The fight began with Leniyar suddenly disappearing from Khan’s line of sight. An incredibly dynamic movement, seemingly impossible for a body that should have been utterly exhausted. Khan kept calm and sharpened his senses.
He quickly positioned his sword to protect his vital points.
Thunk─!
A heavy impact struck the flat of his sword, sending a sting of heat through his shoulder. Moments later, Leniyar reappeared in front of him, retrieving her sword.
“Ghost step, that’s what it’s called.”
Ignoring her leisurely explanation of the phenomenon, Khan stomped his foot forward.
Slash…!
The explosive slash, using the strength to wield a greatsword like a twig, left scars on Hoarfrost Gorge’s ground. But Leniyar had already disappeared from sight again, and Khan turned, guided by Combat Foresight, swinging Draupnir upwards.
And there she was, crawling low on the ground, locking eyes with him.
Swish.
From her low stance, Leniyar slashed Khan’s ankle using a reverse grip and nimbly somersaulted away.
“How about that, feeling the heat?”
Showing no expression as she asked, despite having successfully landed two attacks, Khan stomped down hard on his injured foot.
A searing pain shot up his spine from the wounded ankle, but his momentum did not waver.
Boom─!
The distance that once seemed insurmountably vast closed in an instant.
His movements flowed seamlessly from the charge to the attack. Even for a superhuman, reacting to such speed was challenging, and Leniyar’s reactions surpassed expectations.
Her thrust, launched from a stationary position, split into three paths, writhing like a serpent, each targeting his forehead, neck, and heart. A serpentine sword strike that overcame the limitations of a physical blade, Khan countered by bringing his sword down to meet it.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
He nullified all three strikes with a single slash, a testament to his ability to predict each trajectory. But the momentum of his charge was completely halted.
This time, a deep cut appeared on the back of his sword hand. Of course, Leniyar had long since disappeared from that spot.
It was that ghost step technique again. With wounds on his shoulder, ankle, and hand, Khan glanced back with a low, steady gaze.
“What’s the matter? You trusted that odd sword, but it didn’t go as you planned?”
Spinning the worn longsword in her grip, Leniyar’s face held a sadistic smile.
“Idiot. If that kind of equipment could handle a swordsman, they would’ve been devoured by knights or mages long ago.”
“…….”
“A half-baked swordsman might be that easy, but…”
“Your tongue’s grown pretty long. Getting nervous, are we? Blockhead.”
Creack– Leniyar’s smile cracked slightly.
Khan’s words had hit right at the mark. For a swordsman of Leniyar’s caliber, allowing three attacks to land usually meant death or the loss of a limb.
But Khan, despite losing chunks of flesh, hadn’t lost a limb. This wasn’t due to any mercy from Leniyar, but because Khan had minimized the damage himself.
His body had already been through hell for over ten days. To face everything behind that barbarian, he needed to end the fight quickly. He believed it would be possible.
Until a moment ago.
“You bastard─!”
Infuriated by having her impatience laid bare, Leniyar screamed and executed her ghost step. Disappearing from sight, this technique was particularly effective against superhumans with exceptionally sharp senses.
Once again, she closed the distance without resistance.
Slash…
“What-!”
The air-rending sword attack barely missed her by a breath. Had she not stopped in her tracks, that greatsword would have crushed her from crown to heel, sending a chill down her spine.
‘He read my move…?!’
A preemptively executed slash like this was impossible without predicting her path from the start.
Coincidence?
No, it had to be!
Leniyar, eyes filled with malevolent intent, sought to flank Khan with another ghost step.
Whoosh─!
But the waiting sword strike grazed over her head, making it undeniable that it wasn’t a fluke. Although the attack didn’t connect, the shock of having her ghost step predicted was far greater.
But the innate resolve of a swordsman snapped her out of her daze, urging her to focus on the fight.
Ghost step was blocked? So what. Ultimately, the true weapon of a swordsman was always the sword they held. Everything else was secondary.
Leniyar pushed forward with her left foot. The fear of her injured ankle breaking from the earlier fall and the treacherous terrain of Hoarfrost Gorge was nonexistent. All that mattered was defeating the man in front of her.
A silent thrust that seemed to cut through space and air itself struck into Khan’s side. It was a wound so severe that an ordinary person would writhe in agony and soon bleed to death. But the opponent was a warrior of Hoarfrost Gorge.
Without even a wince, Khan threw a punch into the air with an indifferent expression.
‘A mistake? Whatever it is, it’s an opportunity.’
