ALIZEH JIGEN!

After our first duel, the strange man I encountered continued to spar with me for what seemed like an eternity, only taking breaks when he thought it was needed. I had improved my swordsmanship by learning many of his sword arts that seemed almost infinite. He was indeed the sharpest sword I had ever seen. He was a master of all melee weapons you could think about and over the time I spent with him, he had imparted in me all the basics for a lot of melee weapons before I knew it. Apparently, back in the day, he was revered as one of the few weapons masters that existed so I don't know why he was never in the history books I read.

After more time training with him, I had mastered all the basics of the weapon arts for all types of melee weapons that piqued my interest. I had spent close to 20 years in this realm but had not aged even by the slightest and I still looked the day I arrived here. He explained to me that this was a mind's realm that has been made into reality by "The Almighty God" and time moved differently in here than the outside and that probably, when I return to the outside, only a few hours or days would have passed. 

Eventually, the last day of our spar came around and he handed the turquoise ripple, and the twin Messer blades to me for our last spar. On this day, he stood before me with a completely different aura than I've felt ever since I came in here. His long black hair swayed in the breeze of the wind carefree, but his eyes stayed fixed on me showing, intense concentration. I took a stance immediately he started conjuring one of his swords, holding the twin Messer. The sword art I learnt for the Messer was the "Indomitum Venatorem style" which is a sword art with six stages. It was a simple yet powerful sword style when used with a Messer or any other curved sword. 

Since it was our last spar, he gave me the honor of taking the first attack and without hesitation, I unleashed the first stage of the Indomitum Venatorem style, " primum venari ". The awesome thing about weapon arts is that you can achieve outrageous damage using little power as compared to its effect. The indomitum venatorem style or the indomitable hunter style relied purely on instantaneous power through speed, which was not a problem to me because, over the years I spent here, I had found out I had affinities for other null magic, especially lightning magic and I had managed to make up for the speed by turning the mana flowing in my body into lightning. Doing this instantaneously made my agility increase by several folds, which was perfect for this fighting style.

I shoot towards him at monstrous speed, instantly making my way to him, then shrouding my swords in mana, I do a horizontal strike with both of my swords and when our swords make contact, the compressed mana around the sword is released, causing an explosion of mana. The attack was solid, and it should have hit him head-on, but just as the explosion was starting, he took a leap back, avoiding major damage. I immediately follow through with a second attack using the second stage, " daemonium venari ". I sprint around him in a circle, then instantly dash towards him in a zigzag manner, all over the place withing the circumference of the circle I just made. The essence of the second stage is to create after images that make it seem like you're approaching from all direction to throw the enemy off your actual position to create a blind spot. 

Immediately I see an opening, I leap into the air with both swords behind me, then charging them up, I do a vertical slash using the left Messer, followed by the right one, projecting a fine film of highly concentrated mana successively which move with lightning speed. Unfortunately, I can't go higher than the second stage with my current level of mastery, so I take the base stance for Indomitum Venatorem, "charging rhino", then I shoot towards him again at lightning speed, and feign a vertical slash with the right Messer, then when he moves to block it, I slide the Messer over his sword, throwing it off trajectory, then I go for a diagonal slash with my left Messer, finally getting a solid hit in since we started the fight. I try to follow through with another diagonal slash using the right Messer, but I realized he aimed for that small gap between the attacks and launched an attack. Taking advantage of his posture, I use his left shoulder as leverage, and I flip backwards, avoiding the attack.

I launch towards immediately I land without giving him time recover and try a vertical slash with the right Messer once more and as expected, he blocks it in a way that I won't be able slash with the left Messer but what he didn't know was that I had activated primum venari at the last minute, so he takes the mana blast head on, then I follow through with a stab using the left Messer but he stops it with his sword and parries it to the side, leaving my left side widely open. he holds the sword with both hands and brings the sword down with force. I barely block it but using the improved reaction time I got for turning my internal mana into lightning, I manage to throw the blade off its path and immediately retreat tactically. 

The mana in the air suddenly shifts towards his direction and before I know what's happening, he's spat right before me with his blade already in motion towards my chest. Since he was approaching low, I took advantage of my relatively smaller build and swiftly flipped over him. I land perfectly behind him and go for a diagonal slash immediately but once again he reacts blocking my sword but this time I don't back down and I release a flurry of attacks. He also releases multiple attacks, easily canceling every one of my attacks. We go on and on unleashing a flurry of attacks at each other and moving all over the place for about three minutes, then I decide to add a little bit of flame magic to the primum venari skill so that the mana explosion would have a flame trait and pack more damage and I succeed to throw him off his game slightly, then I aim for that gap to land two attacks but unfortunately, they were both too shallow.

He immediately releases a spinning kick immediately he recovers, perfectly landing a kick to my jaw. After that, the spar almost became one sided with him beating me up and me barely keeping up. I manage to retreat for a brief moment when he delayed charging up an attack. I drill the right Messer into the ground, the I take out my Turquoise Ripple, throw it into the air, then charging lightning in my right foot, I do a spinning kick, timing it perfectly and transferring all the charged-up lightening into the Turquoise Ripple, shooting it towards him with lightning speed. I take out the left Messer once again and shoot towards him to take advantage of the diversion I just created. The diversion works and I succeed in landing a solid hit on it left arm.

We continue our combo of attack exchange, for about another five minutes and withing that time, he gains the upper hand, beating me senseless. I stand a few feet from him, with blood all over my body, then, gather all the remaining strength I could gather, I pour my all into a last primum venari attack adding both fire and lightning natures to the mana explosion, and finally manage to knock the sword out of his hands. He stares at me almost in disbelief that I managed to knock his weapon out of his hand, but he didn't realize that last attack was all aimed at his ulnar nerve, radial nerve and median nerve. He continues to stare at me and finally he says, "...congratulations Jay, you finally managed to clear the dungeon...". 

I fall flat on my back, huffing and puffing with sweat all over. He also falls flat on his back next to me, except he wasn't even the least bit exhausted, then he gives a sigh.