The tendrils untied, revealing Rune with Lydia, Sera, and Cassandra, completely unhurt to the Sword King's disbelieving eyes.

The wooden tendrils coiled around themselves in the air before launching toward the flesh-and-blood demons like living serpents.

Merin raised several demons into the air using her wind hurricane, then blasted them into pieces with her wind bomb — the same technique she'd used to shatter Tugnier's mirage.

Fiona used her Dragon Fists skill to wipe out entire columns of raging demons. The ones that got closer were crushed by her dominant leg in brutal kicks.

Beside Fiona, a slash of mana roared through the horde. Oken. Demons were cut into pieces before they even saw him coming.

A single arrow flew skyward. In the next instant, an avalanche of flaming arrows poured like rain onto the demons like a shower of fire that guaranteed their deaths.

'Only if they had souls...'

Rune was disappointed. Despite the number of demons dying each second, he couldn't add them to Deadman's Decay because their life force had long been depleted, their souls long escaped.

'Well, at least I get mana.'

The souls fighting were from Blood Raven's skill Deadman's Decay... in other words extensions of the blade itself. They contributed to Essence Absorption and "other skills" through their kills.

Rune lifted his arm and snapped his fingers.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Every dead demon body, every corpse that had drawn blood other than through Merin exploded simultaneously, causing massive damage to the horde's numbers.

Blood Bomb. That sent huge dents in the continuum of the demon swarm.

Soon the dancing tendrils from "Seed of Dystrophy" joined the former SBV team in the carnage.

'Now then, only one left is Yuejian.'

Rune found the ancient warrior watching the scene unfold with utter shock. He still didn't comprehend that he was watching an eighteen-year-old defend against his Sword Adobe... much less break the Sovereign's Curse.

Cassandra too had mixed thoughts as she watched the boy beside her while taking ragged breaths.

"Cass– ahem, Duchess, can you hold these two?" Rune gestured awkwardly at the women clinging to him like leeches. "I need to go say hi to the Sword King. He didn't let me the first time we met."

"Y-yeah... sure."

Cassandra pulled the leeches off him. Sera and Lydia didn't come off at first, but the Duchess's force was beyond their grip.

They soon stood sulking, separated from their prize.

"Well then, I'm off."

Just as his words left his mouth...

Blub.

Rune vanished.

He appeared simultaneously before the Sword King.

'Nexar, how much time left?'

[Thirty-three minutes.]

'Good enough. I can have a conversation or two.'

[Why? Just kill him and be done with it.]

'And what? Announce to the Orvelians that Raven Court is theirs to take?'

[Come on... what does that have to do with you?!]

Nexar was right. In thirty years, borders wouldn't matter as much. But power struggles couldn't be underestimated. After all, Rune couldn't shake the feeling that power struggles had been one of the reasons for the Spear King's betrayal.

'Nah, I'm gonna need him to live.'

If the Sword King lived, there was hope the power struggle wouldn't be destructively chaotic.

[Whatever...]

Rune could sense Nexar wasn't happy with that decision.

"So... uh... Sword King, are you not going to thank me for relieving you from guarding the Saytans?"

Rune started, hoping he could steer the dialogue toward why the Sword King should just let them go.

He'd actually lied, he intended to collect Dominion's soul later, but the Sword King didn't need to know that.

"You made me fail to deliver the order from the bearer of Raven Court's crown, and you want me to thank you?"

The Sword King's voice thundered. His robes danced as his aura bent the air like steam rising from fire. His grip on his conjured sword loosened.

The blade vanished into oblivion.

'Oh shit!'

Rune understood his intentions. The Sword King was going to take this seriously.

CLING...

The sound echoed through the air as a sharp ocean-blue sword with intricate carvings tore through reality itself, descending between them. Its edge dug into the ground, a line drawn in the earth.

"Do you really want to do this?" Rune asked, his expression turning serious. His grip on Blood Raven tightened.

Yuejian didn't speak. His thin, pale hand caught the hilt of his true blade.

"I shall present the heads of invaders as compensation."

His eyes, narrow slits, gleamed with Sovereign-tier aura.

"I see," Rune replied.

The pressure of Emperor's aura settled on the Sword King like a physical weight.

"Ugh..."

The ancient warrior resisted as his hands drew the sword and pointed it at Rune.

They moved.

Not with the explosive speed of novices trying to overwhelm through velocity. But with the measured grace of masters who understood that true combat was less about speed and more about positioning, timing, inevitability.

The Sword King's blade came in low, a rising slash aimed at Rune's ribs.

Rune's footwork, the Beast King's teachings carved into muscle memory. His body shifted three inches to the left, the blade passing through empty air where his torso had been a heartbeat before.

Blood Raven came down in a counter-slash.

Clang.

Steel met steel. Sparks flew. The shockwave from the impact rippled outward, shattering windows in nearby buildings.

To onlookers, it seemed less like a fight and more like a dance... two partners moving through choreographed steps, each movement flowing naturally into the next.

The Sword King disengaged, his blade tracing a circle in the air. Five conjured swords materialized around Rune, each one moving independently, attacking from different angles simultaneously.

Rune's response was immediate.

"Seed of Dystrophy."

Black holes opened around him. The conjured swords dove toward them, then stopped, struggling against the gravitational pull. The mana-sucking tentacles emerged, wrapping around the blades, draining them of energy.

The swords shattered into fragments.

He now has enough mana to open dark holes whenever and whereever, thanks to his souls killing demons thus feeding essence absorption.

But the Sword King was already moving, his true blade coming in from Rune's blind spot, a thrust aimed at his spine.

Rune pivoted on his lead foot, the movement so smooth it looked effortless. His body rotated a full one-eighty degrees, Blood Raven coming up to parry the thrust mid-motion.

Clang.

The force of the block drove both combatants backward several steps.

They circled each other, crimson and ocean-blue auras creating a swirling vortex of power between them.

The Sword King struck again, a horizontal slash empowered by tenth-circle frost magic. Ice crystals formed along the blade's edge, the temperature dropping twenty degrees in an instant.

Rune met it head-on, Blood Raven crackling with crimson lightning.

BOOM.

The clash sent shockwaves radiating outward. Cassandra's barrier around her companions flared, straining to hold against the pressure.

"Ngh..."

She gritted her teeth, her Sovereign-tier aura barely enough to shield Kael, Selka, Ilya, Sera, and Lydia from the overwhelming force. Sweat dripped from her forehead as she poured everything into maintaining the protective dome.

Inside the barrier, the five women could only watch in awe and terror.

The Sword King's footwork changed into sliding steps, serpentine movement, unpredictable angles. He conjured twelve swords simultaneously, each one attacking in coordination with his true blade.

Thirteen weapons moved as one.

Rune's response was the Beast King's Flowing Water technique: footwork that made him appear to glide across the battlefield, always positioned exactly where the attacks weren't. His body moved in arcs and curves, never in straight lines, never where the blades expected him to be.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Blood Raven deflected three strikes in rapid succession.

Black holes swallowed five more.

Rune's free hand grabbed a sixth sword mid-flight, Essence Absorption activating on contact, draining it instantly.

The Sword King's expression hardened. He abandoned the conjured blades and committed fully to his true sword.

The ancient warrior's blade became a blur, a thousand cuts in the span of seconds, each one precise, each one lethal.

Cass watching this understood that she was only alive because swordking didnot want to use his techniques on the legacy of his favourite disciple.

Rune matched him strike for strike, his footwork keeping him perpetually in motion, his blade meeting the Sword King's at impossible angles.

To the onlookers, it was beautiful. Terrifying. Hypnotic.

Two masters performing a dance that had been perfected over lifetimes, one with three centuries of experience, the other with experience of most body count.

But slowly, subtly, the balance was shifting.

Rune's strikes carried more weight. Each time their blades met, the Sword King was pushed back just a fraction of an inch more. The Emperor's aura was overwhelming the Sovereign's, millimeter by millimeter.

If not for the swordking's 10th circle mana mastery.. the fight would've ended before it even began. Such was the difference between Emperor and Soveriegn's aura seperated by a whole tier breakthrough.

The ancient warrior's breathing grew heavier. His stance widened slightly, compensating for the pressure bearing down on him.

Then both fighters stepped back simultaneously, creating distance.

Aura Blade, they conjured in unison.

Crimson energy wrapped around Blood Raven, extending the blade's reach by three feet, the aura so dense it looked almost solid.

That was the ultimate aura blade. It need not be projected like aura slash. If one has enough mastery he could contain that destructive energy and use it like his sword.

Ocean-blue energy wrapped around the Sword King's blade, frost magic intertwining with his aura, creating a blade of ice and power.

They charged.

CRACK—

The aura blades met in the center of the battlefield.

The impact was cataclysmic.

A sphere of pure force exploded outward from the point of contact. The wet ground shattered into fragments. Buildings groaned under the pressure. The very air screamed.

Cassandra's barrier buckled. She coughed blood but held firm, her body shaking from the strain of protecting her companions from forces that could erase them from existence.

The two aura blades pressed against each other, locked in a contest of pure power.

For three seconds, they were equal.

Then the crimson began to push forward.

The Sword King's eyes widened as his ocean-blue aura blade started to crack. Fractures spread along its length like spider-web patterns on glass.

"Impossible..." he breathed.

He has faught multiple Soereigns but no one has ever pushed back his aura blade conjured with his tenth-circle mana.

The crimson blade pushed further.

Shatter..

The ocean-blue aura blade exploded into fragments.

Rune's crimson blade continued forward, stopping just inches from the Sword King's throat.

The ancient warrior stood frozen, his own blade knocked aside, completely open, completely defenseless.

For the first time in three centuries, Yuejian the Sword King had been defeated in single combat.

Rune's golden eyes met the ancient warrior's narrowed slits.

"I think," Rune said quietly, breathing heavily, "we can stop now.

The crimson shade over Raven Spire pulsed once like a warning before the crushing pour down of avalanche of aura pressure.

And the Sword King, bearer of three hundred years of victories, slowly lowered his sword in acknowledgment of a superior force.

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