"You have ten seconds to rest."
Sonia let out a long sigh as she tried to recall all the details of the battle. Although she believed that she had not lost her memories due to her constant death, she would not have realized it if she had forgotten anything. She could only try her best to avoid such a terrible situation.
She had lost count of the exact number of deaths, not that she had deliberately counted it. There was nothing else in her mind. Her mother, classmates, exams, and ambitions in reality had all been swept to the most remote corner by her. She placed all her attention on the enemy in front of her, known as the Terminus Observer. She racked her brains to analyze every detail of his actions, using her body to remember every brutal devastation he delivered!
She realized that the Terminus Observer did not have any supernatural powers. He did not even have an advantage over her physically.
Compared to her, the Observer was merely an enemy who knew how to use a sword – at most, he was an enemy who knew how to use a sword very well.
Sonia had seen swordmasters who had reached the pinnacle of swordplay. Even when they wielded ordinary swords, they were able to exert a pressure to onlookers like needles at their back. Just holding the hilt was enough to make the weak submit in fear.
Compared to the truly great mountains, the Observer was nothing but an ordinary stepping stone.
Yes, just a stepping stone.
Even though Sonia had died again, she had successfully counterattacked the Observer in her desperate strike just now.
However, it was as if the sword that he had thrown out would return to his hand. The Observer who had just been struck in the chest had already recovered to his original state, as if he had been healed in an instant.
If his recovery needed time, Sonia would have used her deaths in exchange for accumulating his injuries to kill him. Unfortunately, the duel was fair and did not leave any loopholes for her.
'It is a fair duel', Sonia thought sarcastically.
But she also admitted that everything was fair.
All kinds of unreasonable restrictions made her understand that she only had one choice: to use absolute strength to defeat the Terminus Spectator in a duel.
Ten seconds had passed, and time seemed to have become a physical entity that could be touched in this instant. Once time was up, Sonia's body tensed up, and she charged toward the Observer with her sword in hand!
In the first second of the battle, the Observer would maintain his stance before charging forward, drawing his sword and do a roundhouse slash. The further away Sonia was from the Observer, the fiercer the attacks would be. The Observer might even cut off the weapon in her grip!
This move was very similar to the legendary Iaijutsu sword-drawing technique, and the way to deal with this move was also very simple. You must not dodge, you must take the initiative to interrupt his spin!
Clang!
Sonia's arm was about to go numb from the shock, but she still stopped the Observer's spin in the end and successfully dragged him into a battle in close quarters, where it's easiest to fight for their lives!
After dying so many times, Sonia had long stopped caring about sustaining more wounds on her body. As long as she could kill the Observer before she died, it would be her victory!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
After several consecutive clashes, Sonia secretly counted the number of times. When she counted to five, she missed.
The Observer made a bizarre and abrupt dodge in the opposite direction and stepped forward, slashing at Sonia's head!
Without any telegraphing, the move was extremely vicious!
Sonia had once thought that it was some kind of supernatural ability. She only realized with the experience of numerous deaths that it was actually a kind of combat footwork.
However, there was nothing Sonia could do even if she saw through it—she could not tell which direction the Observer would dodge in at all!
Since the Observer usually stepped back suddenly and slashed back immediately after he watched Sonia's attack, Sonia named the move "foresight slash".
Iaijustsu was easy to block, but the foresight slash was hard to defend against.
That was why Sonya did not defend herself. Instead, she used her arm bone to clamp the Observer's blade and pulled it towards her chest, trying to decapitate the Observer with a single strike!
The biggest weakness of the foresight slash was that it did not have enough power in it to cut off her arm!
However, the moment the Observer hit her arm, his legs slid abruptly on the sand and he dodged in another direction. He dodged Sonia's blade by a narrow margin and stepped forward to slice Sonia's neck!
Two continuous foresight slashes!
"You have ten seconds to rest."
Sonia patted her face and gripped the hilt of her sword. "Go on!"
The Observer agreed readily. He entered the stance of holding the sword, started the Iaijustsu sword draw and slashed—
There was no sound of metal colliding with the sword blade. The Observer maintained the posture of a roundhouse slash, but he did not hit anything.
Just as the Observer was about to hit Sonia, her feet suddenly slid on the sand and she dodged in another direction in an extremely bizarre move!
