Chapter 282: The Sword-Wolf Faces the Thunder-Fire Beast, Part Twelve
[Slightly revised.]
Improvising chuuni-sounding lines on the spot. Replacing an existing spell name with a different word that has the same reading. Weaving that into a Disguise Magic chant to land a surprise hit.
In Spell Creation Online... in the now-gone Forbidden Spell, it was a pretty important technique. If you just keep in mind "the feeling of suddenly firing off a spell mid-chat," it's actually pretty easy.
Sunraku: "I see, I see! This really is handy, dammit!"
In PvP, this is almost a must-have technique... No, wait. If people start countering it hard, it might leave an opening on my end instead. But they say bugs and scissors are all in how you use them. If you can make it work, well, the results speak for themselves.
Sunraku: "Tough luck! I've learned exactly zero spells — I'm pure physical, baby!!"
Before Psyger-100's freeze can break, I close the gap to a lethal distance.
I don't choose an iai strike here. Given Psyger-100 has the Hero job, I don't know what the actual activation rate of that Holy Sword's Guts effect is. If it's a genuine "rare" level, I'd have no hesitation going for a big finisher. But there's always the chance it's "rare (effectively fifty percent)." So if I'm doing this, I'll grind her down thoroughly.
Sunraku: "First up, a two-hit opener!"
Sword Breaker’s Havoc, Sengoku Burai, Sword Dance: Spinning Blade — activate. After boosting my weapon's firepower, I swing Pale Sheen upward from below as a single blade. In that instant, the Dirty Sword effect lands an amplified blow on the flinching Psyger-100...
Sunraku: "Ooooryaaaah!!"
Psyger-100: "Guhh...!"
Lethal Sword Art: Half Moon Cut — exactly what it sounds like. A crescent slash that traces the wound on the return swing.
The Holy Sword shines, a golden effect wraps Psyger-100's body... Guts triggered. Alright, from here on out, it's a real game of chicken. Let's enjoy this extreme situation where a single stumble could kill you!
Sunraku: "Pray to the RNG!"
Psyger-100: "Not yet!!"
Activate Formula Drift. I trace a wide circle around to Psyger-100's back — it's less of a drift and more like a skid, honestly. The Sworvant blades pierce the ground behind me — maybe they can't keep up with Overflow-enhanced mobility.
Psyger-100: "Right there!!"
Sunraku: "Whoa, whoa... Still my turn!"
I dodge the slash she aimed at where she predicted I'd circle around to. But I'm not loosening my grip on this chance — this distance, this opportunity to seize victory that I'll never reel back in if I let it slip.
Psyger-100: "Stun Beat!"
Sunraku: "Tch... So the trick's that mantle!"
Psyger-100: "Good guess!"
I cycle my skills, burning through the benefits I earned by shaving off my life, and keep running. My HP's basically zero from the Levin Trigger: Hazard drawback anyway. Even if I heal, it keeps halving at high speed, so you could say my synchro rate with The Fool has gone up even more. Who're you calling a Fool, you bastard.
If it lands, great. If it doesn't, I've still forced her to react.
Sunraku: "One hit! Two hits! Three hits!"
The first hit misses. The second, a Sworvant blade blocks. The third pierces Psyger-100's right shoulder with flame and lightning... but the golden effect shines bright, as if to say the Hero will not die. It's a slightly different effect from before, and that bothers me a little, but I leave the doubt behind.
Psyger-100: "You're persistent...!"
Sunraku: "Indomitability... is a Hero's privilege, isn't it...?!"
A wild Sworvant barrage with no finesse whatsoever — just trying to force me away. But I shift my position, sometimes using Psyger-100 herself as a shield, and don't give up the distance.
Sunraku: "Tch..."
Clean hit — The Holy Sword shines. Scratch damage — The Holy Sword shines. Clean hit — The Holy Sword shines again.
Gaaaaah! How many times is it gonna activate?! This RNG is beyond bullshit! Wait, is she just lucky? Or is my luck with RNG complete trash?
Sunraku: "Shut the hell up! If I beat you till you're dead, you'll die!"
I scold myself and scrape together the last shreds of concentration that could snap at any moment. Out of gas? Keep running! Burn like a caffeine-fueled inferno!
