532 – Movements of the Sword God

Howgrey is charging towards me.
My instincts tell me that I shouldn’t be regarding him as a threat.
However, because of that, I’m unable to comprehend that he fought Volk, that he has such an impressive title, and that he’s charging at me directly all by himself.

Howgrey is… someone I definitely cannot allow to close in.
Thinking about it conventionally, with this much of a difference in speed, it should be impossible for any of his attacks to reach me, and impossible for him to keep avoiding my attacks… However, I’ll take the cautious option here, and carefully dispose of him.

I swing my foreleg to ward off Beelzebub.
He’s acting aggressively, yet he’s an important part of Lilixira’s fighting force.
The fact that she hasn’t let him dispel [Humanisation Technique] makes that obvious.
If I send the occasional perfunctory attack to him, she surely won’t take the risk of sending him all-in against me.

As I guessed, Beelzebub avoids it with room to spare.
In this gap, I’ll switch my aim to Howgrey… To be absolutely certain, I’ll take care of him at this distance.

I release a [Dimension Claw].
This skill is different from [Wind Slash], in that it distorts space and ignores distance to deal a direct slash.
Its accuracy falls with distance as expected, but even so, Howgrey should not be able to avoid it.

My claw attack passes through space to viciously tear through the ground.
It does not hit Howgrey.
I don’t believe my eyes.

My speed is over five times his.
I can’t believe that he’s able to avoid my attack.
No, Howgrey hasn’t made any strange movements yet.
I might have just missed my target.

Taking aim at Howgrey, I fling a second and third [Dimension Claw].
Both attacks fail to even graze him.
He leaps a rift in the ground with [High Jump], and soars towards me in a straight line.

Naturally, I can’t consider it a coincidence any longer.
Besides, I’ve noticed something.
Just a moment before I release a [Dimension Claw], he shifts to a position where he won’t be hit.
With monstrously natural and indifferent movements, he makes such superhuman feats come alive.

Yet… Precisely because I’ve always borne stats in mind in all my battles up till now, I understand the recklessness of attempting such a battle with this much of a difference in stats.
Up to now, I haven’t seen anyone pull off this sort of thing.
Or rather, it’s impossible no matter how I look at it.
Even as I see it happen right in front of my eyes, I can’t quite understand why [Dimension Claw] is failing to even graze Howgrey at all.

This is too strange.
I’m finally able to understand why I don’t sense any danger from Howgrey.
In terms of status and skills and even at his core, Howgrey is a completely different kind of opponent, unlike anything I’ve fought before.

The bonus effect of his weapon is… Odd.

【[Shortsword of Empty Dreams]: Value B】
【[Attack: +19]】
【A shortsword that a certain noble had an alchemist make, in order to defeat a giant dragon.】
【…It’s true that it can cause injury through even the toughest of scales, but with such a tiny sword, thousands of slashes would be needed to take down a giant dragon.】

【It’s able to inflict minimal damage even on opponents with a huge difference in stats.】

…I understand that his weapon can inflict damage even on enemies of higher rank.
However, how exactly he intends to challenge me using that effect, is completely beyond my understanding.
I don’t believe he’s able to close the distance, and even in a close-range fight, there shouldn’t be any reason for me to fall behind.
That’s what I think.
After all, with Howgrey’s stats, there’s no way he can match me in hand-to-hand combat while also continuously attacking me.

No, he’s capable of doing that.
At least, Howgrey himself thinks so, and Lilixira brought him here with the expectations of him carrying it out.
He’s seriously planning on challenging me head-on and cutting me with that sword.

Even if someone were to have stats around Lilixira’s, they wouldn’t dare approach me without a plan.
The fact that Howgrey seemingly easily capable of doing that makes him by far the strongest human in the world that I know.
Lilixira’s trump card wasn’t Beelzebub or Aruane at all.

“G-GuOOOOOOOOOOh!”

I raise my voice in a roar, and hold my foreleg up high.
If I keep attacking, surely an opportunity will be exposed sooner or later.
I need to strike in that opening for certain.
An unavoidable checkmate will definitely come for him.

I focus on Howgrey and drive successive [Dimension Claws] at him.
The ground around him splits open.
But, he continues to avoid them while moving in an almost straight line.
The more I watch him, the more incomprehensible his movements seem.

I don’t understand how he’s able to keep avoiding my attacks.
I can only imagine that it’s a coincidence, or that he’s relying on intuition to predict me.
Could it be that he’s actually capable of seeing the future?

However, the critical moment is here.
I pour mana into [Dimension Claw] to expand its area-of-effect, and release a claw attack in a horizontal line.
It skims across along the ground, carving a wide trench.
This will force him to jump upwards.

Without pausing, I swing my body to the other side, and send out a claw attack above Howgrey’s head.
Countless trees are bisected in a flash.

And finally, I shoot a final flash down the middle of that.
It’s a high-speed triple attack of [Dimension Claw] expanded to its broadest width.
Contrary to Howgrey’s intention to cross swords with me via ability alone, it’s an unavoidable super wide range attack perfectly leveraging the disparity in stats, skills, and scale.

I ended up using more mana than expected, but Howgrey is an opponent I must put this much into fighting.
That’s because I can only consider myself fortunate that I’m able to take him down at this range.

After I swing through with my arm, I look for Howgrey but don’t see him.
He might have been blown away by the force.
Though it feels like the experience acquisition notification is awfully slow.

“You sure act like you have a lot of leeway don’t you, Irushia-chan! Chew on one more of this! [Darkness Rain]!”

Another magic circle has deployed behind Beezelbub, who has flown overhead.
Purple rays of light lash down towards me.

I raise my wings up to block.
A sharp heat runs along their surface.
I can ignore physical attacks from Beelzebub’s human form, but I still need to pay attention to the damage from his magic attacks.

As I thought, the experience notification is way too late.
I look between my wings and see Howgrey.

He’s running towards me from my blind spot.
Finally, he’s managed to close the distance.
To make matters worse, he looks completely unharmed.

That’s impossible no matter how you look at it.
From how he was positioned, he should have undoubtedly been hit by a [Dimension Claw] and been blown away.
For him to be completely uninjured is absolutely impossible.
Am I dreaming or something…?

Even though I forced him into a corner so that he would be directly hit for certain, it still didn’t do any damage to him.
What must I do against such an opponent…? No… if he had a skill that was able to completely nullify an attack’s damage, he wouldn’t have been evading attacks from the beginning.
Most likely, the damage nullification is accompanied by risk in some shape or form.

Besides, it doesn’t seem that he endured the damage through sheer ability alone.
Similar to how the slime bastard showed the apparent ability to recover MP endlessly at no cost by using multiple skills in tandem, there’s surely some sort of trick to this.

When Howgrey threw himself from the dragon mount and landed on solid ground, he killed the momentum of his fall with the Holy Knight using some means.
I’m almost certain that it’s the same technique as that.