"The hero has arrived." The man whom I recognized as Cloud said in the most conceited way, and one could hear he was fully convinced of him being a hero.
I wouldn't tag you as a hero yet. Save these people first before you think of being a hero. But I am grateful to have someone to throw at them.
He paused a moment to look around and size up the enemy. "Time to see if you are up to fighting these bloodsuckers. I will take the guy in the back.."He pointed at Yahaba on the roof behind the woman. "Kill that one or see if you can." He turned to me before looking at my weapon and he whispered 'shit'. "Okay, just keep her busy, if you can get the help of a firemage. Fire magic can also kill if not harm them."
Is he going for the guy on the metaphorical second row because he is not as buff as the girl and is on the backlines making him presume he was a weak close-quarters fighter? He would be in for quite the surprise.
Thinking hard about how to boost my strength and endurance my mind quickly generated the image of the Khzan look-a-like green aura before shooting it down since I had no idea how to do it. My next option would be my breathing I did that all the time, and the final option was magic. More specifically enhancement magic, setting a steady stream of mana to fead my enhancement and boosting my sun breathing to its limits II found I could handle it, unlike last time.
"Ok." I sheathed my blunt blade got both hands on the handle of my other weapon, and gripped it tightly. A few breaths in and out, eyes closed I calmed my muscles and loosened them before snapping my eyes open I shot forward ready to perform a verticle slash.
Crimson fire trailed behind my blade as it came down with the intention of cutting her from neck to hip.
"Finally ready to play?!" Her arms clocked back ready to dish out a fully powered punch to my stomach.
Not having the confidence to cut her apart I changed it to make contact with the fist.
'Water Breathing: Constant Flux + Sun Breathing: First Form Dance'
It made contact with her fist before slashing at incoming balls one after another. I gained speed and strength as I kept moving and slicing as if performing a dance.
Pain slowly started flowing through my body as time ticked onward. It was not concentrated in my lungs nor did I feel tiredness in my muscles, I did not stop breathing so I did not think it was a lack of air. Adjusting to how my body responded mid-combat was very distracted from seeing the movements of her muscles to guess what arm would through the next ball and what was going to be its target.
Seeing she shot two balls at the same time felt rushed into making a decision to pump more mana into my muscles as I slashed at one balle and evaded the other. The next second I felt good, almost invincible but I also felt the drain in my mana.
My muscles tensed up before loosening and shooting forward to do what I planned to do before.
When my blade bit into her raised arm, she tried to block it. Her eyes locked on mine and a cocky grin splattered on her face, the blade bit into her arm an inch or two which was expected. What she did not expect was the blade to continue its way and fully cut off her wrist and hand. The surprise prevented her from even attempting to block it with another arm, and prevented it from cleaving her. The blade split her body from right shoulder to left hip, leaving her arms, which had let go of her balls, held on to both sides.
I jumped back in a hurry as unbearable pain flared up in my body, prompting me to stop feeding my body too much air and too much mana.
GGGUUUHHH grunted and bore through the pain that almost stole strength from them, leaving them as just numb pieces of meat attached to my body.
For tens of seconds, we stood in place, her recovering and re-attaching her body while I bore the pain and tried to calm myself.
"WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" My guess was that Cloud was flying around thanks to Yahabas blood magic. Hehe what happened to all the previous hero crap, you sound like a little bitch! My mind found something else besides concentrating on that was not the pain.
Reigning my mind back to see my opponent back in one piece and summoning her balls back in her hands. The pain was still there for me while my enemy looked in tip-top shape.
Feeling my mana left in the tank being half of my max, I decided just to use enough enhancement magic to feel a tiny boost to my strength, it used a tiny dribble of mana. My eyes quickly checked up and down the street to see if I spotted a fire mage. I did not find any, but I did see Khazan back on his feet and more adventurers exiting other buildings with their weapons drawn.
Back into the fight and stack up the pain. I accepted the pain soon to come similar to just a minute ago. My lungs started cycling the big chunks of air at full strength. The grip on my blade tightened, allowing the muscles of my forearms to bulge out and look like the skin on it was as thin as wet paper hugging the bare muscle and veins underneath it. I felt my heart rate start beating fast enough to keep up with a NASCAR race car, and my body temperature was over 39°C (102.2°F). I feel Deja Vu... wonder what caused it.
I can't kill her without a nichirin blade. My feet grabbed onto the earth and shot my body forward like a bullet. She threw the four balls in her hands my way and split them into pieces by my blade when they got close enough. Cloud said fire magic would be somewhat effective so maybe a plasma sword like Arthur from Fire Force would work?
I continued my way and slashed at her arms. She managed to block and stop my sword with three hands. while her last hand spawned a ball and threw it at my stomach. The choice of continuing to push with my blade hoping to go her arms and body or letting go and using my blunt blade to block and jump backward to disperse the force.
"HAA, HAA, HAA"
In that small exchange, my breathing had already become disturbed, and I was panting as if I was extremely obese and ran 100 meters. Sweat poured down my face, neck, armpits, back, between my balls, and in short, everywhere. Feels like I am exercising in a sauna or something, I better hurry up and finish this or I will get a heat stroke. Sucks I am bad at using water magic to cool myself down.
