310. Rumors About Me?
310. Rumors About Me?
***
"What do you mean, heard? Who did you hear about me from?"
Serin pulled herself upright and voiced her confusion at Aizen's words. Aizen's lips, framed by his great beard, curved into a smile as he spoke.
"From the one who stands second only to one, above ten thousand. Do you not carry on that person's will, judging by the form you now bear?"
Aizen's solemn voice rang out softly, and Serin flinched for a moment, her gaze turning to him.
'Second only to one, above ten thousand...'
She couldn't not know who that meant.
—Daji.
It was none other than one of the titles used to refer to her.
"...Wait. So you're saying Daji goes around talking about me directly?"
Was there some kind of community only heroes could use among themselves?
Every one of them was so distinctive, carrying on their own separate conversations, that it was getting confusing.
From openly mentioning her name when he appeared, to coming all this way to challenge her to a duel—none of it was ordinary, and the whole situation felt like it was twisting into something strange.
But at my reaction, Aizen burst into hearty laughter and shook his head from side to side.
"That cannot be. That person is not the sort to go about saying such things. However, rumors about you have been circulating in secret. An unbelievable rumor that you claimed victory against that person. And seeing your current appearance, and the way you speak of her so directly... the rumor is likely true."
Aizen had been greatly surprised by how openly Serin mentioned Daji's name, but as he looked at the figure before his eyes, he nodded.
Her entire body dyed pure white, a dancer wielding a Crescent-Moon Weight. Every last technique overlapped with that person's image so much that it all pointed to a single fact.
In the end, it meant the rumor was true.
The emergence of a being inheriting the Great Hero's class.
That alone carried enough force to send enormous ripples outward.
Because it meant the balance that had been maintained until now would tip to one side.
Aizen, a quiet smile settling on his face as Serin's appearance caught his eye anew, slowly tightened his grip on his sword.
'Her beauty is no less than that person's, either.'
Even Serin's otherworldly beauty, befitting Nation-Toppling Beauty, gave off an almost uncannily similar air.
Serin, on the other hand, could only keep questioning the mention of rumors.
"Rumors about me...?"
"I'll answer that if you defeat me."
Aizen answered coldly, as if telling her to accept this as a duel, and raised his sword. In the end, Serin had no choice but to lift her Crescent-Moon Weight.
As Serin readied herself, Aizen's eyes took on an incomparable coldness.
His sword hand turned to face her directly, taking a stance as if thrusting the blade straight forward, and his blue eyes, gleaming between strands of white hair, held her sharply in their gaze.
—Path of the Ice Spirit (氷精一路).
In the snowfield, Aizen's form suddenly began gliding across the snow as if sliding, smoothly thrusting his sword straight ahead.
His thrusting motion before even reaching Serin looked almost puzzling, and with his feet never leaving the ground, he appeared not to have moved at all.
But what happened next was utterly bizarre.
With his feet planted on the snowfield, never taking a single step, his form surged toward Serin as if sliding, thrusting a blade that emitted a sharp, ominous energy.
"..."
Serin took it all in, staring straight at it, and did not dodge.
'He knows Daji.'
No matter how she looked at it, his words pointed to Daji—to her.
Then he must also know Daji's appearance.
And yet, if she chose to dodge or avoid the exchange now, she would be unworthy of the Moon Dancer.
'I hold my ground.'
So just as Daji had shown her own distinctive bearing against her, Serin would show the same.
—New Moon.
A white flash blazed along Serin's hand as it whipped upward from below, radiating brilliant light.
Staring at the blue line—no, the point that should be called the tip of the sword—shooting toward her, she sent her moonlight straight to meet it.
Shatter!
The moment the moonlight met the tip of the blue jeweled sword, a massive shockwave erupted with a sound like countless shards of ice shattering at once.
Whooosh!
The snow piled thick on the field around them burst outward in a grand spray, scattering brilliantly. At the center of it, Serin faintly furrowed her brow and put strength into her right hand.
New Moon hadn't fully blocked the opponent's attack.
She had hurriedly gripped the blade of her Crescent-Moon Weight and caught the sword tip with the end of the weight.
She had succeeded in holding her ground and hadn't been pushed back, but this man's technique was absurdly powerful.
Swish.
Aizen, his sword tip blocked by the blade of the Crescent-Moon Weight, withdrew his sword and raised it overhead.
His other hand joined the raised hilt, gripping the sword with both hands, and he brought it down toward Serin.
—Ten Thousand Ice-Wave Swords (氷波萬劍).
In that instant, countless ice crystals began forming along the blue jeweled sword's blade, then started building into a massive wave of ice.
Swish!
