Chapter 25 - Yuuki

Still anxious despite the fear somewhat subsiding, Gale launched attacks relentlessly in the form of spiralling wind projectiles.

Whoosh—!

[Sync Rate: 199%]

With the world now moving half its speed, Yuuki moved swiftly and gracefully, dodging most of the attacks almost effortlessly.

"What?!" Gale exclaimed, shocked by these movements, but still he just continued his barrage of wind attacks, from wind blades to wind spears, he relentlessly attacked with a barrier up around him while the other continued dodging and occasionally deflecting those that he can't dodge. Soon enough, the barrage of attacks built up clouds of dust after some time.

Whoosh—!

Boom—!

Boom—!

"He'll get tired soon." Gale thought, half confident and half worried.

"You think I'll get tired?" That nonchalant voice sent shivers up his spine after hearing it from behind.

'When did he…' Gale panicked, forming a sword made out of wind, holding it in reverse grip and immediately backing away, assuming a defensive stance with the weapon after.

"Why…? Scared?" Yuuki arrogantly said with his hands on the front pockets of his windbreaker and simply standing there with his katana sheathed.

"Shit, you're fast..." Gale nervously uttered with a smile.

"Welp, yeah, I guess so. But why are you holding a sword? You're a mage."

"Can't I learn to fight up close? And also, I'm not a mage, I'm an elementalist, damn you!" Gale replied with annoyed voice.

"Whatever, same thing!" Yuuki then dashed forward in blinding speed.

[Fifth Form: Lightning Chariot]!

With yellow streaks of lightning briefly appearing around his body as he propelled forward, Yuuki drew his sword with blinding speed.

"Battojutsu?!" Gale exclaimed, hurriedly blocking with his sword and enhancing his body with both mana and wind.

Yuuki swung upwards at blinding speeds, slicing the wind sword as if it's nothing and chipping Gale's shoulder, causing some minor bleeding as he retreated further from Yuuki.

As Yuuki flicked the blood off of his blade by swinging it downward, Gale asked in an angered voice.

"Are you playing with me? You deliberately missed, didn't you?!"

But the former just answered with a smug, "Why? You angry? So what what if I am playing with you?" Yuuki cracked his neck nonchalantly with his left hand, "You're weak, you're not a protagonist NPC, so I should not have any trouble killing you if really wanted to, but I'm feeling generous today, you see..."

"You arrogant bastard…!" Gale dashed forward, forming another wind sword and spawning many wind javelins and spheres as projectiles. He threw some of them to Yuuki to cover his advancing movement and to lock down Yuuki on his place.

"See? This is some weak shit." Yuuki chuckled.

Yuuki too dashed forward, just deflecting the projectiles or dodging them with no worries at all.

They met halfway and began exchanging attacks but while Gale is skillful at using projectiles and at the same time fighting with a sword, Yuuki is just on whole another level, not only can't he hit the latter, but Yuuki can perfectly intercept his attacks and never really cuts him down with his sword and instead just punching and kicking him or using the blunt side of the katana.

While standing, watching and recording with the [Photo Mode]'s cube-like camera hovering above her head for it to get a clear view while amongst the other climbers, Rumi spoke in soft voice. "He's like a different person now, all his humbleness from before are all gone now… He's..." She looked at Yohan, "Became egotistical…"

"What, haven't watched any videos about him before? No worries, this is just the persona he adopted during combat, it's nothing new, I'm used to it, so you should, too."

Her voice finally returned into a lively one as before, "Yeah… Oh, I remember now! The Honored One!"

"That's right! This guy should be babbling about that shit by now." Yohan smiled excitedly, waiting for Yuuki to finally proclaim his title in the virtual realm once again, The Honored One, a moniker he earned for his catchphrase and achievements during the era of Eternal World.

…

Battered up with visible bruises all over his body, Gale complained, "Fight me seriously, dammit! Stop playing around! Show me how powerful you truly are!"

"Gosh, you're this weak and still want me to take this seriously?"

"Please! Show me your true power, I'm a curious monkey, after all…"

"A curious monkey, huh…? Fine, I'll humor you." Yuuki sheathed his sword and closed his eyes while standing there calmly. "Throughout heaven and earth… I alone… am the Honored One." As he opened his eyes, an aura of dread and despair now surrounds him with his expression being dead serious. As if looking towards death itself, Gale know that this person will now kill him in a single move without any hesitation.

Despite his bruised body, he gathered everything he have to form the best defences at the current moment and strengthened his wind sword too to the best he could possibly do.

'Honored One...?' Gale racked his brains to figure out where he heard those words, and once he finally found out where he heard them, he exclaimed, "No… The founder's dead for millennias." Gale had always felt some familiarity to Yuuki's technique even at the start of the trial, "A sword coated by what looks like blue flames… This is Everlasting Sword!!!" As he figured out that his enemy is using the same sacred lost technique of Floor 191, Yuuki dashed forward with blinding speed once more with flickering trails of lightning as he did.

