Chapter 49 Limit Break.

Lenna strode into the arena and drew her sword. Isaac’s death flames seeped into her even as they covered her blade. Her own mana and aura coated her sword in dancing orange flames. The death flames always seemed apathetic to Lenna where her flames seemed angry. Today her flames felt hungry. She stopped ten feet in front of her opponent. “You kept me waiting.” Fable told her.

“We are two minutes early.” Lenna replied simply. “You are impatient.”

“Is that what you used to bully my apprentice?” Fable interrogated her.

“Yes.” Lenna replied. “Do you remember me?”

Fable shook his head slightly. “No.” He told her. “Should I?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She said and stepped into a fighting stance. “What matters is that I remember you.”

“Did you target Eskahno because he was my apprentice?” Fable asked as he drew his longsword from his left hip with his left hand.

“No.” Lenna replied simply.

“Are you always that cruel to your enemies?” Fable continued to interrogate her while clamping his wooden fingers around the hilt of his sword with his other hand.

“No.” She answered.

“Then why?” He asked his final question.

“Because I needed to set a precedent.” Lenna replied and launched towards the old swordsman.

Fable jumped back while bringing his left hand close to his chest. “Quicken.” Lenna heard him whisper as his speed seemed to double. Fable immediately went on the attack. Lenna predicted as such. Her sword swept in a tight arc that parried his first attack before she abruptly shifted her wrist to point the blade straight down. His second attack was blocked by what must’ve felt to him like a brick wall. Lenna’s strength was enhanced by mana and aura like. Her muscles were working at one hundred percent without fear of exhaustion or damage. His sword stopped cold.

Lenna drove her pommel towards his chest but fable caught her wrist with his good hand while jumping back. Lenna’s arm was so much like a structure that Fable was able to shove off of it to move himself out of the way. He was moving at over double her speed as he was already faster than her, yet somehow she had managed to intercept both of his first two attacks and make a counter attack of her own. Fable was instantly aware of the reason his apprentice had been tossed around like a ragdoll.

Fable touched one of the sapphires growing out of his arm and his fingers started to glow. He slid his fingers down the spine of his sword and the blade started to glow a soft blue. A frosty mist started trailing behind his sword as he danced around Lenna. One, two, three, then four attacks were all intercepted with near precognitive accuracy. Lenna hadn’t been able to launch another counter attack but she was blocking and parrying multiple attacks with one swing of her sword. It was as if she knew what move Fable was going to make before he made it. Five, six, seven, then eight. Now Fable was sure of the fact that Lenna knew what he was going to do before he even did it.

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Isaac watched the duel like a hawk. He didn’t dare blink. Once the sixth one of Fable’s attacks was blocked Isaac realized something. Lenna’s movements looked familiar. He had been training alongside her for long enough to know all of the sword forms she practiced. There was one that had never made any sense to him. It made sense now. She had been practicing for this fight for fifty years. She had created a sword form that was unique to her. It wasn’t a way to practice different attacks and how they flowed from one to another. No, it was her fighting Fable’s shadow. She had memorized the magical swordsman’s patterns during their first ever engagement. That day was seared into her memory and every move Fable had made had been logged and evaluated. Lenna truly was a different breed.

—

Fable realized that the only way that someone could fight him like Lenna, was if they actually knew what he was going to do ahead of time. There were two options: The first was that Lenna could actually see the future, the second was that she had memorized his patterns. The second option was less likely when divination magic existed but it was still possible. It was also the easier option to test. Fable abruptly switched fighting styles. He started feinting more and more and his attacks became more and more erratic. He stopped caring about efficiency and instead abused his massive speed advantage. Hit after hit got through Lenna’s defenses. Out of fifteen attacks, nine were feints, two were blocked, four added new cuts in her armor. His sword couldn’t cut her armor easily but it could still cut it which was a testament to its better enchantments.

Fable disengaged and jumped away from Lenna. Lenna was surprised enough at his disengage that she didn’t immediately chase after him. “How many times have we met before?” Fable questioned her. “How did you know my patterns?”

Lenna launched after him and he dodged the attack by a hair’s breadth. “Once.” Lenna told him. “I never forgot them.” She replied and continued to press the attack. She stopped blocking entirely and let Fable’s sword carve new marks into her armor. She tried her best to make sure that none of his attacks would hit the same place more than once but it was a losing battle. Lenna knew this but she also knew that their mana reserves were about equal. Magical knights had less available mana than paladins by the nature of their classes but he was a higher level. Magical knights used magic to augment their swordsmanship. Paladins used magic with their swordsmanship. She also knew that the spells that Fable was using were far more efficient than her just burning mana to keep her strength advantage.

“It’s a shame you weren’t one of my students.” Fable told her. “You’d be level twenty by now.”

“Come forth, ember of a dying star.” Was Lenna’s response. Fable took a step and teleported to the other side of Lenna. Her fireball went off and threw burning sand in every direction. Fable was perfectly fine as he positioned Lenna between him and the explosion. What he hadn’t accounted for was Lenna hopping backwards just as the explosion reached her. Her shoulder slammed into his chest as she flew into him from the force of the blast.

Fable’s incredible speed allowed him to go with Lenna’s momentum and he shifted before Lenna could get a hold of him. Her hand caught air as he shoved off of her. Lenna stumbled as her feet touched the ground again and Fable stumbled back away from her. There was once again ten feet between them. “You are by far, the strongest platinum I have ever met.” Fable told her as he drew his second sword. “But it’s over.”

“Hate, my sword.” Lenna began. “Wrath, my shield.” She squared off against Fable once again. “Flame, my armor.” They locked eyes. “Fury, me.” Two rings of fire appeared above and below Lenna as she launched after him.

“Limit break.” Fable spoke and became a blur. He sidestepped Lenna’s attack then drove the point of his rapier into the eyehole of her helmet while sliding the tip of his longsword up under her chin. Both blades scraped against each other before impacting the back and top of the inside of her helmet respectively. She hadn’t even had time to react. It ended in an instant. One move at an unimaginable speed. In that one moment he surpassed even Isaac when he was burning through his reserves at five percent per second.

Lenna felt the blades enter her. The pain was familiar yet strange. She had been stabbed, bitten, crushed, tossed, bashed, and even impaled. She knew what losing an arm felt like. She had broken more bones than she cared to remember. A dozen concussions and a hundred sprains had come and gone. Magic fixed the injuries but the memory of the pain remained. At least it was supposed to. She was having trouble remembering it. ‘What am I doing?’ She asked herself. ‘Where am I? Why does my head hurt?’ Her thoughts were strange and somehow they didn’t feel like her own. ‘Where did half my vision go?’

Fable ripped the swords out of Lenna’s head and let her collapse limply to the ground. He stepped back and stared down at her. “What a shame.” He said aloud.

–

Isaac’s eyes went wide as he watched the love of his life be overpowered in a blink. His heart stopped as two swords found their way into Lenna’s helmet. The world went dark as she fell limply to the ground.