282 Chapter 282: Training against Hell Beasts (2/2)
Kassim was not without close-range self-defense, however, and he nimbly flipped himself away, his lithe body twisting to avoid Sheila's spear by the narrowest of margins. Parying Sheila's next spear strike with his cannon, he then drew a pistol with his other hand and fired into her at close range. Fortunately, Sheila managed to lower her arm in time and deflect the mana burst with her small shield. Planting his cannon on the ground, Kassim nimbly flung himself around and retaliated with a kick that Sheila blocked with her foot.
”Richard! I leave Lilith to you!”
Harrison was now engaging Riley, who had rushed out to meet him in combat. The two of them began engaging in what looked like a martial arts contest, trading blows with incredible moves. Both of them were so fast that their punches and kicks were mere blurs, normal human eyes being completely unable to follow them. Sonic booms from the speed of their attacks and shockwaves from their exchanges rippled outward, but were countered by the immense kinetic force emanating from the collision of Theodore's thunder hammer against Brutus's gauntlets.
”So it's me versus you again. How many times has this been?”
”The third time.” Not that I could bother to keep count, but it hadn't been that many times yet. Somehow I had a premonition that this wasn't going to be the last time either.
Lilith chuckled. ”Well, I have some good news for you. I won't be able to summon Kagutsuchi, not unless I want to incinerate my own teammates along with you guys. Normally, in a battlefield, they would buy me enough time to summon Kagutsuchi to wipe out hordes of monsters, or maybe a single high-ranking monster such as the Behemoth class, but unfortunately we have restrictions placed upon us in tournaments. I'm sure it's the same for you.”
Funnily enough, I was thinking along similar lines regarding my spells of mass destruction. So I wasn't the only one being limited by tournament rules. And before the whiners start complaining about how stupid it was, they had to understand that tournaments are by their very nature different from actual battles. Yes, they constitute as part of our training for real battles against monsters, and gave us vital experience, but they were also competitions among students. Even with the boundary fields, incidents could still happen, and they didn't want students to kill each other. Never mind the ”survival of the fittest” bullshit where some delusional readers believed that in some nonsensical social Darwinism where the cohort of students should be trimmed down into a small core of the ”strongest”– these elite students still weren't gods and they couldn't be everywhere all at once. What army were you going to use to protect your cities and nations if you allow most of your soldiers to kill each other during training? The boundary fields could only do so much – but like I said, the moment nuke spells or strategic-scale spells came into use, or Soul Beasts as powerful as Lilith's Kagutsuchi were summoned, they would end up destroying those boundary fields and causing deaths.
The Federation had to prevent that at all costs. And if there were readers who think this was retarded, they could screw off and read some other edgy story that celebrated killing and revenge. So easy to talk about ”letting the 'weak' die” or eliminating the ”useless”, but one day, when it turned out that they were the very ”weak” people that they themselves sought to get rid of, they would hypocritically do a 180 and started clamoring for human rights and protection from those stronger than themselves.
Admittedly, most of these readers were probably teenagers who still hadn't actually experienced just how cruel the world was, and how the only way to survive was not to become stronger, but to actually become smarter and cooperate with people you could trust. I'm not saying they should be naïve and believe everyone they met, but they certainly couldn't survive if they pull that edgy bullshit of ”can't trust anyone in this world” and ”the whole world should die” rhetoric. If that's the case, stop eating the food your parents buy for you, stop relying on farmers to produce the crops that constitute your meals, and stop going to the supermarket. Get off the damned Internet and live off the land, and plant your own food if you're so bloody paranoid.
”!!!”
I dodged Lilith's flaming sword, and then hopped back when she unleashed a torrent of flames at me.
”Don't you dare get distracted and start ranting at the existences beyond the fourth wall!” she reprimanded me.
”Hey! I'm trying to explain and justify why you can't just summon Kagutsuchi in the middle of a practice match or tournament so that they won't call you stupid or retarded!” I protested. ”It was for you!”
Well, it was also to explain why I didn't simply nuke everyone in the arena…I didn't want to kill myself along with everyone else for something as trivial as a practice match…hell, it wasn't worth it to ”win” a tournament either. A posthumous championship title was as useful to my pile of ashes as certain readers' insults.
”Not drawing your sword yet?” Lilith asked as she slashed at me. ”Don't underestimate me!”
”I think you misunderstand,” I assured her. ”I'm not underestimating you. I'm waiting for your Hellfire Bear. There's no meaning if we summoners just fight a sword duel. Don't you think so as well?”
”Mu…” Lilith sulked, but she couldn't refute my point. Taking a deep breath, she raised her free hand and summoned her Hellfire Bear. It descended with a roar and slashed at me.
This time, I didn't bother to summon Ursa Major. I merely smiled and waited as the Hellfire Bear barreled toward me. Instead of summoning, I placed my hand on Hei Yue and dropped to a crouch.
”!!!”
With a single iai, I decapitated the charging Hellfire Bear. The poor Soul Beast bellowed before blood spurted from its severed neck like a fountain, and its disembodied head bounced off the ground several times like an abandoned soccer ball.
”I…impossible…” Lilith was so shocked that she fell to her knees, her mouth gaping. ”How…?!”
”Did you forget who taught me swordsmanship?” I asked as I turned toward her, my hand still on the hilt of my black sword.
”You cheater!” she shouted shrilly. ”All that talk about us being summoners and how it's meaningless to fight a sword duel! You tricked me, didn't you?!”
”Nah…” I shrugged helplessly. ”I just didn't expect your Hellfire Bear to fall so easily. I meant to test my sword technique, and then summon Ursa Major if that didn't work out. But it seems that the iai Dad taught me has far exceeded my expectations. So this is the power of the Miyamoto School, huh?”
Lilith glared at me and charged at me, her flaming sword descending in a fiery arc. I merely smiled as I prepared to intercept her blazing blade, but before that, I raised an inquiring finger.
”Just one question…are any of your sword techniques more powerful than your Hellfire Bear?”