Once he regained his footing, Ian didn't immediately attack. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and looked at Kag, who was still stunned that his hidden move had been countered.
For the briefest instant, something seemed to flicker through Ian's cold eyes, a look that almost seemed to say, 'Got it.'
Then they clashed again.
Over the next few exchanges, Saruman noticed something terrifying: tiny traces of Kag's battlefield style had begun appearing in Ian's swordsmanship. The same ruthless directness. The same brutal efficiency. Occasionally, there was even the faint setup for the dirty feint Kag had just used.
Those elements immediately disappeared beneath Ian's smoother, more refined technique, but Saruman still caught those fleeting shadows. His scalp went numb.
'He's really learning it!'
Not merely the techniques, but the style itself, even the combat instincts Kag had forged through countless moments on the edge of life and death.
'He can even copy things forged in the instant between life and death?'
Saruman finally understood just how meaningless his earlier warning had been. In Ian's eyes, Kag had probably stopped being an intruder to eliminate or ignore. Instead, he had become a mobile collection of interesting swordsmanship and Magical Energy samples.
And even worse... Ian didn't seem remotely interested in ending the fight. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
That realization chilled Saruman more deeply than any direct threat of death. And somehow, it was also unbearably absurd and tragic.
"No... No!"
Kag finally noticed something was wrong as well. It had taken him a while, but he was beginning to realize that Ian wasn't trying to finish the fight. He was observing. Learning. No, he was very obviously observing and learning.
At first, Kag hadn't noticed. His overwhelming rage, his determination to die fighting, and the burning sensation of his Magical Energy had covered his senses like a thick curtain.
All he'd thought about was attacking. Every muscle in his body, every trace of Magical Energy, had been pushed to its limit and poured into the simplest, most violent movements possible.
Cleave. Chop. Slash. Thrust.
His greatsword carried a crimson storm as Kag tried to drown the unfathomable young man before him beneath sheer force. Ian's figure swayed amid the storm of blades, yet he never fell.
That ordinary longsword seemed almost magical in his hands, always appearing exactly where it needed to be to neutralize Kag's attacks with the least possible effort.
Only one thought had existed in Kag's mind: 'Break through! Cut through his sword! Even if I can only force him back one step, that's still a warrior's victory!'
But gradually, a strange sense of wrongness began creeping through his rage. Ian's swordsmanship no longer felt as "pure" as it had at the beginning.
Some of his blocks had originally been almost unnaturally clean and precise, as though every movement had been measured with a ruler. But now, just before applying force, Ian would occasionally make an almost imperceptible preparatory motion, a tiny tremor.
Kag knew that movement. He knew it far too well. It was a habit Kag himself had developed after years of wielding heavy weapons, a tiny motion used immediately before releasing maximum explosive force. It had become so deeply ingrained that Kag performed it without conscious thought.
Ian's version was smaller, faster, and far more controlled, but the fundamental principle behind it was unmistakable. Kag knew exactly where it had come from.
The same thing began happening with Ian's footwork. Originally, Ian moved with an almost ghostlike grace, fluid and impossible to predict. But every so often, his steps would suddenly include a slightly awkward yet brutally efficient sideways slide.
Kag recognized that too. It was a survival technique he'd developed on battlefields covered in corpses and blood, a method for changing direction within the smallest possible space and escaping a lethal attack at the last possible instant.
Ian's version lacked the desperation and ugliness of battlefield survival; his movements were calmer, cleaner, and more precise. But the explosive shift in direction and the way he transferred his center of gravity left no mistaking the source.
'He's really stealing my techniques!'
What truly shook Kag, however, came during their next exchange.
He gathered every ounce of strength he had left and brought his greatsword crashing downward in a mountain-splitting overhead cleave. The blade screamed through the air.
Ian still didn't meet it head-on, nor did he dodge. His longsword swept upward from an awkward angle, the tip striking precisely against a weak point about one-third of the way along the side of Kag's greatsword. The violent downward force was smoothly redirected.
Nothing unusual there, Ian had already done similar things several times. But then, the instant Kag's greatsword was knocked aside and the center of his guard opened slightly, Ian stepped forward. His upward sweep flowed directly into a thrust.
