Nobunaga landed on the ground first. The instant he landed, he sank into a horse stance and assumed a sword-drawing stance.
Qiao Lun reached the top of Great Serpent's head, then burst forward toward Nobunaga on the ground.
With a clang, the two long blades collided in midair.
In that instant, both men assessed the other's strength. Their opponent was strong.
But just then, Great Serpent, a step behind, opened its gaping maw and lunged past Qiao Lun to bite Nobunaga.
Nobunaga's only choice was to retreat, but Qiao Lun pressed after him, changing his draw slash into a horizontal cut.
As their long blades collided again, Great Serpent spotted an opening and bit down squarely on Nobunaga's waist and abdomen.
Flesh and blood flew. Nobunaga's defenses failed to hold, as he had to allocate more Nen to countering Qiao Lun's slash.
"This won't do."
The injury to his waist and abdomen did not make Nobunaga so much as frown, but the Nen wrapped around him finally had a chance to shift from "Ren" to "En."
Most importantly, Qiao Lun, who was preparing to press his advantage, was right inside Nobunaga's four-meter-radius En!
Nobunaga unleashed his slashes, faster than when they had been trading blows.
Clang after clang rang out as their long blades clashed at incredible speed. In the process, slash marks also appeared on the scales of Great Serpent, which was still trying to launch sneak attacks.
Although the wounds were not serious, they broke through Great Serpent's scales, and blood gradually stained its body red.
Was this Nobunaga's Nen Ability?
Qiao Lun began to understand. Nobunaga's deployment of En was like opening a domain, one that enhanced only himself.
By restricting the range of his En, he increased the strength and speed of his own attacks within it.
That was probably how Nobunaga's Nen Ability worked.
There was a world of difference between Nobunaga with En deployed and Nobunaga without it.
A cut opened on Qiao Lun's arm, then his thigh, then his cheek.
Nobunaga's slashes grew faster and faster, and Qiao Lun gradually struggled to keep pace with his blade. Meanwhile, Great Serpent's attacks had become useless within this "domain," because every time it approached, Nobunaga easily neutralized it with a slash, either deflecting it or blocking it.
Instead, the wounds Nobunaga's attacks left on Great Serpent grew deeper and deeper.
That was because Nobunaga's slashes did not necessarily strike a different spot each time. They could hit precisely the same location.
In other words, the first attack broke the skin, the second tore it open, and the third cut deep, inflicting a serious wound!
The same thing was borne out on Qiao Lun's arm.
Two consecutive slashes landed in the same spot. Even though Qiao Lun used Cursed Energy to withstand most of their power, the struck part of his arm still had its bones exposed.
But Qiao Lun also discovered Nobunaga's weakness.
Ever since his opponent activated En, he had not moved a single step from his spot!
A hypothesis formed in Qiao Lun's mind. Perhaps Nobunaga had two combat modes: an attack mode in which he could move normally, and a defense-focused "circle-guarding mode."
"Interesting."
With that thought, while Great Serpent drew Nobunaga's attacks from above, Qiao Lun abruptly pulled back, leaving the four-meter range where he had been trading blows with Nobunaga.
At the same time, Great Serpent, struck by another slash and now seriously wounded, instantly dissolved into the shadows on the ground.
As Qiao Lun retreated, he plunged his long blade straight into the ground, but his hands formed a new shadow and cast it onto the ground.
It was not Round Deer, which could quickly heal his injuries, but Max Elephant, with its long tusks!
This battle was different from his fight with Uvogin.
He had had more time then, and to defeat Uvogin, gambling on a [Black Flash] had been the only way to break through his defenses faster.
Although Qiao Lun was stronger than Megumi Fushiguro, that strength lay only in his having tamed Round Deer.
But Round Deer's burst attack power was not strong. Its real strengths were its healing ability and its ability to neutralize negative energy.
As for Max Elephant, crushing Machi to death with it was feasible, but crushing Uvogin to death would have been difficult.
So if Qiao Lun truly wanted to use the Ten Shadows Technique to quickly finish Uvogin head-on, it would have taken him longer than gambling on landing a Black Flash.
After all, he already had experience landing Black Flash several times.
But now, facing Nobunaga, his opponent's defenses were clearly inferior to Uvogin's. He relied entirely on his impregnable territory-holding defense mode to block so many of Qiao Lun's attacks.
And Max Elephant was perfect for breaking that territory-holding mode, or even denying Nobunaga the chance to hold his ground at all!
Trading sword blows and gambling on a [Black Flash], on the other hand, might take more time.
Max Elephant burst out of the shadows with a resounding trumpet. Its long trunk swung high, and when it came down, it was already aimed at Nobunaga!
Nobunaga had gone on alert the moment Great Serpent disappeared.
But he had never imagined that Qiao Lun would produce an elephant over five meters tall the very next second.
What shocked Nobunaga even more was the enormous volume of water that suddenly gushed from the giant elephant's trunk aimed at him!
Nobunaga swung his blade at it, but it was useless. The cleaved water still slammed into him, and under its powerful impact, his feet finally shifted from where they had been rooted to the ground.
At that very instant, Qiao Lun noticed that Nobunaga's En had disappeared!
His guess had been right! Being unable to move after deploying En was Nobunaga's greatest weakness right now.
Qiao Lun pulled the long blade from the ground. The water was still battering Nobunaga, but Qiao Lun had already vanished from his spot.
The bone-deep injury on his left arm did not affect Qiao Lun at all, because all his left hand needed to do now was hold the scabbard.
The long blade he had pulled from the ground with his right hand slid into its scabbard. An enormous amount of Cursed Energy poured into the sheathed blade, along with the Nen Qiao Lun mobilized.
An explosive burst of speed brought him to Nobunaga's side in an instant.
His cold eyes held absolute confidence and focus as he looked at Nobunaga. The moment he saw through Nobunaga, their battle could already be declared over!
One-Sword Style: Iai!
Even with his utmost concentration, [Black Flash] still did not appear. Only Qiao Lun's retreating figure, resheathing his blade after flashing past, remained in Nobunaga's unwilling eyes.
Nobunaga's blade had already moved to resist, but under the impact of the water from the elephant's trunk, that slash had lost the enhancement of his "En domain," and ultimately
failed to strike the blade that would surely kill him.
I lost!
The world began to tilt in Nobunaga's drooping, dead-fish eyes.
Thud!
His head fell to the ground and rolled some distance before stopping. His open, dead-fish eyes still held unwillingness, and even his standing body remained in its sword-slashing pose.
He killed Uvogin, and now I'm going to die at his hands too? Damn it! I won't accept this! Aaaaaah...
Intense emotions swirled in Nobunaga's head, fallen in the dust, and pitch-black aura emerged from his severed neck.
But as Qiao Lun looked at that wisp of black aura, his eyes gleamed.
Because he was familiar with that aura!
Wasn't this Cursed Energy?