“My name is Jeros. What’s yours?” Jeros said as he readied his humongous bone blade. He did a couple of small jumps to warm up and swung his sword to the left and right.

Gravis saw how gracefully and quickly Jeros moved his sword and realized that this fight would not be easy. “I’m Gravis,” he said.

“Gravis, a good name! Alright, let’s start. Be careful!” Jeros shouted as he shot forward and chopped at Gravis.

‘Fast!’ Gravis shouted in his mind. Jeros was faster than a low-grade demonic beast. Gravis always had to preplan his actions against such opponents, because his own speed could not compare. Yet, this time, he fought a human with such speed and power, not a monster.

Gravis wanted to test his opponent’s strength and blocked the humongous sword with his saber.

BOOM!

Gravis’ whole body shook, and the power of the strike buried him up to his knees into the ground, the street breaking in the process. His entire body ached, and he felt like his whole body was churning on the inside.

“Oh, that’s impressive,” Jeros said with surprise. “I didn’t use my full strength, but you still managed to block my strike.” Jeros jumped back. “Your muscles are definitely not tempered yet, but you could still block a casual strike from me. That’s really impressive.”

Gravis jumped out of the hole and limbered up his stiff muscles. After some seconds, where Jeros just waited for Gravis to finish, Gravis readied himself again. “Alright, we can continue.” Gravis’ eyes narrowed. “Now, this fight will become different.”

Jeros laughed loudly. “I’m looking forward to it,” he shouted as he shot forward again, doing the same chop as before. Gravis was prepared and raised his saber again in a block. Yet, this time, he was not blocking but parrying. A parry was more challenging to pull off than a block. Gravis had to redirect parts of the enemy’s strength to change the course of the attack.

With all his prior battle experience, he managed the parry pretty easily, and the sword missed him, hitting the ground. Gravis’ saber, which was raised slightly due to the parry, immediately shot forward in a counterattack towards Jeros’ face.

Jeros didn’t grow panicked and simply slapped the saber to the side with a hand. Jeros’ arms moved very quickly, and even though they were further away from his face than the saber at the beginning, they quickly closed the distance.

Gravis didn’t lose his focus and went with the flow of the attack. His whole body angled to the side sharply. Just in time, Jeros’ other arm swung the sword diagonally upwards. Even though Gravis’ body was already angled very strongly, the sword would still take his arm if this continued.

CLANK!

Gravis’ knee hit the side of the rising sword, changing its trajectory slightly. While it continued swinging, Gravis crouched under the sword, and stabbed his saber forward again. A slash would take too long. Only a stab would be quick enough.

Just like last time, Jeros slapped the saber.

SHINK!

Yet, this time, things were different. Gravis was sure that Jeros would do the same block again, so he angled the saber in the last moment. Jeros had slapped the saber’s sharp edge, and even though he managed to block the attack, his hand bled strongly.

Jeros looked at his bleeding hand in shock.

“Don’t pull the same moves twice,” Jeros heard Gravis shout, who had jumped back again.

The bandits looked shocked at the exchange. Someone without tempered muscles had injured their boss. This was unreal. They had seen how the fight went down, so they quickly figured out why. Gravis was moving like he already knew what his opponent would do. Just when Gravis’ opponent started an attack, he was already moving as if he already knew.

Jeros looked at his hand, then laughed loudly. “Hahaha! I believe you fully now! The way you move is very strange, yet it’s incredibly effective. With my experience, I can tell that this is not some martial art. Those moves were created by yourself in multiple serious fights. You definitely have more fighting experience than me,” he shouted in happiness.

‘More fighting experience than the boss?’ the bandits asked themselves in shock. Their boss was already in his thirties and had fought a lot of battles. His fighting experience was extensive. Yet, a young boy, around 16 years old, had more fighting experience than him? How was that possible?

Gravis was surprised that Jeros could glean so many things from two simple exchanges. Gravis knew that Jeros probably had a lot of fighting experience. A lot of fighting experience together with tempered muscles. This was a formidable opponent.

“Have you learned martial arts before?” Jeros asked.

Gravis furrowed his brows. “I don’t think so. I have only been taught the absolute fundamentals of weapon usage. Ever since then, I have only fought. If you asked me how I would train, I wouldn’t even be sure how to answer you. I never trained anything regarding my weapon specifically. I only fight.” Gravis narrated. He had just noticed how weird that actually was. Weren’t cultivators supposed to swing their weapons in training daily?

Jeros grew really interested. “This is astounding. Your fighting style is basically untouched by human guidance. Now that you say it, it also feels more like I am fighting a beast. This is interesting! Want to continue?” he asked in eagerness.

Gravis nodded. Maybe if he fought more with Jeros, he would learn more things about himself. An opponent who didn’t want to kill him and had enough fighting experience was rare. Gravis was using Jeros as a mirror to analyze himself.

“Be careful, Gravis! I didn’t use my full strength before, because I was afraid you would get seriously injured. Now, I’m going to use my full power,” Jeros shouted and then shot forward. He swung his humongous sword in a horizontal slash.

Jeros was even faster than before, and without Gravis’ extensive fighting experience, he would have been hacked in two. Instead of falling back, Gravis ran into the swing. He blocked it with his saber and jumped a little. The swing of the sword pushed the saber along, as well as Gravis. Gravis just flew along with the sword.

When the sword slowed down, Gravis quickly pushed himself under it, using his saber as leverage. From a crouching position, Gravis pushed upwards on the side of the sword with the full power of his body, transforming the horizontal sword’s trajectory to a diagonal one. Jeros’ eyes widened, as his sword completely left his control and swung upward.

In one fluid motion, Gravis laid his saber on the closest edge of the sword, and moved it towards Jeros like he was grinding the sword. The big bone sword didn’t have a guard at its handle. Guards on sword-handles were explicitly created to prevent a scenario like this.

Jeros’ gritted his teeth. If this continued, Gravis would sever his hand.

BANG!

Instead of changing his sword’s course, Jeros swung it further. Because of this, his body also rotated further. Gravis lost his leverage on the sword’s edge, and suddenly an elbow shot towards him. The elbow came too suddenly, and he couldn’t react. The elbow hit Gravis in the shoulder, and Gravis flew away for nearly ten meters.

Gravis landed and used his momentum to get back on his feet quickly. Gravis bitterly smiled. His shoulder was broken. He had lost. How could he win with a broken shoulder?

Jeros calmed down slowly. Gravis’ maneuver was brilliant, and Jeros had nearly lost his fingers. If he didn’t have so much fighting experience, he wouldn’t have been able to make this split-second decision to further move his sword. Yet, Jeros knew that Gravis probably wouldn’t have severed his fingers. This helped him calm down. They were only sparring, not fighting to the death.

“Truly impressive,” he said. “You made my heart boil in fear and adrenaline. It’s been a long time since I felt that.”

Gravis smiled bitterly. “No, you’re the impressive one. You countered every attack of mine perfectly. The only time I injured you was because you underestimated me. I’ve truly lost.”

Jeros furrowed his brows. “What are you talking about?”