, Gabby didn’t flinch or cry out; instead, she whipped her head back and headbutted the man right in his face, breaking his nose with a violent crack, making the man release her.
Unlike Gabby, who had gone through numerous amounts of physical trauma at the hands of Cynrik under the guise of “conditioning,” the Fire Mage’s tolerance for pain was on the low end of the spectrum, and he hadn’t had the time to bring up his [Mana Shield].
“FUCK YOU!” Gabby screamed as she bent her knees and shoulder-rammed the off-balance Mage to the ground. Moving like a cat, Gabby transitioned into the full mount, pinning the Mage’s arms to the ground with her knees, and began raining a series of punches, hammer fists, and elbows onto the defenseless man. Each hit rang out with flesh impacts, causing his eyes to balloon up and nearly swell shut.
When Gabby was in the middle of following through with a particularly powerful downward angled elbow strike, she ended up hitting air instead of flesh. Activating [Blink] as soon as it came off cooldown, the Fire Mage put distance between him and Gabby, and just like that; they were back to playing cat and mouse; however, this time, instead of well-timed and aimed attacks, the man had gone into spray-and-pray mode in pure desperation.
His attacks had not only gotten way more frequent, but he was also adding more Mana into each one, creating flames half the size of Gabby, making it way more challenging to dodge.
SHOOOMMM
Brance and his opponent were forced to jump to the side, narrowly avoiding a huge fireball in the middle of a series of rounds. While dodging, he even got clipped by the passing attack, lighting his sword hand sleeve on fire. Acting on instinct, Brance rolled over his arm as he dove to safety and doused the fire before it damaged his arm and made it unusable.
Jumping back to his feet and meeting another head-on sword strike with his shield, Brance shook out his right arm a few times. Unfortunately, unlike the previous times, when he had stopped the Swordsman’s attacks, this time, his shield buckled and fragmented into chunks of stone, leaving him without a defensive weapon.
Grimacing in pain and clenching his left fist tightly to reduce the numbness, Brance activated [Lay on Hands] and touched his left forearm with his right hand’s fingertips healing the damage he had just received.
“Tch fucking Paladins, cant you lot fight fair?” The man said as he spat out a mouthful of blood onto the ground, a byproduct of an elbow the Swordsman took to the mouth earlier.
“You’re one to talk dickhead, spying on a bunch of first-year students and then engaging in battle with someone a full Tier below you.” Brance sarcastically retorted with a matching smirk while bringing up his index finger, holding down his left nostril, and shooting out a chunk of coagulated blood.
SHOOOOOMMM
When Brance finished his statement, he jumped to the side, moving out of the way of yet another fireblast, his eyes never leaving the Swordsman, who was in the process of looking for any opening Brance showed so that he could capitalize on it and finish the fight.
Dropping into a combat stance, sliding his left leg forward, Brance held his Greatsword down and behind his right hip with both hands. While exhaling slowly to steady his heartbeat, Brance met the Swordsman’s gaze as he also assumed a fighting stance.
Although they had traded an uncountable number of attacks, neither of them could grasp the initiative in this fight. Whenever Brance attacked, the man blocked and counter-attacked before going on the offensive himself. Like this, the two had been chipping away at each other’s HP and STAM turning what should have been a fast-paced and short battle into a war of attrition. One that if it continued as it had, Brance would be on the losing side of.
Knowing that he would lose if he didn’t make the first move, Brance’s eyes flicked to his resource stat bar. Between burning multiple skills and the Stamina drain from sustaining the tower, he was in rough shape, with only around 45 percent of his STAM intact. In contrast, his HP was still sitting at approximately 80 percent. This was because every time he received a strike, Brance would try his best to heal the injuries before they could accumulate.
Not wanting the temporary ceasefire to continue, Brance pulled a hail-mary play and rushed forward in reckless abandon, surprising the Swordsman. Although he couldn’t understand why Brance would do such a thing, he wasn’t one to turn down a gift. He stepped back and executed one of his class skills, lighting his sword in blue light. The Swordsman then aimed for a diagonal strike that would bisect Brance from shoulder to hip if it landed.
Brance didn’t stop his aggressive push and acted as if the life-threatening attack didn’t exist. Without bothering to dodge or bring up his Greatsword to block the strike, Brance calmly traced the path of the shining sword and lined up his body so that his movement would be uncontrolled after getting hit.