Click. In my head, the hands of several clocks all point to the same number. The certainty that a foothold, thin as a spider's thread, has connected to the edge of a far-off cliff.
Sunraku: "Right here!!!"
Psyger-100 saw it.
The fiend of fire and lightning — whose mere touch would clearly inflict some kind of penalty — leaping into the air, using as a springboard the greatsword he'd stabbed into the ground, deep indigo with a gold core.
There's not even time to spare for an emotional reaction. In Psyger-100's brain, before the thoughts that bubble up like foam can vanish, she assembles what her five senses — digital but clear — have detected.
(Weapon, abandoned... Above, positional advantage, Sworvant, won't make it...)
The conclusion she reaches.
Too late to recall the Sworvant blades and form an array. So she dismisses all six subordinate swords herself and stakes everything on the Holy Sword alone. Even if he attacks from above, she won't miss this one strike — a fusion of unshakable resolve and desperate commitment.
Psyger-100: "Sworvant's Solo!!"
The secret technique learned the moment you acquire the Master of the Sword job. A flying slash, true to its name — its power increasing the longer you've used it, the culmination of long refinement. From below to above, tracing the arc of the slash, it pierces the blazing flame-and-lightning directly overhead.
Psyger-100: "Primal Slash!!"
The golden slash rises like a dragon ascending, answering the Master of the Sword's will not with words but with a single stroke. A golden slash born not of calculated trajectory but of intuition — it strikes Sunraku and...
...passes right through.
Psyger-100: "Wha—"
Sunraku: "Blinded by the moon on the lake, were you?"
Thump. The sound of landing.
It was a split-second at the very limit — which is why she couldn't notice the wrongness of Sunraku hanging in the air, perfectly still.
Lethal Secret Technique: Mirror of Fading. It might not work as a hate decoy against enemies, but as a feint to deceive a player's eyes — well, you just saw the results.
A leap accelerated by Possessed by the Great Asura King, then Flit Float to invert heaven and earth from up to down... and then Formula Drift — made reusable by the recast reduction from The Fool — to return to Pale Sheen.
Sunraku: "Endgame."
The subordinate swords are gone. Her blade aimed upward and couldn't reach forward. The moon wrapped in pale light — a golden moonlight glow different from the Holy Sword's radiance — unleashes a flash with a gale. Eclipse Vorpal and the Clear Sky ultimate technique's first blade, Hayakaze — the all-out iai strike that even cut down an inexhaustible serpent — slashes through Psyger-100, passes by her side, and the two cross paths.
But even so... the Holy Sword endured.
A full five Guts activations. Truly by chance... a genuine miracle.
Whether Psyger-100 was lucky or Sunraku was unlucky — only the system knows.
Hayakaze was a strike with everything behind it. That's why, after unleashing it, I can't move for a while. So can the Hero give thanks for her body's fortune and claim victory? No. She can't.
Psyger-100: "...Ah."
The blow that should have secured her victory. Even though her HP hadn't been fully depleted, the "certainty of defeat" carved into Psyger-100 herself had snapped the thread of tension and concentration that she, even as a Master of the Sword, had been pulling taut.
Sunraku: "...Weather forecast."
Still frozen in the posture of having swung through, Sunraku mutters.
Sunraku: "Sunny, then weapon showers... Be advised."
A trash-game hunter hopes in RNG but never trusts it. If there's even a 1% chance, you try as many times as it takes. That's why I set up one final follow-up.
The instant I let go of Pale Sheen, the system processes the dropped weapon as an object, making me temporarily unequipped. I used that mechanic for an extra weapon deployment.
Mirror of Fading was a double decoy. The main act was Hayakaze. And the follow-up — a rain of weapons.
Those watching from the spectator seats had seen it. The moment he leaped — Sunraku deploying weapons and hurling them straight upward. And those weapons, obeying the physics engine, falling directly down toward Psyger-100.
Psyger-100: "This... is...?!"
Sunraku: "Just die already, won't you, Hero-sama?"
Duxram, Blade of Aspiration, flies past right in front of Psyger-100's face and stabs into the ground. Gilta Brille lands somewhere off the mark. And the twin bee blades pierce the shoulder of the Master of the Sword and Hero...
A sixth miracle did not happen.
Empire Bee Twinblade: "Alright, that's the killing bloowww!!"