I took the initiative, launching myself off the bare concrete and speeding toward her. Since I had no long range attacks, I had no choice but to get up in her face. The same wasn’t true for her, so projectiles came flying at me.
Yukihime opened her hand and created a blue star circle, a geometric configuration used when casting star sorcery. It wasn’t necessary to create one during activation, but they have the power to enhance star sorcery abilities.
A swarm of icicles shot out from the blue star circle, all aimed toward me. Each one was 20 cm long and thick as a thumb.
The barrage of icicles closed in on me. I won’t be able to dodge them all... What can I do?
A very simple answer popped up in my mind: Slash them.
I locked my eyes onto every flying icicle and cut them down. Even slicing up bullets was an easy task for me. My time element didn’t allow me to stop time itself, but I knew how to employ it in a different way.
First, I sped up my brain. This made it seem like the bullets were moving slower. Then, I sped up my body. By only speeding it up whenever I slashed an icicle, I was able to prevent excess physical stress and star power consumption.
Ultimately I succeeded in cutting my way past the icicle barrage and closed in on her. I swung my twinblade down toward Yukihime.
“Azure Wall.”
A crystalline sound echoed across the stage, and suddenly, my blade slammed into a wall of ice.
“Oh, there it is. Gonna actually use that for once, huh?”
“Just my way of thanking you for irritating me even more than usual before the fight. Now you’ll bite the dust without even getting a chance to touch me.”
Azure Wall. This ridiculously durable hexagonal structure that had just appeared before my eyes was filled with all the high-quality star power that Yukihime could muster. I’d never been able to break it – in fact, no one had. Did this mean that it had become impossible for me to attack Yukihime? Not necessarily. There was one way to break through. It was a pain in the butt, but I didn’t really have a choice at this point.
I started spinning my twinblade clockwise. My star armament, the Chronoslayer, enhanced my star sorcery. Using it while casting made things much more effective, and in this case, spinning it once to the right would double my physical speed. Normally it took time to speed up, but this shortened the process.
Once I reached double speed, I took a step to the right and slashed my longsword sideways. As the Azure Wall blocked it, I immediately stepped backwards and slashed out again, this time with the dagger. The wall blocked the attack again, but this time something was different. It had moved closer to Yukihime.
I leapt back and attacked again from the front, swinging my longsword down from above. Once again, the Azure Wall moved, and this time it lined up right against Yukihime’s head.
I instantly swung my blade and moved behind Yukihime. Our blades clashed. Yukihime had unsheathed Snowbloom. Its azure blade glistened beautifully, and a shrill metallic sound shrieked across the stage.
“The Azure Wall has been defeated.”
This time, it was her blue sword that had blocked my twinblade. Yukihime had unsheathed Snowbloom with her left hand and managed to block my blade without even turning around.
“You’ve improved at getting around it. Everyone usually struggles with that.”
Yukihime had programmed the Azure Wall star sorcery so that it would appear automatically whenever someone got near her. However, since she poured most of her resources into increasing the star sorcery’s durability, it was a bit slow to appear. If she wanted to put it out quickly, she could only make it so big. It’d probably take a considerable amount of time for her to cloak her body in it, and if she wanted to make a new wall, she’d first have to erase the previous one.
Right, left, front, and back. Suddenly changing directions like that prevented her from keeping up. It required someone who could move fast enough to outrun the wall’s activation speed, which meant that only an exceptionally speedy person could pull it off. Of course, moving at double speed put incredible strain on my body, so it was by no means an easy task. Still, it allowed me to break through the defense of the world’s strongest’s star sorcerer, so I figured it was worth the cost.
“I’m sure you were getting bored of whacking that thing over and over again anyway, right?” The edges of Yukihime’s lips curved up into a faint smile. “Here, I’ll pull it out for you. You should feel honored.”
“Really? You’re gonna pull it out for me? But I haven’t even won yet...”
“...Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, if you don’t get it, then never mind.” She was surprisingly dense considering how much erotic fiction she read.
As she deflected my twinblade, Yukihime spun her body around and swung down Snowbloom with both hands. “Hey, what did you mean just now?”
“I’ll explain if you beat me,” I said, as I blocked the attack horizontally with my longsword.
“I’m going to win and you know it. Roses are red, the sky is blue, I always win. Logic so common that even a child would understand it.”
“That’s why it’s so fun to prove it wrong.”
We continued to banter as we pushed against each other’s swords.
“Common sense never changes. That’s why it’s common sense.”
Yukihime stepped in and shoved me back. The minute we got some distance between us, she shoved her sword straight into the ground.
“Freeze.”
Instantly, the entire stage froze solid, except for the spot where Yukihime was standing. Icicles also shot out toward me. I tried to twist and dodge, but since I needed to be careful not to slip, I couldn’t move how I wanted to.
“I thought you were going to fight me with your sword! What are you trying to end this so quickly for?!”
“Shut up! I’m just being logical!”
She wasn’t playing around here. With this move, she could limit my movements and pick me off from afar.
A swarm of icicles sprung up around Yukihime. “It’s over.”
I could have tried to cut them all down, but if I happened to slip and fall, I’d be done for.
Besides, if I kept using star power to speed up my brain in order to slash the icicles, I’d eventually use it all up.
I couldn’t beat her in a game of endurance. I hardly had any star power to begin with, while she had access to an endless pool of it. Unless she used a bunch of powerful moves, she’d never run out, and although I hated to admit it, there was no need for her to use such powerful weapons against me... Which meant there was only one thing to do.