Chương 125

Rudra swallowed the last bite of his flatbread and brushed the crumbs off his black coat. He told Mumud and Kratos to stay back near the campfire. He walked past the tall wheat and stepped into a wide, flat patch of dirt. Piaro walked over to a nearby wooden fence. He set his iron hand plow down gently in the grass. Instead of picking up a practice branch, he drew his sword from his waist. The metal gleamed in the desert sun.

"I've been waiting for this," Piaro said. He rolled his shoulders, getting loose.

"Don't hold back," Rudra smiled. He gripped the Staff of the Fire Lord with both hands. Instantly, a thick blue haze rolled off Rudra's shoulders. The Staff Energy hummed in the dry desert air. He didn't activate any flashy skills like [Typhoon]. With his core stats sitting near two thousand and a massive fifty percent power boost from his Legendary mastery, his basic attacks were more than enough. Piaro didn't waste a single second. The Great Swordsman vanished.

He appeared right in front of Rudra, bringing the sword down in a blindingly fast vertical strike. A month ago, Rudra would have thrown his staff up to block the heavy hit. But today, his [Super Sensitivity] was always actives. The system flashed a tiny warning in the corner of his eye, but Rudra didn't even need to read it. His body just moved on its own. He casually tilted his left shoulder back an inch. The sharp sword sliced through empty air, completely missing him. Piaro's eyes widened.

Before the swordsman could recover his balance, Rudra stepped directly into his personal space. Rudra didn't wind up. He just let the natural weight of the heavy bone staff pull him into a short, brutal swing. CLANG! Piaro barely managed to snap his sword back to block. The impact sounded like an explosion. The sheer, overwhelming weight of the hit shook the dirt under their boots. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Rudra didn't stop.

He rode the bounce-back from the block, spinning the staff into a fast figure-eight. Thwack! Thwack! Orange fire sparked from the bone staff. Rudra threw strike after strike. He didn't chop or pause. It was an endless, heavy loop. The staff became a dark, burning blur. Piaro tried to find an opening. He looked for a blind spot. But every time he tried to slip a quick thrust past the staff, Rudra instinctively shifted his posture.

Rudra's body naturally smothered every single attack angle before Piaro could even fully extend his arm.

"Too slow!" Rudra laughed, pouring more strength into a horizontal sweep. Piaro raised his sword. The staff smashed into it. The Great Swordsman grunted. His boots actually skidded backward through the dirt. Piaro was being physically pushed back. Every time he tried to deflect the staff, Rudra's oppressive physical weight just crushed right through the parry. Piaro gritted his teeth. He decided to stop defending. He pulled his sword back, dropping his hips to unleash a high-tier Imperial Sword technique.

But as he gripped the hilt, he suddenly froze. His hands were deeply calloused from digging in the hard desert soil. As he pulled the sword back, his muscles remembered the rhythm of the farm. When he swung his hand plow, he used his entire back and let the tool flow naturally into the earth. It was a smooth, perfect motion. But the Imperial Sword technique was completely different. It was rigid, formal, and strict. Piaro tried to force his body into the strict sword stance. It felt incredibly awkward.

The unnatural shift completely ruined his timing. He hesitated for just a fraction of a second. It was a fatal mistake against a brawler. Rudra's staff smashed right through the sloppy stance, knocking the sword wide open. The blunt end of the bone staff stopped exactly one inch from Piaro's nose. The clearing went completely quiet. Piaro stumbled backward, panting heavily. He didn't look at Rudra. He stared down at his own rough, dirt-stained hands. His face twisted in deep frustration.

He was agonizingly close to his lifelong goal. He could literally feel the threshold of the Sword Saint class right in front of him. He could see the path left behind by Muller, the legendary swordsman. But his body was actively fighting him. He had spent the last month turning a dead wasteland into a golden field. His arms and back had completely internalized the peaceful, flowing rhythm of nature. Piaro clenched his fists. He felt totally lost.

He didn't want to abandon his sword, because he was so close to the peak. But forcing himself to follow Muller's strict, rigid path felt like a heavy chain wrapped around his neck. It was suffocating the very thing that finally gave his life peace. Rudra lowered his staff. The blue haze of Staff Energy slowly faded away. He looked at the Great Swordsman.

Between his high [Insight] stat, his newly leveled [Super Sensitivity], and his deep understanding of the man he had camped and fought with every single day for months, Rudra didn't need to guess what was wrong. He could read Piaro's internal struggle like an open book.

"You're overthinking it," Rudra said flatly.