Wanting to end the fight immediately, Ray spewed out a hefty amount of fire from his mouth.

A torrent of high-temperature flames swept through the white room like a death sentence.

The Ratman Swordsman had no room to evade it. It could only face it head-on. But it wasn't worried, as evident by the cold smirk that spread across its face.

It swung its sword lightly.

The torrent of flames was instantly cut apart, quickly dispersing until nothing remained of it.

"What? But how?"

Ray felt surprised.

He knew his Dragon Fire Magic wasn't strong enough to have no counter. But to deal with it so effortlessly? Even in his wildest dreams, he couldn't have expected that!

'It's tougher than it looks.'

He started to take the Ratman Swordsman more seriously.

"Flames don't work against me. If that's the best you can do, then get ready to die."

Immediately after saying these words, the Ratman Swordsman crouched. Its leg muscles swelled. The tiles beneath its feet cracked slightly. A heartbeat later, it left behind deep footprints on the floor as it lunged towards Ray with explosive force.

Fifteen feet of distance was covered in a fraction of a second.

Appearing in front of Ray, it raised the sword above its head. Then, with a low roar, it brought it down with all the strength it could muster, intending to cleave him apart.

Ray metallified his right fist using the Fortification skill. Azure Winds coiled around it, forming a thin but powerful layer of defensive and at the same time offensive skin that carried both the sharpness of a legendary sword and the sturdiness of reinforced iron.

With that power compressed into his strike, he punched out.

He could have avoided it effortlessly by using Lightning Step, but he intentionally didn't do that. The reason he met its sword slash with a strike of his own was to gauge the true gap between their strengths.

Clang!

The moment fist and blade collided, the room thundered with metallic reverberations. A burst of sparks sprayed outward like fireworks, lighting up the white walls. The shockwave from the impact rippled through the room, leaving faint cracks spreading beneath their feet.

The clash left both figures reeling.

The Ratman Swordsman was forced thirteen steps backward, each step leaving a deep crater-like footprint in the floor. Ray slid back a considerable distance, two fifteen-meter-long skid marks carved into the ground before he finally came to a stop and steadied himself.

"It's slightly stronger than me. Not as terrifying as I thought."

From that exchange, Ray discerned that the Ratman Swordsman's strength exceeded his own by only a small margin. The gap between their powers was so narrow that the victor couldn't be decided in just a few exchanges, unlike most of the battles he had fought before.

"You are not an easy prey to hunt," the Ratman Swordsman felt disgruntled.

A battle could last for only five minutes in this trial.

It had sought to kill Ray in under a minute, then use the remaining four to eat him piece by piece before being sent to its next battle, but things hadn't gone according to its expectations. They have been for over a minute and Ray was still alive. He wasn't only alive. He was completely unharmed.

Ray didn't only have a terrifying fire ability. His strength was just as overwhelming. He had shattered its expectations!

Ray glared.

"Who is the prey? Who is the hunter? You will find out real soon."

He covered his left fist in the same amount of enchantments as his right then engaged it in close combat.

Their bodies moved. They charged at one another again and again. Bam! Bam! Bam! The collisions of sword and fists kept exploding in blinding sparks.

Suddenly.

To confuse him, the Ratman Swordsman began to bounce across the room with terrifying speed. Its figure quickly grew into a blur in Ray's eyes as he found it hard to keep up with its movement. When he couldn't keep up with its movement, it rebounded from the ceiling, slicing its sword down vertically.

Ray's sixth sense tingled. He raised his fists to block.

Clang!

The floor beneath his feet shattered from the impact.

Failing to strike him down despite coming up with an ingenious way to overwhelm him, the Ratman Swordsman leaped away from Ray. It widened the gap between them as it wanted to keep reusing its strategy until he slips up.

"I won't let you." Ray saw through it and immediately made a move to restrict its movement.

Lightning step!

He vanished, then reappeared a few feet behind the Ratman Swordsman.

His fist swung down in a heavy arc aimed at its back.

But the Ratman Swordsman spun faster than expected.

Clang!

It blocked with the flat of its blade, tail lashing the floor in anger.

"You can teleport," it hissed in a guttural voice. "Annoying."

Ray smirked, then punched again.

The Ratman Swordsman leaped away to dodge it before its body glowed faintly purple. Its innate power bloomed into existence. A torrent of terrifying but invisible force threatened to smash Ray into a bloody pulp.

Ray sensed it, but he reacted to the warning issued by his sixth sense a little too late. Its innate power grazed him as he leaped to the side, propping his shoulder out of place.

"Tch." He winced and snapped it back into place, but by that time, the Ratman Swordsman was already upon him!

It slashed diagonally. Ray blocked high. Sparks flying as their strikes collided. In that instant of locked weapons, he vanished. He reappeared at the Ratman Swordsman's blind spot, behind its right shoulder, then swung his fist.

This time, it failed to react in time.

Shhhk! Ray's fist carved across its back like a blade, drawing a deep, bloody line.

The Ratman Swordsman roared in fury, stumbling forward. Its tail whipped behind it wildly, forcing Ray to retreat.

It turned and glared at Ray with bloodshot eyes. "You are the first human to ever wound me so severely. I want to rip you apart and drink your blood!"

As it howled, circular black discs materialized around its body, spinning faster and faster before shooting through the air like jagged saws straight toward Ray.

Ray's pupils shrank, but instead of wasting his last usage of Lightning Step, he relied purely on speed to dodge them. When he was too slow to dodge one, he used the Deadman's Gauntlets to decrease the gravity acting on him and increase the gravity acting on the disc. His speed increased, the disc's speed decreased. He dodged it by a hair!

Selena's recommendation really comes handy in the most dire situation, he thought.

"Human! Why won't you just die!"

Blood poured down the Ratman Swordsman's back, yet its killing intent only grew sharper. And its eyes burned with madness.

It waved its hand and the rapidly spinning and razor sharp discs Ray had dodged changed their trajectories, falling toward him again.

Ray danced around them as he closed in on it, swinging his fists. Since it was using its hands to control them, they would stop targeting him if its hands were busy or occupied.

The Ratman Swordsman was forced to give up its control on the discs and swing its sword wildly to dodge his fists.

Ray deflected most of its strikes with his punches and sidestepped a few more. But even with his Deadman's Gauntlets in play and his agility comparable to a peak bronze rank demonic creature, he couldn't dodge all of them. One sliced across his side, leaving a stinging gash. His face hardened.

It's still this strong after taking such a hit? What a beast, he retreated.

"Die, human! Become my meal!!!!" The Ratman Swordsman didn't let him get away as it charged toward him with reckless abandon, swinging its sword wildly.

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