Supreme Swordfiend

It was an explosion of pain unlike any Leon had felt before. He'd been bruised, clawed, nearly disembowelled and most recently had his lung punctured. Ripping that spear out of his chest had left him on the verge of consciousness, only his adrenaline keeping him on his feet long enough to heal up. The destruction of his eye was far worse, it felt like someone had set fire to his brain, blood pouring from the sensitive organ, running down his cheek only to stick in Leon's facial hair leaving him half-blind and coated in blood.

There was no time to scream, his good eye still locked on his enemy, the centurion flipping his gladius around after completing his slash, driving it back towards Leon's throat.

Bladeless once more served its auxiliary function, Leon having yanked the sword back after his failed attack, intercepting the centurion's stab. The screech of metal on metal rang out and the two men separated, the centurion retreating, having recognised he would gain no advantage while the swordsman had his bulwark to hide behind, opting to wait for the man to overextend and then punish that overextension with cold steel- a tried and true method.

Leon meanwhile was healing the long gash that had torn his eye apart. While the start and the end of the slash, the parts that had done nothing more than rip through his cheek, eyebrow and forehead were quickly healed, the skin knitting back together rapidly, his injured eye was not so easily reformed. It began sucking in a huge amount of his remaining energy, his vision remaining dark even as he directed a flood of energy to restore the damaged organ.

Left with less than a tenth of his energy, Leon had to abort his efforts prematurely- he had failed to heal his eye. The injury had demanded far more energy for its healing than any he'd sustained before. He'd been forced to cut off the process, spending too much of his energy would leave Leon without the stamina he needed to finish this fight.

It would all need to be settled in the next exchange, if Leon took another injury, even a minor one, he would die. Either he would slowly bleed out, dying on his feet as his body shut down or the centurion would manage to destroy a vital organ, hastening the process. Worst case scenario, Leon would get a gladius shoved into his head or heart, killing him on the spot.

He should have respected his opponent's prowess at this moment. On some level he did, his subconscious mind recognising that the centurion fought with greater skill than the ninety-nine soldiers who had come prior, leveraging his body's strengths alongside a mana circuit which boosted his speed, to counter Leon's aggressive blows. The centurion had been aiming to kill Leon from the very start, each attack part of a strategy to grind Leon down.

His conscious mind was far too busy screaming for vengeance, demanding that he impale the smug soldier on his blade, unwilling to listen to reason. Pushing that anger aside, Leon faced down his enemy once again, both men waiting for an opening to present itself as Leon's mind churned, hoping to find a way to break this deadlock.

The optimal move was to switch up his mode of attack, swap to Wavecutter, surprise the centurion and claim his neck with a Low Tide. He rejected that choice. To draw Wavecutter here would be giving the dungeon an information advantage, it would allow the next nine hundred foes to develop countermeasures for Wavecutter. No, he would close this fight out with Bladeless.

Wavecutter was a trump card, once drawn he would need to commit his mana to fuel Ebb and Flow for the best results and once that was done he would be forced into using Tsunami- a move that would leave him broken and bloodied. Until things were truly desperate, Wavecutter would remain sheathed.

There was another choice. He had been suppressed this entire fight, only managing to rob the centurion of his shield thanks to a mindless assault. That method could work again, a brutish charge that denied the slippery man the space he needed to outmanoeuvre Leon. He questioned the wisdom of giving in to his rage- but wasn't that a similar strategy to the ones he'd achieved victory with before?

He'd forgotten a fundamental truth. Leon Knox didn't win fights off the back of his superior skill alone- he won by rushing into danger and doing the unexpected, leaping straight at a dinosaur to cleave its neck, or duelling a flesh eating slime with little more than an iron arming sword and a tank top to keep him safe. It was something he'd nearly forgotten after all these easy fights, sometimes to win you had to throw caution to the wind.

Glaring towards the centurion, Leon stopped looking for an opening. It hurt to admit but the centurion outclassed him, Leon's lack of experience in human versus human combat meant he would lose if he kept playing the same game as his opponent.

Time to flip the board.

Keeping Bladeless low, he rapidly slashed back and forth, advancing toward his foe, arms burning as he weaved an impenetrable storm of steel, using the same style of reckless slash he'd used to beat the man's shield from his hands. He was forcing the centurion backwards, each step bringing the soldier closer to the edge of the bridge.

That was when he lunged forward, throwing Bladeless midway through his swing, the colossal weapon's length ensuring the centurion was caught by the surprise attack, sending the armoured man into the river, stunned from the fall and the impact of the blade against his chest.

Before the soldier could do more than roll onto his front, preventing himself from drowning in the shallow water, Leon was on him. He'd left Bladeless on the bridge and leapt on his downed foe, giving in to his rage, the swordsman straddled the centurion, pounding his arms into the man's face. Leon's fists broke the man's nose. Blood flowed back into the centurion's airways, his flailing limbs doing little to unsettle Leon's firm hold.

He had pinned the man's shoulders beneath his knees, limiting the centurion's range of motion as he broke his fists against the man's face. The resistance intensified, Leon felt his bones break under the force of his punches, his knuckles as bleeding and swollen as his enemy's face by the time he finally pulled back.

