Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 139

“It’s been a while, daughter of the Wolf King.”

Zahar’s voice was harsh as he traced the edge of his shamshir. Perhaps it was the impending duel, but his already deep tone carried a killing edge, spreading like a growl. Even the blade in his hand seemed to tremble in anticipation of the blood it would soon taste.

By contrast, his opponent’s expression was utterly still. Leon instinctively activated Rodrick’s Vision as he looked at her. It was the first time he had ever seen one in person.

A beastkin, he thought.

Her face alone was that of a refined, graceful beauty, but the beast’s ears sprouting above her hair proved she was no human. Her legs, from the knees down, were covered in thick fur like a wolf’s, and through the round cutouts in her trousers a lush tail poked out.

Her feet needed no shoes. With tough hide, black fur, and sharp claws, they looked stronger than metal boots.

“Zahar. Has it been five years since you and I fought?” the beastkin champion asked calmly.

“Four years and eight months, to be precise,” he replied, eyes flashing. “I longed to cross blades with you again, but luck kept us apart until today.”

“I feel the same. That draw we had that day—such an ending was unacceptable.”

“Khuhuhu! Good. I’m getting a feeling that the wait was all worth it.”

Clearly, the two had an unfinished score. Without the need for taunts, their fighting spirits flared on their own.

Zahar’s gaze briefly drifted. By chance, his eyes met Leon’s, watching from the tower.

So that’s the overseer that the Guild sent.

In that brief exchange, they sized each other up. As Leon had measured him, Zahar too discerned the strength that ill-matched Leon’s plain appearance. Aura stirred unconsciously into his shamshir.

Zahar mused, Strong. Even if things go wrong, we shouldn’t break the rules with him present.

With a prearranged gesture, he signaled his men to remain still. With an A-rank adventurer, the Guild’s elite, present, no one dared break the rules. Even if he were to die, Zahar’s men were not to interfere.

Was he frustrated that he couldn’t resort to trickery? Not at all.

“Hah!”

Though his tribe’s plight had pushed him to consider casting aside his pride, against this rival, he wanted nothing more than an honest fight. In a way, the overseer’s presence made that possible.

I owe you thanks, nameless adventurer.

Zahar inclined his head once toward Leon, then moved to the far right of the ring. The beastkin champion walked to the left.

Roughly thirty meters apart. For two expert-level fighters, it was a distance that could be closed in a couple of seconds, at most.

Ready now, the beastkin champion turned to the tower and cried out.

“I am Hati, daughter of Varg, King of the Fenrir Clan, sovereign of the Great Savannah! Before the moon and the Goddess, I swear to fight this duel honorably for the right to the pasturelands!”

And Zahar roared in answer.

“I am Zahar, blade of the Bedouin, third-ranked warrior of Beyrik! Before the sun and the goddess, I swear to fight this duel honorably for the right to the pasturelands!”

With their oaths declared, there was nothing left to say. Now, it was a battle until one fell.

All eyes turned to the overseer atop the tower. Leon didn’t hesitate to raise his hand.

“Begin!”

At his signal, a piercing sound split the air from the center of the arena, leaving a ghastly scar across the floor. The crowd buzzed in confusion, while those with sharper sight gasped in awe at the exchange. Leon, too, was impressed.

They’re fast!

Zahar and Hati had lashed out at the same time, shamshir and claw radiating Aura like blades, their strikes colliding midair and canceling each other out.

For such timing, both had to be equally swift. Each read the other’s slash and met it perfectly.

The duel of speed against speed was predictable yet irresistibly thrilling. After all, racing to prove who was faster had been humanity’s sport since the dawn of time.

“So... so fast! I can’t even see them!”

“They’re swinging too quickly for the eye to follow!”

“That beastkin girl’s amazing! She’s keeping up with her kicks!”

“Is that shockwave? Or Aura?”

Even the ordinary spectators who couldn’t see a single exchange were shouting with excitement, while those who could were straining their eyes until they nearly popped.

This was a duel between two individuals who had mastered their crafts to the tee, the kind seen once in a decade. To miss such a chance to spectate such a spectacle as a fellow warrior would be enough to make one bite off one’s tongue in regret.

Not yet.

Only Leon and a few others noticed.

Neither is using full power. They’re sticking to the basics, gradually raising the speed.

The whirlwind of strikes in the center was still just a probing match. They were testing—how strong their opponent had become after five years. How far their blades, their claws, could reach.

The stalemate, however, didn’t last much longer.

Someone shouted in realization, “They’re... they’re getting closer! Even fighting at that speed?!”

And it was true. Zahar and Hati, with every clash, their feet stepped forward in perfect rhythm, closing the distance by exactly two paces each time. Their blades and claws moved half a beat quicker with each exchange, the storm of strikes growing fiercer.

At last, a strike slipped through, gouging splinters from the fence and filling the air with dust. That signalled the start of the real battle.

Zahar’s blade, finally carrying his full force, carved afterimages, Hati’s kicks warped the air, and the duel crossed the line from sparring into lethal combat. The bloodthirsty storm howled around the arena, making even the crowd swallow hard at the pressure.

Then, with a sharp clang, a stray strike clipped Zahar’s left ear. Another glanced across Hati’s shoulder, leaving a long gash.

Before long, their distance shrank to ten meters. Just one leap away.

