Welp, that seal the deal, the abrupt training mini-arc is done, at least on Pa-treon. It's back to the slaughterhouse we go, only this time, Ein is gonna be packing some heat! That said, can anyone guess just what I will be doing with the Blue Archives cameos? Cookies and recaf to whoever comment first on that topic!
Now, don't forget to check out the pictures! And most important of all, don't forget to nab that discount which will be running till the 28th of November!
Thank you for all of your support thus far, and without further ado, enjoy the chapter!
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I subconsciously will away the System's announcement, ducking out of the way of a heavy fist, coated with Honkai energy. Devoted to the heat of my sparring with senior sister Xuanyuan, I am at no liberty to be distracted. I parry the subsequent blows coming from Xuanyuan, most of which come in the forms of punches and swipes, but there are a few nasty kicks, feints, and even surprise combo strikes in between them. Xuanyuan is anything but a one-trick pony, which is something I've come to learn in the past couple of weeks. She truly lives up to her title as my senior martial sister, being not just a genius martial artist, but also a hardworking practitioner, having gained mastery in the twenty-one techniques passed down by Hua. Being the person more well-versed in the Edge of Taixuan, and in a battle of pure martial arts skill, it's understandable that Xuanyuan is to be the one attaining the upper hand. Much like the previous spars we initiate, Xuanyuan soon forces me into a proverbial corner as I find myself losing momentum. And in a spar between martial artists, the less momentum you have, the less effective your defense and offense.
Knowing that this can't continue, I start guiding Xuanyuan's strikes. Ultimately, I force one of her punches to overreach and hit my arms, which are crossed together, and, just like what Xuanyuan is doing, coated in a durable film of Honkai energy. Unlike Xuanyuan, whose hands and legs are covered in a shimmering sheen of yellow flame, my arms are currently coated in a film of golden-colored hard light, the Spectro element. Unironically, despite my affinity for water and ice, Spectro remains my most powerful element and also one of the more malleable ones. And because of those properties, Spectro allows me to quite easily conjure my very own personal and highly durable energy shielding, supernaturally, of course.
Yet, as I utilize the force behind Xuanyuan's punch to create a bit of distance between us, I can only smile wryly when the defensive barrier I put up around my arms is cracked heavily. My mind is a tad more sluggish than before as well. Although I only concentrate my Spectro barrier on the critical body parts instead of a full coverage of my body, even that doesn't seem to be enough to take on something like a punch from an Astartes, which I think is the same amount of force Xuanyuan used, in a reliable manner. Heck, I can feel my arms tingling just a bit from the aftershock of taking the empowered punch head-on.
Isn't it dangerous that we're sparring with extremely lethal force, you may wonder? It kinda is still, yes, but much like my external Spectro barrier, my internal is similarly enhanced by using Honkai energy. It's one of the techniques that my master, Hua, taught me a few days ago, and it grants me an increase in nearly all of my stats, saves for Luck and Charisma. This self-fortification technique is what allowed warriors like Hua and Xuanyuan to perform inhuman feats as easily as breathing. Similarly, this technique increases the physical durability of the body a lot. To prove that, Hua did go off on an extreme tangent where she took a full-power laser shot to her eye, which actually did not even blind her, even for a moment. However, the enhancements are only as effective as what one's body can handle and the amount of Honkai energy one has available. Even I, with seemingly endless Honkai energy thanks to the Abyss Totem Stigmata, still have to run the technique with a timer. As with anything, my mental power is tanking from all the strain. Hua does say that, given enough mastery of the self-fortification technique and adaptation to the Blade Mantra, the consumption rate will be minimal, if not gone altogether.
