A pair of swirling horns sprouted out of her temples. On her back, her dress was pierced by the manifestation of a pair of black bat-like wings—no, they were more like those of dragons. Other than those, the skin of her arms below the elbow transformed into ruby scales, and they seemed extremely durable. Also, her hands became claws with sharp and pointy nails on them. Not to mention that her eyes changed their colors from Edith’s hazel to amber, and her iris somewhat became slitted. “Dragonic horns, scales, claws, and eyes. I see, you just used Dragonization, aren’t you? Perhaps you are a Dragonborn, a Dragonoid, or something?” “Oho? So what? It doesn’t matter if you know it because you will die anyway.”

She propelled herself using her wings and rushed forward at me. Sharp claws were aiming at me at the speed of Mach One, but it was not fast enough for me to parry them with my scythe. Clink! But as soon as I parried her claws, she used the momentum to spin around and slashed her claws back again. This time, I silently cast a Level 7 Force Magic spell called Repulsion to blast her away and crash her into a tree nearby, snapping it into pieces.

“So you can use a high-level spell of a complex element, huh?” She said as she got up from the rumbles. “I don’t know why we have not heard anything of someone like you or where you came from, but we should not leave you unattended. You are a threat to our plans. That is why I have to take you down.” In a moment, I saw her smile seductively. “But you are quite good-looking, I admit. If I was allowed to, I would like to make you my toy. Killing you would be such a waste as the previous toys broke so easily~.” “I did not know that the person who possessed Edith is such a creep. Blue Flames. Fire Prison.”

As I said those words, I thrust my hand and cast Blue Flames before casting a spell on her to restrain her. What I just cast was a Level 6 Fire Magic spell that summoned a dome of flames around the target and only dealt damage if the target touched the flames. “Fufu. Such a pity spell. Gale Force.” She did not take my spell seriously and casually cast a Level 4 Wind Magic spell. At first, a violent surge of winds was occurring inside the flaming dome. But then a few seconds later, her inferior spell broke my spell, and scorching hot winds burst violently around us, destroying some trees and burning leaves. Even though she had tough physical attributes, her magic power surely surpassed that of Azrael’s. The winds even caused panic in the forest and scared off even powerful monsters. “I should remind you that this is not my full power yet. The time is hindering my potential. But this is enough to take you.” “You are limited by the time. Could it be that…?” “Meteor Hurl!”

As I was in the middle of my pondering, she already had a pair of daggers in her hand and threw one of them straight at me. Enhanced by a Level 9 Dagger Art technique, the dagger went flying at the speed of over Mach Ten. The dagger was so fast that I could barely catch it with my wide senses, even though my eyes could only see the seemingly stationary Z-axis of the dagger. I instinctively raised my scythe, and it was right in time to just slightly change its course. The momentum of it was so much more powerful than I had to exert most of my current physical strength. Whoosh… Boom!

Upon changing its direction, the dagger went through the forest and created a straight pathway of sheer destruction. Not only the trees, but the dagger carved the earth and obliterated some hills. The monsters that were on the dagger’s way were not considered alive anymore. If it had hit me, I would have died, I thought. “So you can withstand that, huh? But it seems that it took a significant amount of toll on your body.” She probably saw me catching my breath faster than usual, so she could tell that I was exhausted, but that was not really the case; I could recover my stamina as soon as a few seconds. Then suddenly, I saw that the dagger that she used before had teleported back into her hand. (Why did I not think that this kind of technology was possible?) I remorsed not thinking of it sooner. “If you are done talking, then it is my turn.” Saying that, I lunged forward and attempted to slash my scythe at her.

Clink…! Clink! Clink! Clink!

My first attack was blocked by her daggers, but I quickly recovered and began attacking her continuously, despite me wielding a huge and heavy weapon. But every one of my attacks was intercepted, and she had instances to attack back, though they failed to land on me.

The two of us continued the cycle and had been exchanging blows for some time. Even though it felt like we were fighting for minutes, only a few seconds had passed in real time due to our abnormal speed and perception. We constantly moved around as we danced with our blades, destroying the spots in the forest where we had landed. A normal person could only see us as a violent storm teleporting from place to place, but we were actually just running and leaping around. We had been fighting evenly until, suddenly, I decided to make my blade land in her. I took a step back before I rushed forward and attempted to slash my blade at her diagonally. Clink!

But just as I expected, she managed to stop my blade by crossing her daggers with it. However, that blade was actually a feint attack, and the sharp edge of the scythe was actually aiming at her back. But apparently, those daggers were just feints as well. Before the blade hit her back, she instantly turned around, and she successfully blocked my attack. Due to that, my scythe actually pulled her body closer to mine, and now her wings and back were pressing against my chest. “Mmm. I notice that you don’t just move randomly and only attack when I have the chance to counter it.” She turned her head and said. “Perhaps you are not a man who would hurt a woman?” “…” She got me there and discovered my intention not to cause damage to Edith’s body, as I was not certain if my attacks would affect the foreigner entirely, Edith, or both of them. Akashvani could not provide an answer either, as I could not acquire information about that woman. By learning that, she could take advantage of it since I could not do anything harmful to the body she possessed. I could fight back, but if I was not careful, I might end up only killing Edith but leaving the other unscathed. “Silence most of the time means yes. Now get away from me.” “Guh?!” All of a sudden, her wings fired their sharp and durable scales at my body and blasted me away for dozens of meters. She must have used a skill like the Scale Shot to shoot off those scales. After getting up from the ground, I found out that the scales pierced my body by a few millimeters, but it was nothing, and they came off by just healing myself. My only problem was that I could not look through her and the safety of Edith. If only I had something much more powerful than the Analysis. <…>

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