The red and blue arcs of the slashes looked like two crescent moons biting into each other, erupting with a blinding flash at the epicenter of their collision.
Terrifying frost and scorching flames violently expanded outward simultaneously.
Every swing of 'Eula's' sword looked like an elegant ice waltz. The sweeping, wide-open strikes of her Favonius Bladework felt effortless in her hands, her heavy, powerful slashes carrying an agility that was nearly impossible to track.
Wherever her blade passed, the air, the ground, and even the light itself were instantly frozen into pristine ice crystals.
Aiden's flames, however, were unparalleled in their tyranny. The high temperatures of his [Everlasting Flames] melted and evaporated all the advancing frost in their path.
The two diametrically opposed forces annihilated and contested against each other, kicking up massive, dense clouds of white steam that rapidly blanketed the battlefield, making it difficult for Robin and the others in the distance to discern the specific details of the fight.
Streams of freezing air rose from the ground, attempting to encase Aiden's legs, but they were utterly useless against his S-rank [Abnormal Resistance]. The freezing temperatures, capable of making steel brittle, couldn't cause even the slightest stiffness in his movements.
After dozens of exchanges of pure swordsmanship, Aiden immediately recognized the gap in their stats.
Even though Aiden's Strength and Dexterity were frighteningly high, in these pure, head-on clashes, the terrifying kinetic force transmitted through the Fire Spirit Sword upon every parry left the webbing between his thumb and forefinger numb.
Although Eula was just an empty shell born from a Ley Line Blossom, lacking the peak power of the true Spindrift Knight, the basic stats she displayed right now absolutely sat in the realm of Level 5. She was crushing Aiden across the board.
But a battle isn't just about who has more raw physical strength.
A sharp glint flashed in Aiden's eyes. Taking advantage of the recoil to leap back, he aimed a half-curled left hand at the relentlessly pursuing blue figure.
"Gospel!"
The invisible sonic cannon struck in an instant, slamming brutally into Eula's chest.
For the first time, Eula's elegant dance faltered.
Though her resilient body prevented her from taking critical damage, that momentary delay was fatal enough.
Aiden seized the opening. Driven by his mana, the [Everlasting Flames] surged wildly. His longsword executed an impossible shift in trajectory in the blink of an eye. A tricky slash bypassed her guard, biting viciously into Eula's shoulder.
Sizzle—
Flames and frost clashed, emitting an ear-piercing hiss.
Eula's knight uniform was torn open, leaving a charred, black wound on her pale skin.
A trail of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto the ice and freezing instantly.
However, it was as if she couldn't feel any pain whatsoever. Her movements showed absolutely no hesitation or stiffness after taking the hit. Instead, triggered by her combat instincts, her onslaught grew even more ferocious.
That massive ice-blue sword whipped up a blizzard cold enough to freeze the soul, violently sweeping toward Aiden.
"I'm not done yet!"
Aiden took a deep breath, pushing his greatest advantage—his multifaceted offensive methods—to their absolute limit.
He wrapped both the power of his sonic vibrations and the fire of his flames around his blade simultaneously, forging a technique entirely his own: the [Pseudo Lumina Slash].
A flying slash, mixing golden sonic rings and crimson hellfire, detached from the blade. Surpassing the speed of sound, it tore across the frozen earth, leaving a bottomless trench of molten lava in its wake, and slashed head-on into the massive mountain of ice Eula had conjured with her swing.
BOOM—!!!
The ice mountain shattered on impact, sending countless massive chunks of ice flying in all directions.
After obliterating the ice mountain, the [Pseudo Lumina Slash] lost none of its power, slamming heavily into Eula, who had crossed her greatsword to block.
For the first time, the terrifying impact completely shattered the graceful "Spindrift Knight's" stance.
Her seemingly delicate body was sent flying backward like a kite with a snapped string. She crashed heavily into the crystal wall dozens of meters away before falling into the churning underground river below with a loud splash.
However, the battle was far from over.
The very second Eula hit the water, the entire river—dozens of meters wide—began to freeze over from her point of impact, spreading upstream and downstream at a visible rate.
In a mere three seconds, the ceaselessly rushing underground river was transformed into a crystal-clear corridor of ice.
Crash—
The ice shattered. Wreathed in a freezing aura even more terrifying than before, "Eula" stepped onto the broken ice. Like a goddess of vengeance returning from hell, she charged at Aiden once more.
The battle had completely reached a white-hot climax.
This was a pure, unadulterated contest of endurance.
The entire vast cavern had become their battlefield.
Aiden's flames turned half the cavern into a molten purgatory, while 'Eula's' frost transformed the other half into a permafrost glacier.
The sonic vibrations constantly shattered the newly formed ice, while the heavy, powerful sword strikes repeatedly cleaved the ground beneath Aiden's feet into pieces.
This deathmatch, transcending the boundaries of level, raged on for several grueling hours.
Both of them were long since covered in wounds.
Aiden's cloak of flames had grown dim. Blood flowed freely from several deep cuts that exposed bone. Meanwhile, "Eula's" gorgeous knight uniform was in tatters, her body littered with sword gashes and burn marks. Yet, her hollow eyes remained entirely unchanged, functioning like a tireless, pain-immune killing machine.
The battle raged on.
The domains of ice and fire engaged in a continuous tug-of-war within the massive cavern, every collision causing the subterranean space to violently tremble.
The thick white steam had long since grown as dense as a sea of clouds, obscuring one's vision entirely and completely swallowing the two brawling figures. Only the flickering red and ice-blue lights, along with the deafening crash of metal, stood as proof of the deathmatch's brutality.
However, amidst this life-or-death struggle, Aiden gradually noticed something was wrong.
A duel between swordsmen was never purely a contest of strength and speed.
Every clash of swords was a wordless dialogue, an exchange of souls and wills.
Through the vibrations transmitted down the blade, a top-tier swordsman could clearly "read" what kind of person their opponent was.
But in his duel with "Eula," the only thing Aiden could "read" was an utterly bone-chilling emptiness.
Her swordsmanship was, without a doubt, flawless.
Every move, every stance, seemed tempered by a thousand trials—as precise as a textbook, as resplendent as a work of art.
The Favonius Bladework, renowned in another world, was perfectly replicated in her hands without a single blemish.
But... it was only a replication.
No matter how elegant her sword dance was, no matter how lethal her slashes were, they were always missing something fundamentally core.
It was a flame known as the "soul."
Her sword held no anger, no joy, no sorrow, and certainly no resolve to protect.
It was merely a perfectly executed program, a precisely wielded tool.
After all, the entity standing before him right now was, at its core, a soulless doll.
The moment this thought flashed through his mind, another figure involuntarily surfaced in Aiden's memories.
It was Alise.
He clearly remembered the feeling of fighting the resurrected "Crimson Flower of Justice" back in the Large Tree Labyrinth.
That felt entirely different.
Alise's sword was equally sharp, equally lethal, but it contained an intense emotion that felt as though it was about to burst forth.
It was a complex will woven with confusion, sorrow, and things he couldn't quite comprehend.
Her sword had "life"; it knew how to "cry."
Previously, Aiden hadn't been able to accurately describe that feeling.
But now, after fighting this empty husk of Eula for hours, he finally understood.
It was the soul.
To put it in more abstract terms, it was the culmination of a swordsman's lifelong convictions—their "Sword Intent."
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