Chapter 174: Heart of the Emperor (1/2)

Yelna didn't bother to rush towards the man. She simply walked over as if she wanted to ask him out for a coffee somewhere.

”You are seeking death!” The man shouted, slashing his sword at the woman. There was no finesse in his movements, no grace at all. He simply slashed away with his sword as if he wanted to scare the girl off rather than actually hurting her.

”Stop it before you hurt yourself,” Yelna said, taking a step forward, right within the range of the flailing sword of the Star Emperor.

DING!

A single metallic sound later, the weapon of the man landed several meters away, burying itself all the way to half of its height in the ground. Just how deeply it penetrated the ground was a testimony to the strenght of the counter that threw this weapon off the man's arm.

”I can believe you fell for it,” The Star Emperor commented, using the momentum he got from Yelna's counter to spin around. Once he showed his back to the girl, he leaned his upper body forward while kicking with his leg backward.

”Is that all?” Yelna asked, catching the man's leg by its ankle. She moved just half a step away, allowing the attack to pass right by her skin.

”As if!” The man shouted. At first, he attempted to wrestle his leg out. Unwilling to let go of this advantage, Yelna held it in place... Only to realize that she fell into the man's trap.

Rather than trying to free his leg, the star emperor used Yelna's hold as a foothold, kicking the rest of his body up and turning around over his leg, sending a powerful kick right towards Yelna's head.

”As I asked,” Yelna muttered as she let go of the man's leg, instantly making him start falling to the ground. But rather than just letting him hit the ground, Yelna pushed her fist forward, straight towards the man's shinbone.

Crack...

”ARGH!” The shout of pain escaped from the man's mouth when the bone in his leg cracked.

'Did she hold her attack back?' Markus thought, keenly observing the fight. Knowing what to expect and what to look out for, he could understand it on a far deeper level than the Star Emperor who was fighting with the girl.

Everything that this pitiful man saw was just a fake appearance created by Yelna. Thanks to her blood and abilities, she could move at a rate that the man likely wasn't able to even notice. Along with her physical strenght came an even greater advantage, her reaction speed.

Those two elements would normally put a hard limit on how fast one could become. After all, there would be no use of even the greatest speed if one's mind would be unable to catch up with one's movements. The opposite was exactly the same. With insane awareness and low mechanical speed, one would be doomed to suffer from hits he would be perfectly aware of but unable to dodge.

Only by mastering both her mechanical strenght and bringing her thought acceleration to its limits, Yelna managed to break free from the realms of speed that most of the humans were forever locked in.

'I know I should be used to this way of fighting of hers, but it awes me every time I see it,' Markus thought, feeling how something warm spread through his lower abdomen.

What the Star Emperor took for a first to his guts was actually Yelna covering her mouth as she yawned, swatting away some pesky fly and burying her fists into the man's guts. What the Emperor saw as a dodge was a leisure stroll to the side.

This fight was never just or fair. Ever since Yelna got the hook on the man, something that allowed her to use her topmost speed, this fight was decided.

”Don't underestimate me!” The Emperor suddenly shouted, stopping the one-sided pummelling that he was subjected to for the last few moments. His handsome face was nowhere to be seen. It was covered in bruises and cuts all over, giving testimony to how precise Claudia was with each of her strikes.

But this time, the furious words of the man were followed by an actual attack. 'To be fair, this thing is actually massive,' Markus thought as he looked at the mana the man gathered in the palm of his hands. It felt like if he took a mountain worth of mana and then condensed it all the way to the size of two gloves that covered his hands.

”Prepare to meet you make... GUH!” The Emperor attempted to taunt Yelna, only to have her fist greet his face again.