Chương 46: Critical Hit!

I had mana for Arcane Burst. The beginning of an incantation reached the back of my throat. But I just couldn't use it... I need to focus, this can only be resolved by swords. while her side was still within reach, and I swallowed it before the first word could form. My left hand stayed on the hilt. I had already spent too much of this encounter explaining that decision to myself. There was an opening in front of me, and I needed to use it before explaining anything else. The sword remained high from the parry.

I began the full cut I remembered, felt how slowly the longer blade followed, and shortened the movement. My arms were still expecting strength that belonged to another class. Her forward foot settled. I moved with the sword, carrying its edge toward her as she began turning back. Contact checked the blade firmly enough that I knew I had reached her rather than another flame image. I stopped the follow-through where I could still recover it. [CRITICAL HIT] Critical hit?

Thats right how could I forget, I havent fought an opponent with a similar sword stance, not even an intelligent humanoid one. The notification appeared at the edge of my sight. I wanted to read it. Instead, I brought my rear foot forward and returned the sword between us. The recovery took longer than it should have. My lower hand had started loosening again, ready to leave the hilt and deliver mana through my palm. I closed it properly.

"Keep the sword up," Mimir said.

"It is up."

"A little higher would reassure me." I adjusted the guard. He did not need to know I had intended to do that before he spoke. The enemy window resolved beside the notification. [Enemy Status:???] [Health: 800 / 1346] Eight hundred remained. I almost stayed with the number long enough to let my point drift. I brought it back toward her before checking the maximum. Thirteen hundred and forty-six. The system could provide that precisely while apparently having difficulties with her name.

I had no previous value for comparison. The critical hit had connected; assigning myself the entire difference would have been convenient and unsupported. Her sword remained in her hand. I moved my back foot a little farther out. The white floor gave me nothing to measure our movement against. We could have been close to where we started or some distance from it. I had followed her rather than the room. The longer weapon shifted against my grip.

I was becoming used to its weight, though I still wanted to turn it as quickly as the azure blade. That expectation had already interfered with one recovery. My own health had been one. The comparison returned before I could stop it.

"Well," Mimir said, "they're her flames, after all."

"I had gathered that."

"Then stop looking offended." I lowered the point enough to ease the strain in my arms. Flames moved around us, red against a surface that remained white however much fire crossed it. One small patch near her foot kept collapsing inward and forming again. I watched it once before forcing my attention higher. I could not continue making imperfect recoveries and expecting the next one to be better. The Sword Saint had found gaps in guards I once considered complete.

I had also been caught by creatures far less capable than her, usually while assuming that recognising an attack meant I had already dealt with it. Experience left plenty of room for being careless. At one health, even a slight contact could finish this. I changed my stance. My right foot came forward. I raised the point and let the longer sword settle into the position, making myself wait for its weight before deciding where my hands belonged. Her eyes lifted toward it.

"Whoa. Hey, lad." Mimir sounded close enough that I nearly answered over my shoulder.

"I know." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I haven't said anything yet." I breathed out and briefly closed my eyes. The floor remained firm beneath my feet. My grip was too tight. I eased it without opening my fingers, then looked at her again. This would leave little room to turn another mistake into a parry. I was choosing the next exchange as the place to finish it, and I disliked how much that decision resembled the confidence I had felt before drinking the elixirs.

'Keep watching.' I had begun wondering how long anyone could remain perfectly alert. Some part of me always wandered. Sometimes it was a number, sometimes a scrap of human knowledge arriving where it had no business. I could train a movement for thousands of attempts and still have to perform it with whatever occupied my thoughts that day.

"It's inhuman," I whispered. Then, because the correction arrived before anything useful, "But you're not human."

"Focus!" Mimir's shout brought my attention back to her sword. She had drawn it toward her left shoulder, the point directed at me. I recognised the position. My hands tightened before I consciously placed it among the encounters I remembered. I loosened them again. She had used this guard against me before. There were answers I knew, and there were several I remembered trying because they had seemed sensible until she moved. My present body made the distinction more difficult.

A response that had once felt immediate now contained a small delay between intention and movement. I had been compensating for that throughout the fight and still resented having to do it. I watched the distance between her forward foot and mine. Petra was waiting. The thought interrupted the calculation, but I let it remain. She had stayed beyond the boundary because I had told her to.

I had given her instructions for what to do if I failed, spoken as though supplying those instructions made the possibility manageable. I wanted to return before she had to use them. The Sword Saint remained in position. I drew a slower breath and kept my attention on the place where she stood. The crackle of the flames continued. Mimir made a quiet sound, perhaps preparing another warning, but this time he let it go. We had reached standoffs before. They never became familiar in the way a repeated attack did.

