VS the Old Man of the Mountain (Fake) (Continued)

The Shadow Servant attacked without pause, but Ling merely shifted his body slightly and evaded every slash of the sword.

"Do you... only dare to dodge...?"

The Shadow Servant, Old Man of the Mountain, felt boundless frustration. He clearly felt as though he could hit his target, yet every attack only struck Ling's afterimage.

"Oh?" Ling smiled faintly.

The black greatsword came chopping down at his head. This time, he did not dodge.

He simply held the twin-bladed curved sword in his hand horizontally and blocked the attack.

The slender blade met head-on with a strike from a greatsword more than ten times its weight, followed by the sound of a blade shattering.

It was not Ling's blade that had cracked, but the opponent's greatsword.

A notch appeared first, then cracks began to spread. Soon after, half the blade flew off.

Meanwhile, the blade in Ling's hand merely trembled twice.

Ling chuckled and held his blade sideways.

"Don't forget, I'm actually an Archer."

An arrow of unknown origin was already nocked on the bowstring.

Ling drew the bow to its fullest, so fast that his hand movements could not be seen at all.

"Here it comes—[Sky-Rending Chidori]!"

The famed blade Chidori was the sword carried by Tachibana Dōsetsu, a renowned general of Japan's Warring States period. It was said that Dōsetsu had once slashed at lightning with this blade, earning it the alternate name Thunder Cutter. Dōsetsu himself was thus called an incarnation of the Thunder God.

This attack gathered lightning-attribute magical power onto an arrow before firing it. Since the lightning formed the shape of birds, it was named [Sky-Rending Chidori].

The name sounded imposing, but it was merely a skill equivalent to seventh-tier magic. Its superior version was [The Moment the Thunder of the End Is Severed], equivalent