Yet neither lunged. They pressed on with dazzling exchanges, waiting for the right moment.

Nine meters. Seven. Five. Finally, with only three meters left, the raging whirlwind abruptly lost its force.

Both warriors froze in place. The crowd buzzed in confusion at the sudden pause, but Zahar paid them no mind as he spoke.

“Was that enough for a warm-up? If you need excuses for your loss, I can humor you a little longer.”

Hati bared her fangs in reply.

“Look who’s talking. This is your last chance to run with your tail tucked, Zahar.”

“The only one with a tail here is you.”

“Hah! Then let’s see whose tail ends up wagging!”

With feral smiles, Zahar and Hati let their killing intent loose. A fight to the death. A single mistake meant annihilation, a dance with death itself.

What they’d shown so far had been nothing more than a taste. Now their movements grew terrifyingly fast. Zahar’s blade burned crimson, while blue lightning crackled around Hati’s body. They had unleashed their elemental Aura.

El-Cid, in awe, murmured, —The man wields Heat, the wolf-girl wields Lightning? Rare attributes... I never thought a beastkin would be born with that one.

Hati lashed out with her right leg, causing a roaring thunder. Since ancient times, lightning had been the symbol of the gods, and for good reason—it was fast. It was strong.

Too fast to comprehend, powerful enough to shatter and burn even a giant tree in a single strike. A thunderbolt falling from the clouds was nothing less than divine might. The deafening thunderclap alone conjured the image of an absolute being looking down on all creation.

Her lethal kick missed and ripped the ground apart instead, sending tremors through the arena. Zahar had knocked her ankle aside with the flat of his blade, diverting the strike away from his head.

The power was enough to chill the blood. Zahar, however, wasn’t falling behind, either. From a dead stop to full speed, his blade lunged like a thunderclap itself, cutting past sound to bury itself in Hati’s neck.

“Hmph!”

Hati snorted, twisting her body half a turn and driving her heel at his hand. A direct hit would have crushed his wrist, but the shamshir pulled back, her kick slicing only air. Advance and retreat—one strike countered by another, offense and defense blurred into a ceaseless chain.

Even among equals, the pace was nearly impossible to follow. Only because both were masters of speed could they keep pace; otherwise, the fight would have been over in seconds.

Hati’s kick tore past Zahar’s head, ripping away his already ragged ear with the shockwave. He pressed forward regardless, blade lashing out. A cut grazed her temple, carving a line across her cheek and shearing off strands of midnight hair.

Normally, defense held the advantage between equals. An attack had to travel outward; a defense needed only to react within one’s range. This duel, however, defied that rule.

The speed of their strikes was too great. Waiting and reacting meant they were already half a beat too late.

A battle of foresight, Leon realized, following the exchanges with Rodrick’s Vision. The essence of speed is to seize the future. If both are equally fast, victory goes to the one who can see further ahead.

El-Cid chimed in, —Not quite equal. The wolf-girl is accelerating every move in sequence. The man, however, only boosts his output in bursts, each swing of his blade. Heat attribute lacks the freedom that Lightning has.

It looks like he’s forcing his thrusts by blasting his Aura backward...

—Exactly. That makes changing direction difficult. If he tries to bend a strike mid-flow, the shamshir will snap from the recoil.

The difference was in freedom of motion. If Zahar had ten possible lines of attack, Hati had at least fifty. She might not capitalize on every option due to habit and efficiency, but in a battle of foresight, the advantage was hers.

“Hup!”

Her kick barely missed again, carving a fresh crater into the ground. Though Zahar had parried cleanly, a graze left his skin swelling red.

The tide was turning. Few could see it, but the scales were definitely tipping. And there was no way Zahar didn’t know it.

“Hrrraaaaah!”

Forcing space with a short cry, his shamshir blazed with sudden explosive speed, tearing the air in a frenzy. Any man caught in it would be shredded to mince. Hati, however, had already leaped back half a step ahead, widening the gap to fifteen meters, creating a temporary lull.

“Kahaha, to think I’m being pushed back.”

Even with only a few glancing kicks, his joints ached and bruises spread beneath his torn clothes. He had grown far stronger in five years—yet she had grown more. At this rate, he couldn’t win. Admitting his disadvantage, Zahar staked everything on his ultimate technique.

“Here I come, daughter of the Wolf King! Taste my secret technique!”

The difference between man and beastkin was vast in both bone strength and muscle performance. All told, their stamina and physical might were two to three times greater. To fight head-on was suicide.

“I’ll put everything into this strike!”

Scarlet Aura consumed Zahar’s body, blazing as though his very life were aflame. Perhaps it was no illusion. Heat was life’s most primal force. By burning even his body heat, he could unleash power far beyond his limits.

His shamshir danced—no longer elegant, but savage and wild. The blade, bared like fangs, whirled into a storm, drawing the desert winds into its maw.

Layer upon layer, he built it. He wove blades of Aura into the desert gale until the storm itself became a wall of slashing force, crushing and shredding all before it.

He called it Khamsin.

“Tear them apart—O storm of the desert!”

With a final slash, the swollen vortex roared forth at Hati. The power was enough to turn a hundred heavy infantrymen to rags.

And in answer, Hati placed her hands on the ground for the first time in this duel, taking a beast’s stance on all fours.

“Then I’ll meet it with the Fenrir clan’s secret technique.”