Akame's words did not please Esdeath. Instead, she let out a cold laugh. Her strength had never lain solely in swordsmanship.
Esdeath raised the ice-wielding Knight Sword and slashed at Akame once more. After they exchanged several moves, Esdeath's other hand...
...swiftly formed an ice dagger from an angle Akame could not possibly notice, then swept it toward her neck.
Akame's eyelids twitched, and she instinctively threw herself backward, narrowly avoiding Esdeath's ice dagger.
Esdeath did not care that Akame had evaded her attack. She simply stepped forward and aimed her palm at Akame. "Freeze!"
"Not good..."
Watching Esdeath's actions, Akame felt even more uneasy. A voice told her that if she could not block this, she would die.
Gritting her teeth, Akame reacted at once. The Void Blade's attached skill immediately activated. Just as the ice was about to spread across her body, the surrounding space-time abruptly slowed to an extreme degree.
Everything had been slowed by at least a hundredfold.
Because Esdeath was so close to Akame, the range of the Time Fracture enveloped Esdeath as well.
"Hmph!"
Looking at Esdeath, who was affected by the fractured space, Akame steadied herself again and moved to Esdeath's side, gripping her katana with both hands.
"It's over! Bury!"
With one slash, she severed Esdeath's head. Yet as she watched Esdeath's head fly away, Akame narrowed her eyes and immediately sensed that something was wrong.
By all rights, Esdeath should not have been this weak. After all, even Lord Durandal had specifically warned her about Esdeath.
Sure enough, Akame's expression changed... There was no blood flowing from Durandal's corpse before her. Instead, it turned into ice—a figure of ice!
"Fake..."
Akame looked around, but she could not find Esdeath anywhere. She was still within the Time Fracture, where everything around her