Intrusion
Kang! Kakang! Kenneth moved desperately. He parried the slashing winds that came at him freely through the air while searching for an opening in his opponent's guard. But the gap in their strength was despair-inducing. Pernia stood a short distance away with her arms crossed, leisurely watching him. Not only had she gained the Slash Wind during the break, but she had also consumed an elixir. Even though she should have been expending a considerable amount of mana, she showed no sign of strain.
Kenneth barely managed to deflect a rotating, charging gust. He couldn't completely shake it off, however, and blood trickled down from a graze on his shoulder.
Damn it! That bitch. I'm definitely going to kill her.
Even in this situation, where both the performance of their weapons and their levels were vastly different, his fighting spirit refused to die out. He truly lived up to the title of berserker. Sensing his will, Pernia hardened her expression. She drew a dagger from her waist and slowly approached.
Kenneth's eyes widened in shock when he saw the dagger. "You… what the hell is that?!"
"Why, surprised? It's too late for regrets. I have no intention of letting you live now."
Having witnessed Kenneth's berserker-like tenacity, Pernia concluded that he would become a threat in the future. She raised the dagger and pointed it forward. The weapon closely resembled the Slash Winds currently circling Kenneth. No, it was identical. Furthermore, another spirit summoned by Pernia's will wrapped around the dagger, generating wind. In other words, not only its appearance but its function was perfectly the same.
"This is ridiculous…!"
Kenneth couldn't easily calm himself in the face of such a blatant distortion of common sense. In that moment, Pernia melted into the air and vanished.
"Where are you?! Come out!"
Intuitively sensing that he could truly die here today, Kenneth reacted violently. He kept an eye on the vanished Pernia while fending off the Slash Winds that circled him, waiting for an opening.
At that instant, a Slash Wind charged from one side while Pernia appeared from the exact opposite direction.
"What are you going to do if I come out?"
With a mocking whisper, Pernia's dagger cleaved through space.
"Damn it!"
Kenneth poured every ounce of his concentration into deflecting the Slash Wind rushing at him from the front, then threw his body aside to escape. Unfortunately, his movements couldn't match Pernia's agility.
Chaaak!
Her dagger, twisting its trajectory to follow him, grazed the edge of his cheek. The Slash Wind enchanted with the power of the wind spirit sliced through his flesh as easily as cutting tofu.
Kenneth wiped the blood flowing from his cheek and let out a savage laugh. "Fine. Let's do this. I'll kill you!"
This time, it was Kenneth who charged forward. His unique skill, Blood Ghoul, had a mechanism that increased his physical abilities in proportion to the amount of blood he shed. He threw his entire body into the offensive without fear of his wounds. In less than a minute, Kenneth's entire body was drenched in blood.
"Tch! You're persistent."
"Kihahahak! Try and kill me then! Go on, kill me!"
Pernia frowned, looking troubled. Kenneth hadn't become strong enough to be difficult to handle, but his blatant willingness to die together made him quite annoying. She had had several chances to kill him, but doing so would have required her to accept some damage herself, forcing her to back off. It seemed it was time to stop playing around and face him seriously.
"You held out pretty well. But that's over now!"
Pernia drew out her mana. The vast reserves she had accumulated by consuming the Storm Hawk's inner core surged at once, concentrating through her hands into Slash Winds.
Uwoong!
With a small resonance, another spirit was summoned around her. Wind gathered and spun, revealing the form of a wolf roughly two meters in size. Unlike the lower-grade Sylph, the mid-grade spirit Shuriel was capable of direct combat.
"Go! Shuriel!"
Kraaaang!
At Pernia's command, Shuriel roared and charged. Two Slash Winds wrapped in the Sylph's wind flanked it on either side. It was a truly despair-inducing assault.
"Kihahak! I'll at least take one of you with me!"
Spirits were beings of the elemental realm. While death in the material realm was merely a temporary setback for them, the summoner would suffer damage if they were forcibly unsummoned. Kenneth intended to inflict as much pain as possible, even if it meant meeting his end.
Kang! Kakang! Kagagagak!
Somehow, he managed to flow his sword like water to deflect the two Slash Winds and aimed for Shuriel, but the creature's sharp fangs caught his blade and stopped it. Its jaw strength was so immense that forcing the sword free would likely break it.
"Damn it!"
Kenneth released his sword without hesitation. In the brief moment he tried to pull a spare blade from his spatial pouch, Pernia struck.
"Die!"
She had been hiding in a spatial rift as a resident of the gap after sending out the Slash Winds and Shuriel. Completely caught off guard, Kenneth couldn't even react to the attack. He could only stare blankly at the approaching dagger.
In that moment of absolute peril—
Kwaguaguang!
A powerful shockwave swept over the spot where Pernia had been standing. She landed a short distance away. Turning her head, she saw a man. The problem was his appearance. He wore a mask, and his silver eyes gleamed.
"You…!"
Pernia's eyes widened. The familiar situation. The familiar appearance. The familiar impression. Those three commonalities forced her to recall the humiliation she had suffered in the secret passage. Even though she wasn't particularly concerned with chastity, the shock from that time had been immense for her as well. Grinding her teeth in rising fury, she soon broke into a delighted smile.
"You dare show up here? Perfect timing. I'll kill you right now!"
