Gazel Dwargo was strong, so strong that it wouldn't be too farfetched to call him a monster. He was far stronger than Erya, the only other swords man that Reinhard had fought.
"Is that all you got? Hero King?"
Unfortunately he wasn't strong enough. For the first time in his life, the king of the dwarves was kneeling down to a servant of evil. Or at least what he thinks is a servant of evil anyway. He slowly rose up from his position down on his knees a lot of people were looking at this with a little worry.
"Sword saints..." Gazel started speaking "It is rumored that due to a curse on the first Saint Reid Astrea all sword saints, no matter how strong, will fall to despair without a master to give them a reason to use this strength, that no matter how strong a sword saint is, they will choose to rather follow a evil monster than use the strength to help others by themselves...I had never believed it till now, and now it all makes so much sense" he said as he glanced back at the Archbishop who was lounging on the chair of the judge ,with the slime on his laps, looking at them with an obviously amused smirk, "Sword saint's lack a will, an ambition of their own and such, they choose to be servants, no matter how weak or evil the master is, they would rather follow than be the ones that lead..." he pointed his sword to Reinhard as the image of a beautiful red haired woman smirking just like Reinhard came to his mind. With a furious look on his face despite the other man looking simply amused and still had a smile on his face, he stated, no, declared "I have always hated sword saints for that" he charged forward clashing swords with Reinhard who simply blocked them continuously.
Gazel was aware of the power gap, he was aware that all sword saints were automatically considered of the Astrea family and were inherently capable of using the Astrea family sword technique. A technique that he could not surpass no matter how hard he tried, he knew that this person was simply playing with him and that was fine with him. No sword saint could ever be killed or defeated in a one on one duel, Making sure that every sword saint died un defeated, and he understood these odds.
Gazel rushed forward with his sword above him, Reinhard continuously dodged them with a sloppy stance with his sword, not seeing the need to get serious yet, but that changed when Gazel finally decided to go all out,
"Haze: Thunder of heaven and earth!!" Reinhard widened his eyes as the man disappeared into thin air, to the outside it would seem like he was Anxious, if just slightly, but that changed when he smirked. He turned to his right as he locked swords with the hero king, causing Gazel to widen his eyes, sparks flew as the two clashed their swords, stopping only when the king disappeared once again. Reinhard smirked once again, as he lazily rose up his sword to meet with the overhead strike. Gazel frowned and increased his power, and then-
*Crack*
Reinhard was forced to retreat, due to the visible crack that had appeared on his sword. Reinhard looked down at it before frowning, "Should've known...this sword can't handle a battle like this"
He looked back at Gazel who disappeared once again. He appeared right in front of him with his sword sheathed and his hand on the hilt. He Glared at Reinhard before shouting, "Haze..." he said as he leaned a bit forward before unsheathing his sword and going straight for Reinhard's head "Heaven's Quake!!" Reinhard rose his sword just in time to save him getting knocked back quite a bit in the process.
*Shatter*
He looked down at his sword before cursing, "Damn it!" he tossed away the shattered sword as he looked at the King once again, "It seems your sword has broken Saint..." Gazel mocked as he got ready for the third "act" of his Swordplay, Reinhard looked at him stubbornly before holding his hands up, perfectly ready to fight a sword on hand fight. Gazel stood amused "Haze: Earthen Thunder" he said as he jumped up before slashing the ground right below him. The earth below started to rumble as dust started to rise up through the air causing a fog of Dust to rise up in the Room, causing all of the occupant's vision to get obstructed, all except Gazel, who began charging his sword with his Magicules.
Reinhard put his hands on his sword as he started to slowly go back, he stopped when he felt himself get back to back with Elsa, "This is bad" The huntress said brandishing her knives in front of her "How is your fight with Barbaros going?" Reinhard asked as he started to take the sword off his hips, sheath included, Elsa casually replied while blocking some desperate attempts made by Barbaros in the cover of the dust cloud "Quite wonderful actually, Thankfully Lord regulus doesn't care about how long we take to kill him so I can play with him some more, how about you?"
"Pretty good, unfortunately the sword broke so I have to use my sheathed sword..." Reinhard said, "While playing with these people will be fun, I doubt Regulus-Sama has that kind of patience how long till you kill him?"