Preparing to widen the distance for a counterattack, Leniyar switched to a reverse grip, intending to slice Khan’s wrist. That’s when it happened.
Thud.
The delayed pressure wave struck Leniyar’s face. The impact felt as if her skull were being split apart, numbing her senses. The world spun, and she could no longer taste the blood in her mouth.
Even in such a state, the sensation of the sword in her hand remained vivid, prompting Leniyar to close her eyes completely.
“Grrr.”
Each breath she took was accompanied by searing pain shooting through her entire body, as the cold that had invaded her lungs spread its torment.
Her ankle throbbed to the point of numbness, and her body, strained for over ten days, felt as though the weight of Hoarfrost Gorge was pressing down with immense force.
From the start.
She had not been in any condition to fight.
She had only been able to continue the battle because of her body, trained to the extreme limits of human capability, and her will, honed to a razor’s edge. Even in that state, she had relentlessly pressured Khan and managed to land a critical hit.
But now, it seemed she had reached her limit. Leniyar’s body wavered as if it would collapse any second. And amid that, Khan’s voice rang unusually clear in her ears.
“Is this it? Blockhead.”
“You. Bast─!”
Imbecile─!
With her vision suddenly clearing in a furious outburst, Leniyar felt her rage momentarily restore her body to a semblance of normalcy. But she paid no mind to such things.
She focused all her remaining energy on the current battle.
Slash!
In a near-instinctive flurry, her blade slashed Khan repeatedly. This wasn’t the improvised swordsmanship she had devised to face Khan; this was the Volatus style, ingrained deeply in her muscle memory, erupting like a reflex.
The sight of dozens of slashes in a single breath created the illusion of a storm of blades.
And.
Even as Khan faced this whirlwind, accelerated by the “Brooch of the Wind Spirit”, he took a step forward.
The Volatus style, a monstrous swordsmanship that the game system had rated as A-rank due to Valken Leichtahp’s refinements of ancient techniques, was now wielded by Leniyar, whose talent even surpassed that of Leichtahp’s. She had taken it beyond S-rank, reaching a level of mastery.
Proving this in the face of death, Leniyar grew stronger. Not a shonen manga protagonist—Khan joked to himself as his gaze deepened.
‘Her killing intent shrouds her entire body.’
Though killing intent wasn’t something one could see, Khan felt as if he truly could. The deadly aura previously condensed into her sword now seemed to envelop Leniyar entirely.
In Khan’s eyes, Leniyar appeared like a mass of red, vaguely human-shaped, overlapping with the image of a woman with red hair.
‘This isn’t some kind of illusion.’
The vivid sense that had made itself known from the moment he faced Leniyar revealed her as a mass of crimson. As her form emitted threads of red, they perfectly aligned with the trajectory of her sword strikes.
‘I can see it.’
He could see where and how the strikes would land, as if Leniyar’s intended attack paths were mapped out clearly before him. This wasn’t future foresight but rather the manifestation of Leniyar’s envisioned swordplay.
‘This is some crazy cheat.’
Reflecting on how his every attack against the Great Warrior and Warrior God Karyan had been thwarted, Khan realized why.
Quietly musing to himself, Khan stepped into the storm of strikes, his sword slicing through what seemed like an impossible web of red threads.
Clang───!
Leniyar’s sword shattered into fragments upon contact with Khan’s light thrust. A swordsman’s weapon, whether a wooden sword, a crude creation from an amateur blacksmith, or a masterpiece from an ancient artisan, becomes an absolute divine sword in their hands.
Swordsmen from the most traditional sects of the Empire, like Sword Mountain (劍山), view their long-used swords as extensions of themselves. Naturally, Leniyar, the disciple of the Sword Master Valken Leichtahp, had been instilled with this belief from a young age, and she believed it to be true.
The destruction of that sword, leaving not even a trace, signified something profound.
“You’ve lost, blockhead.”
‘Ah. To end up dying here…’
She didn’t want to die. With that last thought, Leniyar’s vision went dark.
***
『Act 3, Proof of Valor』 – Cleared!
─Clearing Reward: Insight (A)
─Due to the Ancient Bloodline effect, insight (A) is upgraded. Acquired Karyan’s Eye (S).
『Karyan’s Eye (S) – 01%』
─Granted only to those with the Ancient Bloodline (B).
─The sense that Warrior God Karyan possessed even as a mortal. It was said that in his presence, no being could hide its intentions, and ultimately, he could even pierce through the will of the world itself.