When I landed, my feet sank. I looked down and saw that the stage had become slushy like a mire.
“The wind turns to blades.”
Shin swept his sword like a conductor’s baton, sending sharp gusts of wind my way.
“Shit…!” Immobilized by the swamp, I was forced to summon my cloak of darkness to defend myself.
“The wind penetrates darkness,” Shin said.
“Hrgh!”
The blades of wind passed right through my darkness and cut me up.
…This is bad. Shin has total control of the tempo of this battle. I need to reset…!
I clenched my fists, determined to stop his momentum.
“First Style—Flying Shadow!” I yelled, summoning a full-strength Flying Shadow at my feet to pull me out of the swamp and into the air. Next, I created a platform of darkness and landed on it.
“Ah-ha-ha, what a creative escape. You can come back down, though. The stage won’t sink anymore. There’s no need to be scared,” Shin said gently, as if soothing a small child.
I’d normally be able to ignore a cheap taunt like that. But right now, I felt a burning irritation rise within me. That was probably the influence of Zeon’s short temper.
Whew… Calm down. I need to keep control of my emotions. I let out a deep breath to try and cool my head.
Now that I’d regained my composure, I reached out to the stage with my darkness and tapped lightly on it.
…It’s definitely hard. Shin had told the truth; the stone stage had regained his solidity. It could become a swamp again at any moment, though… I should cover the bottoms of my shoes with darkness just in case. That way, I’d be able to stand on the darkness if Shin turned the stage to slush again.
I descended to the stage and reflected on the fight so far.
…I think I’ve figured out what he’s doing.
Imperial Decree had the ability to impose rules.
During his first attack, he imposed a rule that granted pebbles the ability to pierce through anything. Then he turned the stage into a swamp so my feet would sink into it. Next, he gave gusts of wind the properties of a blade and enabled them to pass through my darkness. He can apply rules to anything. Given how the stage quickly returned to normal, it’s safe to say his stipulations don’t last forever. There’s clearly a way to dispel them. I just don’t know if Shin did that on purpose or not.
Shin began to chuckle as I silently analyzed his ability.
“Ha-ha, have you figured out what my perfect Soul Attire, Imperial Decree, can do?”
“More or less… It seems pretty useful.”
I could definitely see why he was so convinced he was unbeatable. But no ability’s perfect. His Soul Attire must have a weakness!
I needed to learn more about Imperial Decree’s abilities if I wanted to defeat Shin. The best way to accomplish that was to attack. Conventional wisdom said to relentlessly hound your opponent until they were forced to reveal their secrets to defend themselves.
I let out a shallow breath and began my assault.
“Dark Shadow!”
Tentacles of darkness soared into the sky, then swooped down toward Shin to crush him.
“I’ve gotta hand it to you, you have a lot of impressive abilities. Not that they’ll do you any good. Dark Shadow turns to mist,” Shin commanded.
Shin slashed one of the dark tentacles with his sword, and they all turned to mist and dissipated. That wasn’t all; I tried to summon another Dark Shadow, but it didn’t work. The darkness turned to mist the moment it appeared.
I see… Once he applies a rule to a target, all instances of that target are affected until the rule is dispelled. That was a valuable piece of information. Time for my next move.
“Sixth Style—Dark Boom!” I yelled, sending a pitch-black slash at Shin. But even then, he remained calm and completely at ease.
“I told you, nothing you do will work… Dark Boom vanishes.”
At Shin’s decree, Dark Boom disappeared without a sound, but then he let out a surprised gasp.
“What the…?”
A lethally sharp Flying Shadow imbued with a huge amount of spirit power was right before him. I had stealthily placed it behind Dark Boom.
Now then, how’s he gonna deal with this? I leaned forward, ready to charge and engage him in close combat. However, Shin glanced at me and cut Flying Shadow in half with a single swing of his sword.
“You’re definitely strong, Allen Rodol. But it doesn’t matter. I exist above the very concept of strength,” Shin said.
“Oh yeah?” I responded, deciding to ignore his nonsense. I thought as fast as I could.
…It seems like Imperial Decree has three limitations.
First, Shin had to cut a target with his sword before he applied a rule to it. He’d sliced the pebble, the stage, and the wind with Imperial Decree before imposing rules on each one. That was undoubtedly a requirement.
Second, he had to state the rule out loud. After slicing each target, he’d said its name and specified the effect he wanted to apply to it. That was probably the trigger that activated Imperial Decree’s ability. He wouldn’t say what he was about to do out loud if he didn’t have to.
As for the third limitation… This is just a theory, but I think I’m probably right about it.
Shin had been calling Imperial Decree a perfect Soul Attire and constantly showboating with its power. He was as arrogant and confident as a person could be, yet for some reason, he hadn’t used its power just now.
He turned Dark Shadow to mist and made Dark Boom vanish, but instead of applying a rule to Flying Shadow, he chose to cut it with his blade. He also quickly glanced at me. I was leaning forward, so he was probably watching me in case I decided to rush at him.
The third limitation could be that Imperial Decree could only maintain two rules at a time. If he went over two, the existing rules would be disabled in order from oldest to newest.
That would explain a number of things. If he had applied a rule to Flying Shadow, then the rule that turned Dark Shadow to mist would have been overwritten. I used Flying Shadow exclusively as a long-range attack whereas I could use Dark Shadow from long or short range, so it was clear which of the two he was better off eliminating.
Essentially, Shin elected to cut down Flying Shadow without using his power because he didn’t want to lose the rule that caused Dark Shadow to turn to mist.
I’d seen this limitation in action when he turned the stage into a swamp as well. After he applied two rules, giving wind the sharpness of a blade and allowing it to penetrate darkness, the stage had become hard again.