Shing!
With a crisp ring of steel, Ellie charged first.
Her sword swept through the air like a silver dragon, tracing an elegant arc straight toward Roland's throat.
"Heh, what a spirited little girl. I like you more by the minute."
Rather than retreat, Roland stepped forward, bringing his longsword across to block. The two blades met in midair with a clear clang.
Sparks flew. Both fell back half a step, then closed in again almost simultaneously.
Sword light crisscrossed, steel rang against steel as rapidly as falling rain, and their figures darted through the street. One moment they leaped onto rooftops, the next they dropped back to the ground, their blades leaving deep gashes in the walls wherever they passed.
A Demon King Cult member happened to rush out of a nearby alley, raising his weapon to attack the civilians nearby.
Without so much as glancing at him, Ellie swept her sword sideways. A silver-white slash of sword energy howled forth, cutting through both the man and the wall behind him.
As Roland forced Ellie back with one strike, he delivered a backhanded thrust that pinned another fleeing Demon King Cult member to the ground.
Perhaps this was another example of mortals suffering when titans clashed.
Not far away, several Empire knights maintaining order noticed the battle.
They had intended to help, but the sight of those two phantomlike streaks of sword light weaving back and forth brought them all to a halt.
A young knight swallowed and murmured, "W-wait! Isn't that Lord Roland, the Sword of the Empire...?!"
An elderly knight immediately rubbed his eyes at that:
"My old eyes must be failing me. I'm actually seeing a young girl fight Lord Roland to a standstill. How could I be hallucinating something like this?"
The knight captain leading