The sword and shield are still locked in a struggle.
Lin Yuan looked at the nearby Kayaba and made no further attempt to change the direction of his sword.
The " No Form " technique makes attacks unpredictable, but it cannot erase the distance between two people. No matter where the next sword appears from, it must first pass through this space to reach Kayaba's body.
The system acceleration is enough to allow Kayaba to raise its shield during this period.
The cross-shaped shield was suddenly pushed forward.
Lin Yuan was forced back, but for the first time, Kayaba did not stay in place to defend. The red data pattern swept across the armor again, and his figure suddenly lengthened in Lin Yuan's vision. In an instant, his longsword was piercing in front of him.
" Nameless " moved sideways to block the sword tip.
The next strike followed immediately.
Kayaba accelerated the system's shift from defense to offense. The gaps between shield bash, thrust, and slash were forcibly shortened, and the Holy Sword's originally tight offensive and defensive rhythm doubled.
Lin Yuan could only continue using the " No Form " technique.
He no longer attempted to retaliate, adjusting his movements based on Kayaba's position after each collision. " Nameless " would sometimes block horizontally, and sometimes deflect force by sticking close to the longsword; no two movements were ever exactly the same.
The sword's edge continued to graze his body.
Real wounds appeared one after another on my shoulders, arms, and waist.
However, the HP of the Kayaba) remained above 90%.
The frozen crowd could only watch as the red figure sped faster and faster. Kirito's eyes could barely keep up, but his body couldn't even send a warning.
Lin Yuan blocked the longsword again, but his left leg suddenly lost its strength, and his knee slammed into the ground.
The cross-shaped shield slammed down on him.
He rolled to the side, the edge of his shield shattering the stone slabs. Before the fragments even hit the ground, Kayaba had already caught up.
That's too fast.
But in that instant, the world in Lin Yuan's eyes changed.
The red light patterns on Kayaba's armor were no longer just light. Administrator privileges continuously intervened in the battle, and the data layer that was originally hidden behind the scene was repeatedly pulled, with coordinates and commands sweeping around Kayaba.
Lin Yuan had experienced that feeling once before.
The first underground level is the system management area.
As Yui was about to be deleted by Cardinal, the access channel that opened allowed the dormant power within him to briefly touch the structure of this world. That strike didn't travel along the floor, walls, or air; instead, it cut directly into the system space that shouldn't have been touched by the weapon.
At that time, Lin Yuan only wanted to keep Yui.
Only now did he truly see where the knife had passed.
The longsword fell again.
Lin Yuan dodged to the side, the sword slicing across his chest. He didn't retaliate, but instead stared at the constantly changing coordinates between himself and Kayaba.
He still couldn't control his magic.
The spatial power did not return to his body as it did in Fairy Tail.
But after that severing of Cardinal, a blurry mark remained. Now, Kayaba's constant use of administrator privileges only made the hidden data boundaries reappear before his eyes.
Kayaba noticed his pause.
Have you given up?
His response was a diagonal slash that left no trace.
Kayaba raised his shield to block. Lin Yuan used the collision to get back up and used the " No Form " technique to block the longsword one after another, but began to focus all his attention on the two of them.
He doesn't need it to be faster.
It's not about making " No Form " more varied.
As long as the sword's edge briefly crosses that distance.
" All Things Return to One " cannot contain this power. It has too many sword paths within it, and all changes require space to remain stable. " No Form " is the same; it cannot even determine the position of the next sword strike in advance, and it simply cannot find the coordinates to be cut open.
What Lin Yuan truly needed was the simplest sword strike.
A landing point, a sword path, a strike without reservation.
" The Mountain Severance "
Lin Yuan suddenly stopped retreating.
He raised the sword to his shoulder again, gripped the hilt with both hands, and assumed the starting stance that Kayaba Nameless seen countless times.
Kayaba's cross shield immediately tilted.
"Has it returned to the sword that has already failed?"
Lin Yuan did not answer.
He looked through the shield at the coordinates on Kayaba's chest.
There was still no magical response from within the body, and no light appeared on the surface of the blade. Only a barely perceptible black line flashed past in front of " Nameless ".
That wasn't a crack made by a sword.
Rather, the distance between the sword's edge and the target briefly vanished at that moment.
Lin Yuan brandished his sword.
At the same time, Kayaba rotated the cross shield. The angle and timing of the shield were perfect, enough to completely deflect the power of " Mountain Severance " once again.
But the shield didn't touch the sword.
The blade of " Nameless " seemed to have been cut off from its original position. When it reappeared, it had already passed the cross shield and landed on Kayaba's chest.
Space - Mountain Severance.
The red armor split open from the left shoulder to the right waist.
For the first time, Kayaba was caught off guard and unable to dodge the attack.
His body was slashed back more than ten steps, and his HP plummeted downwards at an unprecedented speed.
The green has disappeared.
The yellow color disappeared.
The health bar surged into the red zone, eventually stopping at just a sliver of health remaining.