Raid: The Blacksmith-Chapter 83: Get The Fuck Up: Part Two

All my Skills have been deactivated. All of them. Dawn’s still "grounded" in the Item Space. I still don’t want her to interrupt me in this battle. If I relinked our Soul Bond now, I bet she’d want to join me in the fight immediately.

"She’s gonna throw one hell of a fit when I finally let her out." I sigh at the mere thought of the headache I’ll for sure have to deal with once I’m done with Taipan.

Speaking of...

~Clank!~

~Ting!~

~Clank!~

Taipan’s and my daggers clash consistently. We launch and parry each other’s consecutive slashes over and over.

"You." Says Taipan as we continue battling it out. "You really are a monster. You’ve gotten even stronger, haven’t you?" He asks rhetorically. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"You noticed?" I tease. The first taunt that actually gets a reaction.

"Brat." He says as one of his eyebrows flick.

We continue fighting. My clothes still in tatters, my body still exuding an aura of pure white. Taipan takes a step back and flips back a few times then immediately launches a Special Attack, only he repeats it multiple times. A clear sign that he’s not playing around.

"Venom Slice." He utters, and sends nigh-uncountable waves of cross-like patterned black colored slashes.

I don’t use Sunset Slash, or any other Special Attack. I don’t activate any Skills either. Rather, I teleport...

"Time I stop relying on my Skills so much. I can’t forget that I have Spells as well, after all."

I cast Domain Transit, disappearing in front of one wave of slashes only to reappear in front of the next, then disappear in front of that one, too. I repeat this over and over until I’ve closed the distance with my opponent.

Why not just teleport once and appear in front of my opponent all together, you ask?

Well, I don’t think I need to answer that. "It just wouldn’t look as cool." But I answer nonetheless.

I immediately notice Taipan’s mouth widen beneath his mask as I teleport again and again, slowly closing the distance between us, laughing internally as I do.

"What!?" He exclaims. "A teleportation Skill! You had that all along!?"

"It’s actually a Spell, not a Skill." I readily reply.

"You have Spacial Manipulation Magic!? Impossible!" He yells.

"’Impossible’?" I echo. "Really...? And just what in the hell makes it so impossible?" I add with an annoyed expression as-

~Click~

Is the sound of my daggers’ chains joining at their ends with a wave of my hands. I then let go of Right Fang, swinging my left hand to rest the daggers on my neck by their chains as I do. Then immediately appear in front of Taipan, only about half a metre away.

Before he even reacts, my right open palm is spread so the tips of my fingers gently tap his stomach, and immediately, the hand forms a fist and briefly moves forward.

It’s not Demolition Strike, but oddly enough, it doesn’t feel lacking in power, just specifically concentrated on one target. Taipan.

The punch sends his ass flying across the ruined planes, now deprived of snow. That somehow doesn’t sit well with me for some reason, but I ignore the feeling and chase after my foe as he’s hurled away.

"Kargh!" He wails from the impact, coughing blood out through his mask, but sticks his landing back down by flipping backwards and sliding back against the ground, dust forming along his trail. He gets up and rips off his mask, spitting and wiping away his blood afterwards.

It doesn’t do much in helping me recognize him or anything, since I’ve obviously never known this man at all.

"First drop of blood you’ve shedded since this fight began." I say calmly walking towards him. My face dressed in a nonchalant expression. "How does it feel?" I ask him genuinely.

"... Hah." He sighs after a short pause. "This again? You expect me to say, ’not my best moment, I’ll admit’?" He asks rhetorically.

"Kinda, yeah." I answer him sincerely.

"Go to hell." He hurls.

"For that to happen, you’d have to kill me first." I taunt, a smirk slowly growing on my face. "So then, for the last time. LET’S GO NUMBER ONE!" I roar, grinning ear to ear. "LET’S FINISH OUR RIDE OR DIE DEATH BATTLE! RIGHT HERE AND NOW! AND OF COURSE! WINNER GETS THE SPOILS!" I finish with a howl.

Taipan simply looks at me, with somewhat of a drained expression before speaking. "You’re insane."

"I’ve come to accept that probability... I do have a voice in my head after all." I dash towards him. Sparing no second, he does the same.

