Nightfall - Joint Stream (3)
As a rule, a duel between a swordsman and a marksman tends to produce a rather unsightly, tedious spectacle.
Objectively speaking, it could hardly be otherwise. A swordsman's strength lies in closing the gap and fighting at point-blank range, while a marksman thrives on keeping the enemy at arm's length and pinning them down with efficient long-range fire. With specialties so fundamentally opposed, any clash between them inevitably devolves into a chase—one hunting, the other fleeing.
If the swordsman breaches a certain distance, victory. If the marksman never yields that gap, defeat. Such a contest is never flashy, and there is little in it worth watching. To the fighters themselves it may be a breathless struggle; to a third party, it looks like nothing more than a game of tag.
But.
The fight unfolding now between Yujin and Ecclesia was nothing of the sort.
Kaaang—!
From somewhere came the endless ring of metal striking metal. Steel met steel in midair, showering sparks without pause. It was the clearest possible proof that both sides were thrusting their weapons with genuine intent to kill—and at the same time, it was a sound that should never have arisen in a conventional bout between swordsman and marksman.
Chaaeng—!
That was right. The two of them were locked together at ultra-close range, close enough to feel each other's breath.
Ecclesia had thrown the marksman's iron rule—never allow a swordsman inside a certain distance—straight out the window, and was swinging the twin magic pistols in her hands as if they were a pair of short swords. In one light it was a form without a scrap of orthodoxy to its name. And yet the motion flowing from her hands was viciously elegant, and for that very reason it looked infinitely free.
At point-blank range her pistols spat fire at Yujin's vitals while doubling as shields that turned aside the blade he swung. And so, even in a fight that ought to have been unilaterally advantageous to him—melee at zero distance against a marksman—Yujin could not afford a single moment of carelessness.
He knew all too well how much force those rounds carried. Even with the Holy Sword's bodily correction he had barely managed to glance a magic bullet aside; if one of those shots found a vital now, it would mean instant death at minimum. That was why he was pouring everything into carefully receiving Ecclesia's attacks, running Combat Foresight as hard as he had against Ariandel. When every one of the opponent's strikes carried a high chance of a critical hit, he could not afford to lunge in recklessly.
Ecclesia, for her part, lacked the finishing power to punch through Yujin's ironclad defense and bury a round in his skull, so she concentrated on keeping him in check, whirling her pistols as if she were dancing. And so the two of them ground on in what, to each of them, felt like a stagnant stalemate of watching the other's eyes.
To the viewers watching the duel in real time, however, it felt nothing of the kind.
To the audience, this duel was the pure distillation of spectacle. Ecclesia was putting on gun-kata worthy of an action film with her twin magic pistols, and Yujin was answering her with nothing but a half-broken straight sword—both of them beings who had casually stepped past the limits of what a human body could do.
Kaaang—!
"Ngh!"
And at the end of that fierce exchange, the first to give ground by a single step was none other than Ecclesia.
The reason was simple. For reasons of her own she had been firing her magic rounds along thoroughly honest trajectories, and that had let Yujin use Combat Foresight to bat them aside with his blade without much trouble. Being able to turn aside one-hit-kill attacks with ease was the same as seizing openings for a counter almost as fast. That snowball had kept rolling, and Yujin had held the initiative for the entire fight.
I've won.
Watching Ecclesia strain to catch his swing and fall back again, Yujin felt certainty settle in. Barring some unexpected variable, he had this locked.
That was the thought in his head as he began considering how to finish things—
Click—!
Ecclesia suddenly drew a single cartridge from inside her coat and slid it into one of her magic pistols.
The viewers all voiced the same confusion the moment they saw her load a round into a magic pistol. A magic bullet gun was a weapon that fired using the user's own mana as ammunition—which meant it had no need for the single most crippling drawback of firearms: reloading. And now she was voluntarily throwing away the greatest advantage the weapon possessed? Why?
While that question was still forming in every mind, Ecclesia leveled the loaded pistol at Yujin without a flicker of hesitation. Naturally Yujin, who had already read the angle and trajectory with Combat Foresight, brought his sword up a beat early to stop the round—
Weapon-Destroying Round has struck the Straight Sword.
The Straight Sword's durability has reached its limit.
Krrack—!
"…!"
In the next instant, the straight sword in Yujin's hand snapped clean in two. Unable to withstand the force of the round Ecclesia had fired, the blade finally gave way and collapsed.
