ALL NOVEL Chapter 50: "A duel it is"
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Oriana POV
My gaze fell again on the zombie in red armor, after he had attacked me I now looked at him with more caution than before. He was definitely not normal, that was clear. My brain was working at full speed and my thoughts were whirring around. Not only had the zombie shown that it could hurt me, it had also attacked me, something that wasn't supposed to happen because of my undead nature.
Of course, it wasn't entirely unheard of for one undead to attack another. However, this only applied to intelligent undead such as Elder Liches who did such things to gain an advantage, such as stealing magical knowledge. But even in such a case, intelligent undead preferred to negotiate, exchange knowledge or form communities rather than take it by force.
The reason for this was that such community members preferred to keep to themselves in order to not gain unwanted attention and to remain in secret from the humans. The Corpus of the Abyss, founded by night liches, an advanced subspecies of an elder lich whom was only native to this world, was a good example of this. But the undead in front of me was a normal zombie, not an elder and definitely not a night lich. He shouldn't be able to think logically and should therefore succumb completely to his instincts, instincts that should stop him from attacking me since I was undead myself.
Was this a special zombie? Or was this creature from YGGDRASIL?
Instead of thinking further, I fired my blood spear and charged at my enemy. To my surprise, the zombie cut through my magical attack with his katana without any difficulty, and turned towards me with a practiced turn to fend off the attack of my scythe, which was racing towards him at inhuman speed.
Instead of splitting him in two as expected, my scythe was knocked aside by his blade, leaving my upper body without cover. Quickly, my opponent took advantage of the opening and let his golden katana rush towards my unprotected chest. For the second time that day I chose to jump back and for the second time I felt the blade cutting into my flesh.
My eyes narrowed to slits as I once again looked at my opponent. So I wasn't wrong, this sword was definitely something special. Not only was it able to cut me, it also looked particularly extraordinary, in a way that I had never seen in the New World. There was no doubt in my mind, it was a weapon made in YGGDRASIL. But that wasn't the only thing I noticed in our short exchange. When the zombie fended off my scythe, I noticed how his arms were shaking, like dry branches in the wind, and then it hit me; Sure he had managed to use my superior strength against me, but that seemed to come more from an understanding of sword fighting than from any physical superiority on his part.
I didn't have many levels in melee classes, just enough to wield my world item so I could use the special instant death ability. I wasn't designed to fight a fight in close combat, my strength was either to send my doll forward like Shalltear and support it with magic from behind or to constantly abuse my instant death ability of my world item, but this only worked when I was standing behind a tank and received further support from my party. The third way was when I transformed into my true form as a Primordial Vampire, although this form wasn't something to halfheartedly trigger.
To make it simple, I could have simply blown the zombie to dust with my magic, and his great sword skills wouldn't have been of any use. What would stop me? Sure I was strong for this world, but my physical strength was nothing compared to my magic. And yet... He had injured me and was able to hold his own against me in close combat, that wasn't something I could ignore. If he wanted a direct duel he would get it. I was able to defeat him without magic and I would prove it.
I grabbed my scythe with both hands and struck his legs, a blow that he avoided with a feather-light touch to the ground, but I had expected that. Instead of fighting against the change of direction of my weapon, I let my opponent ram it into the ground. At the same time, I let myself be pulled along by the same force and used the momentum to kick my opponent aside. The kick was so unexpected that the zombie could no longer fend it off and gave me the opportunity to grab my weapon that had been rammed into the ground. I pulled it out and unleashed a powerful slash on the unprotected torso.
The zombie writhed in the air like a snake and was able to avoid the greatest damage, but I could see the flesh wound on his stomach that was evidence of my hit. I immediately started the next attack, but as expected, the swordsman was back on his feet with his katana raised and ready in his hand. Even I had to admit that it was impressive. His mastery of sword fighting seemed to be far beyond what a normal being in this world was capable of. I myself knew little about sword fighting, but the fluidity with which he moved his sword almost reminded me of Cocytus whom could be said to be the personification of a warrior.
I gritted my teeth and reluctantly looked at the swordsman with new respect.
"I don't like to say it, but you are clearly better than me, even if I am stronger than you, your skill with the sword far outweighs mine." I praised the zombie in red armor.
As if he understood me, he tilted his head and paused.
"You... can understand me?" I asked surprised, A growl and a nod of the head was the only answer I got.
"Really then, that is interesting. I presume you were a human once weren't you?" I asked, receiving another nod.
"Well, I didn't knew someone of your caliber existed in this world, still... Even though your swordsmanship is nothing but exemplary you're still at the end of your potential. Your body is far too weak for you to use your sword skills properly." I claimed, staring into the lifeless eyes of the undead in front of me.
"It's really a shame, I would have liked to see what else you could do if your body were stronger..." I said and readied my weapon.
"Roaaar" the zombie roared again and started to attack
"Out of respect for your abilities, I will finish it quickly" I said and readied my scythe
[Moonrise]
As soon as I said the name of my skill, my body exploded with power. I rushed towards my enemy faster than before and delivered an inhumanly fast blow. Surprised by my increased speed, my opponent was unable to completely block me, which resulted in my strike hitting him in the hip. I attacked again, this time the strike was even faster thanks to my active ability. I hit again which only increased my speed even further.
Like a whirlwind, I let lightning-fast blows rain down mercilessly on my opponent, and soon cuts had formed all over his body. I raised my scythe and let it fall like a guillotine onto my opponent's arm. My scythe met no resistance and cut through him more easily than a piece of paper. The arm fell to the ground with a thud, accompanied by a clatter as the gold-trimmed sword fell next to it.
"I think this is my victory." I spoke and looked into the undead's lifeless eyes.
But what I found shocked me. The previous glimmer of intelligence that I had seen before was gone and in its place I only saw the milky, white stare of the eyes as they looked around with apathy.
As if they were looking for something...
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Editor:Umbrael