Chaos Heir

Chapter 1407: Trap

On a different side of the battlefield, George was in quite a terrible predicament.

Black blurs flew at George from every direction, often simultaneously, making his arm swing left and right like crazy, giving birth to a cacophony of clinging noises that showed no end in sight.

Things didn’t end there. George had to remain utterly focused on his position and fighting stance, adjusting both at every swing to avoid getting cornered. His superb mastery of the sword was in full display there, but that did little to improve his situation.

George had already proven himself more skilled as a swordsman than his opponent. His sharpness had even surpassed the fuming state the bald alien had achieved after breaking his horn.

Yet, the battle had forced George into a defensive stance he saw no hope of escaping.

In ancient times, a single sword was considered superior to dual-wielding. The former was easier to master, offered more flexibility, and featured no clear disadvantages while retaining all the advantages the latter might provide.

The rules had changed once the mana joined the fray. Suddenly, swordsmen weren’t limited to their physical and mental prowess anymore. They could achieve superhuman states, relying on techniques to compensate, or even nullify, certain disadvantages that accompanied dual-wielding.

Of course, the same applied to a single sword. With no clear disadvantages to compensate for, swordsmen could focus solely on enhancing their already strong points, leaving it as the superior and preferred fighting style.

George was utterly convinced of that point, too. He had researched the topic extensively, even performing tests and achieving partial, if not full, mastery in different styles. If something could be better than wielding a single sword, he would have switched to it.

Nevertheless, evolved warriors abided by rules that went beyond what the mana had brought or what George could study. Also, George’s opponent wasn’t exactly ordinary in that, either.

The alien evolved warrior’s physical strength surpassed George’s, and the hovering black swords around him shared that feature, acting as an extension of his body.

Moreover, the glowing, black smoke flickering over the alien’s figure seemed to enhance his mental capabilities, allowing him to perfectly control all his swords, coordinating them in a battle formation that unleashed a relentless, flawless assault.

With that, any disadvantage the alien might have suffered from by fighting with so many swords was gone. The description of a dual-wielder didn’t fit the predicament anymore. George felt as if he was against multiple opponents, which their body-less state turned into an otherwise impossible battle formation.

George couldn’t win against that. He occasionally cut a black sword, only for the True Chaos to fix it. That numerical advantage also more than compensated for the gap in raw skills, making any attempt to rely on it to defeat the alien impossible.

The only silver lining was that sharp forces accompanied each clinging noise. The silver and black swords released ethereal slashes whenever they clashed, clearing the area of any obstacle before the battle could move there.

Still, that trend didn’t bode well for George. He was stuck in that defensive stance while also constantly retreating. He was even on the clock even more so than his opponent was, forcing him to change his approach.

After another deflection, George’s left arm reached for the silver sword, wielding it with both hands. His battle stance also changed, becoming firmer and less nimble, sacrificing the agility that had kept him alive against that endless barrage.

Of course, that sacrifice had a specific, evident purpose. The ominous dark silver aura that surrounded George intensified. His existence’s sharpness skyrocketed, and each of his moves grew swifter and more precise, albeit while losing a certain flexibility.

Still, the bald alien instantly realized the dangers of that new stance. He kept assaulting George with his endless barrage of black swords, but each one of them split upon clashing with the silver blade.

George had already severed the black swords a few times, but that became the norm now. Each of his swings cut one of the fuming blades in half, consistently severing through that barrage.

The fuming blades didn’t follow metal weapons’ usual rules. Even after cutting them in half, their sharp fabric kept advancing for a while, occasionally reaching George.

Yet, George let those fuming shards land on him, adjusting his stance to narrowly dodge them, uncaring of the shallow cuts that opened on his face, shoulders, arms, sides, and legs.

Needless to say, George wouldn’t survive that trend for long, but he couldn’t see other viable options. The barrage was impossible to overcome with his current strength, so he would cut through it.

The alien had obviously accounted for that possibility, but George surpassed his expectations. George lost himself in that dance of deadly blades, each of his swings becoming swifter and deadlier than the previous.

George wasn’t a mere sword anymore. He didn’t limit himself to being the sharpest weapon on Earth, either. He became a blade with the sole purpose of piercing through that storm of fuming edges, becoming one with its rhythm, attuning with it, flowing to create and tread the narrow path to victory.

As George kept getting faster, the bald alien’s assault began to lose momentum. At first, only one of his black swords remained in its split state before the True Chaos fixed it, but their number gradually increased.

Clinging noises stopped resounding in the area. Each one of George’s slashes cut through the air and fuming metal. Shallow wounds littered his body, tainting his shirt and trousers with patches of blood, but his advance only hastened, eventually leading him before his opponent.

The bald alien looked uncharacteristically surprised, but George was in no state to notice or mind that detail. Eight severed swords hovered around and behind him. The intact ones were too far from him or were wielded by his opponent. It didn’t look like it, but his path was clear.

George performed his swiftest attack yet. His silver blade slashed diagonally, cutting through the two black swords in the alien’s hands, facing no opposition at all.

The slash aimed to split the alien’s head diagonally and take his neck and the right side of his chest with it. The silver edge even touched the evolved warrior’s temple, but a clinging noise resounded at that point.

The impact on the alien’s temple revealed the true nature of his skin. A scaled pattern replaced his smooth face, each of those oval shapes resembling metal shards, almost acting as a mana-enhanced chain mail.

George could still cut through that innate armor, but the latter inevitably delayed his attack. That wasn’t enough to bring the other swords in the barrage upon him, but the alien had something else in store.

To George’s surprise, a black blade had come out of the alien’s torso while he was busy finishing his slash. The same black skin that had stopped his sword was liquid there, allowing the new weapon to cross it so seamlessly that its sharp tip was already upon the center of George’s chest.