Elsa shrugged as she took her cloak off, seeing no need to hold back as much as she was holding back anymore. "He seems to have trained like crazy, his armor is thick as hell, but its chipping away slowly, I am not really as strong as you in the physical department, so its gonna take time, 20 minutes at the top, less if this damned dust cloud disappears"
"Hmm" Reinhard hummed as he raised his sword in his right hand, he raised it up to his left shoulder before slashing down in a circular manner. All most instantly all the dust had disappeared, Elsa gasped as she looked behind her towards Reinhard 'wasn't the dust Magicules infused? With the Magicules inside them this was like fanning away a boulder!' she thought to her self, he was busy looking at the revealed Gazel who's sword was glowing white, Gazel was looking at him with a shocked expression like everyone else except Regulus who was smirking with his head resting on his hand, "I'll give you 15 minutes before I come in and kill him myself," he said, Elsa smirked as she turned back at her opponent who looked like he was about to shit his pants, "Make it 10 and we have a deal" Reinhard smirked at the response before going to confront his opponent who was eagerly waiting for him, Elsa on the other hand was looking at Barbaros with her predator smile, faster than Barbaros could react she was in front of him aiming directly at his neck, not caring about her style of gutting people alive at the moment.
Barbaros barely had time to instinctively raise his hands in front of him to protect himself. He Glared at Elsa before punching forward with all his strength, which currently in his silver armor was not a lot. Elsa dodged the punch as well as the many others that followed it with the grace of a ballerina. She saw a chance and went to slash his throat, when suddenly her back arched up. She instinctively jumped up and saw that a small explosion occurred exactly where she had initially been at. Her eyes darted away to the direction where the fireball that had cause the explosion came from and then she saw them, four individuals, two were male, one was wearing knight armor and the other was wearing some sort of paladin wear, the others were a blonde elf girl with an assassin outfit and the last one, the one who had been responsible for the fire ball was a old woman wearing traditional mage robes.
She landed down on her feet a few seconds later where she frowned at the would be helpers of the Noble, she looked at them with slight disgust before simply smirking once again, she'd just have more people to slash apart than expected it seems.
She disappeared from there sight, the four looked worried until she reappeared right besides the knight, her right hand risen up, before she brought it down on his head with a bored expression, fully intending to slice his head open but as she brought the blade down, she was surprised to find that instead of the gore she had been expecting were blonde strand of hair floating where the knight had been standing, she looked a bit further away behind her revealing the knight on the floor clutching the wound she had just inflicted, with the blonde crouching in front of her with a trickle of sweat going down her left temple.
"You seem quite good..." Elsa said as she jumped up again due to the incoming fireball thrown at her back. She clicked her tongue, 'spine less hag...' she thought as she dodged a small barrage of punches thrown at her by Barbaros, "can you still fight?" the blonde asked the downed knight, he nodded as he rose up taking his hand off the wound, it was a vertical cut from his left temple, down to his jaw. He unsheathed his sword and got into a stance, Elsa looked at him with boredom before raising her own blades when she realized she had been surrounded, she inwardly smirked, this was exactly what she wanted, "Lord Barbaros. Are you okay?" the old woman asked the noble, who angrily replied, "I am fine!!" he rose up his fists again, filled with confidence now that his enemy had been surrounded, "that's good, we can't have a king candidate lying on the ground now can we?!" the one wearing the knight armor shouted while giving a small but hearty laugh.
Elsa was filled with fury that she didn't know she had, king candidate? So a rapist and a murderer was allowed to be a king? So even if he told everyone about her crimes he wasn't really gonna get punished was he? Maybe he'd be given a small fine sure, but there's no way he would be given a punishment like these people that her master had been saving... "King candidate huh? ~" she mouthed in her normal sing song voice, she looked at Barbaros, her mouth widened in a ear to ear smile, he was so creeped out that it seems he had forgotten he was gonna attack her, she immediately rushed towards him and slashed with his blades, all of them bouncing off of his armor but not without leaving considerable cracks, he was blown back by the power of the attack.
Elsa heard chanting behind her and quickly jumped up to dodge the torrent of flames that were thrown her way by the old woman, "to slow!!" she maneuvered herself just in time for the knife of the blond haired elf to go harmlessly past her, she landed in a crouch, immediately taking off running in the direction of the lord who looked scared yet, he held his ground as the incoming human rocket positioned her blades in an x before crashing right into the now healed armor, causing spiderweb craks to appear where she had just crashed.
By now the other seem to have understood the target, and all started moving in to protect him from any more harm. The knight rushed forward with his long sword attempting to chop her head off only for her to chop the sword into eight pieces in a second, the paladin was next as he attempted shop of her hand only for the thin sword to get blocked by a single blade. As she continued to block and slash at the five without breaking much of a sweat, she caught the attention of a particular slime.
"Hey Regulus?" Rimuru asked "That girl seems pretty amazing as well huh..." regulus looked puzzled before realizing "Ah, you mean Elsa. Yeah I guess she is pretty strong right now, but don't be too impressed. She isn't even going serious right now."
