Spar

True to himself, Chang Sheng decided to start things off with a spar. The golden-eyed scion had always been quite curious about how strong Edrick actually was… He had always struck Chang as quite the unreadable individual. It seemed impossible to accurately gauge his might with just a glance, like it was possible with many.

Chang Sheng and Jianrou Sheng weren’t Simis, but many people tended to still refer to them as such due to their extraordinary strength and skill that made it seem like they had both been blessed at birth.

The Sheng clan had risen to replace the late Chen clan, and it had been clear at the time that they were a lesser version, but they had risen to the challenge nonetheless and nurtured plenty of geniuses, truly earning their spot as a great clan, but the Sheng bloodline and constitution nonetheless remained less developed that their peers or predecessor–At least until Chang and Jianrou were born.

Whether it was just dumb luck or divine providence was unknown, but their bloodlines and constitution were far ahead of anything else the Sheng clan had ever seen, and the two of them had the duty to sire as many offspring as possible, they had the duty of making sure their superior bloodline replaced the old one and allowed the Sheng clan to truly stand where the Chen clan had once stood.

Alas, not everything went well… Jianrou had a difficult personality and refused to even entertain the idea of being touched by a man, and Chang Sheng had been quite oblivious to the opposite sex, but when he finally took a step forward, he brought what his family viewed as a whore back home.

Regardless of how much he would speak of this with Edrick, who was definitely more experienced than him–His first instinct was nonetheless to spar with the Elt scion. He could tell that Anoteros had grown far stronger since their last meeting. He had heard about how he had completely absorbed the Chen bloodline, amongst other things.

For their friendly fight, they stepped away from the residence and went into an open field near Edrick’s residence. Chang calmly unsheathed his blade, a radiant sword of a simple shape, but with a gorgeous design that the sunlight made silver and gold, making the weapon glow brightly.

Since it was just a friendly duel, Anoteros decided to leave his many nasty tricks up his sleeve and directly manifested Arm Of Depravity into the form of a large Kanabo.

He tapped the blunt weapon against his palm.

“How should we decide when the duel actually starts?”

Chang’s focused expression faded away as he rubbed his chin in thought.

“Do you have a coin? We’ll just start when it hits the ground”

Edrick brought out a coin as if he were a magician and sent it high into the air.

The two men focused as their muscles tensed. Neither of them needed to look. The second the coin touched the ground, they both surged forward.

With his massive reach advantage, Edrick was the first to strike. He swung his heavy weapon as if it weighed nothing into a wide arc close to the ground, and had Chang stepped forward, he wouldn’t have hesitated to let go of his weapons to get a hit in anyway, but the Sheng scion was definitely the fastest opponent Anoteros had ever faced.

With sparks of gold, he accelerated in the blink of an eye. Edrick only caught glimpses of what he could only assume was a casual use of whatever skill that was, but instead of looking like a bullet that flew by, Chang Sheng seemed to just casually walk out of the range of the swing, simply going on his way behind the Elt scion’s back.

‘Damn. This could end the duel right now’

Anoteros remained calm and unsummoned Arm Of Depravity to free his hands, and momentarily transformed his body–An interesting thing he had discovered was that when transforming, he could suddenly and strongly stiffen his muscles without risking injury, allowing him to pretty much cancel the momentum of his powerful swing.

Of course, it wasn’t something he could use over and over again, as a sudden transformation like this that only lasted for a second was quite stamina-consuming.

Nonetheless, it did its job and allowed Edrick to swiftly resummon Arm Of Depravity as a great pavise shield behind his back, resulting in a loud bang as the candidate sword saint’s sword struck the shield.

Anoteros turned around and proceeded to unsummon his weapon once more, meeting the gaze of a surprised Chang Sheng.

“Oh my… This weapon of yours is durable, I don’t think I could destroy it even with my full might…”

As one should expect, the sword Chang wielded was a real treasure, and there were only a few occasions when he had discovered something that couldn’t be damaged by a swing of his blade.

The spar resumed swiftly, with Edrick now firmly aware that committing to a strong attack as he had previously was a mistake. The Sheng scion could completely outspeed him at any given moment, so he should stay on the move to avoid getting caught.

Chang Sheng could have easily won by just striking whilst he moved at incredible speed, but that would defeat the purpose of a spar if he just used a nigh unblockable move like this. Not to mention that it didn’t require skill to do so. Even someone who never held a weapon could easily defeat someone with the ability to move like this, and relying on it would only stifle his growth and make him complacent, until he was defeated by an adversary who could counter it.

Quickly enough, though, the golden-eyed scion realised that it wasn’t just a matter of sparring, but the right decision, as he quickly noticed that Edrick was reacting and almost following his motions.

“You can actually catch glimpses of me? Now that’s great!”

“I don’t know if I would say that I am catching glimpses…”

Edrick chuckled as he transformed his weapon into a Kanabo and struck the ground, using the might of Oni Smash to shake the ground all around him.

Edrick quickly came to understand that he wasn’t actually seeing Chang Sheng when he sped up with those sparks of gold. It was actually the Chen bloodline pulling its weight.

Edrick himself couldn’t see a thing, but the blood of the Chen could sense the usage of a powerful technique and of a talented fighter. The bloodline was analysing it and trying to feed it to Anoteros, and it seemed like the Elt scion’s brain was interpreting it in a way that was making him see his opponent move, but it really was just a figment of his imagination intended to help him learn the footwork and motions used by his opponent.

Anoteros wouldn’t be imitating the move, but learning about it could help him figure out a way to potentially counter it.

‘Mmh…’