Chapter 112: The Fallen and the Serpent Part 2
Hebi, even though has some doubts about how can Sophia use her move with the same speed and power as the original, did not linger about it too much and immediately put up her guard, she raised her katana as she saw the serine expression of Sophia as the Fallen Hero unsheathed her rapier and aimed at the middle of her upper body in one fluid motion, thankfully, as the creator of the attack, Hebi knew what to expect so she successfully blocked the three attacks, but she also know that the [Three Fangs of Death] not only packs speed but also power, and in that aspect, she was helpless as she saw her katana being shattered after blocking the three attacks simultaneously, the last attack even managed to send her flying, making her tumble to the ground repeatedly.
_According to the basic rules of the system, a skill that exists to copy another skill, ability or technique will never be able to replicate the attack perfectly due to the difference in power and the affinity of the one who possesses the copying skills, but Sophia replicated it with the same power as mine, the only difference is that her rapier is shorter, so she did not pierce through the katana..._
Hebi's mind was wondering as she finally felt the momentum of her stumbling at a controllable level, however, when she was about to fall on her back, Hebi suddenly saw a blue glow appear in the soil she was just about to land, Hebi's eyes suddenly constricted and tried to get away from the portal immediately, but it was too late, Khearsenbelle, the woman she has already killed was now inside the 4th dimension, she immediately hurled the dagger that was oozing with dark magic towards the back of Hebi, Hebi tried her best to dodge, but she was caught off guard because of the fact that she started to analyze Sophia ability whilst bouncing around, so she was hit by the dagger and rolled to the ground several meters before finally stopping.
The dagger itself is not painful, Hebi immediately used her right hand to reach for the place that was stabbed by the dagger, however, just as she was about to reach out, her right hand was forcefully straightened up in a semi-horizontal manner by a seemingly invisible force alongside her left hand, at the same time all of her body became stiff as chains suddenly appeared out of thin air and encased her hands as they stretched themselves to their limits, Hebi was shocked by this development as she looked at Sophia who is staring at her with a smile whilst the scenery in the eyes of Hebi changed, at the same time, a whisper was heard on her ear.
[Night Prison]
Hebi observed the new scenery in front of her, it was a stunningly beautiful beach with a lot of palm trees at her back and pristine crystal clear water in front of her, at her knees she could feel white sands that added to the beautiful atmosphere of the illusory land.
Hebi however did not enjoy such beauty, she started to analyze the situation and confirmed another thing.
_Sophia's understanding of what is supposed to be complicated dark magic has reached the basic level even though she has been using it not even a month ago... This fight is getting ridiculous by the minute..._
Hebi has a lot of spar with Loki, because of which she has an understanding of the basic principle of dark magic, that is first, it can upgrade attacks to the extent of mass destruction like what Sophia did to the blade of fire, second is that it has an extremely potent illusion capabilities, because of this, she can confirm her conjecture very easily.
_In my life, there are always prodigies who excel significantly well in a certain field, but Sophia seems to be different, she can understand concepts without a proper basis of reference... even I cannot understand weapons instantly before I trained with them myself._
_So I can presumably think that her abilities are High-Level Mental processing, either natural or given by the system, high mana count, and Dark Magic understanding that I can guess will level up as we fought... I have to en-!?_
Hebi was analyzing all her intakes on her exchange with Sophia when her whole being once again shuddered, like before, fear of death shrouded her very soul as she saw a figure emerging out of the water, the figure had a black cloak that hid the skeletal body he has and only the skeleton hands that holds into the scythe of the sudden visitor was the evidence of the man's constitution, Hebi did not let the man even go near her and bit her tongue immediately, her tongue immediately got severed because of the strength of the bite, causing it to fall of and blood to ooze out, however, this is such a small price to pay as the illusion immediately ended, however, Hebi did not even have the time to breath for a three-headed dog appeared in front of her.
The dog is made up of different elements, the left head is air, the middle is that of earth and the right is fire, the "Cerberus" did not give Hebi any respite as they immediately dived in and bared their fangs, Hebi gritted her teeth and created a giant shield to jam the fangs of the earth head of the Cerberus whilst encasing herself in a purple heavy armor with spikes on both it's knuckles before the wind head bit on her.
_Guhhh....!_
Hebi grunted feeling the twisting fangs of the airhead of the Cerberus, the pressure was so strong that the metal of the armor she had just created through her unique skill started to have several dents, seeing this, she did not hesitate and punched the airhead using one of the hands-free from the clutches of the heads, The air head of the Cerberus did not have any intelligence so when it got punched, it did not even whimper, but still, the fact that Hebi only took one punch to disperse one of the heads of a gigantic magically created creature was evident as the two remaining head tumbled because of losing the elemental balance put to them by their creator, Sophia.
