Lynn had slaughtered things like this in the Lands Between more times than he could count.
But this one felt different.
The sense of pressure radiating from it far exceeded any monster he had encountered since arriving here. Its heavy footfalls and its scorching, huffing breath all announced its sheer power.
"An elite mob, huh?" Lynn muttered to himself. He raised his straight sword. "Perfect timing."
Almost simultaneously, at the other end of the passage, a golden silhouette came streaking toward the scene.
Ais Wallenstein skidded to a halt, her golden eyes locking onto the rampaging Minotaur.
This is it. Due to her mistake, this Minotaur had managed to wander alone into the upper floors. For the novices typically found in these levels, such a monster was a harbinger of total destruction.
She had to end it here.
She was just about to draw her sword when her gaze was snagged by a figure emerging from behind a stone pillar.
It's him? The weirdo in the loincloth. No—now he at least had a sword, a buckler, and some proper clothes.
What is he doing? Ais's movements faltered. She watched as Lynn stepped out from behind the pillar and proactively moved to intercept the Minotaur.
Has he lost his mind? A rookie adventurer, challenging a monster of this caliber alone? The Minotaur spotted him too, its bovine eyes instantly flooding with bloodlust. It let out a roar, raised its massive axe, and launched a charge with a speed that defied its gargantuan frame.
The greataxe swung down in a vertical cleave, the sheer air pressure causing the surrounding pebbles to dance and hop.
Ais's heart hammered against her ribs. She moved instinctively to rush in and save him.
But in the next heartbeat, she witnessed a scene she would never forget.
Facing a heavy strike capable of splitting a man in two, Lynn showed zero fear.
Just as the axe blade was about to graze his scalp, he performed an incredibly fluid, effortless forward-right roll.
The heavy axe slammed into the ground right where he had been standing, grazing his back as he moved. With a thunderous boom, a deep crater was gouged into the floor.
Meanwhile, Lynn had used the momentum of the roll to appear at the Minotaur's right flank.
His straight sword swept upward in a slash aimed at the monster's unprotected Achilles tendon.
Clang! The sound of screeching metal filled the air.
The blade collided with the bull's toughened skin, leaving nothing but a faint white scratch.
Can't break its poise or its defense, Lynn thought, his brow furrowing slightly.
The numbers on this thing are a bit high. The Minotaur roared in annoyance. Its massive body pivoted violently, and its other hand formed a fist that swept around with the force of a falling mountain.
Lynn seemed to have anticipated this. Having failed his first strike, he pushed off the ground with his toes, leaping backward and perfectly clearing the arc of the sweep.
Man and beast began a deadly dance in the wide passage.
Standing in the distance, Ais was completely mesmerized.
Lynn's silhouette was like a ghost tethered to the tip of a blade. After that first exchange, he stopped trying to match the Minotaur's strength altogether. In his world, there was only the "Evasion."
A forward roll to dodge a vertical cleave, a side-step to bypass a sweep, a back-step to avoid a stomp.
Every movement was precise to the extreme. Every dodge looked as if it had been measured with a ruler—not a millimeter too far, not a millisecond too late.
He constantly found windows for counterattacks in the gaps between the monster's swings, but none of his strikes could inflict meaningful damage on the Minotaur's thick hide.
Yet, he didn't seem to care.
There was no trace of anxiety on his face. His eyes were terrifyingly calm, as if he were performing a tedious, routine exercise.
Ais's fingers turned white from how hard she was gripping her sword hilt.
Lynn was using his incomprehensible technique to slowly whittle away the Minotaur's patience, baiting it, driving it into a state of mounting rage and frenzy.
What is he looking for? Ais didn't understand, but she was profoundly shaken.
As a Level 5 top-tier adventurer, she would have chosen to use an enchanted magic sword to slay such an enemy with superior strength and speed. But the man before her was using pure skill to dance around absolute power.
The Minotaur went into a total berserker rage.
Its eyes turned blood-red. The steam huffing from its snout turned into a thick white mist. It abandoned all technique, swinging its greataxe in a lethal whirlwind of chaotic strikes, desperately trying to crush the tiny figure flitting around it.
However, no matter how wild or fast its attacks became, they couldn't touch Lynn.
Lynn was like a fallen leaf caught in a gale; he danced with the wind generated by the axe blades, always lingering on the edge of catastrophe yet never being swept away.
This guy's stats are high, but his moves are too straightforward. He doesn't even have "delayed attacks." Dodging this thing is actually easier than fighting a Hollow Swordmaster. Finally, after a heavy downward cleave was dodged, the Minotaur's overextension caused it to fall into a full second of recovery frames.
Immediately after, it let out an ear-shattering roar and swung its greataxe in a wide horizontal sweep, attempting to use its maximum range to finally squash this annoying fly.
Now! Lynn's gaze sharpened instantly.
He took a decisive step forward. He raised the small buckler in his left hand at an incredibly precise angle to meet the whistling greataxe.
To Ais in the distance, this looked like suicide. She was already mid-lunge, ready to use her Level 5 speed to forcibly snatch him from the jaws of death.
DONNNG—! A crisp, almost melodic sound of clashing metal rang out.
Time seemed to freeze.
Ais's pupils constricted.
The greataxe—strong enough to shatter mountains—collided with that fragile little shield and was suddenly deflected as if it had hit an invisible wall. The massive force was completely parried away by a clever application of leverage, sending sparks flying in every direction!
The Minotaur's gargantuan frame shuddered violently from the sudden counter-force. It let out a pained, guttural grunt, and its entire body fell into a brief state of paralysis.
Stagger! "Opportunity," Lynn whispered.
His body had already lowered into a crouch from the momentum of the parry. In the next second, he launched forward like an arrow released from a bow. The cheap straight sword in his hand transformed into a flash of cold light, piercing accurately into the Minotaur's heart, which had been left exposed by the stagger!
Puch! The sound of the blade entering flesh was unmistakable.
"ROOOAR!!!"
Agony forced the Minotaur out of its stun. It screamed madly, slamming a fist down toward Lynn.
But Lynn had already landed his hit. His toes tapped the ground as he performed a light back-jump, once again opening a safe distance.
He glanced at the gushing wound on the Minotaur's chest, then looked at the cheap sword in his hand.
He's got a lot of HP. But this guy seems really weak to parries. The corners of his mouth curled into an almost imperceptible smile—it was the look of a man remembering the first time he ever parried a Crucible Knight to death.
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My : https://[email protected]/AuAuMon
Danmachi: My Primary God is Hidetaka Miyazaki? (25 Chapters, Ongoing)
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