He’s using Flash Step to smash the Eightfold Orbs into each other?! By tracking the movement of all eight spheres?! Even just colliding them would be difficult, and he timed every single hit at their maximum speed!
Lloyd understood anew that he must never allow Sansui to Flash Step into his immediate vicinity. Remaining suspended in the air, he looked down at Sansui and made sure not to land.
“You can’t use Flash Step upward... I’ll press the attack like this!”
With his safety assured, Lloyd abandoned defense and sent four gears rushing toward Sansui.
“Go, Eightfold Orbs!”
In tandem, he released a second set of Eightfold Orbs. The eight spheres advanced erratically, avoiding interference with the large gears as they closed in. Four large manifestations of killing intent, eight smaller forms of harassment—together forming an all-directional assault.
Against that...
“Ki Blade: Cross Touch.”
Sansui responded in exactly the same way as before.
He struck the first incoming sphere, repositioned it with Flash Step, and this time had it severed by the blades of the gears. He evaded all twelve attacks simultaneously—each differing wildly in speed, size, and trajectory—while recognizing and responding to them all at once.
The moment Lloyd grasped that fact, he acted without hesitation.
“Resound, Clamor Bell!”
The sonic weapon that had already proven effective was thrown straight down and activated. With seven of the Eightfold Orbs still remaining, he aimed to dull his opponent’s movements again.
“Cowherd.”
What Sansui did in response to the attack was simple. He drew the falling object toward himself and caught it in his left hand. Then: “Ki Wave.”
No matter how exceptional the noble treasure was, it was still merely an extension of Immortal Arts and attributeless magic. As such, the principle by which it produced sound was easy enough to understand. The vibrations struck his hand directly, but he neutralized and mitigated them through force release.
In addition, he was holding the wooden sword in his right hand, so even if his other hand were temporarily disabled, it posed no problem.
And then—
“Flash Step.”
He held it up to the approaching blades of the gears and let them cut it apart. After confirming its destruction, he immediately withdrew with Flash Step.
Having slightly injured his left hand yet evaded with breathtaking finesse, Sansui looked up at Lloyd with a serious expression. It was as if to say, have you exhausted all your tricks already?
Immortals, and Tengu as well, could gather information about their surroundings through meditation and concentration. So long as they were not actively fighting, observing in this way was by no means difficult. Similarly, Consecrated Maidens could share senses with those to whom they were “connected.” This went beyond vision alone, and if the target was limited, they could perceive things with great precision. At present, every practitioner of the consecrated path in the village was connected to Lloyd.
Those Tengu and Consecrated Maidens were all bewildered.
They had witnessed Sansui’s transcendent techniques. Seeing skills that surpassed human understanding, they had gone pale. The practitioners of the Rapid Iron Style had no means of grasping the battle’s true state, yet just by looking at the Tengu and the Consecrated Maidens, they understood that the situation was dire.
“Um—what’s going on out there?!”
“Great Tengu?!”
“They’re still fighting, right?!”
“Damn it! We’re going after them!”
With the two fighters having left the arena, none of them could see what was happening anymore. The practitioners of the Rapid Iron Style chased after their representative. Meanwhile, the Consecrated Maidens and Tengu all turned their gaze to Suiboku. They were looking at the strongest man in the world—the one who had forged the Sansui who was now fighting.
“Hey, Suiboku... How old is your disciple, again?”
“He came to me about five hundred years ago.”
“You really are something else... Even as a teacher.”
The Great Tengu had raised many disciples. In a broad sense, every long-lived being in this world could be called his student. Precisely because of that, he could say this: To raise a disciple lacking in natural talent to this level in a mere five hundred years was something no one else could do. It proved that Suiboku was a complete Immortal—and that he had reached the very pinnacle as a teacher.
“You flatter me.”
Even so, this was not what impressed Suiboku most. He was moved by something else. His disciple had not lost his composure at the sight of blood. He did not fear taking hits, and without hesitation he chose the best possible action. That alone made Suiboku happy. Once again, he could see that his disciple had grown a great deal from his former self.
Certainly, defeating an opponent without taking a single hit was an ideal worth striving for. But one must not fear being struck. Fear of injury disrupts technique and stiffens the body. At the same time, one must not dwell on being struck either. Even if blood is shed, it should not linger in the heart.
What matters is fighting—and winning.
If you live, blood will flow. If you fight, you will be injured. That is only natural. Recalling how he himself had once failed to understand even that, Suiboku found himself deeply moved by how completely his disciple had matured.
His disciple had truly become the ideal swordsman.
“As expected of someone acknowledged by you,” the Great Tengu said.
“Yes. He truly is a devoted disciple.”
