Supreme Swordfiend

Losing his sword did little to dampen Leon’s fighting spirit, the swordsman clinging to the roof of his adversaries’ mouth, gauntleted fingers digging into a fold of flesh, one hand keeping him from sliding further down its gullet.

His other hand beat its writhing tongue back, the beast attempting to force Leon into its stomach. Saliva, rain and river water mixed, leaving the swordsman soaked and sullen.

After comprehending his insight, he’d been raring for a good fight.

So far, this fight was falling short.

His mind churned, seeking a way to escape this situation and turn the tables. He would need to convince the beast he was more trouble to swallow than he was worth.

The pain he inflicted would get the point across, an idea forming as he spotted something he could use.

Flinging himself off his handhold, dodging an aggressive tongue swipe, Leon latched onto one of the creature’s teeth and beat the gum with furious power, aiming to dislodge the tooth embedded within.

His third punch in as many seconds succeeded. Leon’s fist felt the hard tooth giving way to his assault as it came loose, the swordsman yanking it free. Cracked and bleeding, the pointed tooth held the crucial feature Leon needed.

Its point.

When the tongue came back, attempting to dislodge Leon and prevent any more pain from what the spinosaurus had assumed to be little more than an evening snack, Leon struck.

Hardened enamel pierced through weak flesh, fresh blood coating Leon as he drove the improvised weapon as high as it would go, hammering it in with his fist once he saw it dig into yet more soft meat, one fist clasped around his gory tool the other driving it ever deeper, binding the creature’s tongue.

After staking the beast’s tongue to the roof of its own mouth, Leon was sure his pointed move had gotten his point across. The sneaky lizard opened its mouth, spitting Leon out onto the forest floor as it roared in pain, the sound distorted thanks to the injury Leon had left on it.

Bouncing off the forest floor, Leon scanned, searching for both the monster and his sword.

Ominously, he only spotted one of his targets.

Floating in the air a short distance away, roughly at the same height that Leon would have expected to see a spinosaurus head.

Before he could process the strange sight, his own sword lunged forward, the spinosaurus unknowingly entering the detection range for Air’s Pressure, Leon’s ability to perceive the air revealing the roaring beast’s visage.

Fury and pain dominated the spinosaurus, Leon’s body acting on instinct, jumping atop the creature’s head to retrieve his sword. The pressure of his bloodline bore down on the overgrown chameleon and Leon felt it break down the beast’s strength, information flooding his brain as he retrieved his sword.

Weaker than him, weaker than the Infernal Rex and yet somehow more dangerous than either.

With this perplexing bit of feedback, Leon wondered; he supposed the danger came from the lizard’s venom.

He wouldn’t be testing that supposition.

A sudden wild thrash from the injured spinosaurus sent Leon flying into a nearby tree, his armour mitigating the impact damage, reducing it to a mere unpleasant experience rather than a serious one.

Pulling himself to his feet once again, Leon swept his vision around the surroundings, searching only for the spinosaurus, his sword slick with blood and gore, stable in his hands and ready to spill more blood.

They were no longer near the point in the river where Leon had comprehended his insight, the ashen bank he’d leapt from replaced with fresh greenery, the storm still raging overhead, the occasional bolt striking down any tree that had dared grow beyond its brethren.

The first thing Leon attempted to search for was a gap in the rain, a section of air that was absent of the falling droplets. His reasoning was that the beast’s camouflage would fail against the rain, leaving a spinosaurus-sized hole for Leon to target.

After a few seconds, Leon discarded this strategy. There was no gap, at least not one he could see. The beast’s camouflage was clearly more powerful than Leon had expected.

There was also the matter of mana to factor in.

If the camouflage wasn’t purely biological and instead was a type of illusion or concealment magic, its effectiveness augmented by the beast’s biology, then it was pointless to use physical phenomena as a detection medium.

For a creature that was obviously the Infernal Rex’s counterpart for the spinosaurus species, this level of power and challenge was the minimum Leon expected.

His plans shifted to a more passive approach. Whatever this active camouflage was, it couldn’t fool Leon’s enhanced air detection. With only a meter of range, he would have to react quickly to avoid injury.

Firming his stance, Leon kept his sword close to his body.

Watching.

Waiting.

A familiar puff of hot air came from his right, just outside his detection range, followed by a rush of movement.

His slash came just in time, his muscles screaming in protest as he forced himself to pivot, beating back the creeping predator and carving a gash into its chin.

Leon awaited the next confrontation, his mind chewing on the information at his disposal.

The camouflage couldn’t mask the air the spinosaurus breathed. A useless fact on its own, but one to keep in mind.

Another roar cut his thoughts short. This one was different, louder, carrying further, rising above the din of the storm.

Not an exclamation of pain.

A call to arms.

Trusting his intuition, Leon attempted to dash forwards, towards the roar. A tail swipe intercepted his charge, one he cut through.

That move- had hit too him many times for him to fall for again, the geckos were becoming predictable.

A portion of pale tail hit the dirt, the colour of the scales giving Leon a momentary pause.

He’d been sure the beast was grey-scaled, like all the other spinosaurus he’d slain, but perhaps that had been part of its camouflage as well.

What an insidious creature, to be crafty enough to make use of multiple camouflage layers!

The colouration gave Leon an idea- light manipulation. Bending the light or diffracting it using its scales somehow.