He conjures out clones again. Only this time, there’s eleven of them total.

"Oh! You’re no longer playing around, I see!" I chuckle as I fight off the clones one after the other. Speeding towards the first, I jump up and grab Left Fang, whose chain is still connected to Right Fang’s and use my daggers like a whip for the first time. Swinging them off my neck, I hurl Right Fang towards the clone while holding onto Left Fang, the weapons cover a much greater distance than before, which throws Taipan, or at least his clone, off as it decapitates him before he can even do anything. I land back down after his body dissipates and pull back with my left hand, sending Right Fang back at me for me to catch the dagger by its handle, letting go of its Twin in the process so that it can have some fun as well.

I spin back clockwise, and swing my right hand, sending Left Fang flying towards my remaining foes. The dagger slides swiftly against the wind, and as if with zero resistance given, slices horizontally through the stomachs of three of Taipans clones with ease.

My foes notice how facing me from one side might prove a great disadvantage for them and act accordingly to surround me. Only eight Taipans remain.

I pull back my right hand, allowing me to catch Left Fang by its handle then spread my arms outward as a-

~Click~

-Sound echoes quietly through the air. The daggers are now separated. I throw them away, straight upwards, letting them go by their handles to catch them again by the ends of their chains and pull them back down. In the process, I swing both my arms back, sending the blades to attack the clones behind me. They slice through the ground with ease, leaving two perfectly straight parallel lines, and then swing up to two clones behind me.

~Clank!~

~Clank!~

The duplicates parry my attack, bouncing my daggers off of their own and sending them flying back over me. Noticing that, I swing the Twins in opposite directions as I turn clockwise to send them towards two other clones to my right and left.

~Clank!~

~Clank!~

Those clones parry them as well. I pull my daggers back and flip sideways anti-clockwise to hurl them both at Taipan himself.

~Clank!~

~Clank!~

He also parries them one after the other.

I don’t stop and continue sending my daggers out towards my foes as they surround me.

The clashes sing unendingly. Then my foes start getting more serious, seeing how hard I’m making it for them to approach me without getting a dagger or two sent their way. Since they don’t have chains to make their weapons’ reaches longer, they start throwing their daggers at me with great force.

One clone throws one of his daggers straight for my head from my left as I land down from a previous jump. Even though Soul-Piercing Eyes or even Treasure Hunt isn’t activated, I see it clearly from the corner of my eye. How? Simple. Because I’ve already casted Overseer, which lets me see everything in the surroundings. Everything in this Dungeon.

I tilt my head back to avoid the dagger thrown, only for the dagger to come back from the other side immediately.

"Oh I see how it is." I utter with a smirk. The dagger was thrown back by one of the clones on my right side after catching it when it missed me. I parry the dagger with Right Fang by quickly swinging my right hand up and down. With a-

~Ting!~

-Sound, the dagger is sent flying upwards as I then immediately swing my right hand back and then up, sending Right Fang after it. Right Fang’s chain wraps around the dagger and I pull down and swing my arm around in a circle to throw the dagger at a random clone in front of me.

It goes straight through the clone’s chest and his body dissipates as a result. Now only seven Taipans remain.

"You oughta step up your game, number one." I taunt. "’Cause mine is at an all time high, right now." I praise myself.

"Tch. Don’t get cocky!" He manages to retort, even through his growing panting. He’s getting exhausted. It’s getting much easier to get a reaction out of him since he feels as if he’s at a disadvantage. I can immediately tell how much it pisses him off.

The growing intensity of the clones’ attacks tell me all I need to know about how much he’s not loving the fact that I’m thriving right now. They throw their daggers over and over again, while I parry and dodge, catch them and then throw them back.

They don’t let up though, continually throwing their daggers as offense, and dodging and parrying my own attacks as defense, while they surround me. It then comes to my attention that their growing instensity might be due to the fact that a decent amount of time has passed since I killed a clone after the one whose chest I threw a dagger through. So in response, I decide to teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget. To make them see that I’m the one in control here. No, rather, to make Taipan in particular, see that he’s not simply at a disadvantage. No. He really is going to die here.