With Naga on my left hand and Fang on my right, the two swordsmen rushed to me on 2 sides, attacking me simultaneously.
The man kicked off the ground, thrusting his rapier straight into my chest. Leaning back, I relied on my instinct, kicking the blade of the rapier up. But due to the man holding the rapier firmly, the trajectory of the blade shifted just enough for it to barely miss me.
However, right from the top was a female swordsman who was executing a plunging attack, slamming her Greatsword from a great height.
Pouring mana and aura in Naga, I spun and swung the sword as hard as I could, extending the blade and increasing the weight of the blade hoping that the speed could compensate for the lack of power so that it could match the Greatsword's power.
KLANK
Thankfully, it worked. I was able to block her blow, stopping her in mid-air. As both of our feet landed on the ground, we kicked off towards each other and continued our exchange. Having experience using a greatsword as well, I knew the limitations of the weapon rather well which was that it was weak in close combat. Making use of that, I dashed toward the female swordsman, swinging my sword and dagger aggressively at her, forcing her to block the attacks using the blade of her greatsword. Her companion tried intervening by striking me in my blind spot, however, due to me adding pressure to my attacks, if he launched any attacks on me, he would end up hurting his ally.
"You coward!" The ginger-haired man exclaimed as he withdrew his advance when he realised there was nothing he could do at that angle.
However, I should have been more careful as while I was busy trying to avoid the ginger-haired man's attack, that gave the female swordsman the chance to escape my barrage of attack as she swung her sword upwards, knocking my sword off my hand.
Shit.
With my body exposed, the two wasted no time going straight for the kill as they poured all their bloodlust onto the tip of their blade to finish me off.
[Magic Barrier]
But that wasn't an issue for me as I cast a small barrier dome around my body, completely blocking their attacks altogether.
"Magic?!"
The female swordsman shockingly exclaimed followed by the reassurance from the ginger-haired man.
"Don't panic, we can break it."
As they said that, the area where their swords landed started to vibrate violently, causing my entire magic barrier to shake violently, followed by a large crack that spread through the entire dome.
[That's not mana.]
'No. They are using Aura to reinforce their attacks.'
With their aura charged up, the female swordsman slammed her weapon with all her might on my left side while the ginger-haired male pierced his rapier at an extreme speed, shattering my magic barrier instantly and ending with the male swordsman slashing his rapier towards my chest again and followed by a kick, sending me flying a few feet off the rooftop and dropping into one of the alleyways.
Dropping from the great height were both swordsmen as they issued me another warning:
"Give up. If not, worse things are going to happen."
Dragging myself out of the ground, I groaned in pain as my lower back ached.
'Ryong.'
[Yes?]
'I'm getting annoyed.'
[End it fast. I'm getting hungry.]
'Since when do you eat?'
[From the moment, you wore the mask. I can taste anything you ate.]
'And you choose now to let me know?'
[Yeap. So hurry up. I want some Potato Spud.]
'Fine. Fine.'
Pulling myself up. I placed Naga back in my inventory and held Fang, changing it back to its Longsword form.
"Foolish idiot."
The female swordsman said as all of us readied ourselves.
From there, I started moving with the flow, dancing along with the sound of the steel ringing through the night.
***
As the cloud covered the vicinity of where an important battle was held, shining through the night was the great moonlight that was welcomed by the sky. The night was filled with light despite being dark initially.
Reflecting in the night was a sword held by
a masked vigilante, as he raised his sword in the sky, the reflection of the moon could be seen through his blade. Just like how quiet and peaceful the night was, there was no sound or sudden movement made by the man. With a swift movement, he starts dragging the sword through the air as though he is slicing the air. But you wouldn't call that cutting or slashing as he started moving in bizarre yet beautiful steps. No movement was wasted as every step he took was concise and graceful. It was truly haunting in the eyes of the 2 swordsmen standing against him.
The first to snap out was the male swordsman as he grabbed the attention of his comrade before kicking off the ground and going for the kill. Sadly, he wasn't as bright as her as he was rushing in aimlessly to the unknown. This wasn't due to confidence or bravery. It was genuine curiosity. The one rule of the roundtable as knights was to throw away their emotion and fear when it comes to hunting monsters.
However, their target this time was seemingly human which uses advanced swordsmanship with magic. The ginger-haired swordsman named Alroy, grew up in his household honing his swordsmanship to the best of his ability, competing with knights of the roundtable to simply improve it even further. Because of that he had seemingly encountered or faced the majority of the sword style known to him. Be it German swordsmanship, Italian Swordsmanship or even one such as the Itto-Ryu from Japan, he had crossed swords with a majority of them. So with his current target showing up with something completely new and beautiful, his motivation to see more of this mysterious style, his greed was showing through his movement.
Compared to his companion, the woman known as Makayla had no distinctive style. She was using purely her instinct to swing her sword at her opponent. But it was because of this same instinct that warned her that the man standing before them was incredibly dangerous. But she failed to warn her companion in time as he already rushed straight into the lion's den.
Alroy ran straight in and fired multiple shots of his rapier in Red's direction however, every shot that struck was deflected on the side of the rapier's blade, completely shifting the trajectory of the blow, all this while Red's wrist simply twisted left and right with ease. The fierce and aggressive motion by Alroy was overcome by Red's calm and sharp motion as Alroy got caught up in Red's flow of battle and as a result, he was counter-attacked.
**
[Moon-Styled Swordsmanship Act II: Tail of the Lunar Beast]
The Sword of the user grows to a huge size using the Aura of the user. When slashed, creates 1 crescent-shaped horizontal slash that devastates everything down its path. The crescent slash will shrink the longer distance it goes. The smaller the crescent, the sharper it is.
Combo: 1
Requirements: Practitioner of Moon-Styled Swordsmanship
**
In those 3 seconds where Alroy rushed in pouring his aura to attack, every one of his attacks was rendered useless while his opponent finished him with one hit.
Makayla saw in shock as the very same Alroy who ranked one of the stronger swordsmen, was finished off in a single blow and such a graceful manner.
Because of that Makayla held her greatsword anxiously as her priority mission had changed at that very moment. She has to retrieve Alroy's body and retreat immediately to inform the rest of the members of the roundtables.
Enveloping her entire blade with Aura, she smashed the floor, destroying everything on the ground hoping to distract her opponent's field of vision. As a cloud of smoke and dust covered the alleyway, she dashed straight for where Alroy lay hoping to grab his collar and bolt. Only for her instinct to kick in again as she immediately pulled her sword up and held on to it tightly. And yet her instinct was right once again, saving her life as a large sword slammed on the right side of her body. The impact was strong enough to send her body slamming and cracking the side of the building, causing some of the windows to shatter and glass pieces to drop from the top.
As she coughed out in pain, her eyes were still on Alroy as she immediately grabbed for Alroy and bolted off to the top of the building, running away in a hurry.
**
[Makayla's POV]
Grabbing Alroy and leaving was the only thing on my mind.
Who... what the hell is that thing?!
Just swinging his sword is enough to mesmerise me. Me?! I was only able to snap out of it because of Alroy.
If he wasn't there, would I even be alive at this moment?
As I jumped from one roof to another roof, I checked my back to see if he was pursuing us. Thankfully he wasn't.
Placing Alroy down, I checked Alroy's condition. Thankfully he was alive as well, but he was bleeding rather profusely, so I had to return immediately.
I have to report to the higher-ups immediately. The fact that there was a monster using extremely powerful swordsmanship and the fact that he could use magic from the "other world."
It looks like the prophecy is coming true after all.