"Oh you afraid of a little temari ball, what a scary cat! Boohoo." The smile on her face never died down as she taunted me. "Need a break? I will let you rest." Four temari balls spawned back in her hands. "When you're dead."
Now or never. The blood gates opened, and fire magic flooded into my weapon, giving it a fiery red glow and drawing my attention to the glowing cracks along the thickest part of the blade.
Starting with a slow jog I started batting away the balls she threw my way, one after another, for a moment I thought she had infinite ammo and I was walking on a treadmill since I was taking forever to reach her. The cracks on my blade grew in number and my mana was going down. The contents in my stomach were showing signs of coming back up to greet the outside world.
Finally getting close to her, I swung my blade at her neck, but one of her fists got in the way, taking a full-on haymaker. *BOOM* The sound produced was like an explosion. The blowback hurled us both in opposite directions. I saw the cracks in my weapon finally reach its breaking point, and two-thirds of the length of the full weapon, furthest from the handle, broke apart and scattered, with some parts hitting me. In my eyes, it all happened in slow motion.
The Berzerker man chose that moment to jump in and go well... Berzerk? With his axes. Landing blow after blow with them.
With him distracting her, I tried to cool down and control my breathing. A flying silhouette drew my attention to the rooftop on the opposite side. Cloud was flying around the place, twisting and turning, similar to Kamado Tanjiro when he faced the arrow demon or vampire, in this case. He does not have a breathing form, but he does have class skills, so he should be able to handle it.
The metal, bones, or materials must have been the lower-tier kind because his axes were bending at the edges pretty easily. Then again, my blunt stick also cracked in a few hits even though the old man told me it was very sturdy. On the other hand, the sword Makoto gave me only has a few scratches. It was forged by Elda, so there's no surprise there. I really had to stop comparing hyumans to Elda in terms of forging.
Having rested a little, I restarted all my buffs and jumped back into the fight, throwing away my stick and grabbing a sword from one of the dead adventurers, striking whenever an opening was made or I made the openings for the Berzerk to exploit. The cracks in the borrowed sword started appearing and growing to the point I was sure the next hit would break the blade, leaving me with only the handle.
"Make an opening!" I took a few steps back and flooded my sword with fire enhancement magic so it would explode. There was no time to elaborate on my plan, but I hoped the berzerk got the message when it started shining like a lightbulb... they had no idea what a lightbulb is... so just shining like a bonfire or a big torch.
It might have been a dumb move, but if this did not work, then it is game over. The rose-colored flame started escaping through the cracks along the blade. I poured so much of my mana in there that I felt the food in me want to come out, darkness eating away the edges of my field of view. I could feel the blood running down my nose down to my chin, and dripping to the ground.
Unable to hold it much longer, I launched myself forward, aiming at the small area left open by the berserker.
'Seventh Form: Sunflower Thrust'
Even with my enhanced strength and the magic flames boosting my blade, I had no confidence it could slice through her neck. I hoped to at least ram the pointy end of this sword down her neck, hoping she taps out of the fight with my fire washing over her.
Berzerker's weapons broke, slashing her arms, and rolled away from the direction I was coming from.
Her balls spawned into her hands, and she threw them at me. They hit my right shoulder and left thigh. The pain went from extreme to unbearable, my vision was quickly being overtaken by darkness. My body was ready to shut down, making me miss my thrust by an inch, the last of my mana trickled in my stick, hoping to bust in this final thrust and also not die... or my name would go down in history as the undisputed one pump chump.
Red blood flames reflected off my pupils before I was flung away.
---
As the dust settled, the vampire still stood in the same place. Her right arms and head were gone as if an explosion had gone off close to her ear; what was left of her body was slowly turning to ash and dispersing with the wind.
"Wow, you managed to give her peace." Toma walked out of the shadows. "It is too bad, really. You need to be stronger. But, well... I will save you ri—" He froze a meter away from Entei. A smile grew on his face. "Oh, it looks like you are bound to suffer more." His form slowly faded from where he stood.
Seeing his superior leave, Yahaba jumped back, opening the distance between him and Cloud. "You are in luck, we will finish this time." The roof of a house below him broke away in a circular form before flying away with him on it. His eyes searched for his companion before finding a body slowly turning to ash. His face switched between surprise and some kind of loss before looking around for the one responsible for her death. His face promised retribution, and a fire burned in his eyes.
Heavy white fog coated the floor, and a distinct female voice with a forced tic, like she was trying to get used to adding it to her speech pattern, resounded in the area. "Why did you struggle so much fighting her? A real samurai would never lose and finish it quickly. Ja-no"
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Word Count 2260
If there are any grammatical errors, let me know by commenting on the paragraph.
Thank you guys. I appreciate your reading so far.
Might have a lot of errors in this one, I'm not sure but let me know.
Used up all my pulls oon shorekeeper and her weapon, used like 110 draws to get thhe character... sadly I lost the 50/50 and also did not get the weapon. Now how will I get Zani.... I'm currently regreting it.