Chapter 245: Now We’re Talking!
Chapter 245: Now We’re Talking!
Lancet pushed Grace into his feet and sped towards the Demon. It snarled like a rabid dog and came at him, screaming.
Once he was half a pace inside the creature’s attack, Lancet took his sword low and raised it high. He executed a clean cut across the creature’s forelimb that severed one arm halfway at the elbow.
The Demon howled and twisted, but Lancet was already shifting his weight through the strike. He turned the same movement into a second cut, one that rose diagonally across its chest and split the flesh open in a line from rib to shoulder.
Blood sprayed black-purple across the stone.
The creature staggered, and Lancet saw the opening before it existed. That was the difference now. It wasn’t just that he was stronger or faster. But Lancet could now see things in the midst of a battle, things that he couldn’t see five days ago.
Recognition. He had cultivated the power to see the next shape of a fight before it fully happened.
The Demon tried to recover with a blind snap of its jaws.
But taking a page out of his lessons, Lancet broke rhythm.
Instead of following the obvious tempo of his first two cuts, he paused for the tiniest fraction of a breath, letting the Demon overcommit, then slid sideways into the gap the hesitation created.
The Guillotine came around in a tight, cruel arc and took the creature through the throat. Its scream cut off in a wet gargle. The body stumbled one step more, then collapsed to its knees, head hanging at an ugly angle.
Lancet finished it with a final downward slice through the crown of its skull.
The Demon slumped to the floor, as dead as death.
He rolled the Guillotine up onto his shoulder, the blade resting there with easy confidence, and gave the empty street a quick look as if to say that it had been simpler than expected.
Astensia, standing a few steps behind him, smiled with her lower lip swallowing the upper one. "Impressive," she said.
Lancet lifted his brows at her and grinned. "I know."
His vision was immediately covered with his system text.
⸢ You have killed a Demon (Rank: Fallen) ⸥
⸢ You have gained 100 EXP ⸥
Lancet narrowed his eyes at the notification. ’Is it just me or does that seem way smaller than my usual EXP rewards?’ His eyes widened. ’Fuck. Did that fairplay policy stuff also affect my rewards?’
But there was no time to mourn his loss. The other nearby Demons were already coming. A sound like gravel being dragged over a blade rippled through the street from every direction at once.
Lancet lowered down his sword and spun it, an arc of gold trailed the tip of his blade before he held it firm and waited.
The first wave burst from the shattered storefronts and broken doorways around them, spilling out of the ruined lower street in twisted shapes that seemed to have crawled out of the rot itself.
A four-limbed Bug Demon skittered over a wall to Lancet’s left, its carapace slick and cracked, its front mandibles snapping open and shut in frantic hunger.
A Winged Demon swooped down from above, its torn black wings beating hard in the air, its chest hollow and ribbed and its claws hanging like hooks.
From a side alley came a Slug Demon, low and wet and bloated, dragging its body through the sludge with a trail of acid-spit behind it. Then came a pair of Humanoid Demons from the opposite lane, both of them long-limbed and warping at the shoulders, their faces were their own mouths.
Lancet’s smile sharpened.
"Now we’re talking."
Astensia posed with her sword and shield. "Stay on my flank, Master," she said sharply. "Don’t let them force you wide."
Lancet took half a step to match her. "Right."
Even though he was a better swordsman, Astensia was still the boss of him when it came to the battle.
She advanced first, as steady as a war banner walking forward through a storm. The first Bug Demon leaped at her head, pincers outstretched, and Astensia lifted her left hand, caught the creature by the throat in midair, and slammed it into the street hard enough to crack the stones beneath it.
Before the Demon could even twitch, her Blessed Blade came down through its spine with a stroke so controlled it looked almost clean.
[Heroine, Astensia, has killed a Demon (Rank: Fallen)]
⸢ Astensia has gained 100 EXP ⸥
⸢ You have gained 200 EXP ⸥
⸢ You have gained 60 CP ⸥
Lancet read the notification with a relieved expression. ’At least I still get double the rewards for my summons’ kills.’
The Winged Demon came diving at him with a shriek, claws spread wide, aiming for the back of his neck. Lancet saw it but pretended not just to let the beast commit to the line of attack.
Then he let his Grace anchor in the sword and threw his body right in the strike. At the same time, he raised the Guillotine and used it to parry the descending claws, redirecting the Demon’s whole body just enough to expose its ribs.
His eyes gleamed instantly. Recognition! That was the opening.
Lancet followed up immediately. One cut across the exposed flank, one step through the turning body, and one slash across the neck. The Demon hit the ground in two pieces of flailing wing and broken rage.
[You have killed a Demon (Rank: Fallen)]
⸢ You have gained 100 EXP ⸥
He barely had time to breathe before the Slug Demon came slamming out of the gutter like a moving sack of corruption, maw open and hissing with corrosive bile.
Lancet’s footwork shifted on instinct. He remembered Kestrel’s lesson about step-linking, about making the body and blade one line of intent, and used the movement to pull himself sideways off the slime trail before the beast could pin him in place.
The Guillotine struck down into the top of its head. The first cut barely sunk in. The second forced the blade deeper. The third split the skull shell all the way through.
The Slug Demon convulsed, spewing acidic black fluid that hissed on the stone, then collapsed into a heap of rotten matter.
Lancet felt the system flare again.
⸢ You have killed a Demon (Rank: Fallen) ⸥
⸢ You have gained 100 EXP ⸥
Astensia had already shifted to the right side of the street, slaughtering Demons way faster than Lancet. This allowed Lancet to focus on using the Demons that reached him as training props to test his sword skills rather than real enemies.
But the real pressure soon arrived.
The Humanoid Demons came in with sharp shrieks and fast, ugly movement, their arms too long and their torsos too thin. One had eyes like burned glass. The other’s entire body was made of teeth grinding together as it sprinted low across the stone.
Lancet adjusted his stance and waited for them. The last time, he wasn’t afraid of the Demons, he knew he had the borrowed Skills to defeat them. This time, he wasn’t afraid of them because he knew he had mastered the skills to defeat them!
It all looked so easy now. Lancet could see the lines. The angles. The openings. The breathing rhythm of all these monstrosities.
A Demon lunged where he had been, but Lancet was already elsewhere.
His sword drove through its chest with a clean thrust that rode the line of its own momentum, then twisted just enough to rip the Gloom channels in its torso apart.
The second Demon tried to claw his face off from the side, but Lancet turned his shoulder into the movement and let the attack skim past while his blade cut upward from hip to shoulder. The creature folded over the wound, shrieked, and dropped to its knees.
[You have killed two Demons (Rank: Fallen)]
[Heroine, Astensia, has killed 10 Demons (Rank: Fallen)]
⸢ You have gained 200 EXP ⸥
⸢ Astensia has gained 1000 EXP ⸥
⸢ You have gained 2000 EXP ⸥
⸢ You have gained 600 CP ⸥
Suddenly, the cobblestones ahead of them erupted with a shower of rock and dirt, and three burrower Bug Demons burst up from beneath the street in a triangle of snapping claws and armored backs.
Their bodies were covered in dark plates that looked half-chitin, half-stone, and their many eyes blinked wetly in the dim light. One screeched and discharged a pulse of force that rattled the windows of the nearby houses and sent a wave through the street.
Lancet gritted his teeth and shifted his feet.
Astensia didn’t even flinch.
"Behind me!" she shouted.