"What a nuisance."
In a corner of the battlefield, a man sighed as he watched the fighting unfold.
He pressed down the conical hat on his head and placed a hand on the sword at his waist. Then he suddenly moved, streaking forward like a violent gust of wind.
"Hasagi!"
His blade cleared its scabbard with a metallic ring and a resonant hum. A tremendous surge of wind formed a tornado more than thirty feet tall, roaring toward the blood thralls.
The powerful gale forced several of them backward.
"Wind-Wielding Swordsmanship?"
Akali recognized it at once.
The swordsman in the conical hat had mastered the same Wind-Wielding Swordsmanship as Luke.
His intervention also gave Master Yi a chance to catch his breath. Master Yi exhaled slowly and said, "Thank you for your assistance."
"There's no need to thank me."
The swordsman's voice was calm. Beneath the brim of his hat, a pair of sharp, stern eyes watched the blood thralls.
"If they escape from here, the outside world will never know peace."
He was someone who despised trouble, yet after watching living people transformed into monsters one after another, he could not bring himself to stand aside.
He knew that Xolaani, who was fighting Luke, was the true culprit, but this side of the battlefield clearly needed help more urgently.
"Roar!"
The blood thralls charged forward amid a chorus of savage howls.
Master Yi and the swordsman exchanged no further words. They tightened their grips on their blades and shot forward together as two streaks of motion.
Sword light flashed incessantly through the air. Their figures moved like fleeting auroras, responding to one another as they wove between their enemies. The presence they displayed was no weaker than that of the dozen Darkin blood thralls surrounding them.
At the same time, Luke unleashed a wave of sword energy and temporarily created some distance between himself and Xolaani.
His cool eyes remained fixed on her.
He knew continuing this deadlock was not a wise choice. He needed to find a way through Xolaani's defenses as quickly as possible.
Xolaani only needed to maintain her defense and wait for her injuries to heal.
Luke could not afford to do the same.
At that moment, he suddenly sensed something and felt his heart stir.
The luminous sword everyone had been desperately searching for was embedded in the ground to his left.
Had it come to him on its own?
Luke had no time to think about it. He reached out, grasped the hilt, and pulled it free.
The weapon revealed itself as a long, slender sword covered in flowing light. Its hilt felt cool in his hand, and it was unquestionably an excellent weapon.
It could not compare with Snowglance, but it still stood above most weapons.
"Oh?"
Xolaani looked at Luke holding a sword in each hand, interest flickering in her eyes.
"For a swordsman to wield a blade with his weaker hand is no different from binding himself."
"There's only one way to find out."
Luke felt as though his body and both blades had become a single whole. There was no awkwardness whatsoever.
As he spoke, he surged forward and attacked with both swords.
At the same moment, Xolaani's bone saws flew toward him, dancing wildly through the air at tremendous speed.
Luke used one sword against each weapon and immediately felt the pressure ease.
Gradually, he began to display an overwhelming advantage.
Xolaani sensed something unusual and narrowed her eyes.
Luke's swordsmanship remained perfectly natural regardless of which hand he used.
There was nothing remarkable about wielding two weapons. Many warriors fought that way, and Xolaani herself used a pair of bone saws.
What was remarkable was using two different sword arts at the same time.
Facing Luke's assault personally, Xolaani finally experienced the tremendous pressure this created.
His two swords coordinated with astonishing skill, and the sword art performed by either hand was anything but ordinary. Both had been mastered to an exceptional level.
When the two complemented each other, the result was far greater than merely adding one to the other.
Xolaani felt as though two Lukes were attacking her simultaneously.
The protective circle created by her whirling bone saws was being shattered piece by piece.
And it was happening extremely quickly.
Even after living for so long, she had never witnessed anything like this.
Could a single human truly wield two supreme sword arts so effortlessly at the same time?
Luke attacked with all his strength. His left hand, which he rarely used in battle, moved no differently from his right, and his body had no difficulty coordinating the two.
He simultaneously performed Wind-Wielding Swordsmanship and Peerless Swordsmanship.
Luke had raised both abilities to level nine. His understanding of them had long since reached the point where complexity returned to simplicity, so using them together presented no obstruction.
Instead, they complemented one another and produced an even greater effect.
"You are impressive. It has been a long time since I last experienced this kind of pressure."
