'So what is this thing?'
After organizing my inventories and looking over their contents another time.
'Hi Ryley, Bye Ryley'
Saying goodbye to the egg that showed no signs of hatching any time soon, I broke out of my cobblestone battlements and walked out of their scott free.
Must say that all the monsters that were supposed to inhabit the place were nowhere to be seen.
Probably due to being attracted to the corpses for something like cherry told me.
'Now that I think about it... Why are they attracted to corpses?'
As that question popped up into my head I shoved it down for something to find out later.
I would eventually have to learn the reason when it comes to it.
Shrugging and throwing the thought away, I focused on the more interesting thing that was presented to me.
A purple monolith with glowing orange marks on it was pulsing slowly in front of me.
Glancing at the monolith with confusion, a tingle that warned me of danger like a red/ blue spandex clothed mans sense appeared on the back of my neck.
Immediately rolling forwards I quickly got into a crouched position with a knee to the ground alongside a hand as my free hand held a blade in preparation of battle.
And almost immediately my gut instinct of bringing up a sword in preparation for battle was proven to be correct.
'Holy!'
Shocked by the speed of my unknown opponent I made sure that the opponents blade was blocked by mine.
Transferring all of the force through the blade, I felt a shock ripple through my organs causing a bit of blood to accumulate in my mouth.
If I hadn't had the good luck of getting a Heart Crystal and taking it earlier I had no doubt that I would have been coughing blood like those Chinese Martial Arts movies.
Nevertheless, I could tell that for some reason my opponent was skilled in the blade I quickly threw ice shards to freeze them.
Quickly backing off with brisk steps and eating jerky to heal my wounds.
I analyzed my opponent.
Standing at an admirable height of probably three meters tall, the living corpse made up of nothing but bone broke out of the ice.
Only announced by the rattle of the chains that were cuffed around their limbs, I quickly pulled my head back and felt the tip of the blade brush against my helmet.
Creating a brief scattering of sparks.
I wouldn't let them nick my armor however without retaliating in turn though, that would be to nice of me.
Manifesting a dagger, I threw it underhandedly.
And reacting with uncanny speed, the giant monster moved out of the way so that the blade could only nick the hem of it's large black cloak.
Distancing myself from the monster once again, I took the chance to completely see the monster in it's entirety.
[Elite Slasher]
'... What horrible luck'
Recalling the unknown powers that the Elites had shown to possess I added a new layer of threat to the mental image of the monster.
"Woah!"
Dodging a red slash that appeared from the edges of the blade I widened my eyes.
'That's the Air slash!'
Feeling incredibly confused I charged to the side with the help of Cthulhu 'Thanks for your corpse my friend'
'Wait... that's not actually air slash'
Looking at the red slash that appeared at the edges of the blade and traveled a small distance before dissipating.
I could tell that the knock off air slash the monster was using could not travel far... but it definitely packs more of a punch seeing as a mark appeared on the invincible stone.
Instantly feeling more conscious and cautious of the blade and it's direction it faced.
I looked at the supposed air slash with a new light.
'So you could do that?'
Staring at the Elite monster with a renewed light in my own eyes a grin unconsciously appeared on my face as I switched from offensive to defensive.
'Before I kill you...'
A long broken metal blade clashed against my red steel rimmed shield with incredible force.
'I should at least learn how to use that'
---
Air slash.
A technique developed by my Ninja's masters ancestors on the Southern coast off the continent of Aria.
Having been modified since generations to come to become more and more efficient, the air slash I was using was the product of their effort.
And you could tell how useful such a technique was.
Imagine a normal fight between warriors.
Between the two warriors of equal strength, one knows the air Slash technique and the other doesn't.
During their fight, the warriors are using their judgement and spatial awareness to make sure that they wouldn't lose.
Now.
Imagine the one who uses the air slash technique telegraphs an obvious move.
The other, using their technique and experience, see that move adjust themselves accordingly to take advantage of the mistake their opponent makes.
Imagine their surprise when the length of the sword they were dodging suddenly extended longer and tasted flesh.
Not fun right?
Well this battle was the perfect representative of this ability.
Due to the sudden extension of the blade that happened sporadically due to their user's own judgement, the two different air slashes collided.
