Kirito's attempt at provocation was crude, but it had to be said—Seiya fell for it quite easily.
Having immersed himself in kendo for over a decade, there was no way Seiya wouldn't be curious about Kirito's swordsmanship within the game.
So, faced with Kirito's challenge, Seiya gladly accepted, slowly tightening his grip on his one-handed sword.
Seeing that Seiya accepted his challenge, Kirito's mood brightened. With a quick sequence of finger movements in the air, the two of them swiftly entered a fair PK mode.
In PvP mode, the duel had no death penalty, with a three-minute time limit.
Victory was determined either by one side's HP being reduced to zero or by whoever had more HP left when the time expired.
Watching Seiya and Kirito suddenly enter PK mode without any warning, Klein grew visibly excited.
Compared to the tedious monster grinding they had just been doing, this battle between Seiya and Kirito was a far better showcase of the game's true charm.
After all, the two weren't ordinary players at all!
One was a beta tester—labeled as a "cheater" by others. The other was a real-life kendo tournament champion, someone with extraordinary talent and skill.
Though their levels were still low, this was without question a clash of titans.
In SAO, beyond the general-purpose sword skills, many techniques required certain prerequisites—
For example, level requirements, or sufficient proficiency with one-handed or two-handed swords.
Thus, the sword skills Kirito could currently use were still quite limited.
But he wasn't complaining. Compared to him, who had already mastered the game's systems during beta, Seiya was still a complete novice when it came to sword skills.
Perhaps Seiya's real-world combat experience and swordsmanship could allow him to generate original skills within the system…
But Kirito didn't believe, not at Seiya's current level and stats, that he could unleash the full potential of those skills.
Seiya might be strong, but he wasn't yet fully adapted to the game.
Kirito, on the other hand, had already played an entire month during beta—that was his advantage.
With a sudden push off the ground, wind bursting at his heels, Kirito's body shot forward like a bullet toward Seiya just as the countdown ended!
It was "Dash", one of SAO's general skills—a short-distance lunge available to all classes.
Unlike his usual personality in reality, Kirito inside the game was an all-out aggressor.
So the instant the duel began, he struck first, trying to force the battle into his rhythm.
His speed, empowered by "Dash," rivaled that of a real-world sprinter. In mere breaths, he had closed the distance and reached Seiya.
His speed was leagues beyond that of the frenzied boar they had fought earlier.
Though the skill came with built-in stiffness—what players called skill delay or animation lock—Kirito minimized it by chaining a sword skill right after.
As his charge brought him before Seiya, Kirito's one-handed sword came slashing down.
Diagonal Slash!
One of SAO's basic sword skills—but when combined with "Dash," its speed and power far exceeded the norm.
If Klein had been standing there instead of Seiya, his head might already have been cleaved off in a single strike.
"Clang————!"
But since his opponent was Seiya, things weren't that simple.
The sound of metal rang like a great bell across the field. Kirito's sword had been firmly blocked by Seiya's own blade, held horizontally in defense.
Using SAO's Weapon Block mechanic, Seiya had parried the blow—
And immediately, with a twist of his wrist, he countered with a thrust aimed straight at Kirito's head.
Kirito tilted just in time. The blade grazed past his ear, its wind cutting strands of his black hair.
The next moment, the two swords clashed again—so fast that their blades seemed like streaks of light.
Steel struck steel in rapid succession, scattering sparks into the air.
Watching from the side, Klein was dumbstruck.
He looked at his own battered longsword and suddenly felt like he wasn't even playing the same game as these two.
How could he describe it? Though all of them were still low-level players, and though Seiya and Kirito were using the most basic sword skills—Diagonal Slash, Thrust, Vertical Slash, and so on—
Those very same skills looked utterly elevated in their hands.
The same skills, yet completely transformed by the users.
In their high-speed duel, neither Seiya nor Kirito held a clear advantage. Klein could see both HP bars steadily dropping.
But in terms of actual damage sustained, Seiya was worse off. He hadn't yet adapted fully to SAO, and Kirito's reaction speed in-game was absurdly monstrous.
In real-world kendo matches, no matter how quick your reflexes, the body could only move so fast. The flesh had limits.
But here, in a full-dive VR game, those limits didn't exist.
As long as your mind could react fast enough, your character could keep up.
With avatars controlled directly by the brain, physical limitations no longer mattered.
Thus, Kirito's insane reflexes let him dodge and counter continuously, while Seiya, still stiff and unaccustomed to the system, kept getting hit.
What Seiya didn't realize, however, was that while he was inwardly cursing Kirito's "inhuman reflexes," Kirito was simultaneously gritting his teeth at Seiya.
For though Seiya had taken more hits, most of Kirito's wounds were critical strikes.
Every time Seiya was cornered, he'd exchange blow for blow, sacrificing small cuts on himself to land deadly precision hits on Kirito.
His reckless yet calculated trade-hits-for-weak-points style was wearing Kirito down fast.
And worse—Kirito noticed that as time passed, Seiya's movements were growing smoother, sharper.
That bastard was adapting to the game right in the middle of their duel!
(End of Chapter)