Xolaani rapidly retreated and regarded Luke with open admiration.
"I am willing to call you a swordsmanship prodigy. I have met countless people, yet never anyone as unusual as you."
For most people, spending an entire lifetime mastering a single sword art would already be considered complete fulfillment.
Yet this human was still so young and had already perfected two.
Even more terrifyingly, he possessed five formidable forms of Sword Intent.
The last time Xolaani remembered feeling pressure like this was when she faced Aatrox.
That tyrannical, insufferably arrogant bastard who looked down upon everything.
Given enough time to continue growing, this human might truly reach the same heights.
"All the more reason for you to serve me."
Xolaani's lips curved upward in delight. Her eyes became an intense scarlet, while blood-red armor spread across her body, making her resemble a horrifying figure sculpted from blood.
Even the air around her seemed affected. It darkened to a deep crimson and spread outward like mist.
Close combat had never been her specialty.
Hemomancy was.
Overusing hemomancy before her strength had completely recovered was extremely risky, but Xolaani did not care.
All she wanted now was to devour Luke. In the future, perhaps she could turn him into a blade with which to oppose Aatrox.
Luke remained calm and continued charging toward her.
He was certain Xolaani's injuries had not healed. The power she was displaying could not be as overwhelming as it appeared.
Before he could reach her, several blood spikes shot toward him.
Luke swiftly dodged aside.
Thrust!
Thrust!
Thrust!
Thrust!
Blood spikes pursued Luke from every direction without pausing for even an instant. The spikes covering the ground resembled a blooming crimson rose, beautiful yet filled with an aura of despair.
At the same time, Xolaani swung her bone saws toward him.
Luke could still handle the assault with relative ease.
Then he heard a sharp crack and finally realized something was wrong.
He glanced down and discovered that ice had silently formed across the ground.
The blood continuously pouring from Xolaani was rapidly freezing, encasing everything around it in ice and causing the temperature to plummet.
Luke was already standing at the center of the frozen area, and his body was beginning to stiffen.
"You finally noticed."
Xolaani chuckled.
Seeing Luke's feet about to touch the ground, she lightly moved a finger.
Blood spikes erupted from every direction, ready to pierce his body in the next instant.
At the last possible moment, Luke kicked downward.
Just before his feet touched the ground, his right foot stepped against the empty air, launching him more than thirty feet upward.
Xolaani's smile froze.
Confusion and momentary disbelief appeared in her eyes.
Unless she had seen it incorrectly, this human had just used the air itself as solid ground.
Yet another ability beyond her expectations.
Flying was hardly remarkable.
A mortal being able to fly was another matter entirely.
He was becoming more interesting by the moment.
Luke now seemed to be standing in midair, gazing down at Xolaani.
The next second, he dived directly toward her.
He could not truly fly. What he had just used was Multi-Jump, an ability that allowed him to leap repeatedly without needing solid ground beneath him.
Combined with his strong affinity for wind, Wind Underfoot, and Multi-Jump, he could temporarily achieve something resembling flight.
Xolaani immediately retreated and continuously evaded Luke's attacks, yet shallow wounds still appeared across her body.
Although the cuts seemed minor, Xolaani's gaze became increasingly grave.
What concerned her was the snow-white weapon.
Every time it wounded her, it also stripped away a trace of her power.
Even with her mastery of hemomancy, she could not stop it.
Every fragment of power taken from her made Luke stronger.
Strange.
Far too strange.
Why was this human so unusual?
Faced with the seamless assault of his twin swords, Xolaani could only defend with difficulty. Red light flashed through her eyes, and a burst of crimson blood energy erupted from her body.
Luke sensed the danger first and rapidly withdrew.
Xolaani also created distance and stared at him.
His sensitivity to danger was remarkably sharp.
No matter how she attempted to ambush him with hemomancy, he seemed to sense it in advance and evade immediately.
If an enemy like this continued growing, he might eventually become even more troublesome than that arrogant bastard.
No.
He had already grown into such a threat.
Otherwise, he would not be making her feel this way now.
Her strength might not have fully recovered, but she was still far beyond something an ordinary mortal could challenge.
"It seems I have no choice but to use this."
Xolaani's expression became calm.
