Knight Commander vs. the Heavenly Demon (2)
Crack! Thwack!
That made three.
Three times now, she's turned my blade aside.
The first, he had written off as luck. The second had left him wondering if it could possibly be real. The third left no room for doubt.
Am I going easy on the young lady without even realizing it?
If he was honest with himself, he was using about forty percent of his true skill—light sparring, nothing more, as he crossed swords with Lady Lilith.
Forty percent is hardly nothing.
When he drilled the full knights, Getz held himself to that same forty percent. It was the only way the levels matched. Pour on any more strength, or any more speed, and the knights could no longer follow his sword. He had meant only to take the young lady down a peg and show her, politely, the gulf between them.
Then why?
Why was she stopping him?
Simply blocking would have been astonishing enough. It would have meant that heavy, lumbering body was moving with real agility. But this was far beyond blocking. She was matching him outright. Sword met sword, the next motion followed, and they met again. The one with less strength was supposed to be driven back. She was not driven back at all.
If anything, her staying power is better.
Thwack! Thwack!
Several exchanges passed between them, and with each one Getz's face only hardened.
Now she's meeting my sword before I even commit?
She was reading every line of his attack.
...Does that even make sense?
Perhaps this was a dream. If it wasn't—
She's a genius.
Getz's sword stopped. The darkness left his face, and he looked at Lilith with eyes gone utterly serious.
"I hate to admit it, but... you have talent, my lady."
"A moment ago you dismissed me up, down, and sideways, and now this? What are you playing at?"
"...I have my pride as a knight, but I'm not a closed-minded fool. Honestly, you surprised me. Had you been born a man, you might have become a knight commander, as I did. But you are a woman..."
"Bullshit."
Thud!
The Heavenly Demon's sword punched into Getz's chest.
"Khak—! What are you—suddenly—!"
"Bullshit piled on bullshit. Knight Commander? I'd sooner die than settle for a title that cheap."
The Heavenly Demon's sword came again.
Thwack!
This time the attack did not land. Getz's blade had thrown itself in the way.
"If you insist on slighting me, I'll show you the difference between us."
His muscles bunched and swelled as if in a rage of their own, veins standing out along them. His expression locked down, and his presence changed.
Whoosh!
A stroke stronger and faster than before came crashing toward the Heavenly Demon.
Looks like trash no matter how many times I see it.
Even with that fierce sword bearing down, the Heavenly Demon's face stayed at ease.
I've already seen through your swordsmanship.
As he was now, he lacked the strength to stop that blade head-on. Even if he blocked it, the difference in power would fling his arm back and leave him open. So the answer was simple.
He slipped his body off on a diagonal.
I only have to let it slide past.
"...!"
Getz's pupils blew wide. He had never imagined she would dodge. That bulk, and footwork this sharp—
His body pitched forward along the line of his own swing.
"Unless you abandon that primitive swordsmanship, the day that blade touches me will never come."
Thump.
He hadn't even used the sword. He had only tapped Getz's ankle, light as anything.
Getz went tumbling forward in a crash of limbs.
"Y-you're insane!"
He lay staring blankly up at empty air.
The instant my body tipped, she used my own strength to throw me.
Getz clapped a hand over his eyes and burst into wild laughter.
"Hahaha! Ah, fuck."
He was furious. Furious beyond reason that he had been made a fool of by that pig of a girl.
If I let this stand, I'm the only one who looks ridiculous.
He couldn't kill her. An arm, though—he would break one, so she never dared climb at him again.
"That just now was a mistake... so it doesn't count as my loss."
His eyes had already rolled past reason. Getz would twist whatever he had to if it meant he could keep fighting.
I'll give you one hundred percent.
He seized the sword in both hands as if it were a greatsword. There was no preparatory motion. He moved too fast to read and cut straight down at Lilith from above, exact and brutal.
Fast, this time.
Fast enough that even the Heavenly Demon would grant it. And that was all it was.
Thwack!
The Heavenly Demon raised his sword and stopped Getz's. No—stopped was the wrong word. He had brought his blade to the other and met it. Steel screamed as he angled his sword and let the blow slide off.
Monstrous strength.
He had deflected it with a glancing parry, and still the edge was ground away.
Again...?
Again the attack had failed to land. More precisely, Lady Lilith had shown him the correct answer.
When the opponent is stronger, use that strength...
It was what he always told his knights.
"Fuuuuuuck!"
That was advice for a reasonable gap in power. The difference between a knight commander and a noble young lady who had never so much as held a sword was not a gap any method could close.