Hebi did not let the Cerberus regain any kind of lucidity as she immediately jumped upwards and delivered an uppercut to the remaining heads, the Cerberus, despite their size was flipped over as if it was a feather before the remaining elemental heads dispersed. Seeing that such a gigantic creature was knocked out just like that, Sophia's eyes squinted, however, she did not react further for she had always overestimated Hebi Tsukaiza, she was just rather surprised that a giant got destroyed just like that, though despite that, she knew that everything that is happening is all according to her plan.
Sophia looked at her opponent and immediately put her index finger and middle finger together and as she did, violent winds started to form 5 inches away from her hands, she then used her other hand to pull on an imaginary string and while doing such motions, the winds started to take an arrow-like shape whilst growing bigger and bigger until it became 10 meters long and half a meter wide, not only that, the violent storms that are being encased inside the seemingly calm wind arrow started to turn black as it aimed directly at Hebi.
_God, seeing everything in slow motion is fucking annoying, last time I fought someone of my league, it is just their attack that slowed down, and now even the jiggling of Hebi's breasts is presented to me in full detail... and I can't say I don't enjoy it._
Sophia grumbled in her mind as she let go of the "string", alongside the motion, the gigantic arrow beside her immediately rushed towards Hebi.
Hebi immediately raised her hands, she created a gigantic spear that is as long as an arrow but way slimmer than it, veins started to appear on her hands, though it is invisible because of the armor, finally after "cocking" the spear, she threw it with all her might.
The two pointed objects headhunted each other's conjurers as they clashed head-on, and as they did, both destroyed their counterparts as debris of the spear being shredded because of the mini storm inside the wind made arrow cut the supposedly indestructible alloy made out of a unique skill whilst the spear also successfully dispersed the said storm causing deep cuts to the already barren crater the two fighters are in.
Sophia did not linger on the side to watch things this time, she unsheathed her rapier and disappeared from her spot, she appeared behind Hebi who was still in a kimono as she used howling winds alongside her already sharp rapier to stab the heart of Hebi, but as a soldier who normally works as an assassin, Hebi is extremely sensitive to sneak attacks, thus she immediately shortened her purple katana that she had conjured earlier and swung it with force, aiming to split Sophia in half, Sophia successfully blocked the attack but was flung backward.
Seeing this, the eyes of Hebi turned cold, and she decided to not fuck around anymore and finish off her nemesis once and for all, because of this, she has to take advantage of the fact that her regeneration ability is way faster than Sophia's.
Hebi immediately changed her attire back to her tight one-piece vest as she went and took the stance of a fencer, this means that her whole body was faced to the side to make her hit points as narrow as possible, and as the [Creation] unique skill has dictated, she has a saint level mastery over this weapon, Sophia looked serious as she also took the same stance, of course as someone who has a rapier, she most definitely knows how to use it the proper way, she just doesn't have the chance to until now.
Seeing that Hebi took a proper stance, of course, Sophia turned serious too, this is the most crucial part of her gameplan, the moment where Hebi decided to use her mastery instead of her brute strength to defeat her enemy, she was just like Sophia, just that she and Hebi have different field of expertise and both of them are banking on them to defeat their enemy.
As the two fighters glared at each other, the fierce look of Hebi disappeared once again as calm eyes devoid of any expression appeared, at the same time, a whisper that reverberated to the whole battlefield was heard.
[Serpent Arts: Pierce Heaven 'till it Breaks]
Sophia squinted her eyes as she was shocked at how lame the name of the attack was, at the same time, she was also on high alert as Hebi disappeared in front of her, normally, Hebi would try to sneak attack, however, because her opponent is in swordsman mode, she went right in front of her with her rapier already inches away from the right eye of Sophia, this made Sophia regret the fact that she made fun of the name of such a fast and deadly attack, but she still responded adequately and tilted her head a little, she wanted to counter it with a stab too but the rapier in Hebi's hand is already aiming at her shoulder, and this time, she was not ready to dodge it so she abandoned her thoughts to counterattack and parried the blade, however once again the tip of the rapier of Hebi is already inches away from her throat.
Sophia finally understood the principle of this attack, but still found it hard to defend, she will not be able to use her final move who have a better name than the current technique (though she has not thought of one yet) being used by Hebi if she did not survive her onslaught so she abandoned the thoughts of being in the offensive and directly used all her attention to defend.
_However, Hebi seems to be able to do this all day or at least a lot of times enough for me to commit a slip of the second mistake, my mind processing has been upgraded when I became a hero and made it so that I learned how to use the technique at the same intensity as the original user, however, this pierce heaven till it shits move is so fast that it doesn't give me any chance to mount a successful retaliation._
The clanging of swords continued as the swordmasters of their respective camps continued their duel, but Sophia's problem still lingered, she was always in the defense and couldn't even use Khearsenbelle to be a meat shield and counter the attack, seeing that she was in a disadvantage and was about to be suppressed, she gave up matching the opponent on her battlefield and shouted.
[Siginarugan]