Chapter 342: "You're No Good, Princess."

Chapter 342: "You're No Good, Princess."

"Bang bang bang bang bang-!"

Up in the air, the rain of light formed of the tiny meteors fell, exploding upon Katarine's form.

Only, as time progressed, the rain of light showering down had increased by quite a bit in both quantity and power, turning more like a carpet bombing of artillery, causing more and more violent explosive sounds.

Shien stopped holding back. He raised the power of [Flying Star] to its maximum to try to stop the princess of the Empire's advance.

However, perhaps because [Flying Star] is only a beginner level spell and the fact that it lacked destructive power, the rain of light falling from the sky never did manage to do any harm to Katarine, so she managed to successfully reach Shien.

"[Divert]!"

Katarine, who broke through to Shien, once again chanted an extremely short incantation and switched the imitation Holy Sword's effect.

As the imitation Holy Sword's light shifted, this time, Katarine was no longer covered with the holy radiance that weakened damage. Instead, the light transformed into raw power, greatly increasing her might.

"This time it's the level increase, huh?"

Shien saw through it with just a look, and he immediately brought up his Holy Sword in a block.

"Clang!"

Katarine's imitation Holy Sword transformed into a strike like a flash, slamming into Shine's Holy Sword, once again creating sparks.

Only, unlike the previous strike, the force of the attack this time was extremely strong and persistent.

Shien couldn't help but take half a step back, letting Katarine push her advantage.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh...!"

With the sound of a sword cutting through the air, Katarine swung her Holy Sword with absolute calm, sending flashes of cuts at high speeds to cover Shien's entire body.

Shien saw those countless flashes of sword strikes, and his heart skipped a beat at the sight of Katarine's attacks.

Katarine's cuts were extremely fast and clear. There were no tricks, feints, or flourishes. Instead, it was a kind of swordsmanship that was direct in its purity of intention in killing its enemy. It's something that differs from most average swordsmanship at the most basic level.

Actually, in Katarine's skill section, her [Two-handed Sword] skill is only level 5, something far from the max leveled Shien and quite a bit in distance even from Lucy and her level 8 [Two-handed Sword]. However, Katarine had learned a skill called [Flash Sword], which is level 7.

This [Flash Sword] seems to be a kind of advanced weapon skill. Compared to normal weapon skills, its focused on strengthening a certain specific part, which is why it's so powerful.

Normal weapon skills like [Two-handed Sword] gives the person who learns is some very common and general sword techniques. Basically, it's something that's average in all respects, without any kind of specialization nor any particular flaws. It's techniques that seek to gain victory steadily.

Skills like [Flash Sword] are different though.

These kind of skills will generally greatly increase one aspect, making that aspect stand out a great deal, to an extent far exceeding that of any normal technique.

Take [Flash Sword] for example. It's a skill that focuses on killing the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible. It's focus on killing its enemy as fast as possible, and it's incomparable in that aspect, allowing anyone who learned the skill to quickly and efficiently cut their foes down as mightily as a tempest and as fast as a flash of light. Anyone who lets down their guard against it for even a moment would definitely be beheaded and die without even being able to perceive the cut that did it.

However, advanced sword skills like this would generally also have a flaw to go along with their specialization.

Katarine's [Flash Sword] is no exception. It focuses on the speed of its strikes but abandoned all defense as a demerit.

Thus...

"Whoosh!"

Shien's figure suddenly vanished from Katarine's sight in a flash.

The countless slashes landed where Shien was just a second ago, but they struck nothing but air.

"What!?"

Katarine reacted with alarm as she witnessed Shien disappear right before her.

However, at that moment, Shien had already reappeared right next to the Empire princess.

"Clang-!"

The Holy Sword struck suddenly, once again causing a gong like clash to ring out.

"Gah...!"

Katarine was only barely able to raise her imitation Holy Sword up in a block, but the impact of that blow was such that her arm went numb. She let out a grunt as she was foced back several steps.

That's the proof that her defense was inadequate.

Otherwise, Katarine wouldn't have been forced back so many steps.

"[Enchant - Explode]."

Shien mercilessly cast magic at Katarine as she was forced bac.

"Boom-!"

The air that got enchanted with the concept of explosion immediately swelled, exploded, and transformed into an enormous blast of blazing flames, swallowing Katarine.

However...

"[Divert]!"

The light from the imitation Holy Sword shifted once more, its effect changing again.

"Buzz!"

The air shook as scarlet magical energy emitted from Katarine's imitation Holy Sword and settled into a blade of magic power. The sword was then raised high up into the air and was swung down.

"Rip!"

The flames were immediately cut apart by the blade of magic power, shattering into sparks and then vanishing.

There was no doubt. That was the [Magic Sword] skill.

Plus, it was the [Magic Sword] skill that was strengthened by the imitation Holy Sword.

"Switched to skill level increase effect, huh?"

Shien grinned.

Katarine's [Magic Sword] skill have been raised to level 7.