At this moment, the Observer was still caught in the momentum of the roundhouse slash, while Sonia could attack him!
However, Sonia simply sheathed her sword!
"After dying so many times, even if I were a pig, I'd have learned your moves by now!"
As Sonia shouted, she took charged forward with a swinging step, and drew and swung her sword!
Foresight slash · Iaijutsu · draw and slash!
Use Iaijutsu as the follow-up move to foresight slash to compensate for the lower power in foresight slash!
In fact, Sonia had already learned the Iaijutsu sword-draw technique, but she held back the move until she was confident about mastering the foresight slash. Only then did she burst the two moves at once in a certain attempt to slay the Observer at one go!
With the fierce momentum of the swing, Sonia barely felt any resistance. Her blade cut through the Observer's chest like a hot knife cutting through butter!
It wasn't that she didn't want to cut the Observer's neck. It was just that she wasn't tall enough. Every inch she raised her arm into the air was a great burden to her in the roundhouse slash, so she could only settle for cutting the Observer's chest.
Was it really so successful? Sonia found it a bit hard to believe. She quickly adjusted her balance from the aftershock of the roundhouse slash and looked at the Observer warily. "That should count as my defeating you, right?"
"Yes," said the Observer. "Congratulations."
"You successfully defeated me while I had only one sword."
One sword… Just as Sonia was feeling slightly stunned, the Observer toed at the sand and gently flicked up a sword from within the sand.
"The first half is over, and the second half begins." The Observer placed the two swords in a cross shape. "By the way, there's no ten-second breaks next."
...
...
"Sonia, there's an early class today. Aren't you going?"
Sonia sat up with a hand over her head to find that Ingrit was the only other person left in the dorm. Ingrit was fully dressed and about to leave too.
"What time is it now?"
"7.30," Ingrit said. "There's a public course this morning. I remember you usually get up an hour early for skincare and makeup on mornings with public courses… They already left… You don't look well."
"Really?" Sonia touched her neck subconsciously. Then she came back to her senses and shook her head. "Maybe I had a nightmare…"
"Nightmare? You'll forget about it soon," Ingrit said indifferently. "Remember to come to class. Don't be absent, or you'll get points deducted for our dorm."
With that, Ingrit left the room, leaving Sonia alone.
If it were any other morning she had slept in, Sonia would have rushed off the bed to wash up and put on makeup, but today, she was not in the mood to do so. She sat on the bed in a daze.
It was very strange. It was clearly a dream, yet it felt so real. What was even stranger was that she actually didn't show any signs of forgetting. She remembered everything clearly. From her first death to her ninety-ninth death, everything was still vivid in her mind.
Even the pain from every time was still fresh in her mind.
When the Terminus Observer entered dual wielding mode, the intensity of their battle increased several times in an instant—Sonia barely had any time to catch her breath. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw the Observer pounce on her. Her arms were so tired that they were almost numb, and in the end, she almost relied on her body's instincts to withstand the Observer's storm of attacks.
Foresight slash, Iaijutsu, foresight slash followed by Iaijutsu, Iaijutsu followed by foresight slash, triple foresight slash, triple Iaijutsu… Sonia only used these two moves against the Observer, exhausting almost all derivative variations.
By the time she defeated the Observer, she didn't feel anything special. In any case, she just kept doing foresight slash and Iaijutsu, avoiding all of the Observer's attacks, attacking all of the Observer's flaws. Then the Observer fell.
But after defeating the Observer, Sonia did not feel any joy.
Because the Observer had said a single sentence.
"This trial is over, but your life has just begun."
Although she could not see his face or hear his tone, Sonia was absolutely certain that it was not a blessing.
"Terminus Observer…" Sonia chewed on the name, as if she was crushing it with her teeth before swallowing it.
At the same time, in a luxurious suite at the bottom of Shattered Lake Prison in Kaimon City.
Ash sat up with a yawn. For some reason, he felt especially tired from sleeping, as if he had taken a beating.
He opened the hologram and opened "Sorcerer Manual of Aurora". Then, he saw a new notification:
"After the trial, your bond with the Deadly Berserker Sword Maiden has deepened."
Ash scratched his head. "…Arranging a trial can deepen the bond? There's such a good thing?"