Still, even with the generated distance, Xuanyan is hot on my tail, her eyes showing a glint of focus and determination as she closes the gap. I stomp a foot onto the dirt, partly to continue to propel my body slightly backward, partly to send a wisp of my intent into the soil. Near instantly, the ground in front of Xuanyuan suddenly rises meters into the air, acting as a wall that blocks not just her path but also her vision of me. Carried by her momentum, even Xuanyan can't immediately veer right or left when she's but a moment away from face-planting. Instead, my good senior sister decides to kick against the ground and jump onto the earth wall. In a feat of martial finesse, Xuanyan's feet leave behind indents as she starts wall running to the top of the earth wall. There, she flips herself over the wall. In the moments she's just become visible to me, Xuanyan brings her hands together for a fiery clap, sending a wave of excruciating hot flame of condensed Honkai energy down on me waiting below. Like a diving Phoenix, quite poetic considering our master has the title of Jingwei, Xuanyuan's AOE attack would be quite hard for me to dodge unaffected.
If I choose to dodge, that is.
Although Xuanyuan's Phoenix is swiftly approaching me from above, I let out a straight punch into the air, right where the Phoenix is, and behind it, Xuanyuan, who is still falling midair. From the golden iridescent glow around my formed fist, the light then condensed into a singular beam. Crossing the distance at the speed of light, the Spectro ray punctures the diving Phoenix before traversing the remaining distance and slamming right into the center of Xuanyuan's chest. As the Phoenix's form destabilized and exploded, a surprised Xuanyuan is seen being knocked higher into the sky. Smoke can be seen coming from Xuanyuan's chest as she starts falling from the sky. Since we have been fighting on the victory condition of First Blood... I won. This is my first victory in the countless spars we have had in the last two weeks, in fact.
Should have come up with laser punches much earlier, though.
Having just finished my brief moment of glory, I immediately kick my Spectro barrier into maximum overdrive. My mental power drains as my entire body glows a soft golden light, and I jump backward with my arms crossed in front of me. Barely a moment later, a blazing golden sword comes cutting down where I was. I can feel the searing heat charring my skin as the blade misses me by a fraction before slamming into the ground. Faster than the eyes could blink, the ground beneath me erupts like a volcano going off. Sending me spinning midair before I manage to correct my posture, landing, and skidding on the ground with my feet and one of my hands carving shallow trenches as they stabilize my posture. I look up from my low stance, only to see a grinning Xuanyuan standing majestically before pulling out her Xuanyuan Sword in the charred crater. With slightly flushed cheeks, my senior sister says.
"Well done, Ein. You never did that before..." Leveling her sword at me, Xuanyuan. "Now, it's stage two."
I blanch mentally, thinking to myself that I have celebrated my victory too soon. I completely forgot that Hua set a rule that, the moment I manage to score a viable hit on Xuanyuan, her kiddie gloves will come off, and she has all the freedom to use the Xuanyuan Sword whenever she wants. A sword that largely grants Xuanyuan the same benefits as what Myrtenaste Rein gives me, I may add. And, unlike Xuanyuan, who is given carte blanche, I am still stuck with nothing but my fists and sheer will. Why?
Because I am still bad with using Myrtenaster, or rather, I am not qualified to wield a sword yet, by Hua.
Two weeks ain't gonna be enough for me to know how to wield Myrtynaster, a power weapon with an extremely steep learning curve, thanks to all of its mechanics. And two weeks sure as hell isn't enough time for me to soak in all the greatness which is the Edge of Taixuan martial arts. It's a miracle that I managed to master the basics in just two weeks. Yet, acing the theoretical test doesn't make you a practical champion, a fact made evident by me getting thrashed about by Xuanyuan right now with waves of fire and gusts of tempest. I counter these by either conjuring elemental spells of my own or just straight-up running away, turning the whole spar into me trying to survive under my senior sister's onslaught. And I think Xuanyuan is enjoying the chase a bit too much with that grin of hers still ever present.
What happened to the shy senior sister from back then?