In motion, I could follow the next problem. Here, I had time to consider every failure the first movement might contain. I shifted a fraction of my weight forward and stopped. Her point stayed directed at me. A small smile pulled at my mouth. It was an inconvenient response, and I could have done without wondering what Mimir thought of it. She had taught me so much that I sometimes forgot how little I knew about her. I knew the correction she would make to an exposed guard.

I knew what happened when I let a retreat become too long. I had no idea what she would say if I asked her a question. For most of my attempts, I had treated her as something lifeless. The dark knight's movements had made that easy. This form complicated the assumption, though standing across from a recognisable face did not tell me what existed behind it. I wished she would speak. Lady Livia could make a conversation feel ordinary for a few moments, even while leaving me with more questions than I brought her.

I liked that more than I usually admitted. It gave me something to do besides prepare for the next thing trying to stop me. I had Mimir now. He certainly spoke enough. I almost asked whether he thought she could hear us properly. The question would have given me another excuse to remain where I was. I kept it to myself. Her guard had not changed. Mine would not improve by holding it until my arms tired. I moved. The first step covered less distance than the one in my memory.

I accepted it rather than forcing the next to compensate. Her sword began moving while I was still bringing my back foot through. For a moment I could follow the whole approach. Then the blades met, and my attention narrowed to the hilt turning in my hands. Metal struck metal with a hard clang. Fire ran across the contact, bright enough to obscure her shoulder. I kept moving through the exchange, unable to stop and check whether it matched the one I remembered.

There was a moment when her weapon disappeared behind the brightness. I wanted to pull away. My left foot was already moving forward. I let it settle and completed the action I had begun. The sword met resistance, then came free of it as I passed beyond her immediate line. A burst of air spread from the clash. The nearby flames flattened outward, opening a brief circle across the white floor before lifting again. The noise seemed to remain after the contact had ended.

I held the sword in front of me and tried to establish where she was. My left foot had landed too heavily. I could hear that small sound through everything else, the flat slap against the floor, and for a stupid moment I thought about how poor it would have looked during practice. Something struck the ground behind me. I turned far enough to see a piece of her armour lying there. Another plate loosened and dropped, landing close to her foot. The system appeared. [CRITICAL HIT] [Enemy Status:???] [Health: 3 / 1346] Three remained. I brought the blade up, though my arms objected to the change. I could not let the result persuade me the encounter had finished. Nothing had touched me. I was almost certain. I replayed the instant when I had lost sight of her sword. The brightness had hidden the point. I remembered the pressure through our blades and the step that followed, but memory offered no clear view of the space between her weapon and my body.

'I'm still standing.' That ought to have settled it. I kept checking anyway. Her armour continued falling. I tried to keep her hands in focus. The edges of the remaining plates blurred, became clear, then blurred again. I blinked and found the notification easier to read than the figure behind it.

"Mimir."

"I'm here." I had not decided what to ask him. The three remained in front of me long enough that I began expecting another movement. My sword was still raised. I wanted to lower it, and wanting that made me hold it more rigidly. The display changed before either of us struck again. [CRITICAL HIT] [Enemy Status:???] [Health: 1 / 1346] I read the zero and waited for the rest of the information to catch up with it. The same maximum remained beside it. The window still belonged to her.

"You did it!" Mimir's voice was louder than the falling armour. I kept the sword raised for another moment. The last exchange had happened quickly enough that my thoughts were still arriving at places I had already left. I was trying to finish a recovery I no longer needed, still watching for the reply that had followed on other attempts.

"Lad," Mimir said, quieter now.

"You did it." I lowered the point. My arms began shaking as soon as I let them relax. The effort travelled through my shoulders and down into my legs, catching up in an order I would have preferred to choose differently. Humans called it adrenaline, if I remembered the passage correctly. I had always been more interested in what happened while it lasted than what came afterward. Now I could barely decide how tightly to hold the sword. I adjusted my grip twice.

The second adjustment was worse, so I returned to the first and stood there until I could trust my knees to support another step. The Sword Saint remained ahead of me. I looked toward the place where her face had been clear through the flames. There were questions I had wanted to ask while we were waiting. They were still there, though I could not have put them in a sensible order.

"Easy," Mimir murmured. I took a step toward her. My left leg failed to carry it cleanly, forcing the next into a limp. I kept the blade lowered and went on toward where she stood.