Chapter 88: The Lord is With Us (9)
Chapter 88: The Lord is With Us (9)
Delphine’s eyes, momentarily vacant as she felt no resistance against her blade, caught a glimpse of a shadow.
It was the man. Having retreated only a single step, he was already drawing his sword and lunging back at her.
His spatial awareness was supernatural. When one’s Aura reached a certain level, it could leave scars far beyond the physical reach of the blade. Naturally, this made gauging distance significantly more difficult.
Yet, Ian had evaded it by a hair’s breadth. Delphine momentarily wondered if such a feat was even theoretically possible, but she had no time for idle thoughts.
The man’s form was closing in. She had to stop him before he penetrated her guard.
Delphine stepped forward and thrust her sword. A radiant flash of golden light exploded, tracing a straight line through the air.
It was a maneuver designed to confound his sense of distance—a technique made possible only by her overwhelming physical abilities. Without them, she would have been too preoccupied with merely recovering her sword.
But in the next instant.
Whoosh. Delphine’s sword cut through nothing but empty air. Her eyes went wide with shock for a split second. Instinctively, her gaze swept to her flank.
He was there, thrusting his sword toward her. There had been no hesitation, no tell-tale sign of him shifting his momentum, yet he had already established himself in her blind spot.
Delphine gritted her teeth and twisted her body, redirecting the momentum of her failed thrust into a spin. Steel clashed against steel in mid-air. Because of her unstable posture, Delphine’s strike lacked its full power.
However, that alone was enough. Clang! A spark etched itself into the air as the man’s sword was parried away.
In that moment, Delphine stepped again to regain her stance. She charged forward, beginning a dance of blades amidst the twilight mist.
Skree, clang! Edge ground against edge, and the screeching ring of impact echoed through the clearing. Yet, despite her superior physical prowess, Delphine was failing to overwhelm him.
It was bizarre.
No matter how many steps Delphine took forward, the distance between her and the man remained unchanged. It was the same even when she retreated.
It felt as if they were magnets. Whenever she tried to close the gap beyond a certain point, a repulsive force seemed to push her back, keeping her at an exquisite, fixed distance.
A distance where the man could thrust, and she had no choice but to block.
This wasn't just "decent" footwork. Even as the successor of the Yurdina family, who had faced countless powerhouses, she had never encountered footwork of this caliber.
If judged by footwork alone, Delphine was utterly defeated.
As the stagnant exchange of blows continued, a faint heat flickered in Delphine’s eyes.
Fine, then. I’ll force my way in, she thought, gnashing her teeth. If she pushed herself, it wasn't impossible.
She would leave herself open for a fleeting moment, but she possessed a technique that could turn the tide.
The Yurdina Secret Sword Art: Golden Silk Sword.
It was a technique that drew multiple sword paths simultaneously, like the claws of a lion. It was a style where one could not distinguish between feints and true strikes—and sometimes, every single line was a true strike.
Her half-sister, Seria, could only draw three paths due to her lack of mastery, but Delphine could draw five simultaneously.
With that, she could easily compensate for a momentary loss of the initiative.
Having made her decision, Delphine acted swiftly. She kicked off the ground, forcibly thrusting her body into the man's space.
Naturally, this gave Ian time to formulate a response. Delphine was charging in recklessly, and Ian could finish his preparations simply by taking a leisurely step back.
This was the turning point. As if sensing it, both Delphine’s and Ian’s gazes deepened.
In a moment carved into fractions of a second, Delphine’s sword struck toward the lower left.
It was the instant before the golden paths were drawn. Within the frozen time of his perception, Ian’s eyes moved alone, confirming the position of Delphine’s sword tip.
He surely knew this was the preparatory stance for the Golden Silk Sword. But the Golden Silk Sword was a technique that could not be avoided even if one knew it was coming.
In truth, the moment Delphine forcibly closed the gap, Ian should have increased the distance. After all, was he not skilled in throwing arts?
Creating a variable to restrict Delphine’s range of motion might have offered a better chance of victory.
It was too late now. With a look of triumph, Delphine traced golden silken lines through the air. Five of them. It was a strike delivered with her full strength.
Until every single one of those paths was shattered with a sickening crunch.
Delphine’s eyes went blank. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.
At the final moment, Ian’s sword had also struck toward the lower left.
And then, seven silver lines were drawn.