The centurion was still, somehow, clinging to life, breathing ragged and gurgling, the flow of blood from his shattered nose clotting in the man's throat. Even if Leon left him here he'd die, choking to death on his blood. That wasn't enough for him though. This sadistic bastard had enjoyed hurting Leon and his swordsman's pride demanded retribution.

Raising his voice, Leon made sure the enemy army knew exactly what punishment he was about to exact upon their elite warrior.

"Good fight mid-boss, I'm almost as impressed as I am fucking furious. Have you ever heard this expression before? An eye for an eye- you took one of mine, so I'm taking one of yours."

His foe spat at Leon from the ground, the wet glob of spittle and blood hitting the swordsman's cheek. It blended in with all the other blood that Leon was caked in, just another mark of brutality to decorate the swordsman's visage. His enemy gave his last words, audible only to Leon, filled with resentment and fury.

"Fuck you demon. The Blazing Sun will break you Ku Kulin!"

The centurion had no more cause to speak, only to scream as Leon hooked his fingers behind the man's right eyeball. Leon hardly felt the organ's slippery nature thanks to his gauntlets, grabbing on and twisting, breaking off the optical nerve, hand bloodied as the centurion died beneath him, the trauma too much for the man's injured body to bear, his heart seizing and his body going slack in the shallow water.

Leon turned and threw the eyeball towards the enemy encampment, hauling himself back onto the bridge with the last of his strength, his hands barely strong enough to allow him to do so, a rush of endorphins numbing his pain and allowing him to stay focused. He had a minute before the next enemy arrived, he had to recover in that timeframe or he would perish.

Summoning a plateful of burgers from his storage ring, digging in with gusto. The enemy commander watched as the swordsman eschewed the use of his broken hands, shoving his face into the meat and bread he'd summoned. The man chewed through twenty of the burgers before he rose to his feet, eye restored and hands healed, retrieving his discarded sword and taking up a battle stance, ready to fight the next poor bastard sent his way.

He'd forgotten they were constructs, forgotten this was a dungeon. Leon knew at this moment he was ready to die defending this bridge, solely because these dicks wanted to cross it. He gave himself over to his racing blood, the part of him that demanded fresh corpses be piled until the river below was dammed, a wall of mangled bodies to halt the water's flow. The roar of primal fury he unleashed unsettled the commander even more, her horse whining beneath her.

Still gripped by the idea that he had to think crazily to win Leon realised despite his food reserves he would still die to the unending waves of foes. They either would whittle him down, little by little or send another centurion. A stronger one, one easily able to tear Leon limb from limb. What if he chose another way? If he refused to be played by the rules?

Time to flip the script again.

"You! Get off your high horse and fight me! Or I'm coming to you!"

The commander answered, staring down the blood-stained warrior, her armour pristine and cloak unsullied.

"You wouldn't dare Ku Kulin- the Blazing Sun Clan has honoured your request, faced you in single combat and upheld the ancient rites! You would break your word, sully your honour? For what!?"

Leon didn't answer, placing Bladeless back down on the bridge, the colossal weapon would only slow him down. Perhaps this was foolish, but it was the only way out Leon could see. He wouldn't make it to one thousand if number one hundred had already pushed him so much.

Flicking Wavecutter up to examine the blade revealed it to be in pristine condition. Leon began pumping all his mana into the only circuit he knew- Ebb and Flow. With the power of his water aspected mana, the circuit was easier to form, though it still consumed five points of mana from his total pool.

With his two hundred and five points of mana invested into the circuit, Leon knew he could keep his boost active for an hour and forty minutes, give or take a few minutes. Observing his circuit, he noticed the mana was slower to decay, the water aspected mana once again boosting his combat effectiveness.

It took roughly forty-five seconds for a single point's worth of mana to burn out, up from the thirty seconds of unaspected mana. This seemingly minor boost gave Leon an additional fifty minutes of circuit uptime, in exchange for the water aspected mana being much more strenuous to replenish.

The enemy was still waiting on an answer, their next soldier already rapidly approaching Leon. Clad in thick iron armour from head to toe, the latest soldier wielded a spiked warhammer. While the soldier's armour was thick Leon noted a gap between the man's breastplate and his helmet.

The two clashed, a flash of metallic blue all the enemy army saw, as their man fell dead, his head falling to his feet, thumping off the wooden bridge. Leon continued his advance, sword sheathed at his waist once more, his eyes focused on the blue box before his eyes.

"Ebb and Flow boost activated: X1.06 to Power and Speed."

The boost gain per attack had been doubled- enabling him to reach his max strength much sooner. A crucial boon for the trial he was about to undergo would be difficult. The sooner he was at his full power, the better.

"You're asking why? Because I hate people like you. Leaders who are too afraid to lead, sending their weakling soldiers to do their dirty work. That was the extent of your plan, right? To have me broken and beaten, practically begging for a death you would grant me. Can't let a subordinate claim that particular glory can you? Fuck that, fuck you and fuck these stupid rules- I'll take you all on at once!"

The commander, incredulous at the swordsman's sheer gall, ordered her men to charge.

"Have it your way savage- men, cut this fool down!"