Don't tell me she's been firing along trajectories I could easily block this whole time just so she could break my sword at the decisive moment?
Yujin clicked his tongue inwardly. He should have sensed something the instant she performed that inexplicable reload.
Chance!
Seeing Yujin's straight sword snap in half, Ecclesia poured every scrap of mana she had been husbanding into a full barrage of magic rounds. Yujin threw everything into evasion, but without the Holy Sword's bodily correction his current physical state simply wasn't enough to dodge every last bullet.
Puhak!
At last the scales tipped.
"Kh—!"
One of Ecclesia's rounds punched clean through Yujin's right thigh. Combat Foresight had read the trajectory—his body just failed to keep up with the prediction in that split second.
And the moment Ecclesia landed a solid hit, the chat exploded.
Nearly every viewer had been expecting Yujin's easy victory; the unexpected turn had them all holding their breath in half-hopeful suspense.
This ends it!
Seeing Yujin stagger for an instant, Ecclesia loaded the round she had been saving for the very last into her pistol. Its name: Marksman of the Magic Bullet. A shot with triple the speed and destructive power of an ordinary magic round—her trump card, prepared specifically for fighting Yujin. Too fast to dodge by sight alone, and one of the strongest single strikes in all of Nightfall; even Ariandel would die on the spot if it landed clean.
Click—!
The very moment Ecclesia leveled the muzzle at Yujin without hesitation, Yujin triggered Combat Foresight again and measured the timing in silence.
He had not given up on this match. A hole through his thigh, weaponless and empty-handed—none of it mattered. He had seized victory before on far more brutal fields, under conditions far harsher than these. So the odds of him winning this duel were nowhere near zero.
Click—!
In the split second before Ecclesia pulled the trigger, Yujin's eyes flashed.
Now!
Demon-Slaying Sword—Lingering Night!
In the next instant, Yujin's body vanished from Ecclesia's field of view.
"Ah…?"
It had happened so suddenly that for a beat she couldn't hide her shock. How could a human body disappear without the slightest premonition or trace—how?
Viewers who had read the situation ahead of her screamed it in chat, but it was already a beat too late. Yujin was already standing at her back, locked onto her.
"…!"
Only then registering his position, Ecclesia whipped the muzzle around behind her. But it was already far too late to fire. Yujin had closed to near-zero distance. Packed this tight against each other, even aiming was nearly impossible, let alone getting a round off. At this range the only way to deal meaningful damage was bare-handed technique—and as if he had been aiming for exactly that from the start, Yujin reached for her with both hands.
Don't you dare look down on me!
She wasn't at a professional level, but Ecclesia had trained in self-defense and several bare-handed martial arts since she was very small. So even if she couldn't overwhelm Yujin head-on, putting distance between them again should have been well within her ability—
"…Huh?"
In the next moment, before she had even fully registered it, she realized her body had been flipped completely upside down.
That's impossible!
For a single instant Yujin's hand had brushed her shoulder—nothing more. And with that alone he had neutralized her in the blink of an eye. It was so absurd she almost couldn't process it. Was this truly something a human being could do?
Kwaaang!
In the fleeting instant she hung in midair, Yujin drove his fist straight into her solar plexus.
"Ahk—!"
Under Nightfall's system, fist attacks didn't deal much damage, so the amount of HP she lost was not large. But it hurt. It hurt terribly. Even someone accustomed to pain from years of martial training found her breath seized completely for a moment by the sheer force of it.
At last she collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air, and Yujin walked toward her—an unhurried pace, as if his victory were already a settled fact.
Heat flooded her head. Even if she had to lose, she was going to land at least one hit on this man—she started to raise a pistol—
"Looking for this, by any chance?"
Click—!
In Yujin's hand, at some point, sat the magic pistol that ought to have been in hers.
"Ha…"
A hollow laugh slipped from Ecclesia's lips at the sight. When had he even taken that from her?
She hadn't let her guard down. She hadn't made a mistake. She could say with certainty that she had used everything she had. And still, she had lost.
It would be a lie to say there was no bitterness in the defeat. But beyond that, a sense of awe wrapped itself around her body. That was right. From the very beginning, he had been a being on an entirely different level from the likes of her—as incomparable as a loach in a ditch and a dragon soaring through the sky.
"…So this is a real genius…"
Once she understood that, Ecclesia could finally accept it.
"I… lose."
Today's duel had been her complete and utter defeat.