"What do you think?"
In front of the fishing pond, completely reserved with no sign of a fourth person, Erica lounged on a deck chair, her eyes occasionally scanning the fishing rod.
Fishing was actually something she was doing for the first time.
Although she had heard it could relax the mind and body, one of the ways to cultivate patience, she could only feel it was a waste of time.
"Although we came fishing, no matter how you think about it, no fish are going to bite, right?"
Melusine was also lying on a chair.
Unlike Erica, who still paid some attention to the rod, she had already closed her eyes completely, treating this outing as an activity of 'sleeping in a different place.'
After all, with her here, those fish wouldn't dare come anywhere near.
This made Erica secretly sigh that she still wasn't bold enough.
It was good that Lady Melusine hadn't rejected this activity, but just changing where she slept made it pointless. She should have chosen something that required more energy than fishing.
Maybe try golf next time?
Just as she was thinking this, a rapidly approaching aura made Erica's previously leisurely mood instantly tense up.
But faster than that was Melusine.
The silver-haired girl lying on the chair moved towards the newcomer at a speed he couldn't even react to, her bladed gauntlet flipping as she pressed the sheathed blade against his throat.
With just one more step, even though it was less sharp than a real sword, the metal edge added to the sheath's tip during its design was sharp enough to cut through iron like mud.
"So fast!"
Upon seeing this, the visitor wasn't afraid at all, but instead sincerely exclaimed: "No wonder you could finish the fight so quickly, your speed is incredible!"
Standing before Melusine was a golden-haired young man dressed as if he had just returned from vacation in a Hawaiian shirt, with a pair of black-framed sunglasses resting on his forehead.
His smile was genuine and sunny, completely unlike a 'Devil King.'
"You're the God-Slayer, the 'King of Swords'?"
Too lazy to respond, Melusine directly stated: "There's a limit to uninvited guests."
"I really couldn't wait any longer."
Salvatore Doni's face showed no shadow at all, the eagerness within him impossible to conceal.
Just as he was about to draw the sword at his waist, he suddenly had an intuition that he 'shouldn't do that.'
Without any hesitation, Doni's half-extended hand stopped in place.
At the same moment, a gust of wind that almost painfully scraped his body swept past, and the scabbard that had been at his neck now blocked between his hand and sword.
"If you draw your sword, I will kill you without hesitation."
"Lady Lancelot? Your Majesty?"
Erica finally rushed over at this moment and her heart tightened upon seeing the situation between the two.
Melusine's warning made her heart leap to her throat.
Her plan had been to wait until the Sword King arrived here, then have a conversation with the one called the 'King's Butler,' Doni's best friend, Andrea Rivera.
After all, if the Sword King and Andrea had already reached a consensus on their goals, they wouldn't have taken so long to come to Sardinia.
Given the Sword King's personality, knowing about Lady Lancelot would definitely bring him here the same day.
This was also why Erica hadn't been too tense these past two days.
Andrea was an upright knight with considerable management skills. With him present, the two sides might not necessarily escalate to fighting... originally, Erica thought this way.
But it seemed she had been too optimistic.
Now Andrea wasn't here. Even if Lady Lancelot was willing to listen to her advice, without Knight Andrea by his side, the Sword King would inevitably choose the most self-centered way of acting.
Doni didn't even glance at Erica, his battle lust growing stronger as he looked at Melusine's weapon, his desire to compete completely uncontrollable: "Come to think of it, you also fight using swords, right?"
This guy... is he completely incapable of communication?
Melusine frowned. Even though she had long known that God-Slayers were self-willed beings, actually meeting one still exceeded her imagination.
After all, even Esdeath, that battle maniac, wasn't someone incapable of rational thought or suppressing desires.
"Anyway, we're enemies who will eventually fight sooner or later!"
Doni didn't intend to wait for an answer.
Silver light spread along his hand, and then he unhesitatingly used his hand as a sword, thrusting towards Melusine's face.
"Wait—!"
Erica's syllable had just left her mouth when a tremendous wind pressure sent her flying.
By the time she frantically adjusted her posture to look ahead, both figures had already disappeared.
All that remained before her was the cracked ground and a dozen-meter-long sword scar on the earth.
Thousands of meters up in the sky, Doni blocked the penetrating force from the metallic scabbard's edge with one hand held before him.
But even though he had simultaneously used both Nuadha and Siegfried's Authorities at maximum speed, he felt intense pain throughout his body.
The areas covered by the Authority of the Silver Arm were fine, but he could feel his arm had endured force beyond its threshold—the bones had definitely shattered.
Too fast. In just a lightning-flash encounter, he had already fallen into an almost desperate disadvantage.
But... it wasn't over yet!
"Even if the body is crushed and scattered, the sword never dies! The broken blade shall be melted down in the furnace, forged once more to be reborn as a new sword! This level of flames cannot destroy me!"
"O mark of divine protection, become a wall of black steel!"
The incantation driving his Authority rapidly poured from his mouth, and his already extremely hard body was now amplified to its limit.
Hundreds of rune letters surged from within him, then formed an unbreakable wall with the incantation.
This Authority, born from Siegfried's legend of 'Invulnerability,' granted Doni a defense that could not be broken.
Sensing that the defense she should have quickly torn apart had suddenly become unbreakable, Melusine wasn't anxious.
She wasn't the type to use full strength from the start.
This wasn't intentional holding back—though indeed she hadn't used her full power—the main reason was that she needed some time to accelerate.
Breaking through Mach 32 in the blink of an eye—such speed, she thought, should have instantly killed this Sword King. But inexplicably, he hadn't died and had instead blocked her attack... even so, this battle wouldn't last long.
Because her speed increased every moment.
In just one second, Mach 32 had already doubled again.
If she couldn't penetrate his defense immediately, waiting a little while would suffice. She just needed to keep accelerating and wait.
What Melusine didn't know was that this 'little while' would come far shorter than she imagined.
Falling backwards through the sky, Doni forcibly suppressed the sweetness rising in his throat.
Originally he thought using this technique would buy him some time... but the rate at which her attack power increased caught him off guard.
Her power—no, her speed—was increasing at an unimaginable rate. He couldn't waste even a second!
"O priestesses of Bacchus—Summon the divine child. Rendered drunk by the violent god's wine, home abandoned, wandering in the mountains. Worship and serve us gods!"
He couldn't let her accelerate further. If he couldn't win with Authorities, then let the great flames be unusable for everyone!
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.