"Eh? Seriously?" Rimuru asked while looking at her even more closely and he could see what regulus meant, she was actually acting quite sloppy. "Yep...hey that reminds me." Regulus said looking down at Rimuru before picking him up looking directly in those slits that he calls eyes, "...will you take care of my heart?"
"...A CONFESSION?!!"
Regulus chuckled at his reaction, he was about to explain when a spike of Magicules drove his attention towards Reinhard and Gazel, tearing his attention away from the sputtering Rimuru. Gazel was holding his own quite well, as opposed to 15 minutes prior when he was getting his ass handed to him. Regulus put Rimuru back on his lap as he once again got enthralled with the two sword masters fight.
Gazel continuously attacked Reinhard with a barrage of slashes and thrusts, each with great amounts of power, however Reinhard simply dodged or parried them with his still sheathed sword, the dwarf kings blade was shining brighter than ever before, he backed away from Reinhard before holding his sword in front of him, "Still refusing to use the sword I see...are you truly that confident in your ability or is it just dumb pride I wonder..." Gazel called out to Reinhard, just as he was about to reply and tell him why he had to keep it sheathed though Gazel spoke again. "Haze: Final act!!" Gazel said as he rose the sword up and over his head before striking down with all his power "Heaven god's laughter" causing a white 'wave' to surge forward followed by a shockwave immense enough to blow away most of the furniture that was present there, Reinhard put his sword in front of him in an attempt to block the shock wave of the attack and then slashed his sword in front of him using Divine protection of wind indication causing a blade of wind to crash with the white energy fang causing the two to lock in with each other before both of them exploded causing air to get blasted everywhere.
The attack was extremely devastating to anyone aside from regulus and his subordinates, but gazel wasn't done yet, "Earth Devils roar" many soldiers evacuated as he swiped his sword in front of him, the earth in front of him rippled like water before forming into a wave. Reinhard widened his eyes, for a split second regulus thought that he wouldn't be able to handle an attack of such proportion. That was till he saw the wide smile that accompanied the wide eyes. It made him eerily familiar with the smile that Elsa made when he said that he would fight with her at full power one day.
"Dear god...I've adopted two battle maniacs..."
Reinhard raised his sword, still sheathed, and in barely a whisper, that Regulus somehow heard he said "Astrea style:-" oh? He has a trump card still? He brought down his sword, and all hell broke loose, The wave of earth was completely parted, in fact, There was a small cave that formed on the wall behind Gazel because of his attack!!! Gazel looked behind him, and then crashed down to the ground on his knees, he was probably wondering how sword play could do this, I am wondering that to buddy...and then, probably in an attempt to make Gazel not feel any worse he spoke mostly to himself with the most satisfied smirk Regulus had ever seen, "Basic slash..."
Regulus: Excuse me what the fuck?!!
Gospel: As absurd as it sounds, that is, in fact, one of the most basic attacks of the Astrea Family.
Regulus: there is an actual Astrea family?
Gospel:*whistles*
Regulus: Speak you bitch!!
On his lap Rimuru was having a very similar reaction, just, very much more amplified.
Rimuru: How the hell is that basic?! That could have removed all traces of Gazel if he had moved a bit to the side!! I am here worried about a poison breath, and he is swinging around attacks like that and calling them basic!!
Great sage: Answer, The Astrea family was originally formed when the creator of the world wondered what would happen if they created humans with no capability to use Magicules and see how they would survive. As a result they created an absolutely overwhelming style of swordplay, this swordplay was later more amplified when the Otherworlder by the name of Oetsu Nimaya, worshipped by the Astrea family as the sword god and by the early Dwarves as the god of the Forge, came to the world and created a sword with the capability to become the imprint of the users soul, however, the sword itself had a mind of its own and only chose those who were worthy in its own eyes, the sword have till now only been used by 11 people with individual Reinhard being the 11th user, these people often had such overwhelming power that none ever died as a result of defeat, at least not in a one on one duel, these individuals, were given the title of sword saints.
Rimuru: OH?! That's a lot of information Great sage! Then...tell me more about sword saints in general.
Great: Yes. A sword saint is someone who is capable of using the full capabilities of the sword crafted by the sword god, most if not all sword saints are direct descendants of the original sword saint, a sword saint is believed to be so powerful that they are never going to fall in defeat if it is a one on one fight, this was rumor turned true when the original sword saint, Reid Astrea, an otherworlder, fought against the demon lord and came out of it with a draw, he was later killed when he was attempting to seal a powerful entity, however, he decided that he didn't want an eternal life and thus died while successfully killing the entity. Reid Astrea was the first sword saint and was adopted by the Astrea family, all his successors are considered reincarnating aspects of his soul, and thus all sword saints are automatically adopted into the Astrea family, this belief was further cemented by the instinctual knowledge of their family sword play into the minds of the young sword saints.
