Ardena didn't hesitate. She swung Dainsleif at me with full force, golden mana exploding out of her blade. I crossed my swords and parried the blow, holding my ground. Closing my eyes, I felt my qi flow through my swords, both treasure and spirit, and harmonized their essence with mine.
They weren't just swords. They were now a part of me.
With a yell, I shoved Ardena's Dainsleif back with Azure Dragon and Azure Frost before swinging them in a bisecting blow. Ardena was forced to withdraw, parrying Azure Dragon with Dainsleif while twisting away from Azure Frost. A thin line of blood was scored across her midriff and she stumbled with a curse, even as the blood began freezing over and the ice spread across her torso.
Stomping on the ground and shattering the frost with a burst of mana, she retaliated with a swing, but I blocked her blow with Azure Frost and countered with Azure Dragon. She swiftly retracted Dainsleif and deflected my freezing blade with the blunt end of her hilt before the detonation of colliding energies hurled us apart.
"You really made a breakthrough in the middle of battle," Ardena said, almost in wonder. But she narrowed her eyes. "Don't think it will be enough to defeat me, though. You might have just attained Earth rank, but you're still only at beginner stage and your cultivation hasn't been stabilized yet. I'm already at advanced stage. There's still a huge gulf between us."
She was right. Even though I had broken through to Earth rank, it didn't mean I had closed the gap. However, the distance was a lot closer than when I was back in peak Mystic rank, and I could feel buoyed by my success.
"You're also forgetting something." Long Wang stepped forward, rotating his shoulders and closing his eyes to take a deep breath. His qi flared almost like a supernova, a vast difference from before. I could also sense that he had also attained Earth rank, the seal allowing him to regain part of his heavenly strength now that I had progressed with my cultivation. He smiled. "Ah, how I miss this feeling."
"Two of you becoming beginner Earth rank wouldn't make a difference!" Ardena snarled, only for her eyes to widen as she raised Dainsleif to ward off a slash from Long Wang's claws. She parried the next strike, and then ducked under his kick. But he planted his foot on her bent back and sent her sprawling into the ground. Despite the humiliation, Ardena was still able to lash out with her sword, but he flipped in midair to avoid being eviscerated before landing elegantly a few paces away.
Rising to her feet, Ardena shook her head in disbelief. "Those movements…you're not moving like someone who has just attained Earth rank! Also…how is it that you've also broken through? You weren't…trying to comprehend anything. You were simply fighting me!"
"I wonder," Long Wang replied slyly and cocked his head to the side. He took another deep breath and raised his hands, almost basking in the pure natural mana that emanated from Yggdrasil, which was disturbed by the clash of violent energies resulting from our battle. Even so, he could filter out the spiritual energies from the World Tree and absorb it.
Ardena scowled and charged at him, but I intercepted her, lashing out with Azure Dragon. She parried it and vaulted over my follow up sweep with Azure Frost before plunging Dainsleif downward at the crown of my head. I shifted to the side, deflecting the blade by the narrowest of margins with Azure Dragon, feeling the sparks shower my skin as metal screeched against metal.
My opponent flipped around and kicked me, but I blocked her foot with the guard of Azure Frost before stumbling away. Even with my improved qi and strength after reaching Earth rank, I still found myself outclassed by her superior strength and mana. Skidding backward, I retaliated with Azure Dragon and Azure Frost, but she parried them with Dainsleif before answering with a riposte that I blocked with my crossed swords.
She then kicked under my guard, forcing me to duck under her leg and roll away from a slash. I swept my swords out, almost in an attempt to keep her at bay, and she cartwheeled over them before swinging her sword down to pulverize the ground where I stood. I hopped away, my qi surging out to form a barrier to disintegrate the debris flying at me.
Ardena slammed her feet on the ground and swung Dainsleif to unleash another wave, but I countered it by releasing a freezing tide from both Azure Dragon and Azure Frost that turned the devastating blast into ice before shattering. Even though several tendrils of golden energy broke through the frost to reach my location, the destructive power of it had largely dissipated, the remnants doing little more than blistering my skin from the sheer heat.
"Huff…" I exhaled while trying to endure the pain. This was nothing.
"Your swordsmanship has improved," Ardena remarked. "Your strokes are more refined and precise than before. You are catching up to my moves and matching me blow for blow. Now you can even largely nullify my Dainsleif's burst."
I didn't reply, instead using my clenched right hand to push my glasses up my nose while still gripping Azure Dragon. Perspiration ran down my body despite the cooling qi that turned the surrounding moisture into ice.
"However, you still don't have as much mana as I do." Ardena raised her sword to unleash another destructive blast. She was right. I couldn't replicate the freezing wave from before, at least not for the next few minutes until I recouped my qi.
Fortunately, I didn't have to.
Long Wang burst through the fog, his body transforming and lengthening. Within moments, he had morphed completely into the black dragon that he originally was, much larger than before. He was still nowhere as massive as when I first met him at the Abyssal Tomb or the deep sea trench, but he was definitely a lot larger than when he was at Mystic rank, towering over me at ten meters tall and almost a hundred meters long.
"Ah…I really miss this feeling," he repeated, his gargantuan jaws snapping and his voice coming out in thunder. Ardena narrowed her eyes, but she didn't seem daunted by the appearance of a majestic dragon.
"You are from the dragon race," she whispered. "One of the ultimate species."
"What's with this whole ultimate species thing!?" I yelled. "Can you guys stop that nonsense?!"
