Before her head could fly far from her body, Sofia extended her upper cervicals into a spike that stabbed into her neck, and promptly reconnected the bones.
When a follow-up strike came right after from the opposite direction, she was already expecting it and managed to place her shield correctly in the way. The blade dug into the bone but stopped before it could reach the shieldâs mithril core, and the swordsman pulled his blade back before Sofia could riposte in any way, jumping back into the flames.
Fast, but not that strong.
Since it looked like the fire was useless and obscured Sofiaâs vision more than anything, she unsummoned the choir, and started channeling a piercing bolt over her scepter instead. Knowing that she was the lesser swordsman and with lackluster speed, she decisively summoned a mana pearl from her storage and threw it in her mouth before the enemy attacked again. The thinking speed bonus the pearls from [Crystalized] was going to be precious here to be able to even perceive the enemyâs attacks, Sofia thought. With her preparations ready, she jumped to the offensive, switching to the Chaos state of [Dodge - me] for the bonus speed.
Another sweeping horizontal sword strike came for Sofiaâs neck from the right, and this time, she was able to properly react and block with the scale armguard. These moments where she blocked the swordsmanâs strikes were the only times she could clearly see him, and she used that opportunity to strike with the bolt, using it as a longsword.
As she used her blocking arm to attack, the sword was free to go for her head, but she could just heal that up a second time if she had to, yet instead, the sword phased through her arm to block it from the other side preventing the blot from reaching its target and locking the two fighters in a standstill for an instant. With the bolt as her weapon and her ability to reconnect lost limbs in an instant, the power dynamic had switched to the swordsman being the one on the defensive.
Sofia and Rekosi locked eyes. Sofia knew she was stronger and could break out of the standstill but with how fast the zombie was, she thought he was likely to dodge anyway, so she instead sent a sneaky burst of mana toward the swordsman.
Rekosi pulled away before the mana could reach him, jumping to the other side of the room.
Very perceptive for a zombie.
Sofia dashed after him. Sending more packets of[Aberrant sunlight]âs cursed mana around him leaving the Zombie no choice other than blocking her again or getting hit by the curse as he tried to avoid her.
Rekosi stood his ground and blocked with the edge of his blade, his sword clashing against the lightning-coated scepter, creating an explosion of sparks and lightning shooting out toward the many swords sticking out of the roomâs walls. Some of the lightning touched the zombie, leaving burn marks that faded almost as fast as they had appeared on his gray skin.
In a standstill like before, Sofia this time attacked with the edge of her large bone shield, and the swordsman disappeared before it could reach him.
He reappeared behind Sofia, striking down with a vertical cut, but Sofiaâs 360° demon vision meant that she had never lost track of him, and was able to block with her tail before using her scepter to strike the swordsman behind her.
Yet, somehow, as if the zombieâs sword was at two places at once, it blocked the scepter while also being caught on the tail, and Rekosi jumped back another time, taking more distance from Sofia.
Sofia turned around with a jump.
âWhatâs wrong? The longer you keep trying to escape the stronger my spell is going to be,â Sofia taunted the zombie, raising her scepter with the ever-growing bolt pulsating around it, being fed thirty thousand mana every second.
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Seeing Sofia wide open, the Zombie took the bait and attacked, moving in a strange arc before his sword plunged deep directly into the center of Sofiaâs chest, where her mana heart was.
But how could he have known that with her ultimate rank mana heart and [Relocate Core], it was able to avoid attacks by itself? Sofiaâs mana heart had softly moved to the side inside of her, as if gliding along the swordsmanâs blade.
Using this opportunity where the swordsman was committed to a strike, Sofia released the piercing bolt from her scepter from the bottom, aimed at the swordsmanâs waist. Releasing a bolt backwards was not something she had ever used, but she knew it was an option for the piercing ones, as its mana structure was almost symmetrical from the center of her scepter.
The bolt hit, leaving a bleeding hole through the zombie, but the zombie also had a trick up his sleeves, a second sword appearing out of nowhere in his left hand and sweeping off Sofiaâs ankles. He then tried to free his first sword by cutting down through Sofiaâs chest, only to find his sword stuck in place. He could not transition his pierce into a cut because of [Singularity Edict].
Despite her ankles being sliced off Sofia did not fall, holding herself up with her tail pressed against the ground.
With so many things happening at once, the swordsman was deeply committed to his attacks, and took an [Aberrant Sunlight] cursed mana blast straight to the face without being able to do anything about it.
As swordsman Rekosiâs head uncontrollably turned to look at the swinging lanterns hanging from the roof, he did something Sofia did not predict and swiftly cut off his own head as he jumped away from her once more, leaving one sword in her chest.
Thatâs one way to escape the curseâ¦
Both the bolt hole in Rekosiâs waist and his lost head were quickly healing while spraying blood everywhere, and his rotten skin and muscles would be fully grown back in a matter of seconds. Even without a head, he held his guard up in a perfect martial stance, ready to block any incoming attack.
Sofiaâs ankles were reconnected, but the muscles were still sliced off, limiting her movement, so she decided to let him heal as she instead focused on getting as many bone slates out of her bone storage as she could. She stacked them up around her and controlled them to spread them around the arena.
Rekosiâs head fully grew back, and after switching the sword to his main hand, he went on the offensive again. Sofia felt the sword strike incoming from the left, while seeing it coming from the right, faced with this conflicting information, she abruptly flew up, crashing against the blades covering the ceiling but successfully avoiding the attack. More and more bones were unloaded from her storage as she did so, tumbling into the room and getting covered in Rekosiâs shed blood.
From this point on, she no longer used mana, keeping her distance with Rekosi, she let him chase her while she flew around the room in tight maneuvers while she unloaded more and more bones.
The swordsman had no long-distance attacks, it seemed, and could only try to jump and intercept her mid-air with upward strikes. His speed meant that he succeeded at that a few times, but Sofia was entirely fine with losing a few chunks of her body, she could not bleed out anyway.
Rekosi eventually gave a decisive strike and cut off Sofiaâs left wing. That did nothing, as Sofiaâs bloodlight now extended to encompass her wings when they were there. She did not actually need the bones to fly. Eventually, there were piles of bones spread around the entire room, and Sofia stopped flying around. She stored her scepter and landed on the largest pile of bones.
âYouâve lost,â Sofia told the Zombie who prepared to strike again. The swordsman struck, slicing Sofia into two halves from the head down. Victoryâs crown snapped back into a single piece as Sofiaâs body split apart.
Since the swordsman had to come close to strike with his sword, he was in the close range where Sofia had complete and precise control of all the linked bones she touched. Bones slithered up the swordsman's legs while Sofiaâs spine wrapped around his sword, locking him in place. A coffin of bones rapidly formed over him as the entire pile of bone was attracted to him like iron dust to a magnet.
Fully encased in bones, Sofia turned Swordsman Rekosi into rotten meat paste until she found his mana heart, which was quite well-hidden, as it itself contained very little mana.
The bone armor holding Sofiaâs separated halves together, she stood up, puppeteering herself like she had learned to do during the last trial. A hole opened in the swordsmanâs bone tomb for Sofia to plunge her hand through. Her armored fingers closed around the Zombieâs mana heart, and she pulled.
âYou have murdered [Rekosi Lengstone - ERR:NOCLASS Lv. 299]â