The longsword became a streak of cold light, shooting straight toward the opening in Kag's chest as the warrior's body leaned forward from the force of his own attack.
The thrust was fast, precise, and ruthless. More importantly, the way Ian generated force, the angle he'd chosen, and that unstoppable momentum focused entirely on breaking through a single point were shockingly similar to a technique Kag had spent years mastering.
His signature move for dealing with heavily armored enemies, a technique designed to concentrate the strength of his entire body into the tip of his blade and pierce a single point, the 'Armor-Piercing Thrust'!
It was seventy or eighty percent identical! Ian's thrust wasn't reinforced with Magical Energy; he relied purely on physical strength and impeccable timing. But he'd already grasped the essence of the technique.
'He's... He's actually copying me!'
Kag's heart jolted. It was as though a bucket of freezing water had been poured over his head. The last remnants of his stubborn pride and desperate hope vanished completely, leaving only disbelief.
Having your techniques seen through and countered wasn't unusual. But having your opponent imitate them in the middle of battle at such an absurd speed, and even improve them?
That was practically the greatest insult imaginable to the decades Kag had spent training. Ian was trampling all over his pride!
Once again, rage erupted like a fire drenched in oil, instantly burning away Kag's shock and hesitation. Humiliation overwhelmed everything else.
"Bastard!!" Kag roared.
Instead of weakening as his stamina declined, his attacks became even fiercer and more unpredictable under the influence of his fury.
He stopped relying solely on his usual battlefield killing techniques, pulling out complicated sword techniques and combinations he'd kept hidden at the bottom of his arsenal, moves even he rarely used.
'Let's see you learn these!'
Kag gritted his teeth. His greatsword danced as crimson Magical Energy surged around it, sometimes crashing forward like raging waves against a shore, sometimes condensing like a venomous serpent striking from concealment.
His swordsmanship constantly shifted between feints and genuine attacks, between sudden bursts of speed and deliberate slowness. He wanted to overwhelm Ian with unpredictability and finally escape that terrifying learning ability.
Unfortunately, reality was cruel.
"Are you going through menopause or something?" Ian's casual complaint had a particularly irritating flavor to it.
And his learning speed was so absurdly fast that despair began creeping into Kag's heart. Kag was even beginning to experience the ridiculous sensation that he wasn't fighting Ian at all, he was voluntarily feeding him techniques.
Gritting his teeth, Kag unleashed one of the techniques that had once made him famous: the 'Spiral Slash'.
This technique required a special method of circulating Magical Energy. The energy spiraled around the blade, giving each attack not only terrifying penetrative force but also a strange rotational tearing effect.
It was specifically designed to destroy an opponent's defenses and weapons. Years ago, Kag had relied on this very technique to break through an enemy general's magical armor and heavy steel shield in the middle of an army, killing the commander and securing victory in a single decisive strike.
Now, his crimson greatsword began producing a deep, drill-like hum as the blade rotated and thrust toward Ian. Even the chaotic energy currents surrounding them were pulled into its wake and twisted around the spiraling strike.
"Good stuff! Good stuff! I'm learning this one!"
It was Ian's first time seeing the technique, and his cold eyes seemed to brighten slightly. He didn't try to meet the attack head-on, nor did he completely dodge it. Instead, Ian shifted his body slightly to the side and swept his longsword upward at an extremely precise angle.
The tip wasn't aimed at the center of Kag's greatsword; instead, it brushed against the outer edge of the rotating Magical Energy.
'Screeeeech...!'
An ear-piercing friction sound erupted. Ian's longsword seemed to transform into an impossibly precise measuring instrument. At the instant of contact, his wrist began vibrating at a frequency almost impossible for the naked eye to follow.
This wasn't simply a block. It was more like he was touching it, feeling it, feeling the rotational rhythm of the spiraling Magical Energy, its intensity, its direction, and the way force traveled through it.
Kag's greatsword was guided away from its original trajectory. Ian used the resulting recoil to retreat lightly, but his gaze remained fixed on the fading remnants of spiraling Magical Energy surrounding Kag's blade, as though his mind were rapidly recording and analyzing everything he'd just experienced.