Add in the effect of the imitation Holy Sword that increases all skills by 3 levels, at this moment, Katarine has the equivalent of the max leveled [Magic Sword] skill, making the magic power from the [Magic Sword] shine out clearly and brilliantly.

"Hah!"

With a sudden gust, Katarine shot forward and release a scarlet stab by combining the scarlet blade of the [Magic Sword] and the technique of [Flash Sword].

That stab instantly reached Shien as if it could cut through space and distance.

Even Shien had to admit that not even he could dodge such a lightning fast attack.

After all, for one, Shien hadn't used a cheat strengthening skill like [Limit Evolution] the entire time. In addition, even if he has the [Dodge] skill constantly signaling him just how to dodge, his body is unable to keep up with that, so he couldn't dodge even if he knew full well in his mine that he needed to.

If he didn't have another cheat like skill like [Instantaneous Shift]...

"Whoosh!"

Just as the scarlet blade of magic power was about to pierce through Shien's chest like a flash, Shien's form once again vanished.

"Boom!"

The glaring scarlet strike fell, but it just exploded out a blast wave of force, ripping apart the around around it.

"Vanished again...!?"

Katarine's gaze focused, but her instincts screamed at her. Her [Magic Sword] turned into another scarlet flash and slashed toward the side.

"Amazing!"

There, Shien's figure suddenly appeared. However, faced with the terrible strike coming at him, he reacted with joy rather than fear and let out a laugh.

"Boom!"

The terribly powerful [Magic Sword] struck Shien, once again creating an explosion of force, shattering the ground beneath and causing it to crater from the force.

Yet, Shien was utterly unharmed by the strike of scarlet magic power.

That terrifyingly powerful magic power struck Shien, but it was unable to do the slightest damage to him.

"Resistance skill...!?"

Katarine's pupils contracted as she instantly realized the cause.

"That's right." Shien grinned at Katarine while under the scarlet flow of magic power, "It's resistance skill alright."

More accurately speaking, it should instead be resistance skills plus the protection of the Holy Sword.

Although there were three seals on it, Shien's Holy Sword skill had a small portion of its effects that wasn't able to be completely sealed. Thus, it could give Shien a buff of 10 levels, an addition of 1 level to all skills, and all damage resistance by 10%.

With the max level plus resistance skills and a weakening of damage by 10% on top of that, even the max leveled [Magic Sword] plus the max leveled [Flash Sword] was unable to cause Shien the slightest harm.

Of course...

"If you had magic power on the same level as Lucy's then that [Magic Sword] would definitely be strong enough to the point where the resistance skills would be unable to completely cancel out all the damage."

Shien spoke in a pitying tone.

"Unfortunately for you, you don't have that."

As he said that, Shien let out a wave of magic power and mercilessly slammed a punch into Katarine's stomach.

"Bang!"

The heavy punch struck Katarine's stomach in a heavy blow, sending her flying and slamming her into the wall of a building, cratering the wall.

"Cough...!"

All the air was forced out of Katarine's lungs.

In that one instant, Katarine managed to shift the effect of her imitation Holy Sword into the damage resistance ability. That, combined with her own defensive skills, allowed her to withstand that strike from Shien.

However, Katarine wasn't able to completely withstand that strike.

It's because Shien has the max leveled [Pierce] skill, allowing all his attacks to ignore a certain amount of defenses and directly dealing damage to his opponent.

If not for the fact that the effect of [Pierce] is unable to bypass the effect of the imitation Holy Sword, thus making it so that the strike was weakened a great deal in the end, that punch would have at least force Katarine to cough up a good bit of blood.

Shien just looked at Katarine, utterly satisfied.

The fact that he was able to single-sidedly crush this Empire princess is proof that he has gotten stronger.

Do note, Shien hasn't even used [Limit Evolution] yet.

Back then, Shien was only able to stalemate against Lucy after using [Limit Evolution]. In fact, he was even losing slightly then.

After all, back then, Lucy was using the sealed Holy Sword. Even if Katarine's Holy Sword is an imitation, far lesser than the real thing, the imitation Holy Sword wasn't sealed, so every single effect it gives is stronger than that of the sealed Holy Sword. All in all, it's not actually that much different in power compared to the sealed Holy Sword.

However, this time, Shien was able to crush Katarine without using [Limit Evolution] at all. It goes to show that his level hasn't reached level 55 for nothing.

Therefore...

"You're no good, princess."

Shien just spoke those words.

"It looks like Lucy's stronger after all."

The moment those words were spoken, Katarine, still embedded in a wall, suddenly shook.

A strange magic power started coming from her body.

"Oh?"

Airi, who had taken Lasha and Beatrice off to the side away from the battle at some point, suddenly made an intrigued sound.

Just as Shien was about to turn around and leave, he suddenly reacted with alarm.

"Boom!"

A terrifying wave of magical power erupted from behind Shien.

The earth shook.