The afterimages of swords seemed to be slicing through time itself.

Blood and flesh flew mysteriously as the consciousness became mired in memories.

Imperceptibly, I seem to have made another step forward with my power level after successfully completing all four of my magic swords.

Previously, when I was fighting against Sophocles, I had taken advantage of my abilities which countered his in order to fight against a Main God, but now, according to ordinary people’s standards, I had perhaps also achieved a Main God’s power level.

“Guilty.”

Law Sword Vengeance and Wumianzhe’s shadowy figure floated in midair. Every time that the gavel landed, snowflakes were sent flying together with torn pieces of both our souls.

Perhaps the best evidence of my power level was how my Law Sword was able to injure Karwenz to such an extent.

As time kept passing. Law Sword Vengeance kept calculating more and more of our “sins”, and Vengeance would attack our souls based on how severe our crimes were.

Karwenz’s crimes were far more severe than mine were currently, so he was always injured more severely than I was during each judgement.

However, every judgement would use up a large amount of mana in my body. This mysterious sense of being empty was disgusting to the point where I wanted to vomit, yet I still had to maintain my sword.

“Ha, I’m using my own sword to judge myself. This is no different from suicide. But, no matter which method I used to fight Karwenz, we would always arrive at this step…”

I was paying a tremendous amount of mana in order to simultaneously maintain the special abilities of my Northlands and Vengeance swords. Even though my now matured Arbiter Bloodline had ridiculous mana regeneration capabilities, I was still at a disadvantage in a direct battle because of all the mana I was using.

Karwenz’s black magic sword had explosive speed that no naked eye would possibly be able to see. His sword suddenly sliced right past my face… but missed by a hair’s breadth, and didn’t hit anywhere that would be fatal.

“Ha, you should slice right here.”

I pointed at my fragile neck, yet Karwenz didn’t respond to my taunt.

Indeed, it wasn’t that he was unwilling to kill me. It was simply that he didn’t dare to kill me.

Currently, I had a deep injury on my right shoulder and chest that almost penetrated all the way to my heart.

Karwenz had an identical injury on the same spot on his body that was also burning with pain.

“Vengeance. Blood for blood, and an injury for an injury.”

This was the second ability of my Law Sword Vengeance. It was the same type of ability as the first, an ability that would punish a villain for their “crimes”. The difference was that this punishment would be immediate.

Once Law Sword Vengeance was activated, anywhere under the area of effect of the judge Wumianzhe’s gaze would let any action which harmed another be immediately reflected against the perpetrator.

If you sliced off your enemy’s head, then your own head would be cut off as well. If you cut off your enemy’s arm, then your own arm would fall off. Law Sword Vengeance was a magic sword that was impossible to win with, but it was also a sword that absolutely wouldn’t lose.

Indeed, from the very beginning, I never even considered trying to win against Karwenz in melee battle. All I had wanted was not to lose.

“He’s so unreasonably strong…”

Even though I was long since mentally prepared that my bratty brother would be superior to me in swordsmanship, magic, and combat experience, meaning that I wouldn’t be able to defeat him in melee combat, it really was quite maddening to face him and ascertain that all of this was true.

Karwenz completely suppressed me in speed, strength, and technique. Every single sword attack of mine was instantly seen through and countered.

No matter what trap I tried to set up, Karwenz would always respond with something ridiculous that would absolutely crush all of my combat plans and preparations. In the end, this became a chaotic battle relying on instinct where I was disadvantaged due to his overwhelming combat experience.

Neither of us used any ultimate swordsmanship techniques or powerful magic spells requiring long incantations. At such a close distance in this chaotic battlefield of winter calamities, these seemingly simple sword slices were actually the best choice for both Sword Saints.

Snow kept falling as the black sword and sword of light kept clashing against each other. Blood and flesh flew everywhere, staining the ground red. Everything fell into a primitive cycle.

Straight horizontal slashes, straight stabs, dodges, counterattacks, and trading injuries, followed by the same injuries we inflicted appearing on our own bodies.

This was like a repeat of our swordsmanship practice from childhood, although both of us now had killing intent. However, the result was still basically the same, with me being at a disadvantage.

Even worse was that Karwenz was actually becoming constantly stronger.

