Chapter 84: Guardian Duel Stage (5)

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!

The Guardian registered five hits on the blade, the system counting the weapon as an extension of Leon’s hit-box, before using the final bounce to launch itself back out of the eye of the storm. The entity back-flipped gracefully through the air, clearing the moat of decay once more, and landed flawlessly beside its embedded greatsword.

Leon stood in the center of his impenetrable magical fortress, his eyes wide.

[Current Score]

[Leon Wes: 8]

[The Silent Aegis: 11]

He had built a perfect defensive castle. He had layered AoE damage, wind-shear deflection, and absolute physical guarding. And the Guardian had simply treated his fortress like a gymnastic apparatus, utilizing the geometry of Leon’s own spells to score points while completely avoiding the hazardous hit-boxes.

"I built a wall," Leon said quietly, the realization dawning on him with absolute clarity. "And you just proved that a wall doesn’t stop an opponent; it just gives them a stationary target."

For the next four minutes, the match devolved into a grueling, systematic deconstruction of Leon’s defensive philosophy.

Leon maintained his position, desperately trying to dynamically alter the shape and flow of his Arcane Requiem moat and his Aegis of the Tempest to catch the Guardian. But the Silent Aegis was a master of kinematic geometry.

The knight would sprint along the outer edge of the moat, forcing Leon to constantly rotate his guard. Then, it would throw its stone greatsword like a massive boomerang. The blade would skim perfectly over the decay, striking Leon’s Obsidian Carapace and ricocheting back to the Guardian’s hand.

Leon tried to use Dimensional Severance defensively, cutting jagged spatial rifts in the air to act as invisible shields.

The Guardian’s algorithm immediately recognized the spatial tears. It didn’t avoid them; it actively used the gravitational pull of the rifts to slingshot its own movements, violently accelerating its attack vectors. It would dash into the pull of a rift, use the gravity to instantly change direction without losing momentum, and deliver a rapid flurry of strikes against Leon’s flank before retreating.

Leon’s SSS-Rank Infinite Growth was actively working during the exchange. His neural pathways were continuously rebuilding themselves, expanding his cognitive bandwidth to try and process the sheer, overwhelming speed of the Level 245 logic. He was slowly, agonizingly beginning to predict the start of the Guardian’s animations.

But predicting the start wasn’t enough when the entity could alter its attack trajectory mid-swing based on Leon’s defensive micro-adjustments.

"You don’t attack where I am," Leon grunted, managing to parry a glancing blow and returning a quick thrust that grazed the knight’s shoulder. "You attack the empty space where my defensive cooldowns force me to be."

It was a brilliant, suffocating strategy. By remaining stationary and relying on heavy area-denial, Leon had completely surrendered the initiative. He was playing entirely on the Guardian’s terms, allowing the entity to dictate the angle, timing, and frequency of every single engagement.

The final minute was a blur of desperate, high-speed parries. Leon abandoned the Arcane Requiem moat, realizing the mana expenditure wasn’t yielding hits. He relied entirely on his 235 Agility and his Blade of the Dragon God, trying to engage the Guardian in a pure, stationary fencing match.

The heavy, ethereal golden flames of his greatsword clashed repeatedly against the pale, unadorned stone of the Guardian’s blade.

Leon’s Supreme Comprehension fed him an endless stream of tactical data, but his physical vessel, despite its absurd stats, was simply outclassed by the raw numerical superiority of a Level 245 construct.

Every time Leon managed to slip a clever, feinted dagger-strike into the Guardian’s guard, scoring a single point, the Silent Aegis would flawlessly calculate the exact recovery frame of Leon’s animation. The knight would step into the opening and deliver a mathematically perfect combination of three or four rapid strikes, instantly widening the score gap. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Leon’s breathing was heavy, the sheer mental exhaustion of tracking the fight pushing his SSS-rank talents to the brink.

The Guardian executed a flawless, spinning backhand strike. Leon raised his greatsword, predicting the high line. The Guardian instantly feinted, dropping the blade and tapping Leon’s knee, hip, and ribs in rapid succession.

[MATCH CONCLUDED]

The massive, iridescent gold interface flashed. The gentle, non-lethal shockwave of system magic erupted, forcefully sliding both combatants apart to their starting positions at opposite ends of the silver ring.

Leon lowered the Blade of the Dragon God, letting the tip rest against the black stone. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, his dual-colored eyes immediately jumping to the golden scoreboard hovering above the center of the arena.

Ding!

[Guardian Duel Stage: Round 2 Completed]

[Hit Comparison]

[Leon Wes: 82 Hits]

[The Silent Aegis: 415 Hits]

[Result: Challenger Defeated. Guardian Claim Failed.]

Leon stared at the numbers. He had significantly increased his own hit count, mostly due to the five guaranteed hits from the Chronos Shift and the grazing hits from his defensive tempest. But the Guardian’s score had also skyrocketed.

By anchoring himself and playing the fortress, he had simply provided the Level 245 algorithm with a reliable, stationary target that it could endlessly farm for points without having to expend energy chasing him.

"I’m definitely filing this defensive algorithm failure under my mental logs," Leon murmured to himself, his voice echoing softly in the vast, empty realm.

He didn’t feel a shred of despair. The gap was massive, yes. But Leon was the Vanguard. He possessed Infinite Growth. With every passing second, his neural pathways were adapting to the impossible speed of the Level 245 Guardian.

He looked across the two hundred yards of polished black stone. The Silent Aegis stood perfectly still, assuming its flawless, neutral guard stance, waiting with eternal patience for the challenger to initiate again.

"Raw speed failed. Area denial failed," Leon said, a dangerous, analytical fire burning in his icy blue and golden eyes. He rested the Mythic greatsword comfortably against his shoulder. "If I cannot outrun you, and I cannot outlast you... then for the next round, I am going to have to out-predict you."