[Fifth Form: Lightning Chariot]!

Yuuki did the upward diagonal slash once more but this time, he didn't play around, Since Gale is ready this time, he managed to put the necessary defences against it and they exchanged blow for blow once more, with Yuuki being highly superior in terms of skills alone and furthermore, delivering swift slashes that the latter couldn't truly fight back against.

Unable to put up much fight due to the large difference in speed and skills, Gale resorted to kiting him, but even this doesn't seem to have much effect, since Yuuki is just deflecting the projectiles as he followed right behind with his speed getting faster and faster.

Gale manipulated a powerful gust of wind to try to push back Yuuki but it also had little to no effect as the latter resisted it without losing his footing.

[Fifth Form: Lightning Chariot]!

Yuuki dashed forward one more time as soon as the gust of wind slowed down and this time, Gale tried to intercept his trajectory, stabbing his wind sword forward but Yuuki dodges it and used another skill.

[Third Form: Parry]

Gale tried to blast Yuuki away with concentrated wind from his palm but a wide surface made of blue aura appeared in front of the latter as he blocked with his katana and pushed the force back at Gale, making him lose his footing a little as he stumbled back.

[Fourth Form: Kill]

Using his two hands, Yuuki delivered a forceful strike towards the man's neck, wishing to finally end him with this strike, aura ignited like blue flames as it coats his katana, from Yuuki's perspective, he essentially sees the world half its speed, even himself slightly while fighting. He's not really moving that fast in his own vision, since he sees everything in a slow-motion, which allows him to react to almost anything and everything, except undodgeable or unblockable attacks, courtesy of his high Sync Rate, the highest ever recorded constant Sync Rate in the whole virtual history. But this doesn't improve his physical speed whatsoever, only his reaction speed and perception of time.

There are many benefits to having a high Sync Rate, normally, players only have 100%-110% Sync Rate with their characters, reaching beyond 110% and above, essentially gives them superhuman mental capacity, such as heightening their all senses to superhuman levels and giving them slower perception of time, the higher their Sync Rates are.

Sync Rates are tied to the mental function of the player, since they interact with the game not through physical movement but rather mentally using the game capsules, and these rates have two proven factors: Intelligence and Reflexes. In the case of Yuuki, it's mostly his really fast reflexes in addition to his photographic memory.

Sync Rates are also a fluctuating stats, it is not permanently high like that since if Yuuki is always seeing the world in slow-motion, he's going to be very bored, instead, this goes up or down depending on the mental stimulation. High octane moments such as attacks towards him generally causes them to rise up or during moments of deep thinking in the game, which both stimulates the brain greatly, causing the Sync Rate to go up.

It also means that Yuuki is essentially hearing Gale speak in slow motion since earlier to some degree, but he's used to it by now and can make perfect sense what everyone are speaking about even in the heat of battle.

Just almost an inch away from decapitating his opponent, when someone pushed Gale back away and blocked his katana in just a split second with two arms made out of metal, causing some clanking sound after, surprising Yuuki who promptly hopped back as he watched his enemy recovered from the blow.

"Moderator! This is a violation of the trial, isn't it?!" Yuuki snapped out of and shouted, but still in his serious demeanor.

The Moderator chuckled with a wide smile, excited after seeing an opportunity to make this particular trial more interesting, "That's right!!! You! You tarnished this sacred trial by destroying the barrier and disrupting it! Who the hell are you?!" In reality, this is just a ploy by the Moderator, the barrier wasn't actually very strong, he only strengthens it depending on the situation, and he's already sensing that this man would do such a thing since earlier, with him displaying some emotions when Gale is getting beaten.

The man with the metal arms then introduced himself, "I would like to be called Gauntlet, Moderator. I'm here to save my partner, clearly, this mister… Hero… wants to kill him and was just a distance away from doing so if I hadn't interfered... I assume that killing is strictly prohibited in this trial, no?"

The Moderator have no words for it that he can immediately utter, but as if Yuuki can read his mind, he spoke with hints of frustration as he sheaths his katana. "Moderator! How about we change this trial? Let me fight two of them at the same, it doesn't matter anyway, I'll still win regardless… But I want compensation for it! Just some extra reward besides the Key of Ascension, I'll prefer money though."

"Heh!" The Moderator chuckled again. Such a lowly request, if it's all about monetary reward, he can essentially give out even hundreds of Eternium Coins if he wanted, he can easily make them with just a snap of his fingers, after all. But sadly, there are rules, so there are limits to what he can give out as a reward. "Fine by me! I'll give you ten Eternium Coins for beating the two of them! How about that?!"

Yuuki smirked slightly and answered, "Sure…" before chugging down a bottle of Mana Potion then entering into a drawing stance, with the two also preparing, Gale chugging down a bottle of health potion to heal some of his wounds of round two, and Gauntlet cracking and popping the bones on his body as warm up.