Chapter 35: Azure Steel Shadow

Su Xiao held his sword, [Dragon Flash], while standing still.

"Gluck."

The sound of someone nervously swallowing broke the silence.

Xi Lo Lo looked at Su Xiao's back, her big blue eyes were shining, it was obvious that she recognized Su Xiao.

At this moment, Xi Lo Lo subconsciously added a few labels to Su Xiao, "strong man", "protector", "big guy".

Xi Lo Lo suddenly regretted not asking his number last time, if she had known Su Xiao was this strong, she would pay for his help when she was about to enter difficult derivative worlds.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

Gecko showed none of his previous excitement anymore, he carefully watched at Su Xiao. His Kakuja appeared, quickly wrapping around his arm.

Gecko's Kagune was a Rinkaku-type, it was positioned around his waist. Rinkaku-type Kagune give a lot of strength and regenerative abilities, but its defenses are weak.

There were four kinds of Kagune, which are Ukaku, Koukaku, Rinkaku, Bikaku. All types of Kagune had their own advantages and disadvantages. They had no fixed shape, instead they were shaped according to the imagination of the ghoul using them.

Similar, the appearance of Gecko's Kagune was formed based on his imagination and his fighting habits.

"Who I am? Well, you can call me Byakuya. Your Kagune is good, I will take it."

Su Xiao activated the shadow of the law and for the first time in battle used [Azure Steel Shadow]. It cost two Mana to activate and it will continue to drain two more Mana every minute. [E/N: Skill was previously named Qing Gang Shadow. Changed in accordance with TL.]

After he turned on [Azure Steel Shadow], he felt that some kind of energy in the body was activated, that being his Mana.

The Mana spread inside his body, and after some time, a new energy was formed.

This energy was first routed through his arm and then spread to the [Dragon Flash] in his hand. The surface of the [Dragon Flash] was thoroughly wrapped by that energy. If one were to closely look at it, a faint blue light wrapped around it could be seen.

That was not just any light, but the new energy, the core of [Azure Steel Shadow], which was formed by the transforming Mana.

[Azure Steel Shadow] was an active skill. After it was turned it on, it consumed 2 points of Mana per minute. It didn't sound much, but if he were to fight for an hour, it would consume 120 points. Right now, he had 153 points of Mana in total, it was enough for an hour of use.

The advantage of a sufficient Mana-pool could be seen here. The more Mana, the longer he could fight.

After opening [Azure Steel Shadow], every attack of Su Xiao would burn 10 points of the enemy's Mana.

It didn't sound like much, but if the enemy was hit a few times, the Mana-burn would be enough to kill him.

Imagine if Su Xiao and an enemy fought fiercely and the enemy suddenly noticed that he had no Mana anymore, he would be desperate.

And [Azure Steel Shadow]'s Mana-burn not only consumed 10 points worth of the enemy's Mana, but also caused the same amount of true damage.

Su Xiao once asked the Reincarnation Paradise about true damage.

The reply given by the Reincarnation Paradise was: It ignores all defenses no matter what. If an enemy is hit, he will absolutely be injured by it.

Su Xiao rolled his shoulders and took off his shirt. His upper body was bare.

He had a habit when fighting, that being, he liked to take off his shirt to sharpen his perception. Perhaps it was merely a mental thing, but this was his habit.

13 points of strength, 13 points of agility, 12 points of intelligence, Su Xiao wanted to test just what kind of combat power these attributes granted.

Don't think that the intelligence attribute was useless in a close fight. The intelligence attribute not only increased the magic damage and Mana amount but also improved his perception. Naturally, this was a great help in close-quarter fights.

"I will test this on you. You look rough, strong, you should not die too fast."

Su Xiao started rushing toward Gecko. The 13 points of Agility ensured that his speed surpassed anyone in this place.

Gecko felt dizzy, Su Xiao's face suddenly appeared right in front of him, while a long sword that glowed with blue light smashed towards his neck.

Su Xiao's sword slash could be described as extremely fast, the teachings of Koshiro had greatly improved his sword skills.

Su Xiao's two-handed attack would soon reach Gecko's neck. Although a ghoul's resilience was extremely high, If a ghoul's head is was severed, they would still die.

At this critical moment, Gecko screamed, it was too late to use his arm to defend, but Gecko's Kagune was close to his neck, and it immediately wrapped around it.

"Squelch!"

The sound of the sharp blade cutting into the flesh was sickening, but there was no trace of blood.

Su Xiao's sword reached Gecko's Kagune, he knew that Rinkaku didn't have high defense, so Su Xiao's slash cut it off.

Gecko's face under his mask was twisted. What is this power? If he saw it right, the opponent only used a common weapon, not a Quinque made out of Kagune.

Escape, he must escape immediately! The human being in front of him was too strong. Not to mention him, even if SS-class ghouls would be cut into slices of meat upon encountering him.

Just when Gecko wanted to retreat, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in the wound on his Kagune and then some kind of energy in his body was burned. It was his Rc cells.

As the Rc cells burned, Gecko felt a pain that he never felt before.

Even with his endurance, he could not help but scream. The true damage from the Mana burn worked.

[Azure Steel Shadow] of Su Xiao literally worked by burning the enemy's Mana, but what if it was used against a creature like a ghoul, with no Mana?

The answer was, it would burn other energies. The principle of [Azure Steel Shadow] was to consume Su Xiao's Mana to form a special energy.

The Special energy was attached to the weapon. After Su Xiao attacked, the special energy will invade the opponent's body and annihilate the energies in the enemy's body, until finally, the effect called 'Mana-burn' happened.

If there was no Mana in the enemy's body, then the special energy would just annihilate other energies, such as Rc cells, Chakra, Reiatsu and so on.

Compared with Mana, [Azure Steel Shadow] had a lower rate of annihilating other types of energies, instead of 10 points it would be roughly between 7 to 9 points.

The feeling of the energy in one's body being burned was of course painful. Compared to the real damage caused by the hit, this kind of severe pain had a larger effect on battle.

The skill description of [Azure Steel Shadow] is: After activating [Azure Steel Shadow], each close-range attack will burn 10 points of Mana of the enemy and cause the same amount of True damage, the enemy will bear the pain of his Mana burning.

Previously, Su Xiao didn't care about the 'bear the pain' part, but now that he could see Gecko's expression, he understood that the feeling must be terrible.

After Gecko screamed, Su Xiao's second attack had arrived.

The blade sailed through the air with a sound promising pain and death, the sharp edge slicing the air apart.

"Sqwelp!"

One arm and a half of the ear flew off at the same time, as Su Xiao's second sword strike also smashed into the head of Gecko.

But Gecko abandoned his arm to defend against [Dragon Flash] for even one more moment and fiercely swayed his head to avoid outright losing it.

After only two attacks, Gecko was seriously injured and his Kagune was cut off. The arm fell to the ground to the side, Gecko's combat power dropped by at least 50%.

After seeing this scene, the beautiful Rize felt a little numb and scared at the same time. Are humans in the 20th district this strong?

He didn't use Quinque, yet could directly confront ghouls. No, this was not a confrontation at all, it was outright abuse.

Rize's first thought was also to escape, to flee, but a pair of sharp eyes had been coldly looking at her.

"Where do you think you're going? Kamishiro Rize."