For the next half hour, it felt like my luck had run dry, like a cracked well in drought—or maybe this was Nareinya’s true strength.

I looked like an adventurer just out of a brutal storm—clothes ripped like wind-torn banners, cuts and scrapes striped across me like claw marks.

Thank heaven I’d just formed my Sword Intent; without it, it wouldn’t have been just skin-deep wounds, but bones splintered like brittle branches.

Ever since I angered Nareinya, her arrows came like lightning—speed and power multiplied severalfold. Even the angles were uncanny: fangs erupting from the soil, ghosts whispering in from behind, meteors falling straight from the sky.

If not for the surge from Sword Intent, I’d have been crushed under that avalanche and left in ruins.

She’s terrifying when she gets mad, like a storm goddess waking.

That sour, electric ache crawled over my skin, and my reactions dipped, my speed sagged like wings soaked in rain.

My sword arm was worst of all. I couldn’t match her arrows, and more than once I bent like a reed in flood, dodging by trading flesh for breath.

Her voice drifted from afar like chimes laced with poison. “Oh my, Yumigawa Sumeragi, why so ragged? You’re shaming the Mizumi Clan.”

…

I shut her out and listened to the wind and soil, trying to feel where she hid, like roots searching in loam.

Mm—no good, like groping through fog.

I sensed nothing; the mist swallowed all traces. She must have veiled her presence with some art.

“Cat got your tongue? How dull.”

With me silent, her interest fell away like a breeze dying.

“Then hurry up and beg! Death Pierce!”

An arrow howled in from the front like a thunderbolt, Sacred Realm-tier curse magic riding its spine.

Bad! That strike screamed Holy Peak—ordinary sword arts would snap like twigs in a gale.

Dread spiked like a drumbeat in my chest; after a single heartbeat, I unleashed a sword art.

“Spiral Wind!”

A whirling Sword Aura, a tornado of steel, surged to meet the arrow.

Boom!

They slammed together and erupted, fireflowers blooming as the blast swallowed both and canceled the clash.

“That got blocked? A Sword Wielder really is the strongest class,” Nareinya purred, voice like silk over steel.

“But next, I’ll show you what true power feels like. Heh-heh-heh…”

Gulp.

I swallowed hard and tightened my grip on the Shattered Light Sword, nerves drawn like bowstrings.

“Then take this. Divine Bow, Parus—Fifth Arrow: Aurora!”

Unlike the earlier shots, this one erupted brighter than the sun, flooding the world in white-gold. The glare burned like noon in desert; I didn’t dare open my eyes.

Then an arrow wrapped in blinding brilliance tore toward me, faster than light, like a comet splitting the sky.

What! That arrow’s monstrous, like a dragon made of dawn! Bad… All in! Sword Qi Dance!

Dread bit down again like a wolf. I didn’t hesitate. I used Sword Intent to gather and drive Sword Aura, and I swung the Shattered Light Sword past my limits, carving out dozens of gleaming arcs like a storm of blades.

Impossible… like a nightmare in daylight.

My slashes held it for only a single heartbeat. The arrow drilled through and shattered them, waves shredded by a spear.

Wrapped in crisis and near exhaustion, I couldn’t move in time. I could only watch that arrow of light rush in, like dawn spearing the last of night.

What… is this?

At the instant it would pierce my chest, that ineffable insight bloomed again, like a lotus opening in still water.

Time went still; the world held its breath, and I slipped into the insight like sinking into quiet snow.

A long moment stretched thin as silk.

So Sword Intent does this too… I really was clueless, like a blind man touching a tiger.

Yes—through that insight, I finally learned the true role of Sword Intent.

It’s complex and simple at once. In short, Sword Intent can take form, condensing into a Sword Domain—the Sword Wielder’s realm, a field like a temple raised from will.

Like mages in their arcane domains, you surge in power and grasp deeper laws, currents running like rivers beneath the skin of the world.

The Sword Domain does the same. Born of Sword Intent, it sharpens everything inside it—power, reflex, perception—while swordcraft and Sword Aura refine like steel in a forge.

Then… let’s try.

I let out a slow breath like mist leaving the mouth, snapped my eyes open, and tossed the Shattered Light Sword up like a signal flare.

“Sword Domain, form!”

Hummm!!!

The Shattered Light Sword rang clear as a bell, then hung point-down in the air, pouring out a golden radiance heavy with sovereign awe, like a sun-lance.

Then the world itself shifted. Stray lights tore like paper and bled away, and the dense forest vanished like morning fog.

All that remained were swords born of Sword Aura. Underground, around me, and in the sky, countless blades of every kind crowded the realm like stars in an orange dusk.

The blue sky had become twilight without a sound, an amber vault steeped in desolation, like autumn fields after harvest.

As for that arrow—

“Dustless Severance: Heavenrend!”

Tens of thousands of floating blades joined into one colossal sword, a mountain of edge, and with a single cleave it erased the light-arrow racing for me.

Whew—close one, like stepping off a cliff and finding a bridge. This Sword Domain is terrifyingly strong.

With the danger gone, I let out a breath and wiped the sweat beading my brow like morning dew.

The Shattered Light Sword drifted back into my hand like a homing swallow.

“Dammit?! Why is your luck so good? Every time you’re about to die, something ridiculous happens!” Nareinya’s eyes flashed like knives.

Seeing me slip the noose again, Nareinya came unglued. Her gaze wanted to devour me like a starving wolf.

“Who knows? Now take this—Myriad Swords Unleashed!”

Unlike that bout with Yuyi Mengliu, this time it was truly “myriad,” a sea without shore.

Countless swords rushed at Nareinya from every vector—north, south, east, west, sky and earth—sealing all paths like a cage of storming steel.

“Argh! I can’t take this! How does this brat get stronger every time!” Her voice cracked like ice.

Nareinya’s beauty blanched like frost. She shot me a murderous glare and drew the string of the Divine Bow, Parus.

“Meteor Shower!”

She loosed one arrow into the sky, and it split—one to two, two to four, four to eight—until, in moments, it became a hundred thousand, a swarm of stars.

They blocked the storm of blades, silver rain beating steel back. No—one or two swords slipped through and nicked her, leaving shallow cuts like cat-scratches.

“Hmph! Looks like I’ll have to draw the Seventh Arrow today. Didn’t expect a minor to push me this far.” Her words were cold as winter ice, a breath that frosted stone.

She healed herself with magic, pale glow running like water over skin, then looked at me, voice still winter-cold.

…