It was quite ironic that she called Thor an arrogant prick when the AI behind him was modeled after her. However, Maria wasn’t confident at all in winning this battle because she had placed too many constraints on herself since she didn’t want to reveal too many of her abilities. The dual sword style that Odin had taught her was something she was going to continuously practice in the future so it would be inevitable that she’d show it on stream so she didn’t see a problem that she debuted her new battle style in this tournament.
Also, she thought that it was cool though she began lightly blushing a little after remembering that numerous people were actually watching her right now and could hear and see every one of her movements.
‘...crap…’
However, this wasn’t going to be the end of her embarrassment because she remembered something even more embarrassing that Odin frequently reminded her to do when using the sword style.
“Maria, you must remember, if you want to truly bring out the full extent of this sword style, you have to shout out the name of the sword style’s technique!”
“Huh? Why do I have to do something so embarrassing?”
“Hmmm...how do I explain this...it’s like you’re announcing to the world the true essence of the sword skill. You'll be able to bring out the 'law' and true power of my technique! Go on, just try it! You'll see the difference once you do!”
“???” Maria still had a questioning expression on her face at that time as she asked, “You’re not trying to scam me, are you, Master?”
“What? No! Why would I scam my precious disciple? I’m just telling you, you have to announce the name of the technique! Once you do, you’ll understand what I mean!”
“...Fine…”
Skill Name: Odin’s Swordsmanship Rank: A~EX Description: The unique Swordsmanship created by the Primal of the Iron Blade, Odin Allfather. The sword style can be used with one or two swords/blade weapons. The offhand weapon penalty is nullified in the case of dual-wielding. Effects: Increases damage dealt with swords and blades by 50% and increases ATK SPD by 20% for every successful strike. (Max stack: 5) Additional Skills: ... ... ...
Maria recalled the embarrassing things she needed to do, but when she took a look at the skill description she steeled herself before saying aloud, “[Odin’s Swordsmanship, First Form]!”
The way she seriously said it was quite cool but a few people in the audience couldn’t understand why she just announced her skill like that since it was kind of giving her away to her opponent. Up in the booth where her friends and family were watching her, Gerald and Lizzy both said at the same time, “Woah, that was kinda cool.”
“That…how isn’t she embarrassed?” Emily said while facepalming. This wasn’t like her friend at all.
“Oh, my gosh, Gerald, your sister looks so hot~!” Gerald’s friend, Cindy, squealed in excitement and exclaimed as she shook his arm.
“Y-Yeah…” Gerald scratched his head as he just couldn’t see it that way. At most, his sister looked quite awesome, but hot? No way.
“Woah, look, what’s that!” Lizzy pointed.
After Maria announced the name of her technique, what happened next went beyond what Maria nor anyone expected. A large phantom of an iron-cladded giant appeared behind Maria and got into a similar stance as her. Everyone noticed that the weapons it was dual-wielding looked very similar to Maria’s two swords but that wasn’t all, the armor they had on was also similar so if Maria put on her helmet, she’d look pretty much like the phantom iron-cladded giant that was shadowing her movements.
“Oh...so that old geezer really wasn’t lying…”
‘Disciple, although I may be old, to think you’d blatantly say that to my face.’
“!”
‘Hehe, surprised? Now, focus on the battle in front of you. Hmmm, it looks like you’re fighting an incarnation of my son...how fun!’
“...”
A small smile surfaced on Maria’s face when she heard Odin’s familiar voice ring in her head. Her eyes blazed with confidence as she gazed at Thor who was quietly waiting for her but she noticed that the Primal seemed to be frozen in place and was completely defenseless.
‘A chance!’
Maria immediately lunged forward as Odin’s phantom mirrored her movements. Her approach was so straightforward that it seemed easy to block but her body disappeared mid-lunge and suddenly reappeared right in front of Thor.
Skill Name: Odin’s Swordsmanship Rank: A~EX Additional Skills: First Form: Full Burst
Enters an offensive stance before rushing forward and executing (AGI*0.01) strikes in quick succession, dealing (STR*0.5) per strike. Penetrates defense and any barrier-type skill or spell. Executing more than 5 strikes will buff the user with [Empower] and [STR UP++] for 5 minutes.
