Chapter 79: The Downfall of The Reinhardt Family Household: Part One

A blade the shape of a snake’s fang shimmers an emerald hue along it’s edge as it slices through the wind. It moves at a speed of hundreds of thousands of kilometres per hour, sliding vertically upwards in an attempt to slash its target swiftly and without mercy.

~Swoosh!~

The target dodges. Swaying his upper body sideways to his left at a speed much faster than the dagger’s, seemingly with ease. The resulting wave of wind from the evaded attack gushes through the air, creating a traversing explosion of snow in its way. The target doubles back by attacking his foe, otherwise me, with his own dagger, glimming a black light that dissipates as quickly as it emerges. His short blade, the shape of a snake’s fangs in its own right as well, moves through the air at an alarming speed of over a million kilometres per hour, descending diagonally towards my right in order to slash through my chest.

I parry the dagger with my own, waving my hands outwards, splitting the chain joining the Fangs into two dangling from each with a click. Left Fang spins along my palm afterwards and instantly meets with Taipan’s right dagger, stopping it in its track. The sound resulting from the clash pierces and echoes through the area, proved delayed indefinitely by our blades having already separated.

We clash again. And again. And again. Slashes being launched from and to both sides, sparks emerging with each contact as our weapons meet.

I slash then he dodges. He slashes then I parry. I dodge and slash back. Then he parries and slashes back. Only mere seconds have passed, but we’ve already exchanged an nearly uncountable number of blows. Each attack creates a shockwave and gush of wind so intense that the snow keeps exploding all around us.

I launch consecutive slashes, switching my Left Fang with Right Fang with each swing. My opponent parries them all accordingly, launching his own barrage of attacks in the process. I flip back multiple times to create distance.

“Craft is activated, Weapon Fanatic is activated, Bladework is activated. That along with Treasure Hunt, Soul-Piercing Eyes, Item Space and even Cultivator. Seven A-Rank Skills and above. All running at maximum capacity and I still can’t get to this guy. What a pain. This might be by far the most intense fight I’ve ever been. And that’s saying something, considering I recently almost got killed by a fucking mutt.”

“Master. Maybe you should-”

“I won’t use Sunset Slash.” I shut Dawn down, having already guessed what her suggestion would be.

“But Master!-”

“I’ve noticed something about Sunset Slash.” I interrupt to continue. “Its incredible power is somewhat of a double-edged sword for me. It allows me to defeat most if not all my opponents. But in turn, I become a little too reliant on it, and thus can’t grow. I need to find a way to be able to have multiple “Sunset Slashes” that I can count on if ever a time comes when it

doesn’t work.” I finalize. Dawn simply stays silent. She knows I’m right, as anxious as she may be about the current situation.

Having made some considerable distance, I activate my newly attained Skill, Soul Freeze.

It’s a Skill that allows me to coat anything I want with a Spiritual energy of pure cold. Any wound I inflict on someone with whatever I’ve coated with this energy will transfer from their Physical Body to their Spiritual Body on the same place the wound has been inflicted. As a result, because it’s not necessarily the Physical Body but the Spiritual Body that’s being affected, even the smallest wounds can hurt like hell.

I coat the daggers with the cold Spiritual Mana of Soul Freeze. The blades start to emit a chilling aura, pearly white in color.

Satisfied with the results, I dash back at my opponent, activating Astral Unification, Fury of Dantian and Resilient Regeneration in the process. My muscles tense, eyes glimmer and bones burn up, even as my body starts emiting a cold aura all over.

I move at a speed I never even considered I’d be capable of moving at. My opponent, Taipan doesn’t let up, though. He dashes back at me as I dash at him. Then we clash once more.

~Ting!!!~

~Boom!!!~

A shockwave resulting in the process, the weight of which creates a large crater of a single kilometre radius below us, swaying all the snow away in an instant. Our blades keep dancing as we ignore it, lost to the thrill of the battle, silencing out everything else.

