“Call you Teacher? I didn’t even call those old men and women at school ‘Teacher’ before. I thought you brought someone impressive to train me… but isn’t she just an ordinary girl? She doesn’t even look older than me.”
Lian saw a boy standing beside her. He rested a wooden training sword crookedly on his shoulder and swaggered up to the stern-faced girl, sizing her up from head to toe.
“I’m talking to you, Diana… aren’t you looking down on me a bit too much? I already told you I’m just an ordinary person… but you don’t have to send a girl like this to teach me, right? She looks even more ordinary than I am. Just look at those skinny arms.”
The boy grabbed the arm with which the girl was holding her sword and fiddled with it as he spoke toward Lian’s direction.
For a moment, Lian thought this idiot was talking to her… but she quickly realized he was not.
“Leon, what are you doing? If you act like that, my sister will get angry!”
It was a voice Lian could never forget. A pale blue-haired girl brushed past her—it was Vera’s younger sister, Diana. Lian watched her phantom hurry forward anxiously, trying to stop the boy.
“…Insolence!”
In the end, she was too late. The arm the boy had just been handling suddenly seized his collar.
The sword-wielding girl, flushed with anger, flung him away with a single hand.
“Ow… that hurts! That really hurts!”
“Sister, you were too rough!” He fell flat on his back, clutching his head and crying out in pain.
Diana shot a reproachful glance at the girl she called Sister, then ran to the boy’s side.
“Leon, are you okay? Where did you get hurt?”
“Ugh… I think I hit my head. I feel dizzy.”
“Can you stand up?”
“I might need you to help me up, Diana…”
The boy who had just been wailing in pain rolled his eyes slyly, then shamelessly reached out a hand toward Diana—
“Stay away from my sister!”
“Wah?!”
The boy barely managed to pull his hand back, narrowly dodging the wooden sword the girl hurled at him.
When he saw the wooden sword hit the ground with a sharp crack and split cleanly into two pieces, fine beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead.
“W-What are you doing?! Are you trying to kill someone?”
“So this frivolous guy is the Hero… what a disappointment.”
The girl picked up the sword he had dropped when she threw him and tossed it back in front of him.
“Pick it up. I don’t even need a weapon to deal with trash like you.”
“Y-You’d better not regret this!”
The boy’s face flushed red. He snatched up the wooden sword and charged recklessly at the unarmed girl.
Watching him get tripped effortlessly and sent sprawling with a single kick, Lian could not help but laugh.
The moment Lian let out that laugh, a blue blade of frost cut through the air toward her face.
The entire world seemed to slow before its edge… because that thrust was even swifter than snowflakes racing through a howling blizzard.
But Lian caught it. She parried the thrust, guiding its trajectory aside.
As if she had expected that response, Vera withdrew her sword in an instant and swung down with both hands in a full-force cleave.
Lian blocked again, crossing her blade to meet it.
The tremendous force crushed the ground in layers, ice shattered like a spider’s web, and shards mixed with snow were swept into the air by violent winds.
Speed and power fused perfectly together, refined without a trace of impurity—so formidable that the Holy Nation deemed it a divine “Miracle.”
This was the Sword Saint’s technique. In just that lightning-fast exchange, Lian understood that Vera’s strength had advanced even further than before.
She felt the surging Magic Power within the blade, fiercer than the raging snowstorm before them.
Before Lian could fully disperse the force, Vera followed up with vertical and horizontal slashes in rapid succession.
Forced back, Lian retreated to evade, and at the same time saw a thin layer of frost coat the Demon Sword’s edge.
“Chillblade”—a technique that reinforced the wielder’s weapon with extreme cold formed from Magic Power.
If that ultra-low-temperature blade so much as grazed something, any substance would become like the thinning ice on a lake in early spring, shattering at the slightest touch.
With every clash or parry, weapons and armor would rapidly deteriorate under its influence… even if they were constructs formed purely of Magic Power.
Lian heard the Holy Sword of Blazing Flames in her hand let out a strained cry.
She glanced down and saw a blue fissure spreading from the point where it had collided with the Demon Sword, like cracks across frozen water.
This did not surprise her. After all, it was not the true Saint Sword.
Against the full assault of a genuine Relic like the Demon Sword, the fact that it had not shattered instantly was already remarkable.
But she still needed a weapon. To prevent the damage caused by Chillblade from spreading further, Lian released her Magic Power and ignited blazing flames along her blade.
“Ha…”
The missed pursuit did not seem to agitate Vera. She stopped where she stood, gripping her sword with both hands as she gathered power.
The frost radiating from it grew ever stronger. Her heavy breathing was even more distinct than the roaring wind beside their ears.
The cold spread outward. The temperature had fallen low enough to freeze a person’s blood solid in an instant.
Lian filled her body with warm Magic Power to prevent that from happening, then swung her sword in arcs centered on herself, sending out waves of flame to block the encroaching frost.
The moment Vera finished gathering strength, she brought down the crystal-clear Demon Sword, saturated with frost.
A surging slash, like a tidal wave that rolled up icy swells through the air, tore forward. Wherever it passed, the land shattered into fragmented ice and burst apart.
That strike could have easily split Cyrus’s towering castle cleanly in two. So Lian held her sword horizontally before her.
The Magic Power erupting from her formed rising flames in the air, which combined with the fiery waves to create a barrier in front of her.
The torrents of ice and flame collided. Vast surges of Magic Power annihilated one another, and exploding white mist, mixed with shards of ice and snow, swallowed them both in an instant.
Their figures crossed within the fog and snow; each flash of steel carved away portions of the mist.
Only when the fog was completely cut through did the continuous ringing of clashing blades echo out in a chain.
Lian’s Magic Power raised the surrounding temperature. The ice and snow on Vera’s sword melted.
Water dripped steadily from the blade, seeping into the earth.
Her clothes dampened by scattered droplets, Lian looked at Vera’s face and sword, breathing deeply as she reset her stance.
“You…”
Lian suddenly heard her voice. This was no illusion.
Was it the mist blurring her sight, or the falling droplets splashing against her face?
Yet Lian clearly saw the crystal drops sliding from the corner of Vera’s Demon Eyes.
They were proof that the expression as disciplined and still as ice—like strict military order—had completely shattered.
Even in the three years they had been inseparable, Lian had never seen her make such a face, never seen her like this—
Crying.
“Why… did you only come back now?”
With a brittle sound like a soft sigh, the Saint Sword in Lian’s hand snapped in two.