Even though I could force my way through and cut through the enemies bones like a dull knife through cold butter.
I was much more interested on observing the [Elite Slashers] Air Slashes while comparing it to my own air slash.
And so far... it was like I was seeing the world with new eyes.
I knew that the talent I had was definitely absurd due to the nature of the Beheaded that was granted to me as a blessing from Fun.
But it was only now that I was looking at something familiar to my own attacks that I could tell how fraudulent it was.
While learning the air slash at mark speeds under the tutoring of my Ninja Master, I had a hint of understanding on how fraudulent my talent was albeit it was blurry.
But now that I had a benchmark to compare the technique I learnt against a familiar one.
I could... see.
It was a hard sensation to explain.
But the basics of it was that everything seemed to slow down to a snail's pace.
Incredibly slow yet still fast enough to react.
And in that suspended time where everything was delayed, the blade of the Slasher, the Fluttering of the black cloak, the debris and dust kicked up by our battle.
I could see everything the monster was doing.
Having no conventional flesh to cover their bones, and the disappearance of the clothes that was supposed to cover their body.
The skeleton revealed their innerworkings to me.
It was like the puzzle was laid bare to me, every single piece of the puzzle perfectly fitting together to create the entire picture.
However, the most important piece, the one that would tie the entire puzzle together was missing and I couldn't find the last puzzle piece.
So prolonging the fight much longer than it should've, I continued to search for the missing piece of the puzzle.
'What am I missing?'
In the span of a few seconds the blades clashed several times, both swords, broken and blue clanged loudly generating sparks.
'Is it the footwork?'
Changing my stance at the blink of an eye my movements suddenly changed as I could feel myself getting quicker at the cost of power.
But still the mystery piece eluded me like a dream.
'It's not? Than it's something else'
Blood rushed through my body at incredible speeds as my heart pumped wildly within my chest, the adrenaline coursing through my body.
'Technique?'
Mirroring every single move and copying every other move the Slasher outputted, I still felt the mystery piece elude my grasp.
A frown had by now appeared on my face as blood rushed through my brain and tried to understand what the hell I was missing.
'What am I missing!?'
Observing my skeletal opponent composing of nothing but bone I grimaced.
Before everything suddenly fell into place.
'Oh... My god...'
Realizing something I observed my enemy.
In this world of Swords and magic, things still remained in the rules of logic although the rules of logic were slightly different.
People needed muscles to move their bodies, the muscle fibers doing everything to move the body in all sorts of ways by flexing themselves.
However how did that logic apply to a being made up of nothing but bones and propeled by a bastardized form of instinct?
The Answer, Mana
As I came to that conclusion it was as if a completely new world was revealed to me.
Flashes of blue thundered in my mind as it was like a new sense that was taken away from me suddenly opened.
It was like being blind and suddenly being able to see.
Brilliant blue stars marred by orange appeared within the monsters chest like a giant burning core.
Strings of Orange ran across the monster's body like invisible strings as they continuously pulsed and pulled the monster to move it's body.
A blue star appeared from the core of the orange- blue star and traveled down the bones before being transferred to the sword.
A red aura appearing from the tip of the blade and extending from it as the blue star was consumed to make the red aura.
Seeing that happen in front of my eyes, my mind exploded with the possibilities and I blacked out.
---
'The Chosen one Cherry talked about...'
A figure hung around the shadows as they stared at the Man clashing against the elite monster with considerable skill, eyeing them with glowing brown eyes.
'He's skilled I'll give him th-'
The unknown figure couldn't even finish their thoughts before the aura surrounding the man in purple armor suddenly shifted and transformed into something...
Ancient... Primal and... Dangerous
The Unknown figure stared at the man with abject horror and amazement as they suddenly released a power that was unseen since...
The Figure shivered within the darkness as a bright orange flash appeared through the sky and cut through the darkness of the Toxic Sewers lit only by candle light.
Seeing the orange light fill the sewers the figure shivered and recalled the image of a certain man wearing incredibly eye catching purple armor.
'The Golden King'
+++
Tree that finally finished tutoring and has done a fair bit of lore research and is now going to implement it all.