Cost: 10,000 HP & 50,000 MP
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Remembering the skill’s description Maria had around 40 slashes to execute with this first sword skill since her total AGI was around 4000. She had 1700 base AGI plus the 1200 Calamity added to her stats as well as her Zantetsu-R whose [Absolute Mimicry] skill copied all of Calamity’s bonus stats and weapon skills, excluding the unique transformation ability. If she were to add all of her weapons’ additional stats to her base stats, this is what her updated status screen looks like now that she has stepped past level 100.
Name: Maria Level: 101 HP: 260,650/260,650
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
MP: 722,400/722,400
BE: 361,200/361,200
NE: 242/242
SP: 32,735/32,735 EXP: 10,009,000/11,110,000 REP: 110,000 Race: Fallen Ophanim - Awakened Variant Class: Dark Priestess
Sub-Class 1: Magus
Sub-Class 2: Queen
Titles: Species Eradicator A, Fallen Angel of Sin, Angel of the Apocalypse, The Unlucky One, Fallen Priestess, Fallen Saintess, Harbinger of the World’s End, Queen of the Dire
ATK: 77,671(+5000~6250)
DEF: 18,090 (+15)
M.ATK: 10,887 (+5000~6250)
M.DEF: 39,402 (+15)
STR: 7,712
AGI: 4,117
VIT: 6,578
INT: 14,328
LCK: 22
SIN: 24
Free Stat Points: 500
Just breaching past level 100 and adding to the doppelganger effect of her Zantetsu-R had pushed her base stats to the point of absurdity. It had been a while since she last checked her status menu but Maria did exactly that in the middle of combat.
‘41 strikes, if I add the 500 FSPs…’
Maria immediately invested all of her FSPs into AGI right away so now, the total amount of AGI she had was 6,217 which meant her previous 41 strikes had now become 62. Her AGI jumped so high after only investing 500 because of all of her racial and title bonuses that increased her stats by a few percentages. She did all of this in the blink of an eye before smirking at Thor once she finished. Maria faced the Primal and then yelled, “[Full Burst]!”
With Thor standing still like a fool, Maria executed her first sword slash, a stab aimed straight for the Primal’s heart which was followed up with a few more consecutive stabs until she switched it up into slashes.
‘Faster!’ Odin’s voice echoed in her head.
‘Faster!’
“HAAAAHHHH!!!”
Maria let out a battle cry and upped her speed as she executed her 15th slash before immediately following it up with 5 more slashes that happened in the blink of an eye. She continued her continuous stream of sword attacks and a sword energy storm gradually formed around her and Thor which assaulted the Primal and increased Maria’s speed and damage. A stream of light flowed from Maria to Thor but all of this was an illusion that was created by Maria’s lightning-fast sword slashes. In this state, she was uninterruptible and Thor wasn’t even doing anything to stop her, or more like, he couldn’t do anything.
The Primal had regained his wits once Maria had struck him a few times but he was much too late to defend against her attacks now that she was in a state of near-invincibility. The sword storm that had formed around her had given Maria a shield that would repel any form of attack that could interrupt her chain and Maria had taken note that the sword storm appeared around the 30th or 31st sword strike, roughly around the total of strikes she had in her combo.
When the final 62nd sword slash landed on Thor, a large explosion of sword energy tore up the Primal and the surrounding area. Maria forced her opponent into the ground with her last, mighty slash that caused a spatial rift to appear before exploding right in Thor’s face, sending it deeper into the ground. Maria was harmlessly pushed back by the spatial explosion and she landed outside of the large crater she created when she finished executing her skill.
“Holy shit!”
“59, 60, 61 and with that final strike, 62...62 sword slashes! What an absurd skill!” Hadez exclaimed in excitement. “This has got to be the strongest skill in the game so far! What an incredible display of strength that player Maria has shown us today!”
“This is just unbelievable! What did she say this technique was?” The caster, Tyler, asked.
“Weren’t you listening earlier? She even shouted her skill’s name!”
“I believe the skill was called [Odin’s Swordsmanship, First Form: Full Burst],” Yun Chi said, helping out the 'clueless' Tyler.
“Ah! That’s right! Earlier, it did say that player Maria was a disciple of Odin which triggered Thor’s battle skill [Vigilance]. It seems she learned the way of the sword from Odin!”
“The numbers are out and it seems that player Maria has dealt exactly 391,777 damage in total to Thor! This should count as a world record for the highest amount of damage done to a boss monster within an instant!”
