MIGHT AS WELL BE OP-Chapter 1003: Internal Enhancement

As those words left his lips, his right hand rose ever so slowly and moved to his left side, where his katana rested. Holding the hilt of his katana, he drew it from its scabbard with deliberate slowness, the sound of metal sliding against wood filling the air in a long, chilling note that seemed to stretch across the battlefield.

Seeing the motion and hearing the sound of Anthony’s katana finally being drawn, Aura Nova’s eyes narrowed. People of their calibre could tell whether someone was getting serious or merely playing around based solely on how they drew their weapon.

Although she didn’t know if Anthony would be attacking with everything yet, she could tell that he would at least reduce the extent to which he had been playing around.

She immediately dropped into a stance as she readied herself. ’Here he comes’, she thought to herself as her mind sharpened to its greatest degree. Her senses peaked and heightened, the world around her slowing as her perception stretched outward in search of any sudden movement, any tremor in existence, any shift in the air that would betray his approach.

Anthony couldn’t help but smile even more as he watched Aura Nova prepare herself. "Here I come," he simply announced. But unlike Aura Nova, he didn’t enter any battle stance. Instead, he simply moved.

Aura Nova, whose sky-blue eyes were locked onto Anthony, immediately felt her senses scream like never before. Before she could even think or understand why her senses were going haywire, her reflexes kicked in, seizing control over her body. Her hands tore to the side at blitzing speed.

Clang

The sound of two metals colliding exploded outward with the force of a nuke as she stopped an unseen incoming attack. Aura Nova felt the force of the strike slam into her with bombarding power, the impact tearing her off her feet as she was hurled backward through the air.

As her body screamed backward, Aura Nova’s mind spun in frantic thought. She couldn’t understand it. She had seen Anthony standing before her, yet in the next instant her senses had screamed and her body had moved of its own accord. Despite that, the Anthony from earlier was still there, standing exactly where she had seen him, even after she had blocked.

’Such speed,’ she thought to herself, amazement flickering in her eyes. Anthony had moved fast enough to leave a tangible afterimage in his place, to the point that it had fooled her sight into believing it was the real Anthony.

’I didn’t even sense the air displacement,’ she realized as she immediately regained control over her body in the next split second. Twisting through the air with controlled grace, she corrected her posture mid-flight before landing, her feet digging violently into the earth as she skidded backward to a stop, carving deep trenches in her wake.

Her eyes snapped forward toward Anthony’s last known location. ’I need to adap—’

Before she could finish her thought, her reflexes seized control again. Her body tore to the side in a blur as she didn’t dare attempt to block this time. Her hands were still throbbing from the impact of the previous strike, the bones within them vibrating painfully.

The moment she dodged, the world seemed to pause, as though reality itself clicked its tongue at her cockroach-like survivability. In the next instant, the air screamed and then tore asunder with a rocketing impact as shredding sword marks erupted outward, tearing through the space where Aura Nova had been. Air, sound, earth, wind, sand, everything in the path of that single slash was reduced to total annihilation.

An earthquake tore through the battlefield as dust churned violently and rose toward the sky in a mushroom-shaped plume. Enormous chasms and ravines were ripped open from a single attack, an attack meant merely to decapitate one woman.

Aura Nova’s figure slipped back into reality a couple of kilometers away, her mind racing as she tried to process what was happening. Since Anthony had moved, she hadn’t seen him, sensed him, or noticed him in any capacity. She knew that if it weren’t for her reflexes, instincts, and sixth sense, she would already be lying lifeless on the ground.

Although she was amazed at Anthony’s sheer ridiculousness, she knew she couldn’t continue to rely solely on reflexes, instincts, and subconscious reactions to save her. That was not fighting, that was surviving by chance. She needed leverage. She needed something, anything, that would allow her to at least perceive Anthony. Even if she could only see his silhouette, even if she could only catch a faint outline of his motion, it would be enough.

Then a thought struck her; Sword Intent.

Although she knew that using it to directly clash against Anthony would be futile, she could use it to aid herself in this moment. With that thought, her Sword Intent flickered into existence, blue in color, radiant yet restrained. It did not flood outward explosively. Instead, under her ridiculous control, it seeped inward.

It flowed into her eyes first, sharpening her vision beyond mortal limits. Then it poured into her brain, igniting her neural pathways with crystalline clarity. It traveled down her spinal cord and into her central nervous system, threading through every nerve like electric light. From there, it spread into her internal structure, muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, organs, veins, and arteries.

It reinforced her from within.

Not a single strand of that intent leaked to the surface. Her body appeared completely normal, as though she had done nothing at all. Yet internally, she brimmed with insane strength, speed, and force, her entire being harmonized under the silent hymn of her Sword Intent.

With her eyes, brain, and central nervous system enhanced, her perception of the world slowed even further. The chaotic dust drifting through the air became visible in individual grains. The trembling of fractured earth became a readable vibration.

And finally, she saw him.

The boy who had eluded her since the moment he drew his weapon. He stood beside her once again, impossibly close, as though distance meant nothing to him. His katana was raised toward the sky, his gaze indifferent as he stared at her without emotion. Then, without warning, his katana dropped with the force of a falling comet.

His aim? Aura Nova’s neck.

’How is he even this fast?’ Aura Nova thought as all she perceived was a katana singing toward her with lethal speed and overwhelming force.

It hadn’t even been a full split second since she had arrived at her current position, yet Anthony was already here, as though he had always been here and she had merely stepped into his domain.

Aura Nova immediately deleted all extraneous thoughts from her mind. There was no room for contemplation. No room for wonder. She could finally perceive the attack, and with Sword Intent reinforcing her internally, there was no longer a need to dodge.

Her twin short swords screamed forward like twin viper snakes striking in unison. A cataclysmic burst erupted as ruinous metal collided against metal, the impact collapsing into itself before exploding outward in a deafening crescendo.

The sound rang across the battlefield like an orchestra of blades clashing in violent harmony. With these two as the musical conductors, steel became the instrument, and the battlefield transformed into a symphony hall where battle hymns and deadly rhythms danced in wild glee and unrestrained madness.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m back. I was only on a break to rest my body and mind. Also, I will be needing your golden tickets, please do well to support me with them. Happy new month, people.