Chapter 58: Linda Vs The Undead Great Swordsman

Linda heard them, but her attention remained on Leon.

"And you won’t have it hold back the way it did with them, right?" She asked.

"It won’t. It’ll still avoid killing you or your summon."

"I wasn’t asking for that part to change."

"Good."

Linda took off her sweater and put it inside her bag. Her trouser wasn’t skintight like most. She wore a baggy trainer, and a sleek vest which was tucked into it.

She walked towards the opposite side of the practice floor while Leon remained where he was. The Undead Great Swordsman appeared beside him, its armour settling with a faint metallic sound as the blue light within its empty eye sockets focused towards her.

The room hadn’t changed, but standing directly across from the undead felt different from watching it outside a spar. There was something unpleasant about its presence that Linda hadn’t fully noticed before.

She let out a slow breath and summoned her Yeti.

The beast appeared in front of her, standing even taller than the Great Swordsman. Thick white fur covered its broad body, while its long arms hung beside powerful legs. It raised its head towards the undead, releasing cold mist from its mouth as its fingers flexed.

Frost began spreading beneath its feet immediately, as though trying to colonize where it stood.

"Whenever you’re ready." Leon said after looking between the two summons.

He turned towards the Great Swordsman.

"Don’t go easy. But no finishing blows."

The undead closed its hand around its sword after hearing that.

Leon walked off the practice floor and sat beside Dustin and Raul, after activating the barrier around the fighting stage. They hadn’t used it before, but for this fight, they’d need it not to catch strays from the Yeti.

He took out his phone, though this time, he opened a timer and left it resting in his hand.

’He really is going to leave everything to it.’ Linda thought as she looked back at her Yeti.

"Start."

The Yeti moved first, taking two heavy steps forward as it swept one arm across its body. A line of ice formed in front of it and travelled low across the floor before rising into sharp ridges in the Great Swordsman’s path.

The undead stepped sideways before the nearest ridge reached its boot, drawing its sword in the same movement. The blade cut through the white ice and scattered pieces of it across the floor, but the Yeti was already following behind the attack.

A thick layer of frost covered its right fist before it swung towards the Great Swordsman’s shoulder.

The undead turned its blade and met the strike at an angle. Steel scraped against ice, and the force pushed it backwards, its boots carving two pale lines through the frost.

The Yeti tried to follow with its other hand, but the Great Swordsman pushed the first fist aside before cutting towards the exposed forearm.

Ice quickly gathered over the Yeti’s white fur as the blade approached. The sword broke through part of the frozen armour, sending pieces of it to the floor, but didn’t reach the flesh beneath it as its fur acted as extra defence.

The Yeti pulled its arm back with a low growl and swung its other hand, forcing the Great Swordsman to turn away before it could make another cut.

Linda watched the exchange without giving any instructions. Neither summon had gained much from it. Her Yeti had enough strength to push the undead back, but the Great Swordsman didn’t try to resist that strength directly. It gave ground when it needed to and attacked whenever the movement left an opening.

Her Yeti advanced again, spreading the ice beneath it into a wider and smoother sheet.

The Great Swordsman’s leading foot touched the edge, and its next step became shorter than before. The Yeti attacked as soon as that happened, lunging forward and bringing both arms down towards its shoulders.

The undead moved between the two arms. Its sword struck the inside of one wrist and knocked the hand outward, while its body turned past the other.

It appeared beside the Yeti with its blade lowered towards the back of the beast’s knee.

"Behind." Linda ordered, her fingers tightening slightly.

The Yeti twisted its body rather than trying to step away. Ice burst from the floor beneath its heel and rose into a short wall between the sword and its leg.

The blade cut into the wall, and the Yeti drove its elbow backwards.

The Great Swordsman abandoned the cut and ducked away, but the edge of the elbow still struck its shoulder plate. A loud clang rang through the training room, causing the undead to stumble one step before recovering.

It swiftly lifted its sword as three narrow spears of ice formed beside the Yeti and shot towards it.

The Great Swordsman cut the first spear aside, turned its body away from the second and caught the third against the broad side of its blade. The impact forced its arm backwards, but the Yeti followed before the broken pieces of ice reached the ground.

"That’s already more than ours managed." Raul said quietly.

Dustin didn’t answer him. He was watching the Yeti’s fist pass close to the Great Swordsman’s shoulder.

The undead bent beneath the strike and moved towards the Yeti’s left side, flicking its sword upwards, as the blade cracked through a fresh layer of ice covering the beast’s upper arm.

The Yeti brought its arm down to trap the sword against its body, but the Great Swordsman pulled it free before its fingers closed. It stepped backwards as frost spread towards its ankles, and it had almost reached clear ground when a jagged piece of ice rose behind its foot.

The Great Swordsman was forced to stop before it. It could have leapt, but the reduced friction made that not such a great choice.

The Yeti’s next punch was already coming towards it.

The undead changed its grip and brought the sword across its body while widening its stance. The fist struck close to the base of the blade with enough force to drive the Great Swordsman onto one knee, while ice broke apart around the point of impact.

Linda stepped forward slightly, but the undead was already moving.

It pressed its free hand against the floor and turned away from the fist, dragging the edge of its sword across the Yeti’s knuckles as it stood.

The Yeti pulled its hand back, several pieces of ice falling from its fingers, while the Great Swordsman stood a few paces away with a white scrape across its shoulder plate.

Linda’s Yeti shook the damaged ice from its hand and continued watching the undead.

’It can still move like that.’ Linda thought to herself, since the frozen ground should have made that recovery much harder.

Linda looked at the broken pieces of ice around the Great Swordsman’s feet and noticed that it was no longer standing on the smoothest part of the floor. Each time it cut through one of the ridges or destroyed one of the Yeti’s attacks, it left fragments behind.

It had started placing its feet between those fragments, using the uneven patches to stop its boots from slipping.

’And without being instructed.’ She thought to herself again.

"Don’t let it stay there." Linda instructed.

The Yeti lowered one hand, causing the floor beneath the Great Swordsman to cloud over.

The undead moved before the ice could rise. It stepped away from the old patch and advanced towards the Yeti, which raised one arm and formed a broad slab of ice in front of itself.

Its blade struck one side of the slab, creating a crack through it, then the Swordsman kicked the broken section towards the Yeti, reaching it.

The Yeti raised its forearm and allowed the broken slab to strike against it. By the time it pushed the pieces away, the Great Swordsman had already moved beside it.