Boom! The ground trembles, and the piled-up remnants of white cold shatter into pieces.
A sharp spear tip rushes towards my outstretched right hand, as if being drawn in.
A brief, controlled stab. As I deflect it sideways with my wrist and try to close in, Shete expertly moves just the right distance away.
What a bizarre movement.
Her glide is erratic and hard to predict. I can gauge my timing based on her blood flow, heartbeat, and muscle contractions, but following her while she doesn’t just run away and mixes in spear counters becomes strangely smooth yet challenging.
“Changed your strategy, huh?”
“Didn’t I clearly say it’d be different from before!”
Shete shot back energetically as she brushed away the scattering droplets of blood with the force of her movements.
It was indeed different.
Maybe it’s because there are no allies nearby to worry about, or perhaps she’s truly just gotten more familiar after one glance, but in that brief moment, her movements had become considerably more difficult to handle.
No longer did she recklessly plunge in to target my heart.
Focusing more on maintaining a certain distance away from me rather than attacking, she lightly counters my arm or leg whenever I strike, and if it seems risky, she retreats without hesitation.
In close combat, she forces a one-sided bleeding, and if I attack her from a distance with Blood Magic or Shadow Magic, she either creates space or deflects my attacks.
Her blatant intent for a prolonged battle did not make me feel pleasant.
Facing a Vampire, especially a Progenitor with extraordinary regeneration abilities, and aiming for a long-term fight is like signing a death warrant.
If I can’t land a decisive blow through a vital spot, I’ll have to whittle down her regeneration bit by bit until it eventually runs out. But in the meantime, any exchange of attacks will ultimately benefit the Vampire.
However, since she isn’t taking any dangerous gambles, it’s impossible for me to simply incapacitate Shete, and in the end, I had no choice but to gradually corner her.
‘This isn’t enough.’
I could understand why Cardan would want to keep her existence hidden a bit longer.
A girl from the slums who had never learned to fight started receiving training, and within a mere four years, she surpassed the previous Suwang, Cardan.
Seeing that her movements have already changed this much after just one fight with me, I could see why Cardan had called her an unprecedented talent.
Shete Raselo was incredibly strong and troublesome.
She was one of those rare opponents who invoked a genuine sense of crisis long after battling the strongest knights.
‘I could probably win.’
But that alone isn’t enough. Simply winning won’t suffice.
My given duty is to demonstrate overwhelming strength. I needed to show that I could easily handle someone like the Suwang.
“Nya-ha-ha! How’s that?”
Despite the small wounds bleeding all over her, Shete grinned confidently.
Taking the opportunity, I pulled up the blood strands I had laid out on the ground with my left hand, but she gracefully slipped away with acrobatic movements.
I clicked my tongue, feeling anxious.
There’s something slightly lacking when trying to bring down an opponent set on holding their ground.
If she were someone I could easily overpower, she wouldn’t have gone through all this diplomatic nonsense from the start.
Now that things have turned out this way, I’m left with no choice but to find a way to make it work.
I cautiously read the flow while mixing in provocations, matching her theatrics with my own.
“Controlling not to kill is a bit tricky.”
I think.
What tactics do I have left against an opponent who resists simple close-range fights much less against long-range attacks using blood or shadows?
“Nya-ha-ha, there’s no need to worry about that!”
A spear whizzes toward my face.
I hurriedly tilt my head, but the shockwave alone bursts my left eardrum before it can heal.
I twist and pull the strands in my right hand.
Red marks appear on Shete’s ankle, but the binding fails.
Wrapping her up with strands prioritizing endurance over cutting power proves to be quite difficult.
‘What a pain.’
It’s generally much harder to capture an opponent alive than it is to fight for life and death.
I could try charging in with the intent to sever a limb, but that wasn’t an option right now; this fight was about showing enough strength to convince the Beastmen.
Though Shete said it didn’t matter, I shouldn’t take that statement at face value.
It’s clear that trying to forcefully subdue the Suwang isn’t going to end well.
In other words, it implies I must demonstrate enough of a power gap to capture the Suwang intact.
So, what should I do?
She’s not someone who would fall for simple shooting attacks, and when honestly assessing our pure close-combat skills, I am at a disadvantage.
