SSS Awakening: I Can Class Change at will - Chapter 448 Fighting the Pavilion Spirit [2]

The sanctum that had been silent for who knew how long was suddenly filled with the aura of five beasts and one very angry human.

The pavilion spirit looked at the army that had invaded her most sacred space.

Moon gripped his sword with both hands, his left arm trembling but holding. He commanded Mirage, and his other beasts including his beast soul, through their connection, ‘Continue to attack the spirit, but focus on being protected and looking for any sort of core.’

After issuing his command, Moon focused his full attention on the female spirit that wanted nothing but to kill him.

“I will give you an ultimatum. Either you surrender, or you die. I will not spare you. I will not show you mercy.” The pavilion spirit stared at him, her ice sword held before her, her pale eyes burning with a hatred that went beyond anything personal. This was existential. He had walked into her home, slaughtered her people, and was now standing in her sanctum issuing demands.

Moon held her gaze without flinching.

“Human filth…I choose your death!” “Then prove it. Show me!”

The pavilion spirit launched herself at Moon with killing intent that froze the air between them. Her ice sword swung in a downward arc that would have split him from skull to navel.

Moon met it with his own blade. The collision sent shockwaves through the chamber, cracking the stone floor beneath his feet. His arms screamed from the impact, but he held.

He pushed her blade aside with his own and countered with a horizontal slash coated in purple lightning. The spirit deflected it with the flat of her sword and thrust forward. Moon sidestepped, activated [Air Step], and launched himself above her follow-up strike.

From above, he cast [Explode]. A blue fireball the size of his torso streaked downward. The spirit raised a wall of ice from the floor. The fireball detonated against it, sending blue flames splashing in every direction. The burning effect clung to the edges of the ice, eating into it, the reduced fire resistance making each lick of flame bite deeper than it should have.

Moon landed behind her and drove his sword at her exposed back. But the spirit spun rapidly, and their blades locked again.

CLASH!

“You will die…” She hissed through the crossed swords, frost spreading from her blade onto his.

Moon bared his teeth into a smile that resembled a grin, “Eventually…But be careful. Everyone who’s said that ended up considerably deader than me.” Moon disengaged and threw an explosive rune at her feet. The detonation forced her backward, and in the space it created, he slapped two offensive runes onto the nearest pillar. Both activated simultaneously, one launching a volley of stone shards, the other releasing a concentrated blast of compressed air. The combined assault hit the spirit from an angle she wasn’t expecting, catching her across the ribs.

Although the attack wasn’t powerful enough to do any real damage, Moon still used those precious moments of her defense to press forward his advantage.

He activated [Bird Dance] and closed the distance. His sword became a blur of purple-streaked steel, each strike flowing into the next from a different angle. The spirit parried the first three. Deflected the fourth. Blocked the fifth with a hastily formed shield of ice.

The sixth strike came from the left.

The spirit read the attack and shifted her guard to intercept. Her ice sword moved to meet a blade that wasn’t there. The strike had been a phantom, a false image projected by the skill that fooled her perception completely.

[Feint] [Order: First] [Rank: Uncommon] [Level: 15] [Evolve]

[Details: Your physical attacks have a 5% chance of activating a feint attack that fools the enemies perception.]

Moon’s real attack came from below.

His sword drove upward into the gap beneath her raised guard and carved a deep gash across her torso. Purple lightning flooded the wound instantly, and the spirit screamed as the soul-scarring current ripped through her.

She lashed out blindly. A wave of ice erupted from her body in every direction. Moon activated [Air Step] and vaulted above it, the frozen spikes passing beneath his feet. He cast [Thunderclap Raiju] from the air, the purple wolf streaking downward at the stumbling spirit.

She caught it on her ice sword. The explosion sent her sliding backward across the frozen floor, lightning arcing across her arms. Blood ran from fresh burns layered on top of the gash in her torso.

Moon landed and immediately cast [Minor Mend] on himself, healing the frost damage that had accumulated across his legs and left arm from the ice wave. He followed it with [Cleanse], and the residual cold that had been slowing his movements flushed from his system.

His sword was creaking, the materials unable to hold against the quality of her ice sword, coupled with the strengths of her attacks.

‘It won’t last long. It seems like I will need to use the staff soon.’

The spirit straightened up. Her wounds were already beginning to close, the pavilion’s proximity fueling her regeneration. But the soul damage from the purple lightning lingered. Moon could see it in her eyes.

She charged again. Moon met her in the center of the sanctum, their blades ringing off each other in rapid exchanges. He cycled through everything he had. A rune slapped onto the floor mid-dodge that erupted into stone spikes when she stepped on it. A burst of [Explode] aimed at her feet to force her into the air where her footing was weakest. A bolt of purple lightning between sword clashes that she barely deflected.

Their battle raged on until Moon felt his blade shudder in his grip.

A crack ran along the edge of the sword, splitting from the tip down to the center of the blade. The metal had endured hundreds of lightning-infused strikes, dozens of collisions against an ice sword that carried the weight of a Three Star spirit behind it.

It couldn’t take anymore.

Moon discarded it and pulled his staff from his storage ring in the same motion, switching to it as his close-range weapon without missing a beat. The staff was heavier, longer, and lacked a cutting edge, but it was a C-Rank weapon reinforced with enhancement runes. It would hold.

The spirit saw the switch and pressed harder. Her ice sword hammered against the staff in succession, each blow sending vibrations up Moon’s arms. She was trying to break this weapon too.

Moon gave ground deliberately, pulling her toward the center of the sanctum.

Then the spirit stopped attacking. She planted her feet and raised her ice sword above her head with both hands. The temperature in the room plummeted so sharply that Moon’s next breath came out as a cloud of white. Every surface in the sanctum frosted over in an instant. The pillars of ice around them began to glow, feeding their energy into her blade.

The sword doubled in size. Then tripled.

She was channeling terrifying power into that strike.

Moon didn’t run.

He planted his feet and raised his staff. Blue fire gathered at the crystal tip while purple lightning crackled along his left hand. He fed both elements simultaneously, compressing his [ignite] into the smallest point he could manage. [Explode] and [Thunderclap Raiju] both formed at once, one atop his staff, other in his hand.

Both of them released at the same time. Their spells travelling towards their targets at an insane speed.