'He can learn even this?!'
Kag's heart sank, but he didn't stop attacking. After a quick adjustment, he attempted the Spiral Slash again, reversing the direction of rotation and altering the angle of his thrust.
However, the instant his greatsword shot forward surrounded by spiraling force, Kag saw something that made his eyes widen in horror.
Ian's longsword was rotating too, only slightly, but unmistakably. There was no terrifying Magical Energy reinforcing it; Ian was producing the rotation entirely through subtle movements of his wrist and arm muscles.
Yet the fundamental rotational trajectory, the timing of his force, and the method itself were all there. He had already grasped the most essential part of the Spiral Slash: that spiraling penetration that gathered force from the inside outward and concentrated everything onto a single point!
'He really learned it! How is that possible?!'
This time, Kag was absolutely certain. The horror in his heart surged like an icy tide, completely drowning out his anger.
This wasn't simple imitation of external movements anymore. Ian had understood the principles behind the technique, grasping the fundamental logic behind its force generation and energy manipulation!
But Ian was a wizard! What right did a wizard have to possess such monstrous comprehension toward a warrior's unique Magical Energy techniques?! It completely violated common sense!
The battle continued, but Kag's mind was already in chaos.
He followed it up with several more techniques: the 'Three-Stage Thrust', paired with intricate footwork that made it almost impossible to distinguish the real attack from the feints; the 'Flash Strike', which used an instantaneous burst of Magical Energy to achieve astonishing acceleration and abrupt changes in direction; and even the 'Counterflow Guard', a technique Kag rarely used that combined force redirection with a vicious counterattack.
Ian, meanwhile, acted like a super-learning machine equipped with unlimited memory and a top-tier processor, entering an incredibly efficient phase of data collection and pattern recognition.
At first, he observed cautiously and tested what he saw. Occasionally he would imitate the surface of a technique, but most of the time he simply defended, using each exchange to feel the force, trajectory, rhythm, and intent behind Kag's attacks.
As the number of exchanges increased, Kag discovered something horrifying: Ian's imitations were becoming increasingly accurate, not merely in form, but in essence.
Ian's Three-Stage Thrust was faster and flowed more smoothly between attacks. It lacked the bloody savagery born from years of battlefield slaughter, yet the constantly shifting balance between feint and reality, along with the suffocating pressure of one attack driving directly into the next, was almost identical.
Ian's Flash Strike lacked the dazzling burst of Magical Energy, but the tactical principle behind it, the abrupt change in tempo designed to catch an opponent completely off guard, had been reproduced perfectly.
Even the ingenious concept behind the Counterflow Guard, hiding the opportunity for a counterattack within the very act of defending, was quickly understood and incorporated into Ian's own defensive system.
Eventually, Ian was no longer satisfied with simple imitation. He began dismantling Kag's different techniques, analyzing their individual components, then recombining and optimizing them in bizarre ways during actual combat.
"Behold my Divine Might!"
"Huh?!!" Kag stared in disbelief.
After blocking one of his attacks, Ian immediately countered with a strike that somehow combined the concentrated penetrating principle of the Armor-Piercing Thrust with the rotational force-generation setup of the Spiral Slash.
The fusion wasn't complete, without Magical Energy, certain aspects simply couldn't be reproduced. But the sheer creativity behind the idea and the seamlessness of the transition made even Kag, the original owner of those techniques, feel his scalp go numb.
Only a few minutes had passed, but to Kag, it felt like centuries.
Finally, he unleashed the technique he was proudest of, the one that best embodied overwhelming physical power: the 'Heavy Mountain Chop'!
The principle behind the technique was simple: gather the strength of the entire body and the full force of one's Magical Energy into a single line, then strike downward like Mount Tai collapsing from the heavens. One blow, one overwhelming impact, one decisive conclusion. It was a technique specifically created to smash through fortified defenses.
Kag gambled everything he had left on it, his remaining Magical Energy, his remaining stamina, everything.
