“Leave?” She sneered. “You’ll never leave this place. Do you really thing you have the strength? In my prime, I was a sword that bathed in the blood of thousands of people. Your little weak sword will crack under my strength. I’m more powerful than you.”

There was a truth to her words. Although she might look like a little girl, she was backed by the entire dungeon. I had faced many dungeon masters in my time, but most of the time I had won by pure luck. I had never defeated one without the assistance of all of my girls. This was the first time I was going against a Dungeon Master in a direct one-on-one battle. It was an ancient soul sword against Alysia and me.

I equipped the relevant jobs. I had been getting better at job swapping on the fly and could manage it in just a few seconds. In the middle of a battle, a few seconds was a lifetime, but as long as I could get some distance, I could usually manage such things. True Hero, the only position that gave me a second job without the benefit of my blessings, remained locked as my first job, but I had been swapping my other jobs from White Magic, Blue Mage, Magic Swordsman, and so-on to keep up.

At the moment, I depended on Magic Swordsman as I went out and fought the girl. She leaped at me, and her speed couldn’t be underestimated. She jumped around, slashing at my blade over and over again. I immediately began to notice an issue between Alysia and me. This wasn’t an issue when I was fighting the clones, because ultimately, their fighting style matched Alysia’s, so my strength added to her strength was enough to overwhelm them.

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However, Alysia was a direct fighter, depending on pure aggression to knock down an enemy. She didn’t have the elegance of Lydia, nor the stoicism of Carmine. I had faced her many times and felt the aggression of her attacks. They relied on power. The problem came in my own fighting style. Since I wasn’t always weaker, I depended on speed. Simply put, she would try to create powerful attacks, while I tried to do rapid attacks, and the results were that we weren’t quite in sync as we originally thought.

As for the little girl, she was the blade and the person in one, moving with a fluidity that couldn’t be stopped. I was cut and then cut again. It wasn’t long before I wasn’t in much better shape than I had been when I had fought the five clones on the previous level. Alysia also grew more enraged the more often I got hit, and she responded by further fighting me.

The girl let out a laugh. “Do you see it now? Your souls may have been connected for some reason, but that doesn’t mean you can fight as one. You are nothing!”

She jumped and slashed down. As she did so, her entire body glowed. I raised Alysia to block the blade, and as her sword arm struck Alysia, there was a crack. Alysia let out a scream and as a piece of her broke. I flew back, hitting a wall and collapsing to my knees. Looking down, I could see a crack running along Alysia’s blade.

“Do you understand the difference between us now?” she said. “A blade forged by trust and love will never be as powerful as a blade forged in pain and fear. You might as well get rid of that trash and accept your fate.”