"Then why! Why that fucking bitch!"
A blue mana began, little by little, to bloom along Getz's sword. He was no Sword Master. He could not yet wield an Aura Blade. He was a Sword Expert—the realm in which one poured mana into a blade and reinforced it.
Hm. So this is what passes for sword qi in another world.
As sword qi went, it looked thoroughly wretched.
Mana's moving in his feet as well. Haste, then.
The corner of the Heavenly Demon's mouth lifted.
"Forgotten the terms, have you? The moment you used mana, you lost. And I won."
Getz did not look as though he had the slightest intention of hearing him.
"Fuck off! I'm taking at least one of your arms today!"
The same, wherever you went. There was always one of these. Fools who forgot their place and strutted. Stack the corpses of the ones who had preened like that in front of him, and you could raise a mountain.
The precious qi I've only just managed to gather.
A shame. He had no choice but to use it.
The ground shuddered, a deep rolling groan.
"Wh-what is that! An earthquake?"
Getz jerked his head around at the sudden quake.
"Does that look like an earthquake to you?"
"What...?!"
Getz saw it. An energy before his eyes, wearing the shape of a demon. Pitch-dark. Wicked. And it was pouring out of Lilith's body.
A qi only the Heavenly Demon could wield. Dark, wicked, and shaped like a demon—Demonic Qi.
His body shook. It was more frightening than anything he had ever met.
"Wh-what... what is..."
Instinct spoke. Run. Face that monster, and he would certainly die.
Clatter.
Strength left his hand, and the wooden sword he had been gripping fell. His legs kept trying to turn him around.
Dark energy streamed from the Heavenly Demon's body.
Getz's knees gave out.
No. He knelt.
"P-please spare me..."
In Getz's eyes, Lilith was no longer human. She looked like a demon that would smash everything apart and swallow it whole.
A spirit so frail it collapses under a mental attack this trivial.
Unfit to be a knight commander.
"You won't mind if I use the training ground from now on, will you?"
"N-no! Of course not! Do as you please, my lady!"
"If those words are a lie, you die. Understand?"
Kneeling was not enough. He threw himself flat on the ground.
"I-I understand! Please, I beg you, let your anger go!"
The Heavenly Demon turned away without another word and, in the same motion, drew the demonic qi back in. He would have liked nothing better than to kill the man on the spot, but he did not have that luxury. Threats were all he could manage.
He coughed, and blood welled at the corner of his mouth.
Damn it! Did I push too far?
The poison was bad enough on its own, and this was qi he had only just begun to accumulate. He had burned it down to the dregs. Of course the body would rebel.
Footsteps came pounding toward him.
Tch... I don't have the strength left to deal with anyone else.
An apprentice knight skidded to a halt in front of the Heavenly Demon.
"M-my lady! Please, wipe with this!"
He held out a small handkerchief. The apprentice had been watching the whole thing from the start. When the knight commander used mana, he had wanted to rush in and stop him, but terror had locked his legs. And then Lady Lilith had brought the knight commander down.
"My lady! You were magnificent! I—I want to become strong, just like you!"
He was shorter than Lilith, and slight of build. His eyes, though, burned brighter than the knight commander's.
The Heavenly Demon snatched the handkerchief and wiped his mouth.
"Hmph. You, at least, can grow strong. Stronger than that fool over there, foaming at the mouth on the ground."
She shook so hard her teeth nearly chattered, stealing glances and not daring to hold them. Blood spotted the dress she wore, here and there. The woman who had fallen backward was too frightened even to lift her head.
"I-I'm sorry... please... just don't hit me..."
The whip hissed across the floor.
"Kyaa!"
It had not even touched her. She screamed anyway and curled in on herself.
"You."
"Y-yes... p-please, speak, Lady Hoian..."
Lady Hoian came closer, whip in hand, her face gone vicious.
"Why is that daughter of yours still alive, hm? Am I supposed to look at Lilith's face every morning?"
"I-I'm sorry! I'll kill her! No matter what it takes, I swear I'll kill her!"
She pressed her hands together and begged. Tears ran, and she did not even know they were falling. Being struck frightened her. Dying frightened her. What frightened her more was being driven out of Tiribiga. Even if it meant killing her own daughter, Lilith, she had to go on living here.
"I'm rather short on patience, I'm afraid. So it would be best if you removed her quickly."
Lady Hoian's glare snapped onto the head maid, who was already a ruin.
Not even underclothes. A naked body, and so many lashes that wounds covered every inch of it.
"The same goes for you. The two of you together—kill her however you must! Just kill Lilith!"