As the sword came down toward Serin, hundreds—no, thousands—of ice crystals surged up along the blade like a wave, covering the sword itself and rippling with intense blue light.
"..."
Serin's eyes twitched involuntarily as she watched.
'Just how much power...'
She couldn't even begin to guess how much strength it held.
With nearly a thousand ice crystals layered over one another and blue light rippling across it, the sword looked menacing in and of itself.
—Full Moon Dance.
The moment she hurriedly released the blade of her Crescent-Moon Weight, she swung it in a great circle around herself.
As Moonlight's blade traced a huge circle of moonlight along her hand gripping the connected white cord, a different change emerged from the Full Moon Dance she had used before.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
A sharp, fierce clashing sound rang out as if to tear the ears, and along Serin's hand as she kept tracing the circle of moonlight, countless bursts of light began exploding outward.
It looked as if she were bleeding off power.
Aizen, who had been pressing his sword down steadily, slowly drove his blade toward her as she continued tracing the enormous full moon.
Aizen pressing his sword down with both hands, and Serin fending him off by endlessly tracing the full moon.
From an outside perspective, it looked like an almost painfully honest contest of raw strength.
No technique in it—just a scene of their powers clashing head-on.
It was a situation Aizen had intended, and one Serin had chosen not to avoid.
As they continued testing each other's strength, Serin's eyes suddenly flashed.
"...!"
Swish.
Serin's wrist, gripping the cord, twisted sharply, and as her hand tracing the full moon made a small adjustment, the Crescent-Moon Weight that had been drawing the full moon tore through the very circle it had been tracing at a bizarre angle.
Whoooosh!
The drawn full moon burst apart in a massive explosion of light, and Aizen, who had been pressing his sword down into it, was pushed back by the aftershock before he knew it.
Immediately after, the moment Serin's cord-gripping hand pulled toward her chest, she spun her body quickly and thrust her arm forward.
FWIP-FWIP-FWIP!
The white Crescent-Moon Weight, pulled along by her hand drawn to her chest, shot out like a serpent with a will of its own, rippling through the air in a single line.
"Ngh!"
Aizen let out a groan at the sight of her not only deflecting Ten Thousand Ice-Wave Swords but immediately counterattacking, and he swung his sword as if shaking it off.
Clang!
But at the end of it, as he stared at the pure-white blade that had closed in close enough to graze the tip of his nose, Aizen felt a chill.
'How can this be—not a skill, but pure technique?'
Normally, one would read the energy imbued in an opponent's weapon and respond accordingly, but the move she had just made was a difficult one even for Aizen to handle.
The blade of the Crescent-Moon Weight had certainly carried energy, but it hadn't been a skill.
It was simply Serin exploiting an opening with technique in that moment.
Whirr.
Serin calmly pulled her arm back, retrieving the Crescent-Moon Weight that had been knocked into the air, and held her ground with a proud gleam in her eyes.
'This is manageable.'
They had only exchanged a few moves, but the hero called Aizen felt very different from facing Daji.
She couldn't deny the difference in the power of their abilities and techniques. But that didn't mean he was an opponent she couldn't beat.
Heavenly Demon Cheon Ryuhwa. Even without borrowing her power, this was an opponent she could clearly defeat with her own strength now.
Just as she was thinking that and tightening her grip on the Crescent-Moon Weight, she saw her opponent draw in a deep breath.
"Hoooh...."
As she watched him, as if he were trying to drink in the cold that filled the air,
"Ice Sovereign."
Aizen's bitingly cold voice rang through the air.
WHOOOOOSH!
The snowfield, piled high with white snow, began whipping up fierce winds around him. Within it, Aizen raised his sword to the sky.
FSSSSSH!
The snowfield soon erupted into a blizzard, as if a great cold wave were sweeping through.
Fsssh.
Serin let out a hollow laugh as the snow blanketed her body.
'So he means to keep me from holding my ground.'
As if to interfere with my attempt to hold my ground while recalling Daji, he was trying to force me to move.
On top of that, with the snowfield as the backdrop, it seemed the power of an ice-aligned opponent was being amplified.
Whoosh.
Swinging her Crescent-Moon Weight to fend off the snow trying to cover her, Serin ultimately had no choice but to move her feet.
At the center of the snowfield, where biting snow whipped without pause, her opponent's movements came into view.
'Why is he swinging like that?'
Just as she felt puzzled by how slowly he was swinging his sword—
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!!
Ice crystals surged up and rushed toward her at unbelievable speed in the direction the sword fell.
With a light gesture, ice crystals the size of an adult human body came rushing in dense waves—far too many to block with a skill.
"..."
Immediately after, a brilliant radiance began to shimmer over Serin's body.