That would account for the missing gap he’d searched for. If it was bending light, then he wouldn’t even notice the anomaly.

That didn’t account for the lack of sound.

The lack of any follow-up from either side after the tail cut had shifted the fight back to a passive state, with both sides weighing their options.

Leon’s sword was at the ready, though his eyes were closed, all his attention consumed by listening to the world around him. Picking out each sound, then filtering them, working his way towards one he expected to hear beneath all others.

The rushing waters behind him, the river’s rage stirred by the storm’s own fury.

The wind, sharp and merciless, howled through the trees, growing ever faster as the storm built to a peak.

Raindrops struck the earth, each one doing little to affect its surroundings, yet as a whole they turned the sun-dried dirt into viscous mud.

A thunderclap, the sound of a tree falling close by.

Rumbles, tremors in the earth. Backup for the cowardly gecko, no doubt. Leon welcomed them. A gift for his enemies, the lizard’s lives granted meaning through death at his hands, their existences serving his ascension towards the heights of power.

A footfall. Soft, meticulous. Calculated to make as little noise as possible, the mud became its undoing as it failed to account for the change in terrain, serrated claw slicing through the muck.

It was close, close enough to strike.

Leon’s action was swift and vicious, the Sunlight Greatsword tearing through the space in front of Leon, bisecting the skull of the ambush predator, the great white spinosaurus falling at his feet, dead.

“You have slain a Level Twenty-Five Creeping Death Spinosaurus!”

The flood of mana was gratifying, though Leon’s attention had locked onto the corpse before him.

It was smaller than the other spinosaurus he’d slain, its scales nowhere near as hard, its flesh weaker. He’d enjoyed the little mind games it had forced him to play, but he wouldn’t call this a good fight.

Storing the dead beast away, Leon wiped his sword clean, already preparing for the next fight.

The spinosaurus had called for backup.

Retrieving the severed portion of the tail allowed Leon to see them coming.

A pack of spinosaurus, led by a Venomback, with at least ten lesser spinosauri backing it up.

This would be the one, the fight that finally capped his class.

Grinning to himself, Leon pounced on the confused geckos.

The last of the sun’s rays vanished as the monster sent Leon skyward, the Venomback the last opponent left standing as the swordsman lined up his blade.

It had let the lesser spinosaurus take on the swordsman, nipping at his heels when an opportunity presented itself.

Not that Leon gave it many, and he punished any it took, the Sunlight Greatsword taking an arm in one exchange, maiming a leg in another.

It was as he rose above the treeline and another lightning bolt struck a tree down in the distance, Leon realised bringing a lump of metal this high posed a unique risk.

At the apex of his rise towards the heavens, they saw fit to smite him.

The bolt fell, coursing through his blade.

Leon expected to feel pain, only for the Sunlight Greatsword to trap the raging energy within itself, the sword’s edge sparking as they fell towards the crippled lizard, the beast unable to move.

An explosion of heat and light followed his decapitation strike, the lightning exploding out of his blade, blasting Leon backwards.

The near-blinding light did not deter Leon as he rose to his feet, his arms leaden, his skin blistering and his head pounding. The promise of a level-up was all that kept him from keeling over.

Where once there had been a carpet of corpses, the heavenly energy had rampaged, reducing the dead spinosaurus pack to blackened lumps, their forms utterly unrecognisable.

The supremacy of lightning wasn’t to be trifled with.

Examining his sword, Leon expected to see catastrophic damage, but the Sunlight Greatsword looked rejuvenated.

The once deep crimson had lightened by a shade, and the blade’s edge appeared keener than ever. Images of white lightning adorned the grip now, a reminder to stay well below tree level with a sword drawn.

Remembering the Growth Weapon enchantment the blade bore, Leon surmised sources of extremely hot energy would refine the sword, its fire attribute close enough to the lighting attribute, allowing it to handle a bolt of that magnitude.

The scariest thing had been the lack of mana in the energy. A mere ordinary lightning bolt had produced such devastation.

A flood of mana flowed towards him, his reward after beating down the spinosaurus. The quantity was just barely enough to tip him over the edge. The level-up was painless for once. His body had finally adapted to the process. A flurry of notifications bombarded him.

“Level up! You are now a Level Twenty-Five Swordsman! +2 Power, +2 Speed, +2 Constitution +5 Intelligence, +5 Wisdom!”

“Capstone reached! Congratulations! +5 Power, +5 Speed, +5 Constitution!”

“Capstone Quest Unlocked:

Narrow Focus- Create a Style that achieves the minimum level of System recognition.

Reward- Continued Progression”

“Capstone Quest Completed! Further progression is now possible! Displaying possible progression options:

1. Reclass- Choose a new Class from any you qualify for. Retain your accumulated stats, insights, bloodline and any self-created or externally mastered Skill. System-bestowed skills relating to the Class [Swordsman] will be lost. Skill [Swordsman’s Eye] will degenerate to [Inspect].

2. Uncap- Accumulate more mana to raise your current class’ level cap.

3. Attempt a breakthrough to the [G] Grade.

Warning!

User’s current odds of a successful breakthrough are one per cent.”

The information was overwhelming to a dazed and tired Leon.

He’d puzzle it all out back at the house, preferably with Zerasos’ input and advice.

The figure of one per cent stuck in his head as he made his way back.

Was he really so far from the [G] Grade?