The seasoned Tengu, who had known Suiboku as he’d been in his youth, two thousand five hundred years ago, nodded in agreement. Suiboku, who had once quite literally reached the seat of a god, had still continued to seek strength. That man—who more purely than anyone else had desired to become strong—saw in Sansui the very thing he himself had truly been aiming for.
It meant that, as an Immortal, Suiboku had no lingering attachment to this lifetime.
“Suiboku.”
“Yes?”
“He’s certainly a disciple to be proud of. But isn’t there still more you’d like to teach him?”
“That is...of course. However...”
“There’s no end to it. That’s what you’re going to say, no?”
Cel spoke purely out of regret. He lamented that a man who had finally overcome his doubts, and who had raised such an Immortal, was now seeking death. It was far too wasteful.
“Suiboku, I hear that long ago you said you wanted to cut down the moon.”
“Y-Yes.”
“You are the moon.”
Everyone knows the moon is there. Look up at the heavens, and it is always present. That was what Suiboku was, Cel was telling him.
“You are the strongest man in this world—the summit to be aimed for, the moon that is sought even if it can never be reached.”
“That status has already been passed on.”
What the Great Tengu Cel did not know was that Sansui, still young among Immortals, had already been guiding many ordinary people. As the nation’s strongest swordsman, he had already sent countless disciples into the world. As a swordsman, a warrior, a soldier, and a martial artist, he was respected as a standard of conduct.
“The things I truly need to pass on, I’ve already done,” said Suiboku.
“That alone is not enough. It’s true that your disciple has reached the State of No Doubt with your Ultimate Techniques, but even so, just knowing the framework is insufficient.”
“He will discover those things for himself. I trust him to do so.”
“Well...I’ll leave judgment of that to Kacho,” Cel said.
The two deliberately ended the conversation there and refocused on the battle happening right now.
“Needless to say, the fight isn’t over yet.”
“Yes. I’ll observe his skill,” Suiboku replied.
From above, Lloyd had reduced the number of gears he was using as a platform to just one, vanishing the others.
Strong, but neither invincible nor unbeatable. I have a chance to win.
Lloyd had regained the composure to formulate a strategy, and he paused briefly to do so. Although Lloyd’s supply of Eightfold Orbs had run out, Sansui already bore accumulated injuries. Lloyd, too, was not unharmed, but Sansui’s wounds were more severe. That fact kept Lloyd calm.
Indeed, his Flash Step is at an unbelievable level, but it still doesn’t break the laws of principle. Maintaining this altitude should be fine for now.
To remain calm, he reaffirmed that he was currently in a safe position. Only then did he begin considering how to press the attack.
Sansui’s responses are astonishingly fast. It’s pointless to use a technique or tool I’ve already shown him—even with slight variations, he’ll counter them easily.
The ability to respond perfectly to techniques they’d witnessed only once—that was the strength of Sansui and Suiboku. But they still had to have seen it. Anything completely new would be impossible to counter perfectly.
His precision is enough to pierce even the smallest opening, but still... It’s only within the range of his own understanding and imagination. With the attack earlier, he was still struck.
Sansui had a good sense of what Lloyd was thinking. Well, he’s not wrong. But if he meticulously plans every move, it’ll make it even easier to anticipate.
Sansui himself needed to pause for a moment. Using successive Quicken Self Techniques had depleted his Immortal energy, and he needed to regulate his breathing and perform Ki Gathering to recover even slightly. His left hand especially had been strained while stopping the Clamor Bell. It needed at least a short rest.
There’s no doubt he still has more tricks up his sleeve. Exactly how many and what they are, I have no idea...but I can take a guess.
The Eightfold Orbs had been unusually small, as had been the Clamor Bell. The reason for that was portability; it meant he could equip multiple noble treasures at once. So far, all of them that Lloyd had demonstrated—Quicken Belt, the Eightfold Orbs, and the Clamor Bell—had been part of or inside his clothing.
Among the noble treasures he hasn’t revealed, there’s undoubtedly something that can surpass Quicken Self. But that’s precisely why he won’t use it immediately. If he could, there wouldn’t be a stalemate...
The supreme techniques of the Suiboku School of Immortal Arts were always a step ahead of the opponent—just a hair’s breadth, a fraction too late, a close call, a critical instant. In other words, it was about taking a single, almost negligible point and extending it to infinity. Sansui had been entrusted with this principle by Suiboku.
He’s not an opponent I can defeat easily, but I have no intention of losing easily either.
Without a hint of frustration, Sansui gripped his wooden sword in his right hand. The initiative still belonged entirely to Lloyd, hovering above. The moment Lloyd made his move would mark the beginning of the final clash.
No... More than that. I have to win.
Sansui, firmly, made this resolution.