"As expected of the world's strongest beast tamer," Ardena continued, completely ignoring me. I rolled my eyes, too exhausted to correct her.
Ardena was ignoring me, in any case, focusing her attention on Long Wang's new, imposing form. Far from being intimidated, she instead steeled her resolve and swung Dainsleif, intent on obliterating him along with me.
Long Wang simply cocked his head from side to side before unleashing a titanic torrent of water from his maw. Ardena's eyes widened when the water swallowed and overwhelmed her Dainsleif's blast, surging forward like an unstoppable wave of steam that almost drowned the forest. Even though most of the water had boiled away by the time it reached her, some of it pooled at her feet, still sending up thick steam into the air.
"Impossible," Ardena insisted, gripping her sword tightly.
"Damn." Long Wang clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Still not there yet, huh? Well, I'm still only at beginner Earth rank, so this was to be expected. I will take what I can get."
"No!" Ardena yelled and hurried forward, her sword flaring brightly once again. However, I emerged from the scalding steam, turning the white wisps into scattered frost as I passed through it, and swung both Azure Dragon and Azure Frost. The elvish Sword Saint spun around to parry my blows, but she had been mentally shaken and her movements were dulled.
Not only that, but she had been fighting Myria, Xiao Huo, Long Wang and me since earlier. As powerful as she was, she didn't have infinite mana or stamina. I could sense that she was running out of energies. The halo that shrouded both her body and her sword was beginning to diminish visibly, no longer as bright as the sun.
Honestly, it wasn't as if I was in a much better condition. But I had the help of my allies, who shared the burden of combat. It didn't matter how strong one was. If one was solitary, alone and by oneself, he or she would find it difficult to defeat a group of closely coordinated teammates.
Even so, Ardena would still overpower me in an individual duel. She was already all but swatting me away, her sword turning into golden blurs that almost took me by surprise with their ferocity. It took me everything I had to keep up with her. The Mind's Eye that I had cultivated through hard work alone, allowing me to hone my instincts to the point where I could intuitively predict my enemy's attacks and block.
Every blow I parried bought me five seconds more of survival. I wasn't her match in swordsmanship, and I was hard-pressed to counterattack, but that didn't mean I was going to succumb. I could still drag this out and distract her…so that one of my allies could find an opening to deliver the decisive blow.
Unlike Ardena, I wasn't alone, after all.
While Ardena was occupied with trying to kill me, she almost didn't see Long Wang's claws crushing down on her. She catapulted away at the last moment, avoiding a grisly fate of being pulped into a bloody mess by the sickle-shaped claws that were almost the size of a house. I whirled away, having sensed Long Wang's intention and staying long enough so that Ardena wouldn't realize it. But her sword intuition was insane.
Ardena landed a few meters away, spiraling about and blasting something from her sword. I vaulted over it and replied with a lance of freezing energies from the tip of Azure Frost. The elvish Sword Saint blocked the blast and shattered the block of ice that encased Dainsleif with a single flex of her mana, but she was unable to block the next technique that I unleashed from Azure Dragon.
Similar to Sigmund Freud's Balmung technique, the qi that surrounded the treasure sword that Gan Jiang and Mo Ye had forged for me coalesced into the shape of a silently roaring dragon that pounced on Ardena and exploded violently, turning the area into a freezing nova of ice.
Despite the form being similar, my Azure Dragon was completely different from Sigmund's Balmung in essence. Sigmund's technique was more of a Dragon Slayer skill, composed of almost purely destructive energies that decimated anything in their path. They had a more potent effect against an enemy with the dragon attribute – Long Wang, in particular, would probably be susceptible to Balmung because he was a dragon. It was an almost elemental force, a living thing that ravenously devoured everything in its path and destroyed them in its gullet.
In contrast, my Azure Dragon worked on the principle of freezing. Bringing everything down to absolute zero and slowing down movements at the atomic level. It leeched away heat and energy from its target before causing it to crumble away.
"Argh!"
Ardena found out too late, her hands and Dainsleif frozen solid. She had to exert even more mana to shatter the ice this time, for the temperatures had plunged to near absolute zero. Even with her Earth ranked constitution, she wasn't going to get out of this unscathed.
Not only that, her back was exposed to Long Wang, whose tail lashed out and pulverized her body against the ground.
That was the decisive blow we needed. As powerful as Ardena was, and as destructive as her Dainsleif was, her defense was still on the low side when compared to other Earth ranked combatants. She had relied on her speed and agility to evade her opponents' attacks, but when she directly received the full brunt of a powerful blow, her diminutive physique crumbled under the tremendous pressure.
"Looks like it's over," Long Wang said as he lifted his tail, revealing the all but flattened Ardena underneath. Miraculously, she was still alive, but she was bleeding all over, and even from just a glance, I could tell that she had several broken bones. Mercifully, she was unconscious, but she would be in for one hell of an excruciating experience the moment she woke up.
"What should we do?" Myria asked, limping forward. When she saw that Long Wang and I had attained Earth rank, she had wisely kept out of the battle along with Xiao Huo, knowing that their intervention would probably be less helpful. Rather, she used the time to pull her qi together to convalesce from her injuries. She cocked her head, staring spitefully at the downed Ardena. "Should we finish her off?"
"No," I replied, pondering for a bit. Now that the violence had died down and everything was calm, I could actually see the curse on Ardena, manifesting in the vision of the Eye of Odin as a pattern of dark runes hovering around her head. "We break her brainwashing and free her from the enslavement of the dark elves."