One blood-red sigil after another appeared across her body, and her aura began growing violently unstable.
Luke had the distinct impression that she was preparing an ultimate attack. Without hesitation, he charged forward and thrust both swords with all his strength.
This time, however, Xolaani blocked the attack with ease.
"This is Lifeblood Conversion. It drains the vital blood within my body and grants me tremendous power for a short time. I rarely use it because there is usually no need."
Xolaani's presence had become horrifying. The stench of blood spread through the area as she spoke calmly.
"In other words, I am now the one with limited time. If I cannot defeat you and find a new vessel very soon, this body will collapse."
"Come, human. Let the final celebration begin."
Lifeblood Conversion could not restore all her power, nor was it her strongest form of hemomancy.
However, it was the most suitable technique she could currently use.
Her body became a blur and vanished.
In the blink of an eye, she appeared beside Luke and swung a bone saw.
Luke immediately raised his sword to block.
From that single impact, he could tell that Xolaani's strength had at least doubled.
In that case…
His danger sense screamed without pause.
Luke instantly used Godspeed Footwork and flashed away like a streak of light.
Countless blood spikes pursued him from behind, effortlessly destroying everything in their path. Even the extraordinary weapons scattered throughout Mistfall were shattered in an instant.
Whenever he ran out of room to evade, Luke used both swords to forcibly carve open a path, advancing as though cutting through a wall of thorns.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Xolaani clenched her fist.
Blood blossoms she had secretly planted across the battlefield suddenly exploded. Terrifying bursts of blood detonated around Luke one after another.
The scattered blood energy then formed new attacks and surged toward him.
Luke's figure continuously darted through the churning crimson waves.
Under Xolaani's assault, the surrounding landscape began to resemble the end of the world.
Crack!
As Luke swung his sword and severed an enormous pillar of blood rushing toward him, the luminous longsword in his left hand released a sound of unbearable strain.
It shattered on the spot, leaving only a broken blade.
The light flowing across it gradually faded until it became nothing more than useless scrap metal.
"Now that you have lost one weapon, how will you defend against my attacks?"
Xolaani stood calmly in the distance, completely confident and refusing to give Luke any opportunity to approach.
As she spoke, she raised a hand.
A magic circle appeared in the air, releasing a dense torrent of blood spikes.
Luke exhaled and discarded the broken sword in his left hand.
He stopped holding back and directly released the demonic power within him.
His aura surged dramatically. As demonic energy churned around him, a darker quality appeared within his presence.
The next second, he unleashed a rapid slash and broke directly through the blood spikes, advancing swiftly toward Xolaani.
Against a cunning Darkin like Xolaani, revealing every trump card at the beginning would have been foolish.
"This is demonic energy. Interesting. So you were still hiding another card."
Xolaani's lips curled upward.
She showed no panic as Luke charged toward her and allowed Snowglance to pierce straight through her body.
This time, however, Luke did not feel the resistance of a genuine hit.
Seeing the unsettling smile on Xolaani's face, he sensed something was wrong.
"You are correct. Your attack worked, but not completely."
Xolaani smiled faintly.
Large quantities of blood poured from the wound in her body, but instead of falling, they wrapped around Snowglance's blade and gradually engulfed it.
"This weapon is certainly sharp, but no matter how sharp a weapon may be, it is useless if it cannot injure anyone, wouldn't you agree?"
The blood was unimaginably cold.
In an instant, it began freezing and rapidly spreading toward Luke's hand. It seemed to carry some kind of curse, filling him with a terrible premonition.
Luke immediately released the sword and retreated, unwilling to touch the blood-colored ice.
The next second, Xolaani's entire body dissolved into a pool of blood, enveloping Snowglance and freezing it inside.
Another pool of blood appeared nearby.
From it emerged Xolaani's true body.
"Now that you have lost your final weapon, how will you face me?"
She looked at Luke and spoke casually.
Luke retreated farther and stared at her.
"I'm curious. When did you create that double?"
"It was already a double from the beginning. Although calling it a double is not entirely accurate. That body was also me, merely not my primary body."
Xolaani had no objection to answering his question and smiled faintly.
"It was another version of me divided from my true body. It possessed my power as well, but killing it did not mean killing me."
"In my judgment, sacrificing a portion of my strength to seal away your weapon was the correct decision."
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