ROAR!!!
What the hell? The sound hit like thunder rolling through a cavern.
She spun. The ram-headed brute’s skull was still wedged in the earth like a fencepost, unable to yank free.
Then where did that storm-belly roar come from?
Alicia didn’t get time to think; panic clutched first. The ram-head thrashed like a netted bull—huge hands pounding dirt, legs kicking wild, pain spilling off him like heat haze.
She spotted the cause at once. The long iron pipe on his back glowed like a furnace rod, sinking in like molten metal, trying to fuse with him.
Experience spoke like old wind. That thing was the trigger, the berserker brand. Last time it only traced red veins and he raged like wildfire; now it was full crimson and melding—this smelled like a blind charge that didn’t care about death.
Alicia loathed three kinds of foes. Reckless brutes, because they swing “justice” like random clubs. Deathsworn, because fearless men are a plague. And worst, reckless deathsworn—no need to explain, it’s storm and stone together.
Right now, the ram-head was exactly that third kind, a walking red tide.
Before he fully snapped, she tightened her grip around Ling like guarding a candle in wind, switched to a one-armed hold, and called the Demonblade with her free hand.
She angled the Demonblade, calm like a level lake. The target wasn’t the ram-head, so she didn’t have to pull the edge or play nice.
“Deathline—First Opening!”
Left to right, a true horizontal cut, a line straight as horizon. Simple to say, hard as ice to do. It tests blade craft and heart stillness, a twin trial. A true master can use a twig to split stone; Alicia was that, and today she held a blade sharp as winter.
Whoosh—
The edge met no resistance, like slicing air and cloud. That’s the right feel; if you meet drag, you can’t cut clean. If it’s air, you’re close to the art. But today the problem wasn’t “like” air—it was air.
A hair’s breadth in words, a gulf in meaning. The former hits and harms; the latter is a whiffed strike. Her blade bit nothing. The iron pipe, her mark, had turned to an afterimage and ghosted away.
What in blazes?! Why didn’t I see it?
She’d held back a touch, sure, but not enough to lose the trail. Frustration stung like grit in the eye.
“Rrr…”
A low growl brushed her ear like cold fog. Her body moved before thought; one kick and she slid out, a leaf on fast water. She glanced back. The vanished ram-head stood there, five talons buried where she’d just been.
Yare yare… what a hassle.
She shelved the casual mask, heart settling like stone. A second-stage berserk wasn’t something to shrug off. If she slacked, Ling in her arms could catch a stray blow, and that was the last fate she’d allow.
“Horizontal Slash!”
A zero-slope sword aura shot out, straight as a beam of noon sun. As expected, the ram-head’s eyes flickered red like hot coals, and his bulk blinked from sight. This time… she could track it.
With battle focus tight as a drawn bow, his speed was visible—dangerous, not impossible. He wasn’t at Ling’s godspeed, that untouchable river you can’t follow. In theory, she could solo him without a scratch.
“Total Reflection!”
Mana flared, a shell that repelled the world, wind and fire both. It’s a hard art, a wall against all—steel or spell, everything bounces.
On paper it’s invincible; in flesh it taxes the mind like a fasting winter. Once a day is Alicia’s limit, unchanged even as a Yokai.
He lunged, claws up like sickles, ready to scythe down. They met the Demonblade’s red gleam, and a rippling wave leapt back along his strike, a pond shock turned lethal.
A tearing jolt raced his whole arm, like cloth split by iron. Five deep fissures opened, clear and ugly along his forearm.
Pain didn’t turn him. The smell of his own blood spilled like hot wine and fed his brain with fire—battle-lust, blood-thirst, rage. A thousand hues of fury rose on that scent. The red in his eyes burned brighter, furnace-bright.
ROAR!!!
At point-blank, his long howl blasted her like a dust storm. Spittle flew from the gaping maw; yellowed teeth glinted like old ivory, and the reek hit like a gutter. He was about to unleash his “dirty” attack on Alicia.