“That’s incredible!”
While the casters were praising Maria for her incredible feat of accomplishing a world record, back on the battlefield, the person in question was looking quite exhausted as she stabbed Calamity on the ground and leaned on it. The sword’s flames danced around its blade and harmlessly bounced off of Maria’s body. She let out a breath and was feeling a little faint due to her depleted SP bar.
It wasn’t like earlier where she gradually lost her SP while battling Thor. Full Burst required Maria to use up a large amount of her SP and after losing so much of it in an instant, she was feeling the adverse effects of exhaustion immediately.
“Haah...haah...I have a lot of SP...but using Odin’s Swordsmanship sure depletes a lot of it…”
It wasn’t displayed in the description but Maria noted that her SP depleted by 1% for every slash she executed when using Full Burst. 62 slashes meant that 62% of her SP had disappeared. Her SP bar was rapidly restoring itself but it was much too slow and while Maria was forced to stop her attack in order to recuperate, Thor had cracked open the ground and jumped out of the crater. It landed a few meters away from Maria, all bloodied and tattered. His once pristine armor was now practically destroyed as his bare skin was shown that had a lot of lacerations and bloody cuts on it.
“Heh...not so arrogant anymore, are ya?” Maria taunted.
Maria slowly got up and pulled her Calamity out of the ground and was about to get ready for another bout when suddenly, Thor appeared right in front of her without any warning.
“!”
Thor’s hammer was already moving towards Maria’s chest and it was too late for her to defend against it. The hammer struck her square in the chest and sent her flying away.
“GAH!”
Maria quickly twisted herself in the air to block the next blow but she didn’t see anyone in front of her. A shadow loomed above her but when she looked up, Thor’s ax was already upon her face. Her helmet quickly covered her face just before the attack connected and this strike sent Maria deep into the earth. Just as she was about to get up, she was struck by a multitude of lightning strikes in the next instant.
“AHHH!!!”
Unlike most players, Maria’s pain gauge wasn’t set at the lowest possible factor because her settings appeared to be bugged. She felt the strike hit her chest from earlier before she was suddenly bashed in the face and was subsequently electrocuted. Her pained scream felt a little too real for everyone that the people watching began to worry.
However, this wasn’t anything. Maria had tasted pain that was much more intense than this. This amount of pain only served to anger Maria even more as she finally threw caution into the wind. She shot up into the air after transforming her wings to [Bahamut’s Wings] as she furiously glared down at Thor who was making his way up to her.
“Now you’ve fucking done it you little shit!”
Maria had uncharacteristically cursed out which indicated just how angry she was this time. In mid-air, Maria threw her Calamity at Thor before she got into a different stance than before with her Zantetsu-R.
“...”
She was silent but the air around her began to tremble as her MP pool began to deplete until only 1% remained. Thor seemed to know what Maria was planning as he immediately tried to run away.
“Let me show you what happens when you make me angry!”
Maria slashed in front of her and even when they were so far away, her attack cut through space and landed right on Thor.
“DIE!”
She roared and continued her sword dance in the air as she cut through space and landed all of her attacks on Thor. She gave Thor 9 sword scars on his bloodied body while 9 spatial rifts had appeared around the Primal and were locking him in place. She had completely depleted her MP until only 1 percent remained and it was the same for her SP as well. However, since it was already low, to begin with, some of her HP was used to compensate for the lack of SP she needed to execute her skill.
The sword skill she used this time was the strongest one that Odin had given to her, the [Shin-Zantetsuken] and with its effects of breaking through the damage limit, a large damage number appeared on Thor’s head once the 9 sword scars exploded and the 9 spatial explosions bombarded him.
-2,911,626
-9999
-9999
-9999
-...
…
…
“...”
“...”
“...”
The audience watching couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the absurd numbers that popped above Thor’s head after Maria executed her skill. The massive amount of HP lost put Thor in Red HP immediately but it wasn’t enough to kill the Primal. Maria saw this and only laughed in defeat. Her [Shin-Zantetsuken] was only a last resort skill which was meant to be a finisher move but even after dealing so much damage, she was only able to bring Thor’s HP down to Red and not completely kill him.
“Well...I guess it’s my loss…” She mumbled before plummeting to the ground.