A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

The vines summoned by Conra’s spell could not bind the bronze giant’s ankles for long. However, that momentary opportunity was enough for the superhuman Hildegard to secure distance, catch her breath, and recompose her stance.

As Hildegard readied her halberd, waiting for an opening to counterattack, the enraged Sophia, her dignity shattered, and the werewolf-transformed Conra charged at the bronze giant’s flanks.

Sophia was the first to cross blades with the bronze giant. Unlike her previous dismissive repulsion, she firmly planted her feet on the ground, steadfastly receiving the giant’s sword strikes. The bronze giant’s strikes were indeed heavy, tracing intricate, incisive sword paths honed through countless, impassioned real battles.

In terms of swordsmanship rooted in reverse muscle cultivation techniques, the bronze giant’s sword art seemed to represent an accomplished form of the swordsmanship Sophia pursued.

Amidst their exchange, Sophia’s azure eyes meticulously observed the bronze giant’s movements.

Contemplating the astral muscular motions enveloping its body, Sophia candidly acknowledged its overwhelming frontal might.

‘However, if I cannot break it through sheer force, I simply need to employ other means.’

As their blades clashed, Sophia’s lips began moving rapidly. Soon, her voice reached Conra and Hildegard’s ears with a remarkably composed, stable tone uncharacteristic of her frenzied swordplay:

Before long, Conra and Hildegard nodded in acknowledgment, acting according to Sophia’s telepathic instructions.

While Sophia withstood the bronze giant’s sword strikes head-on, Conra utilized his spear’s range advantage, persistently harrying the openings beyond the giant’s armored defenses. Even as it skillfully countered Sophia’s swordsmanship, the bronze giant simultaneously displayed seasoned prowess against Conra’s continuous harassment.

However, such a situation could not be maintained indefinitely. For a warrior, the resource of focus was never infinite. While veteran warriors could appropriately modulate their concentration to control the battle’s tempo, prolonged exposure to a third party’s persistent harassment would inevitably create an opening, however momentary.

At one point, such an opportunity arose in the bronze giant’s movements and consciousness flow.
And it was then that Hildegard moved.

A glint flashed in her eyes as she seized the chance, her halberd-wielding form radiating intense luminous power. Her holy spirit Ariel had already embraced her from behind, further amplifying Hildegard’s luminous power. Naturally, her astral muscles swelled tremendously, bolstered by the activated life force energy.

“Kaaah, Hrrraaa—!”

With a resounding ‘kaah’, Hildegard’s movements were like a massive windmill’s rotation. Sensing her ominous momentum, the bronze giant attempted to react, but its efforts were thwarted by the luminous barrier enveloping Hildegard and Sophia and Conra’s persistent harassment.

Like a massive sledgehammer, Hildegard’s halberd axe blade whirled horizontally, shattering the bronze giant’s lorica plumata defenses to bury itself in its left thigh. ‘Kwachang’ – the sound of armor shattering accompanied ‘puhchhuk’ as the axe bit into bronze flesh.

Bahuuuuum!!!

The bronze giant’s helmet contorted in agony as it let out a pained roar. Seizing the moment, Conra made his move, having also bolstered his astral muscles while in werewolf form by belatedly releasing the suppressed effects of a pre-consumed alchemical elixir augmented by druidic spells.

The stance Conra then assumed was the same preparatory form he had used against the swordsman Karl.

The werewolf’s pupils dilated dramatically before narrowing to pinpricks, momentarily awakening then suppressing his druidic and alchemical senses to fully concentrate his heightened perception as a spearman through a trance technique.

“Kyaauuung! (Gae-Bolg, Bane!)”

Conra’s form then shot towards the bronze giant with a unique stride reminiscent of a leaping salmon, his spear unity momentum tracing an erratic, dynamic trajectory like a living fish rather than a straight line.

Just as the bronze giant tried to respond with its greatsword despite its anguish, the halberd lodged in its thigh was wrenched free with a ‘jjik’ sound, widening the wound. ‘Puhwahk’ – azure blood gushed forth as the giant’s stance momentarily faltered. Conra’s spearpoint did not miss that opening.

With a ‘puhwahk’ piercing sound, his longspear skewered the bronze giant’s right armpit – a vital point Conra chose as his next best option, still lacking the skill to pierce its armor.

Finally, Sophia made her move.

“Om!”

