Bottom line: I need a window to ready a sword art. But with Lorin dogging me, anything with a long windup and big gestures is dead on arrival. In other words, I can only pick techniques that strike like lightning and erupt like thunder.

Not a net, a needle—single-target, not a wide sweep. What sword art fits?

“You slowed down. Distracted?”

As I was thinking, Lorin’s voice cut into my ear; a surge of danger washed me like ice water. Focus—her Heavenly Lance was already at my face; one heartbeat late and I’d be skewered.

No way to dodge; only a hard block. I drew a breath like drawing a bow, gripped the Shattered Light Sword, and slashed forward at full speed.

“Absolute Sword: Seeking the Moon.”

Clang rang out like struck iron; the shock drove me back a few steps, and a numb tingle crawled up my hands, but I scraped by. That was close.

Lorin wasn’t about to let me breathe; the instant I parried, she surged in again. The pressure swelled, heavier than before—she was getting serious. Fine. I couldn’t sit and wait to drown. I flared my Sword Intent and forced every drop into condensing Sword Aura. Thankfully, the Sword Domain still held like a storm wall, and the aura gathered faster than usual. Without it, her tide would’ve swept me under.

So the question circles back to the start—what sword art? I needed the answer fast, and I couldn’t split my mind again like a candle in the wind.

Fast to cast, brutal on impact... among what I knew, the fiercest that fits... A spark lit. Got it.

“Yumigawa Sumeragi, aren’t you a bit full of yourself? Drifting off again and again—do you take me for nothing?”

Displeased by my lapses, Lorin’s strikes turned razor-cold, and my guard grew ragged; several times her blows brushed past like scythes. My remaining strength bled out like sand from a broken hourglass. Keep this up, and I wouldn’t even have the strength to fire the technique. What now?

...

Meanwhile, the sisters’ spellwork reached its final beat. Their beautiful faces had gone a shade pale, beads of sweat slipping like dewdrops; the cost was written in their skin.

Ten heartbeats later, a vast ripple of mana bloomed in the high air, and Lingxiao and Lingsaki opened their eyes as one.

“Mortal Dreamscape!”

As the words fell, a tidal wave of mana burst out, flooding the air. The sky, already warped by eerie light, twisted tighter like wet cloth wrung by giants. The searing sun and the black moon bled together, birthing a shape of uncanny hues. Even the nearby swords were swallowed whole.

Next, that strange object flashed, becoming a stream of dream-colored light, and shot toward Lorin like a rainbow arrow.

As for Lorin, instinct smelled danger, but it was too late to evade; fast as she was, she wasn’t light. She raised an earthen shield like a brown wall to meet it.

...

The stream of light passed through the earthen shield and turned into a halo that caged Lorin. Her face slackened into haze, then twisted in struggle like a swimmer in undertow. It lasted only two breaths—but it was enough.