He raised the greatsword high above his head as crimson flames of Magical Energy erupted toward the heavens. Then, with the terrifying momentum of a collapsing mountain, Kag brought the greatsword crashing down upon Ian!
This time, Ian didn't use any clever technique to redirect the attack, nor did he dodge. The ordinary longsword in his hand traced an arc almost identical to the force-generation path of Kag's Heavy Mountain Chop, except it was cleaner and more efficient. Every unnecessary preparatory movement had been stripped away; it was almost the perfected version of the same movement.
Ian moved second, yet his sword arrived first!
At the exact instant Kag's power climbed to its absolute peak, that infinitesimal moment when the greatsword was about to descend, but Kag's body was at its most committed and least capable of changing course, Ian's blade struck as though he'd seen the future.
The tip of his sword landed with impossible precision three inches below Kag's two-handed grip. It was an extremely obscure weakness in the chain through which the greatsword transmitted physical strength and Magical Energy, a 'Node' temporarily exposed because Kag had committed everything to the attack!
'CLANG...!!!'
The collision was deeper and more violent than any that had come before it. Kag felt a concentrated, razor-sharp force surge through the greatsword, seemingly capable of penetrating anything in its path.
In an instant, it shattered through Kag's already crumbling Magical Energy defense! Agonizing pain tore through his wrists, the skin between his thumbs and forefingers split apart, and blood sprayed into the air.
For the first time in all the years Kag had carried that indestructible greatsword across countless battlefields, the weapon nearly flew out of his hands!
'I lost? I lost in close combat... to a wizard?!?!'
Kag looked as though he'd been struck by an enormous hammer, stumbling backward seven or eight steps. Every step sent chaotic energy ripples spreading through the surrounding void. The crimson Magical Energy around his body flickered like a candle in a storm, nearly collapsing altogether.
"Huff... huff... huff..."
Kag struggled to catch his breath, barely managing to steady himself. Veins bulged across his forehead while blood and sweat blurred his vision. Almost completely dazed, he stared at Ian in disbelief.
Ian was still standing exactly where he'd been, his breathing not in the slightest bit irregular. He casually twirled the longsword in his hand, the movement smooth and natural. Within it, Kag could faintly recognize something belonging to himself, the viciousness, the directness, the ruthless efficiency of battlefield swordsmanship. Yet those qualities were now governed by something far more refined, a level of control vastly superior to Kag's own. The result seemed completely natural, seamless, and without a single obvious flaw.
Ian appeared rather satisfied with his previous strike, nodding slightly. Then, in a tone so casual it sounded as though he were commenting on the taste of breakfast, he said, "Mm. Your force-generation technique and energy application are pretty interesting. The problem is that your moves are too rigid and don't have enough variation. They're good enough for clearing out ordinary soldiers on a battlefield, but against a genuine expert, the openings are too obvious."
Kag stared at him blankly.
Ian continued. "That Heavy Mountain Chop just now, if you'd lowered your waist and hips another three parts, you could've borrowed considerably more force from your lower body. And if you'd triggered the Magical Energy burst even half an instant earlier, allowing it to synchronize perfectly with the explosive contraction of your muscles, the overall power would've increased by at least thirty percent."
Ian casually pointed toward the position he'd struck moments earlier. "Oh, right. That would also allow a stronger Magical Energy flow to cover the weak Node in your force-transmission chain, so it wouldn't be so easy for someone to break the entire technique with a single precise strike."
His tone remained completely indifferent, as though he were merely explaining some obvious law of physics. Yet every sentence, every single word, was like the sharpest surgical knife imaginable. Ian had dissected the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of Kag's swordsmanship with terrifying precision, and then he'd given Kag improvements that went directly to the heart of those weaknesses.
Kag stood there like a statue. For a moment, he didn't even know what emotion he was supposed to feel.
After decades of fighting, after countless battles, after spending most of his life refining the path of a warrior... this wizard had watched him fight for a few minutes, copied his techniques, analyzed them, improved them, defeated him with them, and now...
'This bastard is teaching me how to be a warrior?'
At that moment, Kag's mind went completely blank. There really were no words capable of describing what he was feeling.
(End Of This Chapter)
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