Rimuru: Sugoi Great sage, but, how do you know all of this?
Great sage: Answer, My primary ability is to analyze and give assumptions. All information that I told you were directly fed to my data banks by individual Regulus' skill, Witches Gospel.
Rimuru: !!!
Rimuru looked up at Regulus with wide eyes, 'so he has this sort of skill as well...wonder what the other skills were...' Regulus caught him looking though. He looked confused before smirking, he rose the slime up to his face again before for the first time giving a genuine smile, "I am still waiting for the answer you know?"
Rimuru didn't know he could blush that hard.
All of a sudden regulus stood up and put Rimuru on his shoulders, "Well, I guess I can explain while we go back"
------------------
On the other side of the room while Reinhard and Gazel were still clashing, Elsa found herself in a weird position, She was currently surrounded by the knights again, not a big deal problem was that she was getting slower every second thanks to a spell the old hag had just used on her, still though, she was doing what she could and looks like they still weren't of no match.
"How unfortunate..." she spoke in a condescending manner as she picked up her cloak once again before draping it over her shoulders. All five of them were on their knees, and while they were ready to move back up they doubted they would be able to do so. "I thought you people were worth something...seems I was deeply mistaken" she held up her blade in front of her face. "Now" she said her smile forming into a deep scowl, "How would you like to die?" she flipped the blade once in her hand before pointing it at Barbaros.
Barbaros, simply glared at the vampire before, much to Elsa's annoyance, he rose back up to face her. Elsa glared at him "I didn't take you for a masochist after what you did to my sister but I guess this is fine." She charged at him again, she hit her square in his chest, causing him to slide back considerably, as spider web cracks formed on his armor before immediately healing back, "For your sheer stubbornness you have just a small bit of my respects" but by now, she had enough, She readied herself for a finishing strike, but was stopped by a loud boom.
!!!
All eyes were on the blast but just then, the blonde assassin had an idea, "This is the chance!" she rushed in while Elsa was looking at the blast. The others got what was going on and they all rushed in themselves, The old woman quickly used bindings on Elsa who was shocked by multiple electrical chains. The two knights quickly ran over to her as well, they kept their distance for a second while the electrical chains still worked before immediately running up to her and attempting to tackle her, when it didn't seem to word they instead caught both her arms and held it behind her while she struggled as best she could, which was a lot, the blonde elf once again attempted to tackle her but when her attempts failed she instead opted to knock her weapon out of her hands, before clasping both her legs, "Now's the chance, Barbaros!"
His armor turned blue "you are strong..." he rushed in while running, his left hand behind his back and ready to punch, "but! You underestimated us a lot!!" Elsa stood with a fearful but just as the punch was about to land on her head, she laughed "Idiot~" all their eyes widened she dissolved into black shadows, before appearing behind Barbaros, the blonde elves eyes widened to the size of saucers. "I may have underestimated you, but don't you think I estimated your strength pretty well?" the blade was covered in blood.
In the next instance there were cuts that appeared on Barbaros, the started to slowly bleed before he quite literally fell apart, his body cut to ribbons.
The knights watched in horror, Elsa smiled while looking at them again. She readied her blade, as she was about to rush at them again, a hand on her shoulder stopped her.
"Elsa" Regulus, who had the slime on his shoulders, said "Time to get out"
One of the knights spoke up, and she was visibly impressed that he could still speak after that, "Stop!!" it was the knight with the black armor that had stopped them, "What makes you think the king will allow you to leave after all you've done?!"
Regulus smirked before pointing behind him, Reinhard was walking towards them, while trying to attach his sheathed sword back into the belt, and behind him was a Gazel that was on his knees, with a look of utter defeat on his face.
All four of them went pale, each and every single one of them was looking at Gazel with horrified eyes, Reinhard passed the four 'knights' before bowing to Regulus, Elsa was confused at first before hastily doing the same. Regulus nodded in acknowledgement, before moving to the doors. They could hear the frantic cries of the knight captains calling for back up, he opened the doors, he saw Hatti sleeping on a pile of soldier corpses, the four that had been fighting Elsa saw this as well and that was when they realized it,
The armed nation of Dwargon had lost to three majin and a wolf, in a single swoop, the entire nation of Dwargon had lost a war.