I force out of my wandering thoughts when yet another burst of attack comes from Xuanyuan, nearly making me yelp as it would have left behind a nasty bump on my head should I not roll away. Meanwhile, as I am struggling for my life under Xuanyuan's enthusiastic onslaught, Hua, alongside Fuxi and Nuwa, are calmly sitting on the edge of the half-ruined arena, sipping their tea very peacefully.
It is yet another peaceful day on Mt. Taixuan, and it will be a while until I become a badass martial artist unless a convenient time skip suddenly appears.
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Elsewhere, in a land with clear, blue sky. A city that is as large as the entire North American continent combined stirs restlessly.
Its name is Kivotos.
Kivotos has always been a beautiful, if constantly filled with its trademark brand of halos-induced shenanigans. Yet, ever since two weeks ago, the video streams from heaven have all but dwarfed any of the chaos Kivotos, as a city-state, is known for. For every one or two days, a large holographic screen, visible from everywhere in Kivotos, will unfold in the middle of the clear, blue sky. At first, no one knows which academy or who was brave enough or powerful enough to hijack even the sky of Kivotos. Yet, as suddenly as it came, the screen in the sky started showing them things, both visually and audibly. Those in the known and those who didn't, all stop their work when the streams started talking about perhaps the greatest person to ever exist in the history of Kivotos. She's just a human, yet, unironically, a Saint in the hearts and minds of Kivotos' many colorful denizens. Yet, perhaps most important of all...
She's their Sensei.
Their.
Unfortunate.
Sensei.
Having just finished their mourning of her a mere one week before the appearance of the sky screen, a lot of people felt mixed emotions when it started showing how their Sensei worked, how she walked among the citizens of Kivotos, how she strived for their betterment, and how she selflessly saved them in their darkest of times. More than anything, Kivotos owed its continued existence to Sensei even now. Yet, it's a debt destined not to be paid, with Sensei passing away after dedicating herself to preserving Kivotos' beautiful and blue sky. That is, until the video streams directly show that Sensei is, in fact, still alive.
Reincarnated and forgetful of her life in Kivotos, yes, but she is still alive in the grimdark future of the universe. Fighting the good fight for herself and those she cares about.
Some remain understandably skeptical of what the sky screens show, while those who believe in its authenticity can only smile wryly, feeling how their Sensei is just the same as ever. Yet, none can bring themselves not to worry about the fate of the one the sky screen is centered around. To kill or be killed... The ease with which someone so young was forced into making the choice regularly, and how she got used to it all... It's a frightening thought for the arguably quite innocent people of Kivotos. And it doesn't help that some parts of the video, heavily censored or edited as they might be, can still positively traumatize those with weaker wills. The people of Kivotos collectively breathe sighs of relief when their Sensei somehow traverses to another world, only to be taken in as a disciple to someone with seemingly obscene power beneath her lithe figure.
Yet, when the sky screen turns from video playback to an actual livestream... When time between the universes is synchronized... The People of Kivotos lose it when, indeed, their Sensei now comes with a Halo, as in an actual Kivotonian Halo.
Inside the S.C.A.L.E Club Room, the most notable figures in Kivotos can be seen gathering around a large meeting table. One of them, a girl with long navy blue hair that gradients into an azure blue, turns her pale blue eyes to a girl with lavender hair who is sitting next to her.
"Atsuko, it works..." The blue-haired girl says calmly, although one can feel the creeping hopefulness in her tone at the end.
With a soft, gentle smile on her face, the lavender-haired girl looks up from the Shittim Chest, Sensei's old belonging, and replies. "With this, Sensei has even more of a fighting chance, right?"
Sitting opposite the pair from Arius Squad, a tall girl with azure blue eyes adjusts her glass to hide the trembling of her fingers. Notably, her student badge denotes her title of Vice President of the General Student Council and her name, Nanagami Rin.
"We... Won't be able to verify this personally. But..." Rin sighs wistfully. "Given what the System has shown us so far, every bit of help we can give her is better than nothing at all. She's sacrificed so much to us, it's time that we return the favor and get her back..."
"... No matter what it takes!"