“And yet, gaps still remain within you. Like a hungry beast, you absorb experience at a terrifying pace… I suppose it must be fun teaching you how to use a sword, as you grow at an extraordinarily fast pace.”
“Is that…supposed to be praise?”
“No. It is something born from the distortion of this world.” Flum had a feeling that they might have been able to communicate after all, but the likelihood of that happening quickly went down to zero in a flash. “This world was once Lord Origin’s property. In response, the will of this planet distorted the laws of the world in order to steal it back from Him! This cannot be forgiven!” Prana Shaker, Scorch Maiden, and blades of light: Huyghe launched three attacks simultaneously. Flum determined that only the Prana Shaker was going to hit her heart, so she deliberately let the other two attacks hit her and advanced. However, at that moment, the flying slash coming at her suddenly changed its trajectory. It curved and accelerated, severing Flum’s left arm. In time with that, Huyghe also took a leap and thrust with the sword he held in his right hand, aiming for Flum’s heart.
“Creating two races. Humans…and demons.” Flum, feeling the left side of her body becoming lighter, directed her gaze toward Huyghe. Then she realized something. His movements seemed to have slowed a little. It’s like that time with Rischel.
Flum wanted to think about it a little more deeply, but she couldn’t exactly do that in the middle of a battle.
“Five minutes remaining until launch.”
“You were given the ‘cheat’ known as magic, and even if that wasn’t enough, the planet created the overly convenient beings known as heroes! And what has happened to this world as a result?!” The tip of his blade approached Flum’s heart. She thought about grabbing hold of it just like she had done before, but she couldn’t imagine that her opponent would repeat the same mistake. Without thinking about counterattacking, she blocked the attack with the flat part of the blade of her Souleater.
“Negative human emotions interfere with physical matter, as curses!” In the next moment, a prana arrow was released from Huyghe’s sword: Prana Stinger. It collided violently with Flum’s blade, sending sparks flying. If Flum had tried to stop it with her hands, her heart likely would’ve been pierced by prana by now. Huyghe’s sword itself collided with Flum’s blade slightly afterward, and Flum staggered under the force of Huyghe’s power pushing her back.
“Extremely dangerous magic that may well interfere with the concept of a world itself—rare attributes—was born!” Huyghe didn’t let that opening pass by and slashed Flum’s armpit with his sword in his left hand, aiming for her heart.
“Dual-wielding?!”
“In the end, even people who couldn’t erase memories of their past lives and instead inherited them appeared as well!” Cavalier Arts: Prana Sword. It was an advanced technique that materialized prana into a physical form, creating a sword. Although it was a disposable sword due to its low strength, it was the perfect sword technique for surprise attacks, like the one just now. The blade seemed to be quite sharp though, tearing through Flum’s ribs and approaching her heart.
“Guhh… Explode! Reversal!” She suddenly twisted her abdomen forcefully to face the other way, using the momentum to send herself flying backward. However, when Huyghe had swung his sword, he had also activated his Scorch Maiden. The blade came for Flum’s neck in midair.
Maybe, if I take this hit… Flum desperately wriggled her body in midair to prevent the Scorch Maiden from completely cutting off her head. About 90 percent of her neck had been cut, but because the blade was thin, the wound quickly closed. Then she tumbled along the ground.
“Agh, gah, ugh…” Even though she had done it to herself, it was still painful to have her stomach burst open. Flum lay down on the ground, moaning. But as she had expected, no immediate follow-up attacks were coming. I knew it… When his Justice Arts hits, he stops. Even though he’s not using an Origin core.
Huyghe glared at Flum with eyes filled with contempt. His loathing seemed to contain some amount of irritation as well, from the looks of it.
“What happened now is exactly that. Clearly a glitch. A bug. What else could you call this but a distortion of the world?! That is precisely why we are justice. Justice Arts is a power given to us to correct these distortions!”
“Rischel said something different though. It seems like even though you’re all knights, interpretations vary. It’d be better for you to standardize.”
“Does it not make your heart ache to hear of these things? Of the distortion of the world, girl of Reversal?!”
“The wound on my stomach from earlier hurts a lot more.” Flum smiled, trying to bluff, staggering unsteadily to her feet by using Souleater like a cane. “Generally speaking, I really, really don’t care about the world or whatever, not one bit. The only thing that matters to me is beating the shit out of you as soon as possible and living peacefully together with Milkit!”
“Words will not work, I see. You are evil by nature, in the end.”
“Evil or justice, whatever, I fight to fulfill my own wishes! Uoryaaaaah!” Flum lowered her bloodstained Souleater and stepped forward. She used the momentum of her run-up to unleash Prana Shaker, putting her entire body into it. However, the blade that was unleashed was red.
“Two-stage preparation with Cavalier Arts and Genocide Arts? But!”
“Four minutes remaining until launch.”
With time running out, Huyghe chose to intercept the attack…by defending with his sword. He tilted the blade sideways and supported it with his left hand, waiting for it to come.
He didn’t choose to cancel my attack out with Prana Shaker. He noticed that there’s something unusual too, then. The previous slash was an attack made in anticipation. The red Prana Shaker that Flum launched had changed trajectory partway through, just like the attack Huyghe made. Flum thought that what he said was certainly true. First-rate masters such as Gadhio and Henriette showed Flum their highest quality techniques. And in imitating those high-quality techniques, even if Flum didn’t reach first-class power with them, she still had second- or third-class level power.
The same was true for Huyghe. Yes. The technique that Flum used earlier was an imitation of Huyghe’s, a slash that curved midway through its trajectory. Prana Shaker: Distortion. And since merely imitating it with an inferior version wasn’t enough, Flum added Genocide Arts: Anguis on top of it. Her newly learned Anguis was incomplete, and she couldn’t even make it fly on its own. But by wrapping it around the Prana Shaker, she could use that attack’s acceleration to make it fly. Then the moment that Prana Shaker: Distortion turned, the trajectory of the blood blade branched off and curved in a different direction. They attacked Huyghe from both sides, in a pincer formation.
“I will not be bewildered by such acrobatics!” Huyghe gripped the sword he made using Prana Sword in his left hand and used both swords to simultaneously knock down the blades thrown at him by Flum. However, since the Prana Shaker launched by Flum had considerable power behind it, Huyghe couldn’t completely block the attack with the one hand using Prana Sword, since that was inferior in terms of strength. Which meant it was necessary for him to strengthen both of his arms with the appropriate amount of prana and to strike with all his might. At that moment, Huyghe might have fulfilled the conditions for activating his Scorch Maiden, in a way that was undesirable. Flum prayed as she approached him.
Please, activate…! Did Scorch Maiden activate when he swung his sword, or could he voluntarily choose for the ability not to activate? If it was the former, then…that meant that Huyghe couldn’t stop attacking Flum, even if he wanted to. Then Flum felt a cold sensation approaching her neck.