Having obtained the Slash Wind, consumed the inner core, and even raised her level, she was overflowing with confidence. She decisively abandoned Kenneth and redirected all the forces she had deployed against him entirely toward the masked man. Once again, Shuriel and the two Slash Winds flew toward him as Pernia vanished into space.
Before him, the masked man calmly looked at Kenneth and spoke. "Run away."
"…What?"
"You're in the way."
Kwaaang!
Immediately after, the fight between the two began.
*
Kang! Kagagang! Kiiing!
Sword flashes erupted from all directions. Three minutes had passed since the battle began, and during that time, I had done nothing but defend against Pernia's attacks.
"Die! Die already! How long are you going to keep this up? That won't work! My mana is overflowing now!"
Our levels were the same. If I focused purely on defense, no matter how many Slash Winds and spirits she mobilized, she couldn't easily land a hit. Frustrated by this, Pernia poured on her offensive, emphasizing that defense was meaningless.
Pit! Pibit!
As the tempo of the fight increased, cuts began appearing on my body one by one. I looked at Pernia and wondered.
Can I win?
In terms of combat sense and technique, I was superior, but the existence of the Slash Wind nullified that difference. I was using Arachne's Gloves, but they weren't exactly suited to me, and Pernia had two Slash Winds. Since there was originally only one, that was obviously the power of a new unique skill she had obtained upon reaching level 100.
How the hell does she have such a broken skill?
Compared to the Rapist's Holy Water I got at level 100, it was so unfair it was laughable. While I was seething with resentment, the heat of the battle grew more intense.
"Come on! Are you just going to fall over like that? Why don't you try raping me like last time!"
Perhaps growing impatient with the stagnant fight, Pernia began hurling taunts while attacking one-sidedly. That was when I made up my mind.
I guess there's no choice.
Pernia wasn't going to give up on me, and if we kept fighting like this, one of us would have to die. To subdue her, I needed to bring out some of my real power. Of course, Hwasin-hwa was too distinctive, so I would have to use abilities she already knew about.
Kwaaang!
I used Shatter to knock Pernia back and leaped away. As a lull settled over the fight, I made my declaration.
"I'll rape you."
"Eut…!"
Upon hearing the Rape Declaration, Pernia flinched. It was probably due to a mild trauma. She quickly recovered and shouted without losing spirit.
"Fine. Rape me! Go ahead and try! I'll cut your dick off!"
Her voice was filled with rage. Her momentum was so fierce it seemed she would charge at any moment, but Pernia didn't act rashly. Instead, she calmly analyzed the situation and, judging that Shuriel couldn't handle me, unsummoned it and filled the empty space with numerous Sylphs. Then, she reached into her bosom and threw dozens of daggers into the sky. Each dagger had a Sylph dwelling within it, riding the wind as they all charged at once.
Shweeeeeeak!
It sounded like tens of thousands of bees buzzing. The attacks flying in from all directions, occupying every inch of space, were not welcome against someone like me who focused on power. That didn't mean I couldn't handle them, though.
Kagagagagang!
I quickly identified the daggers' positions, broke through the weakest point in the encirclement, and moved while simultaneously defending and evading. Facing an unrelenting offensive, I even felt a sense of familiarity.
It's just like training.
After constantly deflecting mana orbs in the store's basement, this actually felt easier to deal with than before. I perfectly defended against all the daggers without allowing even the slightest damage. Pernia seemed shocked by this.
"How…!"
She let out a cry of alarm and instinctively took half a step back. Realizing she had been intimidated, she bit her lip hard and gripped her two Slash Winds, rushing toward me…
"Huh?"
She didn't come. Instead, she ran toward the treasure chest. Opening it, Pernia pulled out the Boots of Suction, kicked off her own shoes, and put them on. Then she turned her head toward me.
"You're finished now!"
Armed with the power of items, Pernia melted into space. A second later, she kicked off the ceiling and fell, swinging her dagger at me. After that, she began using the Boots of Suction to leap across the walls, unleashing attacks from multiple angles. And that wasn't the end of it. Pernia utilized the boots' functions to release wind at the moment of attack to increase destructive power or absorb it to eliminate recoil and come to a sudden stop, demonstrating all sorts of applications.
I couldn't possibly keep up with Pernia's movements, which flickered from east to west. A curse rose up from within me.
That goddamn skill.
If the Rape Declaration didn't also strengthen the target, I would have won much more easily. While swallowing my frustration, I searched for a breakthrough.
Kaang!
And finally, I found it. At the same time my strike shattered a dagger, the spirit controlling it came to a halt.
That's it!
I instantly understood why it was behaving that way. Lower-grade spirits didn't have high intelligence. Therefore, they could only carry out very simple instructions. Right now, it couldn't follow the command to control the dagger, so it had momentarily become confused. Realizing this, I shattered another dagger and charged straight at the spirit controlling it, ignoring all other attacks. The creature simply stared at me blankly due to the confusion in its command structure.
"Ah, no!"
Pernia belatedly realized my intent and cried out, but it was already too late.
Puh-eong!
My fist exploded the cute fairy, which was barely the size of a hand span. "Ugh!?"
At the same time, Pernia, who had taken the backlash in its place, clutched her chest and groaned. I curled the corner of my mouth into a grin.
Now it's time to counterattack.