Even though his injuries were indeed becoming more severe, his strength, speed, finesse, and accuracy were all slowly improving. Any technique that I used once would become ineffective the second time. My killing techniques that should have been effective were all forcefully countered. Karwenz’s seemingly ordinary yet cheat-like talent for combat was as shameless as always.

His instinctive combat sense was truly a headache to deal with.

Most people would naturally hesitate when faced with a strange ability that reflected damage back at them. They would even consider if they could actually obtain victory, and it was possible that they would simply stop fighting.

In that case, that would give me enough time to charge my Holy Light Sword Dawn and strike with a powerful blow that would definitely kill Karwenz (as well as myself).

However, Karwenz immediately noticed that I started charging power after the damage reflection started, so he unhesitatingly started trading injuries in order to prevent me from charging power.

An even bigger headache was that I could sense how Law Sword Vengeance’s damage output against him was decreasing. Karwenz was actually faintly becoming resistant to the power of Law.

“Ha, I’ve already gotten used to this. Roland, do you have any other aces?”

Karwenz casually swatted away an icicle that suddenly fell down with a smile that really made me want to beat him up.

I knew better than anyone that the power of Law wasn’t capable of doing everything. Law was simply a lower-level Concept of Order on the same level as Holy Light. Law was simply a new supernatural ability born in this world that wasn’t fundamentally different from magic. Law could be dispelled and resisted as well. However, it really was rather depressing to see Karwenz get accustomed to my trump card so quickly.

“Ha, anyone can talk big. Here, I’ll stand here without moving. Do you dare to slice my neck?”

Even if Karwenz was now resistant to Vengeance’s first ability to judge sins, he was still unable to do anything about Vengeance’s second ability of instant damage reflection, which turned this battle into a battle of attrition.

Both of us knew that directly killing the other was impossible. He had constantly remained on guard against my empty left hand as the Seal of the Four Elements was still an ace that was capable of ending this battle.

Karwenz mostly chose to attack my arms and legs with his sword. It seemed that his chosen path of victory was to eliminate my mobility and combat strength.

Karwenz suddenly fell silent as he directly stabbed his sword into the snowy ground.

“…This is so boring. Roland, it seems that you never intended on defeating me in the first place. No, you never even considered it possible to kill me.”

I wanted to deny this, but I was unable to say anything in the end as I looked at his familiar icy eyes.

Indeed, the power of Law in my double-edged sword Vengeance seemed amazing, but was actually quite limited in its effects.

Vengeance could limit the scale of the battle and damage inflicted upon each other, which would slow the battle down. However, Vengeance wouldn’t increase my odds of winning.

Someone who truly desired victory would invest their resources into improving their own advantages in order to try and suppress their opponent. Meanwhile, I had only considered how not to lose and how to die together since the very start.

There was nothing wrong with such a strategy. Normally, Karwenz’s power level should have been greater than mine, so there was nothing wrong with someone weaker considering how not to lose as their priority.

Additionally, due to the special nature of our connected souls, it was quite reasonable to only think about how not to lose.

So, Karwenz was dissatisfied with the current situation? Did he think that I wasn’t going all out against him?

Perhaps Karwenz was thinking something like: ‘I’m seriously trying to kill you, yet you’re not even trying to go all out? Just what is this?’.

Karwenz then suddenly smiled quite evilly.

“It seems that I need to give you some extra motivation… Roland, since there’re already two doors existing, don’t you think that it’s possible that there’s actually a third door as well? Do you really think that you can stop me just by killing my demon babies and the mother hosts? Have you forgotten that in the mortal plane… there’s my bloodline that both you and I know about!”

“What?”

I thought about many things in that instant, but Karwenz guffawed loudly while wielding his sword that gave off a dangerous aura, which prevented any time for words.

Even though I consoled myself by telling myself that my allies were in the mortal plane, that the Hell Faction and Holy Light Faction wouldn’t simply stand back and watch things become worse, and that I had already left insurance regarding that bloodline, I was still shaken by all of my emotions.

I also resolved myself in the very next second. A sufficient amount of ice and snow had accumulated by now. I had to end this battle as quickly as possible with an ace capable of achieving victory.

I took a deep breath and inserted my Ice Sword Northlands into the snowy ground, causing the entire snowy plains to begin boiling.

“Begin, Conservation’s army.”