The method I’ve recently favored, squeezing blood into strands and spreading them around, excels in space control but is unsuitable for non-lethal engagements.
Abandoning defense and charging while using my body as a bomb is also hard to pull off when the opponent is already aware and trying to create space.
The absence of basic solid techniques hits hard in situations like these.
I’ve learned how to fight from Martini and Stella, but their training methods were more based on real combat rather than formal techniques; thus, my accumulated instincts from experiences gained under conditions where I cannot inflict lethal or crippling damage become less useful.
But this is mostly all I regularly utilize.
Now, what else can I do—
‘…Wait, what about Illusion Magic?’
The option I had pushed to the back of my mind suddenly came to me, a choice I used to favor back when I was just a commoner.
I hadn’t had the chance to use Illusion Magic much recently since most of my recent opponents have been similar Vampires or Knights, but what if I’m up against a Beastman?
While Illusion Magic may not work well on strong opponents, it’s proven to be effective enough when utilized properly, as I’d shown in small doses against the knights from the Bertica Kingdom.
‘It might be worth a shot.’
Even if she is the Suwang, considering her low magical affinity as a Beastman, this isn’t impossible.
Moreover, it seems unlikely that the equipment to ward off my magic would be available, given that the humans of the Luminous Kingdom use it against darkness magic while Vamps are rare in the East.
I cloak my body in an illusion.
Too much dissonance could lead to instinctive panic. One should never underestimate the wild instincts that Beastmen possess.
I deeply bend my knees and push off the ground powerfully with my left foot.
The swirling speed shifts out of sync, and I insert an illusion of myself about two finger-widths ahead into the gap.
A subtle difference nearly undetectable to the naked eye.
Yet, at the moment I charged in, Shete’s brow twitched, and the spear she was wielding suddenly accelerated.
The gap filled by that brief adjustment was exactly the width of two fingers.
Just before Shete instinctively countered the attack that was a fraction off due to the Illusion Magic, she unexpectedly got a hit to her side and was sent flying horizontally into a boulder.
“Nyah!!”
Boom! A crack forms in the rock as the snow piled on top of it tumbles down.
She swayed as she stretched her feet toward the ground. But this time, I succeeded in binding her with five strands.
“I clearly saw something off in the distance…”
“The trap in front wasn’t everything. I slightly messed with your hearing and touch too.”
I replied with half-honest praise, stating it as it was.
Truly, being a Suwang must mean something; the speed with which she adapted to the illusionary error adjusted within less than a second of engaging in high-speed combat is genuinely astonishing.
The only variable is that I never underestimated her to the end.
While she discerned the frontal trap, she didn’t notice the projectile that came from her own shadow darting in from the side.
“Don’t worry, I’m not claiming victory over just this. You can come at me as many times as you want until you can accept it.”
I released Shete’s binds as she shot me a frustrated glance.
I just figured it out.
I gained confidence. This cat is undeniably strong, but at least for this moment, I’m absolutely sure I won’t lose.
When it comes to moments like this, it’s better to push forward as if it were nothing and firmly break her spirit rather than gloat about having won once.
“…Here I go again.”
Shete regrabs her spear and stands up.
Her movement now is far more cautious and deliberate.
But then, on the eighth move, she fails to notice the strands set at an angle and gets caught.
“…Again.”
On the seventh move, she overthought the back and got kicked by me charging straight ahead.
“…Not yet.”
On the fifth move, once again, though she instinctively succeeded in blocking the shadow flying in from the side, she failed to recognize the incoming attack from behind at the same time.
By then, I had subdued her and released her 49 times.
Panting heavily, Shete let out a deep sigh before flopping down onto the ground.
“…I lost.”
“Did the sincerity of the allied kingdom get across at least a little?”
“Nya-ha, I concede. If the queen wanted to force the Suwang’s surrender without needing to use such troublesome tactics, she wouldn’t have needed to do all this.”
She laughed, saying it was the first time she felt a wall in front of someone.
Her golden eyes weren’t filled with despair, but rather with interest.
Sitting upright, she looked up at me and declared:
“Suwang, Shete Raselo. I will fight alongside you in accordance with the will of Queen Scarlet of the Scarlet Union Kingdom.”
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