381 - Phantom Winds of Fate Pt. 4 [Sturmblitz]

No matter how quick the aura-blades were, however, she saw them coming, and saw their faults. They were infinitesimally thin, so thin as to be almost invisible head-on — the efficiency of Leopold’s technique was unparalleled, allowing him to spit out this blender possibly indefinitely. If not indefinitely, then the thing to give out would be his body, not his aura. But Zefaris could still shatter them from the side, or else throw them off-course, so long as her bullet had even the slightest angle. Even a direct beam from her eye was enough. Two each of Sword and Inquisitor Phantoms sprung forth to counter Leopold’s opening salvo. Zefaris met him head-to-head, matching phantoms and dragonsteel against his pure martial prowess. Like tempered glass, his Blackrazors shattered into countless pieces under the furious comets that Pentacle spewed forth, and in the same manner. For each black blade a phantom parried or shot down, one struck true — a single was enough to cut down a Sword Phantom, and the Inquisitor Phantoms lost limbs to them as easily as Zefaris herself would have were she struck. Leopold barely moved from his spot, but the fact he still stood a few seconds into their first clash was proof positive that he was dodging, just using minimal movement to do so. Her bullets clanged off the flat of his sword, each tearing away a chunk of its aura, only for said aura to recover the instant Leopold shifted to the next stance.

With the throw of a single coin, she threw him off-guard. Her bullet ricocheted off its surface and should have struck him clean, but, somehow, it was cut in half, its hemispheres sailing past him. They rejoined and returned to her all the same, but this was another factor to consider. She smiled.

Zefaris had, in some way, expected this fight to be easy, in the disappointing sense. This was a promise of the contrary.

One by one, coin after coin went flying from her grasp in every-which direction, sailing through the air as they waited for her. She shot them, but not in the order she released them, and one, she intentionally allowed to fall after noticing Leopold paying attention to it. In the same manner, she carved kinetic mirror glyphs all throughout the arena, some with the intention to never use them, and made full use of these not just through Pentacle, but also through her phantoms. All throughout, she could be said to be abusing flicker-step — one couldn’t realistically read what she was doing by looking at her, so disjointed her actions appeared. By the time one could see where she was shooting, the bullet had already left the barrel.

It wasn’t long before the flow of the battle shifted, before Leopold began being pushed back.

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There was not a single aspect in which this woman’s strength surpassed Leopold.

His aura was denser, heavier, older, sharper.

With each breath, he drew forth five if not six times as much Pneuma as she did even with the assistance of that mask.

His arms moved faster than hers. His technique had both the roots of the Severing Scripture and several centuries of improvement for its crown, surpassing the vast majority of the Black Horse Sect. Only the elders and strongest disciples of the Root Branch rivaled him. It was, after all, fear and envy that had caused them to send him here.

Then why…

Why was he being pushed back?

His swordlight scattered another gasmasked soldier, only for two others to erupt from the mist. A ray of white cut past his head, and he just barely moved in time to dodge the bullet that followed with it. It bounced towards the ground, and again flew past Leopold and took off a fingernail-sized piece of his ear. He had predicted the trajectory, but the bullet changed direction as it flew.

Two-dozen bullets in the span of a second, half of them steel and half ghostly, and all of them unquestionably lethal.

Leopold felt not as though he were fighting a single other cultivator, or even a puppetmaster — puppetmasters had to directly control their puppets, they were still, after a fashion, extensions of the user. This wasn’t so. Even as he stared face-to-face with that bale-eyed reaperess, the phantoms he had struck down ten times over kept coming at him with ever-increasing ferocity. They threw themselves upon his sword just to slow him down, to give the others a better chance.

This didn’t feel like fighting another cultivator at all. For a moment, he forgot where he was. For a moment, he was back there, on the battlefield, the air choked with gunsmoke and misted gore, artillery thundering in the distance. An Inquisitor met his blade with a flaming sword, its gas masked countenance devoid of any humanity. With a parry, he moved its sword out of the way, and with a thrust from the Key Guard skewered the figure through the head. A turn of his blade blended his enemy into a hundred pieces in a flash of black light. When the ghost of an Ikesian soldier charged him from the side, he snapped out of it — Leopold had fought for Ikesia… even if it had been out of obligation, even if he hadn’t seen more than two battles, and even if he had readily complied with the occupation orders.

It was clear by now that, as much as he would’ve preferred to end this purely through his most basic techniques, they wouldn’t suffice.

First, he had to create an opening, to give himself time to set up. Spinning his blade in hand, he stabbed it into the ground, releasing his grip from it, but retaining a visible line of aura between his hand and its handle. This technique was one among few circumstances in which he willingly employed sword-puppetry — not because he lacked talent for it, but because he had always seen it as a tactic of the weak, just like using guns. With a gesture, his sword rose up and began circling him, leaving afterimages in its wake and cutting gashes into the air itself. Phantoms or bullets, it instantly cast aside any intruders, and in moments, the blade’s weapon-spirit combined with Leopold’s own aura to create a solid wall of swordlight.

No matter what it was, any intruding force would be cut to shreds. This was, after all, the core of Leopold’s understanding — the simple and exquisite idea that, no matter what, sufficient skill could surpass anything.

MONUMENT SIGN

I GIVE YOU THIS ANCIENT INSIGHT

WHICH IS AT ONCE A ROAD AND A WALL

HE WHO IS OF THE RIGHT STATURE

MAY PIERCE A MOUNTAIN WITH A NEEDLE

AND HALT A FLOODING RIVER WITH A LEAF

WALKING WAY OF THE SOVEREIGN SWORD

QUASI-TRUTH ART: GUARD OF THE BLACKWALL

Some young fools found the technique’s inspiration and legacy distasteful, but Leopold knew better. This war and the Sage’s use of it was a speck in the blackwall’s ancient history.