The terrifying Ethereal that had been preparing to charge was thrown off balance, reeling backward from the violent impact of the sword and shield.
At the same time, a grappling hook shot out from the side and snagged the Ethereal's soft cloak. The next moment, the Ethereal was yanked off the ground and sent flying in the direction of its attacker.
Meanwhile, Caesar, having successfully saved Susanna, turned to Andrew with a brilliant smile and gave him a thumbs-up.
It was only then that Susanna noticed that, besides Caesar standing in front of her, there was an unfamiliar man far in the distance acting alongside her.
Seeing the complete lack of footprints from there to here, she realized—Boss Caesar was actually thrown over here by that man?!
Was throwing someone directly at a monster actually a valid tactic?!
And the grappling hook that had snagged the Ethereal's cloak extended from a launcher on that man's right arm.
As the grappling hook pulled Andrew and the Ethereal closer, he slowly drew the Dullahan Tachi from his back. The longsword's appearance, so strikingly similar to the Ethereal's, made Susanna shudder involuntarily.
Fortunately, in the next instant, the longsword viciously struck the Ethereal's body, completely dispelling Susanna's doubts.
A powerful downward slash slammed into the Ethereal's slender frame, causing it to let out a sharp shriek from whatever passed for its vocal organs.
The strike carved a massive gash into its torso, but the moment it was injured, the hooked Ethereal vanished with a light leap.
Space itself seemed to be a springboard beneath its feet; a single, light hop was all it took to disappear on the spot.
But it wasn't fleeing. At least, with its level of intelligence, the concept of escape didn't exist.
The next moment, it crossed five or six meters to reappear in a nearby clearing.
Watching the Ethereal eagerly sizing them up from a distance, Andrew, who had already studied information on many common Ethereals from the siblings' records, quickly recognized this signature creature.
Possessing this knowledge, Andrew immediately called out the information he'd learned from Phaethon's bestiary to Caesar.
"Caesar, that's a Corrupted Overlord - Pompey! Watch out for its teleporting slash!"
As it happened, Caesar had recently made a special trip into the city to see a new horror movie, The Ethereal Comes Knocking, which featured an Ethereal perfectly suited for such a film.
She knew a thing or two about this particular Ethereal—the psychological trauma of countless Hollow raiders, a creature that had made so many who faced it alone lose their courage to enter Hollows and choose early retirement.
Even Caesar vividly remembered its phantom-like attack style. She watched the Dullahan warily, guarding against any attempt to harm Susanna again, while Andrew charged straight toward it without hesitation.
As Andrew reached the Dullahan, he thrust his blade forward, viciously stabbing into the wound he had just inflicted.
But the Dullahan seemed completely unaffected. It violently raised its single right arm high above its head and brought it down in a powerful chop.
Wearing only a pair of vambraces, Andrew had no intention of taking the hit head-on, nor did he need to!
"Foresight Slash!"
With a quick backstep, he dodged the heavy blow, twisting his body to swing the tachi back behind him before rotating his upper body for a powerful horizontal sweep.
But the Dullahan's attack wasn't a single strike. As its missed slash reached its apex, the slightly bowed body of the Dullahan coiled like a compressed spring.
The moment after a spring is compressed to its limit is the moment of its explosive release.
A reverse horizontal slash, driven by its body's momentum, shot out with even greater ferocity than before, clashing violently against Andrew's Foresight Slash.
"CLANG!!!"
The collision of the two longswords was deafening, but in the next instant, they seemed to pass through each other as if their blades had vanished.
For a moment, Caesar's heart leaped into her throat with worry, but she breathed a sigh of relief when she sensed that the shield protecting Andrew was still intact.
The next moment, the clear ring of a sword resounded, preceded by the flash of a refined and vicious horizontal slash.
This fierce slash bisected the Dullahan's crescent greatblade and its body. As the upper half of the heavy blade slid off under gravity, the cross-section of the cut was as smooth and clean as a mirror.
Before the flash of light from the sword had even faded, Andrew sheathed his tachi at his left hip, only to draw it again in the next instant.
After the sharp horizontal slash, he spun the blade and followed up with a powerful downward diagonal cleave.
"Iai Spirit Slash!"
With most of its blade gone, the Dullahan was powerless to block the two strikes. Two fine lines instantly appeared across its body.
The next moment, the cuts appeared along those lines, and the creature crumbled like sand, breaking into several pieces like a toppling tower of blocks.
As the segmented Dullahan completely collapsed, the brief battle was swiftly decided.
To prevent it from starting its phantom-like teleporting again, Andrew had chosen the quickest method to kill it by force.
After all, if that thing really started jumping all over the place, it would have been a huge pain.
If it teleported out of space to attack him, that would be one thing, but it wouldn't be good if it went after Caesar and the little girl.
The moment the Dullahan fell, the option to carve its corresponding materials finally lit up in his system.
With the confirmation, Andrew breathed a sigh of relief. He habitually drew the Material Carving Knife that was always tucked into his lower back and began carving the materials with his fastest speed.
Although this was his first time officially doing this, his experience from dismantling other Ethereals was not for show. With a few deft movements of the carving knife in his right hand, the Dullahan's greatblade was sliced off.
Even though he had just cut it in two during the fight, Andrew wasn't picky about his weapon materials, and neither was his system.
Once the blade was cut off, Andrew quickly stored it in his system's material box. At the same time, his right hand didn't rest, yanking off the cloak-like soft armor draped over the Dullahan's empty left arm.
He had to admit, while this Ethereal fought like a ghost, its cloak was definitely cool.
With these two materials collected, the Dullahan's bare torso dissolved into motes of energy that scattered into the air.
Based on the speed of its dissipation, Andrew made a rough estimate of this Corrupted Overlord - Pompey's strength.
"A Level 3 Ethereal... huh?"
Although this Ethereal's energy level was only 3, and the fight itself could be described as easy, Andrew felt it wasn't a good sign.
After all, an elite Ethereal generated within a nascent Hollow was highly likely to be closely related to the boss Ethereal.
_____
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