I take a step back, creating a little distance between us, urging him to try and take advantage by dashing fast at me to close that distance and catch me off guard, only for me to jump and side flip over him, launching slashes from above all the while. Though a tad taken aback, he succeeds in parrying the attacks. Only, those aren’t my only attacks. After landing back down behind him, I move at an impossible speed to deliver a horizontal slash across his back. It lands, but the slash doesn’t cut deep, only cutting through his clothes and grazing his skin a little. A result of him quickly arching his back in an attempt to avoid it.

Unfortunately for him, a graze is all I need. After arching his back, he rolls his body forward and slides against the snow-deprived ground to turn and look back at me. Letting out a small grunt as he glares at me. He tries to get up, but his body seemingly gives out almost immediately.

“Urk…” He grunts again. “A Spiritual Attack?” He observes with an in irritated expression. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you have an A-Rank Skill. I’m willing to bet you might even have an S-Rank.” He adds.

“I only just got it recently. It’s called Soul Freeze. There’s also a little bit of poison in it, courtesy of these troublemakers over here.” I readily explain, raising my daggers up a bit.

“Since I’m planning on killing him. I don’t care much about revealing my Skills.”

“I see… The cut on my back is shallow. Way too shallow. But the pain is immense nonetheless. It really is a Spiritual Attack. Something only high level A-Ranks and above should be able to do.” He says.

“No Rank below A-Rank is able to launch Spiritual attacks?-”

“-On that note…” He continues, snapping me back from my train of thought. “I think I get it now. That woman that disappeared. Is that it? Is she a Spirit? So you have a Soul Bond with a Spirit and you’re not even a Spirit Master, or Tamer, or even a Mage? You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“He knows about Soul Bond?”

“I think it would be pretty embarrassing if he didn’t, considering he’s a high level A-Rank Warrior.” Dawn chimes in.

“Hm, good point.”

“Now that I remember correctly, you said something about her being a weapon before. That must be it. The weapons of the Blacksmith Class, they can turn into Spirits, can’t they?” He asks rhetorically.

“They’re actually called Avatars. Not Spirits.” I answer him casually. “Happens when a weapon grows so strong that it develops an ego, apparently. Then that ego develops into a whole sentient being.” I further explain.

“’’Avatar.’’” He echoes. “I’ve never heard of such a thing…” He adds.

“He’s heard of Soul Bonds but not Avatars? Does that mean that I’m the only one with a weapon with an Avatar.” I wonder.

“Or maybe people with Avatars don’t go around telling everyone about it.” Suggests Dawn. “I’m inclined to believe the former too, though. Your world’s Warriors rely too much on today’s advanced technology when it comes to creating weapons, Master. That has the potential to negatively affect the development of a weapon’s ego. A weapon created strictly through machinery, and strictly for the purpose of being powerful, has no emotion behind it, and is thus no different from an empty shell of minerals. Traditionally created weapons embody the maker’s feelings and hardwork, which are essential for the development of an ego. It doesn’t matter if a weapon is powerful enough to split stars, if there wasn’t any emotion behind its creation, chances are, it won’t have an ego.” She finishes.

“Really? So it’s a high possibility that I might be the only one with an Avatar… Interesting.”

“Well… whether you’ve heard of it or not really doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, number one. Since you’re going to die here.” I declare as I point Right Fang towards him.

My opponent in response, begins getting up, the pain he should be feeling seemingly easily ignored as an orange glow envelopes his body.

“The aura of an A-Rank.” I affirm, a tad in awe of the purity of his Mana alone.

Then the unexpected happens.

“What the?”

The Mana enveloping his body acts as if leaving said-body, forming into a silhouette right next to him. Same size, same shape, only entirely made of orange colored Mana. The orange quickly takes on a darker tone, transitioning into a shadowy figured. Then, all that blackness surrounding said-figure, acts as if pealing itself off the figure, dissipating from small ashy bits as if merging with the air. What emerges from the dispersion of this darkness. Another Taipan. An identical duplicate.

“Uh-oh, I sense some serious copyright infringement coming on, right now.”

“This is a very special Spell of mine.” Says Taipan. “It’s called Shadow Clone-”

“I knew it.” I exclaim. “No hand signs?” I joke. But Taipan remains unfazed, and simply dashes towards me, his newly created clone following close behind, both of them wielding daggers.

“This is going to be trouble.”

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