Arthur Belmont (the hero)
A blade flew aimed at my chest, I knocked it to the side, it switched direction and went for my side. I dodged and the floating blade began spinning like a boomerang. It made a horizontal slash that I blocked, then followed it up with the same slash from the other side, I struck it with enough force to send it away.
The blade returned to its welder and stood by her side. "Well, how is it?" Daria asked. "Are you warmed up already?"
"Yeah…" I answered. "My body is all healed up by now, just a bit sluggish from lack of exercise, so let's increase the difficulty by a bit."
"Understood." Eleven blades that were lying on the pavement of the stone courtyard floated up, to join the first one and got into an offensive formation - like spears - pointing at me.
"I said to increase the difficulty a bit, not to…" I was interrupted by a flurry of blades stabbing and striking at me from various angles and sides. "Daria! I'm serious, hold back a little…" I shouted, blocking a slash aimed at the back of my neck. "Are you trying to kill me, or what?"
"Relax, you won't die." Daria said nonchalantly. "Lina is right here to heal you up no matter what."
"She's a good healer, but even she can't reattach a chopped off head!" The twelve blades surrounded me from all sides, pointing their tips at me. Daria extended her arm and clutched her fist, the blades as one converged on where I stood.
I jumped up into the air, one of the blades scratching my side. While I was still in the air, the blades changed formation again - now pointing upwards - and launched. "Daria, this is getting ridiculous, hold back!" I pleaded, desperately blocking the blades aimed at my privates. But the onslaught continued.
"While we all were training and coming up with ways to make up for our shortcoming, you were lying in bed. I don't think that that was very fair…" Daria said, sending more blades at me.
"I was barely able to move!" I countered, now standing firmly on the ground, blocking and dodging like a madman on psychedelics trying to invent a new dance.
"That's no excuse to skip training." She upped her intensity, her blades moving even faster and more precisely.
I sighed. "Fine, you win…" I knocked away the blade that was coming straight at my chest and activated 'Limit break'. The world around me seemed to slow down to a crawl, an immense strength filled my body. It was time to counter attack.
I charged at Daria, she ordered her blades into a defensive formation. Like a flexible, segmented shield, her blades, instead of firmly blocking the attack, absorbed it, neutralizing the force bit by bit. Then the blades that were on the side of the formation, plunged down onto my sword and struck deep into the ground.
I tried lifting my sword, but couldn't so I looked down. Daria's swords didn't hit my blade, they struck the ground right next to it, but they were stuck at an angle such that the blade of the sword and the guard were making an angle right above my sword's blade and guard. The fact that there was more than one sword stuck in different angles meant that my sword was trapped.
One of the blades, that were blocking the blow for Daria, slowly changed its position, now pointing directly at my throat. "You lose."
I let go of my immobilized sword and lifted up my hands into the air. "I admit defeat." I said with a sigh, then deactivated 'Limit break', my body instantly becoming heavy, grabbed one of the swords that were trapping mine and tried to pull it out.
To my surprise, the blade didn't even budge. I tried harder - still nothing, then I got serious. I took up a wide stance, placed both my hands on the blade's guard and tried to lift it up like a power lifter deadlifts. The result - back pain and a sword still sticking in the ground like nothing happened. Daria was silently watching everything and seemed amused.
Finally, I asked. "Hey, did misted West make you twelve Excaliburs, or something? Am I not worthy of drawing these blades, or is there a trick to it?"
"There is…" Daria said. "Listen closely." A faint click was heard from the ground and a few seconds later, the blades lifted into the air and pointed at my face. On closer inspection, these new blades of Daria's, seemed different from those that she used before. They were thicker and had these strange spikes pointing towards the guard. "Observe." Daria said and activated her new party trick - those spikes that were pointing backwards shot out to the sides and the whole sword now resembled a fishing hook.
"Cool."
"Indeed."
"And how did you make them stick so deep into the ground?"
"Gravity magic - I made my blades hundreds of times heavier."
"Cool."
"Indeed."
"I kind of wish that my new sword had something similar, like an extending function or something else."
"You should keep your expectations in check." Daria snorted. "Mr. West did some back breaking work designing a sword that would be able to handle your new move more than once, so be grateful for what you have now."
"I guess you're right…"
"By the way, have you come up with a name for that move? I mean you can't just call it 'condensation of all the power from 'limit break' into one slash', it's far too cumbersome."
"I thought about it…" I said, looking at my new sword. "Lina told me that this move didn't only destroy the room we were in, it pierced the heavens that were obstructed by clouds and allowed the warm rays of the sun to shine upon the battle field, bringing hope to those fighting beneath. I'll call it 'Cloud Piercer'."
"A fitting name. It's a shame that I wasn't able to witness it first hand."
"I'm sure you will, for the enemy we are going to be up against is a monster…"
"Well then, I'll be looking forward to it." Daria extended her fist forward.
"Let's hope that it will be enough to kill it…" I bumped her fist with mine.
Join me on patreon at patreon.com/BonsaiCat for early access to new chapters or buy my book 'How to rule a fantasy world' on Amazon. It's the same stuff that you read here, but I fucked up with the naming and the book is already out, so fuck it, let's go with this name for the book. I appreciate all of your support and your forgiveness for my utter incompetence. Best regards, BonsaiCat.