Chapter 12-The dual swordsman

Chapter 12: 12-The dual swordsman

The iron grate above them tore open with a violent shriek of bending metal.

Heavy, armored boots slammed into the knee-deep muck of the storm drain. Sol didn’t need to look up to know what was dropping into the tunnel behind them.

The ambient temperature in the sewer plummeted, driven not by Valera’s pure frost, but by the oppressive, refined cold lunar energy of enforcers.

"Keep moving," Sol rasped, shoving Valera forward into the pitch-black curve of the tunnel.

He pushed a pulse to his eyes.

Flash.

Three thermal signatures illuminated the dark behind him.

Two were standard Enforcers, dense blue masses of Level 1 (Low) energy. But the man in the center was different. His core was a tight sphere of deep indigo. A Level 1 (Mid) Cultivator.

He didn’t carry only a weapon, but instead he drew two identical, perfectly balanced silver straight-blades from his back, the metal radiating a freezing aura that instantly turned the sewer water around his boots to solid ice.

Darkness.

"The bastards are here!" the Mid-Stage Enforcer shouted. The sound amplified down the stone corridor. "Seal the tunnel! Don’t let these rats escape!"

A shockwave of weaponized frost rushed down the drain.

Sol felt the water around his own boots begin to turn to slush. He couldn’t outrun a directional area-of-effect attack in a confined space.

Sol stopped. He planted his right foot back, sinking into the freezing muck, and turned his body sideways to make himself a smaller target. He drew his wrapped silver blade.

"Sol!" Valera shouted from the dark ahead, her own frost flaring as she prepared to engage.

"Stay back!" he yelled.

In the dark, a low, bubbling sound echoed down the tunnel. It sounded like a cough, then a giggle. Within seconds, it escalated into a full-throated, manic laughter. It bounced off the curved brick, completely unhinged and utterly terrifying.

Flash.

Sol saw the Enforcer charging. The man’s core was flaring, activating his unique Gift.

[Symmetric Mind- The system grant flawless coordination, allowing his brain to process and wield two swords simultaneously without a primary or weak hand]

They moved as completely independent, lethal entities.

The curse was the laughter.

The sheer neurological overload of splitting his consciousness severed his emotional regulation. He couldn’t stop laughing as he swung.

Darkness.

Sol gripped the burning core in his chest, forcing the violent output of his powers directly into the steel.

He trapped the fire inside. The blade began to glow a fierce, but controled orange.

The Enforcer hit Sol’s range like a blizzard, shrieking with laughter.

The first silver blade came in a blinding horizontal arc aimed at Sol’s neck.

Sol brought his heated sword up to parry.

CLANG.

The impact rattled Sol’s teeth, the brute force of a Mid-Stage Cultivator jarring his arm.

But the moment Sol blocked the first blade, the second blade was already thrusting upward toward his ribs.

Sol desperately twisted his torso, the freezing silver tip slicing through his thick coat and drawing a shallow line of blood across his side.

"Hahaha! Too slow. I know everything about you, dirty butcher!" the Enforcer howled, the laughter violently distorting his words.

The Enforcer became a terrifying whirlwind of silver and ice. There were no blind spots.

There was no rhythm to exploit. If Sol blocked high, the second sword swept his legs. If Sol stepped back, both swords lunged in a perfectly synchronized pincer.

Sol was bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts within ten seconds, his body frantically burning fuel just to keep the frost in the wounds from stopping his heart.

He couldn’t win a technical duel against a flawlessly symmetric mind. He had to break the symmetry.

"Fucking think, Sol, how to beat this bastard."

The Enforcer shrieked with laughter, stepping forward and bringing both swords down in a brutal, cross-slashing guillotine strike.

Sol didn’t dodge. He threw his left arm up, intentionally taking the strike.

The two freezing silver blades bit deep into the meat of Sol’s left forearm, slicing down to the bone. The pain was agonizing, the absolute cold instantly trying to numb his arm.

But Sol roared, forcefully clamping his muscles shut around the trapped blades and surging a massive wave of his internal furnace directly into his bleeding arm.

The extreme heat swelled his flesh, locking the twin swords in his grip for a fraction of a second.

The Enforcer’s laughter hitched, his perfect symmetry suddenly anchored by the almost dead butcher.

Sol pivoted on his back foot, channeling every ounce of his remaining Level 1 fire into his right hand. He drove his glowing orange sword forward in a flawless execution of the move Valera had just teached him, targeting the gap in the enforcer’s silver breastplate.

The superheated point of the silver sword vaporized the armor.

It slid effortlessly through the armor, through the enforcer’s ribs, and directly into his Mid-Stage core. Sol released the mental seal on his energy.

The trapped heat detonated inside the Enforcer’s chest.

A muffled, sickening thump echoed in the tunnel. The noble’s armor bulged outward, steam violently hissing from the neck guard.

The manic laughter cut off in an instant, replaced by a wet gurgle. The enforcer dropped to his knees, dead.

"Did you see that, Valera? I think even he didn’t know what just happened" Sol mocked.