Evengarde watched Quies with his resonant eyes, staring like the eye of a tempest.
It had been a long, long time since he had even set his hand on the hilt of his katana. He barely remembered how it even felt. Now that he held it, however, it was as if it were merely an extension of his body.
From across the massive room, he saw Quies raise his hand. Biting into his own thumb, blood began to spill from the reopened wound.
Evengarde could hear Quies' song change.
It was subtle; only a master like him could tell the difference. He could hear it… take shape, in a way. Some of its tones rang similarly to when a mantra was being casted, if Evengarde could remember correctly. However, it felt dissonant, as if fighting against itself—misaligned and slightly off tune. He was a long way from resonance, for now, at least.
As more blood poured, it began to flow towards Quies' hand, forming a handle.
More flowed, forming a crossguard.
More flowed, and shaped into the sweeping blade of a zweihander.
This was the first time Evengarde had seen bloodrend be used right in front of his eyes. Because of that, he didn't miss the opportunity to study the attunement and its functions.
'Hmm… of course, the source element would be blood. However, unlike other attunements, it makes use of an existing source element, rather than conjuring its own through mantras of the song. Highly efficient…'
He himself had always been striving to optimize his galebreathing as best as possible. To do so, he had to completely change the way he used his attunement. Mimicking bloodrend, he made use of the existing air particles around him, rather than conjuring pressured gale through the use of mantras. It was difficult, but-
'He's going to-'
A sharp javelin of blood whizzed past his head. He hadn't been paying much attention, so he didn't catch the change in the air when Quies threw it at him. Leaving a wake of wind, it crashed into the wood behind him, losing its form and turning into a stagnant puddle.
Maestro drew in a quick breath.
Behind him, pressured gale moved him forward. In front, the air parted before his blade.
Taking advantage of the wake, he blitzed through the hollow slipstream left behind. He reacted quick enough to take advantage of the lower drag before the air turned turbulent.
He appeared beside Quies in an instant. In a split second, the edge of his Kata-
Clang
'What?'
Quies' zweihander met Evengarde's blade. The steel rang as it collided with the blood construct.
He had less than one hundredth of a second to react to Evengarde's dash. The average reaction time for a human is around 250 milliseconds, meaning Quies had to have reacted 240 milliseconds faster than the average human to at least be able to even perceive Evengarde's attack. That doesn't even include the amount of time it takes for him to move his blade.
'He reacted before I even moved… There's no way that-'
Evengarde tried to recoil his katana to go for another attack, however, he noticed he couldn't.
The edge of Quies' blade had changed its form ever so slightly, biting into the metal of Evengarde's katana.
Fortunately, Evengarde could overpower the grip with just a little more force. He wasn't weak, after all, and neither was his blade. Dashing back in a split second, he opened a gap between them.
'There's no way that he learned to read Song… He really is a fast learner.'
That first stunt Evengarde did—dashing towards Quies in a split second—was merely to test whether he would be able to react or not. Evengarde assumed the latter, but was met with the opposite.
In fact, this whole sequence of moves had happened in under half a second.
Evengarde weaved right, ducking another blood javelin Quies flung straight from his thumb. It, too, disappeared into a puddle of blood.
'Seems like I'll have to take him somewhat seriously.'
Evengarde adjusted the grip on his katana, turning it 90 degrees so that the leading edge would be the flat part of his blade.
From a distance, he swung it downwards. The air seemed to form itself into an extension of the blade. As the katana came down, the green blade of pressured gale was sent flying towards Quies.
Caught off guard, he froze, receiving the full impact of the gale. His zweihander warped to deflect most of the damage, but dozens of slashes still littered the parts that weren't protected.
'That makes more sense…'
Evengarde deduced that there was a limit to what Quies could read from the song at his current stage. He was able to anticipate actions, but couldn't discern the magnitude or what exactly the action was.
All he knew was that something was gonna happen, and that he should probably do something about it.
Quies was knocked back a fair distance due to the blade of pressured gale. His arms were covered in several cuts—some deep, some shallow. They bled profusely, painting his arms red.
Assuming that the fight was over, Evengarde fixed his grip on his katana and slowly walked towards Quies.
'It was a good two seconds… But I must admit, that was rather impressive for someone who had only, what, three days of experience? Imagine what he would learn aft-'
The air shifted.
The fight wasn't over. Well, maybe for another second.
Evengarde dashed to the right. Not even a moment later, a blade of blood from behind him whizzed across his face.
He turned his head to look where the blade of blood could have possibly come from. Looking at the ground, he noticed the pool of blood was gone.
He had recycled the blood from his used blood javelin to launch an unexpected attack.
Turning back towards Quies, he looked upon the bloodied bloodrender with a glimmer in his eyes.
"Huh…"