Accompanying that primordial syllable symbolizing the universe’s creation, sustenance, and dissolution, Sophia’s astral muscles, astral brain, meridians, chakras, Geas covenant, and the “Martial” and “Heroic Ordeal” legacy blessings all resonated simultaneously. At that moment, her holy spirit Jibrail also embraced her, amplifying Sophia’s luminous power.

As Conra’s spear penetrated the armpit, causing the bronze giant’s sword arm to slacken, Sophia swept her longsword in a clockwise arc, batting aside its greatsword to create an opening. Her first strike was a shoulder strike driving into its flank, her iron mountain strike impacting the bronze giant’s left ribcage with a ‘ddung’ resounding impact. Staggered by its shattered balance, the bronze giant stumbled back a few steps. But Sophia did not simply wait, immediately pursuing with a rear kick counter as it retreated.

Again accompanied by a dull, heavy impact, the bronze giant’s center of gravity became irreversibly disrupted.

As it coughed up azure ichor from the blunt force crashing into its chest cavity, Sophia’s freed longsword rose high, her aura swelling to an unprecedented, razor-sharp intensity – like a predator exhaling its overwhelming might before delivering the deathblow to massive prey, suppressing its opponent while augmenting her blade’s lethality.

In the moment Sophia brought her raised sword down, Conra witnessed a phantasmic manifestation seemingly erupting from her blade. With its stance broken, the bronze giant could not evade Sophia’s finishing strike, its form bisected diagonally from shoulder to flank by an unnaturally smooth ‘ssuhwak’ slicing sound that bypassed armor and solid flesh alike.

With a heavy ‘chulpuduk, kung’ thud, the bronze giant’s severed corpse collapsed before disintegrating into dispersing ashes.

“Uuhyaa, I thought we were gonna die!”

Collapsing in apparent relief as the tension drained, Hildegard let out the breath she had been holding. Honestly, that final gatekeeper had seemed downright unfair.

“That was undoubtedly a heroic-tier warrior from the Bronze Age, wasn’t it?”
“If our eyes did not deceive us, certainly.”

Sophia nodded in agreement. If the records accumulated through this dungeon were accurate, the lorica plumata would have been armor permitted only to heroic-tier officers acknowledged by the gods themselves in the late Bronze Age. Why had such an existence manifested in this dungeon? Sophia could not dismiss her doubts.

“For now, let’s examine any items it dropped first.”

Having reverted from his werewolf transformation, Conra approached the spot where the bronze giant’s remains had disintegrated. Sophia and the now risen Hildegard followed out of curiosity.

Soon, Conra used his spear’s tip to lift an object lying on the ground, presenting it to the others as they gathered around with furrowed brows.

“This is… a belt, isn’t it?”
“It certainly resembles the one that creature was wearing, though the size differs slightly.”

Sending her clairvoyant senses into the belt, Sophia scrutinized it intently, suspecting some trap. Conra too meticulously examined the belt’s condition using alchemical reagents and druidic spells.

Even Hildegard seemed to have her own method, channeling luminous power to illuminate the belt while murmuring indecipherable prayer verses. Sophia quietly recognized them as invocations to the blacksmith gods once revered in the middle Vine River region.

However, after all those processes, the party concluded the belt bore no peculiarities.

“It’s a belt that grants the wearer a giant’s strength – a typical Bronze Age relic.”
“Like Megingjord, perhaps?”
“Oh, where did you hear about that? Stories related to our thunder deity are quite obscure in Frangian.”
“Basic education, you could say.”
“Impressive. But this feels slightly different from that thunder god’s belt. The mythical artifact literally amplified one’s strength, while this simply uniformly grants a giant’s might to those lacking such natural strength.”

Listening to Hildegard’s explanation, Sophia nodded in understanding. In terms of her previous life’s TRPG settings, it was similar to an Ogre Power Gauntlet.

“In any case, the belt ultimately seems unrelated to the sense of dissonance we’ve felt in this dungeon.”
“It would seem so.”

As Hildegard and Conra concluded, Sophia inwardly agreed.

“Indeed, could it be so?”
“Hmm? Have you realized something, Sophia?”
“Ah, I’ve just realized something.”

Sophia nodded, her gaze fixed on the stone altar that seemed to have fulfilled its role by spawning the previous gatekeeper.

“It seems this altar has a soul residing within it.”

The transcendent insight that had once allowed her, in her quest for self-actualization during her previous life, to fully recreate the rituals, cultivations, and revelations once conducted in a place from mere lingering traces – that genius flickered coldly as she surveyed the dungeon altar’s essence.