Time seemed to slow down for both parties as the Swordman’s weapon cut through the air almost too fast to be seen. The man’s eyes turned into crescents, and a nasty grin appeared on his face just as his blade slammed down into Brance’s shoulder.
BOOOOMMMMM
SQWELP!
Still grinning like a fool, the man suddenly felt strange; his eyes suddenly shot wide open and went bloodshot as he noticed his sword had stopped millimeters away from Brance’s shoulder. Although his eyes could see what was happening, his brain had yet to catch up with what transpired. It wasn’t until the worst pain he had ever experienced shot up to his head from both his elbows. In horror, he watched as his arms separated from the rest of his body and darted off in two different directions along with his sword.
“Tier-2 Paladin Skill [Hallowed Ground],” Brance’s words came out in an emotionless tone as he reached out with his left hand and caught the Katana, spun it into a reverse grip, and swiftly cut off the Swordsman’s head with his own weapon.
Going back just before the collision occurred, Brance held his sword in such a way that he would be able to bring it up from below and take off both the man’s arms without fail. This plan was hazardous, mainly because the Swordsman had already determined he was a Paladin, but in the end, it worked out because the man was too overconfident and had put the cart before the horse. Brance had no idea if he would receive any jarring shock from taking the attack head-on, but the instant he felt no resistance or impact from the attack, he looped his Greatsword and slashed upward.
‘Five seconds,’ spinning around and tossing his Greatsword to the side, Brance counted down the time until his [Hallowed Ground] wore off. Forcing all of his weight into his lead leg, Brance stomped the ground hard enough to create an aftershock and crater, propelling himself directly through a fireball, which he cut in half.
Brance’s pupils constricted as he met Gabby’s gaze when he pushed toward Gabby and the Fire Mage. Being the intelligent girl she was, Gabby darted off in the opposite direction, causing the Fire Mage to turn his back to Brance, opening himself up for an attack.
‘Four seconds.’ Pumping Wind Mana into both his legs, Brance accelerated faster than he had ever gone in the past. The Tower walls became streaks of shining tan light as he crouched lower and motioned like sheathing a sword on his left hip, giving the illusion that he was running while holding onto the hilt and sheath of the Katana, even though there was no scabbard.
‘Three seconds.’ Gabby had now moved into position and was zigzagging from left to right, avoiding every incoming fireblast almost as if she were performing a deadly dance. Pushing his Light Mana into the (illusionary) sheathed Katana, Brance’s eyes narrowed as he got as low to the ground as possible. There was only going to be one chance to pull this off; if he missed or failed to execute the attack correctly, his [Hallowed Ground] would wear off, leaving him nearly drained of all his MP and STAM.
-You have Killed a Level 11 Tier-3 Human Swordsman.-
‘Two seconds,’ ignoring the first wave of notifications, Brance’s mind flashed back to Earth, when he was a young child when he and Cynrik would watch a particular anime that became known as Brance’s favorite all-time show. This show had such a profound influence on him that it led to Brance mimicking all the attacks with dull katanas, moving around in the back yard and doing mock battles with Cynrik.
Unlike his brother, who had been influenced so profoundly that he now wielded Dual Kodachi, Brance never felt the need or urge to use a Katana as it didn’t fit his plan. But now, at this moment, Brance couldn’t help but smirk as he lined up behind the Fire Mage and got into position.
‘One Second,’ Brance began, gripped the hilt of the Katana, and started drawing it across his body while muttering under his breath.
“Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū,” Stepping forward with his right foot first, Brance accelerated as he drew the sword across his body and took a final step with his left foot, using all of his strength in one fluid god-speed, fast attack.
Looking back at the Fire Mage, all Gabby saw was a bright flash of light and then a mist of blood, guts, and body parts, followed by Brance continuing forward and stepping through the Fire Mage; he had just obliterated. Brance’s two-step move had generated such an immense force due to the speed of his draw that it sliced through the man’s body and the air itself, creating a power vacuum as the cut air surged back into place.
Sliding to a stop, Brance spun the clean Katana, completed the motion of sheathing the sword, and spoke the final lines.
“Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki,”
FWOOOSHHHH SHHHHHUCKKKK SHILKKK SQWELP! SHOOOMMMM
With the words out of his mouth, the violent sounds rapidly exploded in the air, soon to be followed by a massive wave of notifications.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg