NOVEL WEB Chapter 36: Final Battle-2
"You really are useless in a fair fight; here, I thought we were supposed to be the same person." I taunted, a grin tugging at the corner of my lips.
"Shut your mouth." the reflection spat.
I threw another feint, proceeding with another strike, slowly crumbling his defenses bit by bit. Every time he dodged or tried to fight back, it was only met by my blade closing in.
And then, something shifted.
I didn't notice it at first— it started with him slightly changing the rhythm of his movements, slowing down on his own to make my strikes feel a little off their mark. I swung the sword in a downward motion, entirely convinced that it was going to be the final blow, when he suddenly stepped to his side at the last moment. Before I could even recover from the shock, his spear launched forward, piercing through my forearm.
"Did you really think you were going to win this easily? Useless." The petty bastard echoed my earlier remark, his smirk infuriatingly familiar.
Ignoring the bleeding wound, I once again tightened my grip on the sword and lunged at him, only this time he didn't retreat. His fighting style shifted once more as he whirled his spear into tight arcs, forcing me to step back with every thrust.
The entire fight, I had been using the knowledge of my fighting style against him, and the bastard had decided to use that very fact against me. All he had been doing was continuously shifting his rhythm, slowing down and speeding up at random intervals, making my attempts to guess his moves obsolete. At the same time, he began using the same strategy to deduce my own moves.
He had basically turned my own attacks against me, his movements a reflection of the strategy I had used to take charge of the battle since the beginning.
I ducked under a sweeping strike only for him to crash the blunt end of the spear to crash into my side, sending me staggering.
I lunged again, desperate to regain my previous control, only for him to pivot to the side and slam the spear's shaft against my ribs. A sharp pain shot through my chest as I stumbled back, barely keeping my footing.
"Damn it," I internally cursed and retreated back several steps. He wasn't going to give me any time to rest, however, as he chased after me with his spear, forcing me to adopt the same strategy as him, slowly manipulating my rhythm and messing up his predictions.
Unfortunately, my biggest fears came to pass as our battle continued, falling into a stalemate. Both of us were completely matched, not only in our fighting style but also in our thinking. Time after time, one of us would try to break this stalemate by thinking of something new, only for the other one to copy the same thing within moments.
Eventually, the sunset under the horizon gave rise to the twin moons in the sky. Hours have passed since we began fighting, and by now, both of us were on the verge of collapsing to the ground.
This isn't working, I thought to myself while panting heavily. If things continued like this we were soon going to feel into a battle of attrition, and there was no way I was winning that with how wounded my soul was.
I needed a plan, something that would let me surpass him before I passed out with exhaustion.
My brain was working on overdrive when suddenly, my eyes fell upon the frozen figure of Khaldrin in the distance.
Wait, could I?
My mind immediately went back to the incredible display of swordsmanship I had seen, that gleaming blade filled with dark spectral energy, fast, deadly and so precise.
Could I even perform that technique? Thanks to the memory, I knew how to use it, but swordsmanship was more than just knowing things.
I quickly dodged a spear thrust and retreated to the side.
Deciding that there was no harm in trying it, I immediately took several steps back, retreating several feet away.
"You are not going to start running now, are you?" Looking at my sudden retreat, the reflection taunted me mockingly, but I didn't pay him any mind. Instead, I put my focus on the memory, remembering as many details about the sword style as I could. Thankfully, the memory was etched very profoundly inside my mind.
From every move, every shift of breath, to every movement of the tiniest muscle. I made sure to remember it all before slowly getting into an attacking stance.
Looking at the new stance, the reflection paused and glanced at Khaldrin's frozen figure, his smile slowly disappearing from his face.
"Damn it." He cursed out loud, slowly realizing what I was doing, and tightly grabbed the hilt of his spear, ready to defend himself at a moment's notice.