Delphine’s five paths were intercepted and struck down one by one, leaving the remaining two silver lines to plunge into her body. She desperately flared her mana to block them, but the blow was already fatal.
Gah! A choked sound escaped Delphine, as if she were about to vomit blood. That was the end.
A thunderous explosion erupted.
Within that hyper-compressed span of time, a total of twelve sword paths had been drawn.
The surrounding atmosphere was torn to shreds, and the wounds carved into Delphine’s body were too deep for her to endure the resulting shockwave.
Relying on her overwhelming physical strength, she managed to recover her sword somehow, but there was no time to reinforce her shattered Aura. The shockwave was turning Delphine’s insides into a chaotic mess.
Her body was sent flying, tumbling across the ground.
The experience of her vision flipping wildly was a rare one for Delphine. She didn't regain her senses until she slammed into a tree at the edge of the clearing with a heavy thud.
Her head spun. But more than that, she was in shock.
She wasn't even sure if what she had seen was real. The sword dropping to the lower left, followed by multiple simultaneous sword paths.
It was the Golden Silk Sword. A secret art of the Yurdina family, something an outsider should never have been able to learn.
Furthermore, the man had drawn a total of seven paths. This meant his proficiency and understanding of the Golden Silk Sword were higher than hers.
How could this be? Delphine was the direct bloodline of Yurdina, the rightful successor, and a prodigy of the sword.
Even she could only draw five.
She had heard that her father, in his prime, could draw seven. At that time, the Marquis of Yurdina was a monstrous powerhouse on the verge of reaching the level of a Master.
But before her vision could even clear.
Thwack. A sound echoed near her shoulder. It was a strangely familiar sensation.
A pain like being branded with white-hot iron seared her nerves as an axe blade bit into her shoulder.
“Hng... Agh!”
Delphine finally lost her composure and let out a groan. The sudden agony caused her to drop the sword she had been clutching.
Even so, she fumbled, trying to grasp the blade again. Her eyes, bloodshot as she gritted her teeth, flared with desperation. She couldn't let it end in defeat like this.
Yet reality was cruel.
Thwack. Another blade flew through the air and buried itself in her other shoulder.
The pain was abrupt and absolute. Delphine, who had been crawling and groping at the ground with her blurred vision, could no longer endure it and collapsed where she lay.
“Hng, ugh... Aaaaaaaah!”
It was a scream she had tried so hard to suppress. The sound Delphine let out was long and high-pitched. Because she had clenched her teeth so hard to endure the pain, her exhausted jaw muscles spasmed and trembled.
Delphine’s vision flickered open. Gasping for air in ragged, shallow breaths, she stared straight ahead.
From the distance, the Grim Reaper was walking toward her.
Against the backdrop of the burning orange sunset, the man approached with steady, measured steps. The rhythmic thud of his boots stimulated Delphine’s hearing, heightening her terror.
His emotionless golden eyes looked down at her coldly. He wasn't even out of breath.
As if the duel with Delphine had been nothing of consequence.
A low voice drifted from his lips.
“Delphine Yurdina, it seems there’s been a misunderstanding...”
Reaching her, the man wordlessly gripped the handle of the axe embedded in her shoulder. Then, without a shred of mercy, he ripped it out.
“Ngh, Aaaagh...!”
Delphine bit her lip, trying to stifle her scream, but she couldn't stop the moans of agony from escaping. Without hesitation, the man brought the axe down into her calf.
Splat. Blood sprayed.
The woman’s hand instinctively clutched at her leg. Her pathetic form curled up, twitching as she cried out in pain.
“Hng, ugh... Aaaaaargh...!”
“I didn't come here because of your petty threats.”
Even as he watched her, there was no inflection in the man’s voice. He simply knelt, grabbed Delphine by the hair, and forced her to meet his eyes.
Her eyes, smeared with tears and pain, were stained with an undeniable fear. The man stared into the woman’s trembling pupils and spoke.
“Why did you think I would ever fear the likes of Yurdina?”
There wasn't a single trace of fear in his voice.
Even amidst the haze of pain and terror, Delphine was forced to realize the truth.
This man truly did not fear the Yurdina family.
Not even in the slightest.
Delphine’s face turned deathly pale.
As if on cue, the axe struck again, as if to split the muscle of her other calf.
The woman’s scream, accompanied by a spray of blood, embroidered the air.
Unfortunately for Delphine, this was only the beginning.