kscans

Chapter 646 - An Inherited Step

Excluding a few singularity-like exceptions that aren’t bound by common sense, there are two standard strategies for agility-focused builds in Arcadia’s PvP.

Broadly speaking, it’s either push or pull. Both involve using one’s superior ‘legs’ to run circles around the opponent, but it essentially comes down to either going all-out on offense to overwhelm them in one go, or luring the enemy into a rhythm created by your speed advantage and then methodically and surely chipping away at them.

In short, there is basically no option other than to ‘attack.’ In this world (game) where countless unknown skills are updated every hour, it’s especially crucial for fragile AGI types, who can be taken down by a single minor accident, to ‘not let the opponent do anything.’

Therefore—

“Heh! I like it! Your spirit and your guts seem to be the real deal!”

“Huuu—h…!”

Even if his opponent was a monster from another dimension, there was no path other than to press forward.

How many times had he charged? How many times had he attacked a blind spot? How many times had he attacked? How many times had the dagger wielded in his right hand struck her body?

Directly in front of the [Heroine], who had turned to look behind her in reaction to a feint. As if to say that slipping past her vision was meaningless, her left palm flashed out without a look and easily caught the point of his blade, which had been thrust forward with both arms for a full-body blow… and once again, a metallic sound rang out.

While it couldn’t compare to the legendary Uniques, Anima, or other out-of-spec Terror Armaments, Kanata’s beloved sword, [Licorice Muse], was a one-of-a-kind piece crafted by a renowned magic engineer.

Both its base material and its craftsmanship were undeniably first-class. It wasn’t a blade that should be so easily blocked by the ‘skin’ of a player who wasn’t even wearing proper armor—but,

“Hk…!”

“Oops, again?”

Unfortunately, even without external protection, she herself was far from ordinary.

The moment Oume Touri, who stood on the battlefield with her HP still untouched, tried to close her left hand, he pulled his blade back and immediately activated his [Rebellion] to retreat seven meters in a super-speed step. Just as she had said, it was a fruitless exchange that had been repeated over and over again.

“Well, I’ll be. Those are some impressive ‘boots’ you’ve got there.”

“…I’m honored.”

He knew the secret to her absurd ‘defense.’ Or rather, it was information she herself had made public, so anyone who wasn’t completely uninterested in the world would know it.

The reward for the first clear of the high-difficulty dungeon, the ‘Otherworldly Plains of the Deep Sky,’ was the special title ‘The Ground.’ Like the ‘names’ of the Rankers, it was a title with a constantly active effect, one that came with both a massive merit and a massive demerit, making it extremely specialized.

Its hidden power was the ‘super-enhancement of the avatar on the ground’ and the ‘super-weakening of the avatar in the air’—in short, as long as her feet were on the ground, her body would be tougher than anyone else’s, and if both feet left the ground, she would become more fragile than anyone else.

On the ground, she becomes a champion who can block even the sword strikes of the [Sword Queen] with her bare hands.

In the air, she becomes a helpless lady who can be injured by a carelessly thrown stone.

“……………”

“You’re thinking, and thinking hard.”

The steel-like hardness was one of the enhancement effects of ‘The Ground.’

An automatic defense that momentarily hardens any part of her body, ‘Iron Body of the Earth Mother’—while it had the limitation of being optional and only able to harden an area the size of her palm, in the hands of a Title Holder with exceptional combat sense and a wealth of experience, its troublesome nature was self-evident.

To break through it, one would either have to launch a surprise attack that surpassed the reads of a top-tier PvP expert—second only to the [Heavy Tank] and excluding the exceptional [Sword Queen]—swallow her in an area-of-effect attack that ignores partial hardening, or slip past her defenses with such super-speed that she wouldn’t even have time to judge when to harden.

“………………”

“Well, that’s a good thing. …But.”

However, once again, unfortunately—Kanata possessed none of those options.

“Just thinking all the time gets boring, doesn’t it?”

“Kh…!”

The great mallet touched the ground. A tremor erupted, and the [Heroine] before him vanished.

One of the enhancement effects of ‘The Ground,’ its name was ‘Great Quake Movement.’ Its ability was to enable instantaneous movement by riding the vibrations to slide across the ground.

It was none other than an ability similar to Kanata’s own ‘Anima.’ Its top speed varied depending on the intensity of the tremor, and on top of the localized great earthquake stirred up by her [Grace Lucate]—

—it became a super-speed that was equal to, if not greater than, the speed of an AGI: 500 build.

The approaching attack was unarmed, a fist raised high.

That great mallet, despite its scale, was a semi-physical object with no attack power. Therefore, her means of attack was, as her many ‘nicknames’ suggested, bare-knuckle brawling.

But do not underestimate it. Her stats, which granted her ‘hardness’ and ‘speed’ through the effects of ‘The Ground,’ were all focused on the one value she lacked for melee combat—

“Alright, let’s enjoy this strange fate!”

“————”

The mighty fist, unleashed by a monstrous strength of over 700 STR, would easily shatter objects it struck, and if it struck the ‘unbreakable’ prepared by the gods, it would scatter a shockwave of unimaginable destruction.

[Rebellion] reactivated, retreat—though he could escape thanks to the power of his Anima, which followed its path straightforwardly, ignoring great earthquakes and all else, he couldn’t avoid the shockwave, which was more than just a tremor in the air, and it shook his avatar to the core.

This was, without a doubt, the most powerful attack she had used since their engagement.

Had she grown tired of Kanata’s repeated hit-and-run tactics, or was it a grand demand to ‘show me what you’ve got next’?

It likely wasn’t just a ‘fist’ formed from pure strength stats, but a serious blow built upon a myriad of unconventional skills befitting a Ranker—

—that is what he wanted to believe.

Because if that were the case… then at this very moment, as she took another step forward and raised her fist towards Kanata, who was truly and hopelessly thrown off balance, it would mean that,

—just as planned, she had leaned forward and stepped right into his trap.

He had given her more than enough information through his repeated, fruitless hit-and-run attacks. In other words, she had likely figured out that Kanata’s [Rebellion] was poorly suited for offense.

There was a limitation to the ‘slide’ enabled by his Anima that ‘a trajectory that touches an obstacle cannot be set,’ and there was also a feature that was both a safety function and a weakness: ‘at the end point, a hundred-to-zero stop that ignores inertia is applied.’

Therefore, an action that connects the momentum of the slide into an attack was impossible.

Any attack based on his [Rebellion] would always have a one-beat pause on both the entry and the exit, and he couldn’t hope for an attack power increase from an inertia boost.

Needless to say, against an opponent outside the norm like a Ranker, a ‘one-beat pause’ was fatal. It was only natural that she would read the direction of his attacks, and it was all according to plan that she had blocked every one of them.

On top of that, she had probably also figured out the left-right alternating pattern and the fact that he couldn’t activate his Anima unless his feet were on the ground—he needed her to have figured it out.

Over and over again, he had stubbornly launched attacks knowing they wouldn’t work, all for that purpose. He needed her to understand, otherwise, at this very moment,

—his next move, from his floating state, wouldn’t land.

His two feet, surely lifted from the floor by the impact, his right hand, whose blade was useless, and his left hand, which had been presented as unarmed ever since he threw down the gauntlet,

—behind his back, finally gripped the hilt of a weapon.

In the shadow of the scabbard that sheathed his [Licorice Muse], another scabbard, worn quietly like a charm, held a black-lacquered blade—

“————[Ignition]!”

A flash of light, like red lightning, burst forth.