After reinforcing his ice blade with Armament Haki, Wood propelled himself forward at astonishing speed with a powerful kick.
At the same moment, Reinhard also sprang into action.
Clang—!
The blackened ice blade clashed with the Dragon Sword Reid, and the sheer force of the impact generated a massive storm that swept outward from the two of them.
The ground beneath them couldn't withstand the intensity of their collision, and a deep fissure split open between them.
But that was only the beginning. As soon as their weapons disengaged, Wood and Reinhard vanished from sight, only to reappear a hundred meters away, once again locking blades in mid-air.
With each clash of sword and blade, the very mana in the air seemed to tremble, causing the surrounding landscape to be torn apart with each blow.
When Subaru finally arrived at the scene, he was initially overjoyed to see that Emilia, Felt, and the others were safe.
But when his gaze shifted to Wood and Reinhard, whose battle was turning a once-flat plain into a series of hills, his expression quickly turned to one of shock.
"What the hell are Wood and Reinhard doing? Why are they fighting each other? And where's the Bowel Hunter?"
According to the plan, Wood was supposed to hold off the Bowel Hunter while Subaru went to find the town guards to arrest her.
But now, Wood and Reinhard, both supposed allies, were fighting each other. Subaru couldn't make sense of the situation.
"Do they have some kind of grudge against each other?"
"Subaru, you found us! Is that knight your friend too? I think he might have misunderstood Wood. We need to stop them—if they keep going like this, things will get out of hand."
Emilia, the half-elf, despite being over a century old, had only truly lived for fourteen years, due to a long period of being frozen in ice. Now, seeing the situation spiral out of control, she instinctively turned to Subaru for help, her wide eyes pleading for guidance.
Seeing Emilia look at him with such hope, Subaru's heart melted. Of course, he wanted to step up and show his beloved that he could handle this. But when he saw the battle between Wood and Reinhard, his initial confidence evaporated.
Subaru, while wanting to help, realized there was no way he could intervene. The sheer scale of their battle was beyond anything he could handle—one misstep, and he'd be crushed.
"These guys… are they serious? That knight said he was just an average swordsman, and Wood only mentioned being somewhat confident in his abilities… But this is insane! What am I supposed to do when they're carving up the ground like it's nothing!?"
Subaru watched in disbelief as Wood's strike created a kilometer-long fissure in the ground, while Reinhard effortlessly shattered a boulder weighing several tons with a single swing of his sword. The absurdity of the situation hit him hard.
When Subaru had first met Wood in the alleyway, he'd asked how strong he was. Wood's reply had been something along the lines of having a bit of confidence—enough to handle a few small-time thugs.
And Reinhard? When Subaru had encountered him earlier and asked how powerful he was, the knight had claimed to be no more than a humble swordsman.
But now? Watching these two titans tear apart the landscape with their strikes, Subaru couldn't help but feel like the real imposter here.
The battle between Wood and Reinhard only intensified with time. What had initially been a visible clash of swords soon became too fast for even those watching to follow. Emilia, Felt, and the others could no longer keep track of their movements.
But despite the rapid pace of the battle, the clash of weapons continued to echo through the air, with each blow reshaping the terrain.
"Hyakki Yagyō Style: Wind Blade Dance—Kamaitachi!"
A powerful, green wind blade, capable of cutting through concrete, shot towards Reinhard, carried by a furious gale.
After fighting Reinhard for so long, Wood was certain of one thing—Reinhard was the most formidable swordsman he had ever faced in any world.
It wasn't just Reinhard's swordsmanship. His natural combat instincts and raw talent were astonishing. While he lacked extensive battle experience, Reinhard somehow always managed to evade Wood's attacks.
This time, however, Wood had finally spotted an opening. His "Kamaitachi" strike was timed perfectly, aimed to catch Reinhard as he landed, his body still in a vulnerable stance.
The green wind blade sped toward Reinhard, and while Wood didn't expect it to defeat him outright, he believed it would at least injure the knight and give him a slight advantage.
But to Wood's shock, his well-aimed attack barely grazed Reinhard's body, flying harmlessly past him.
The blade continued on, carving a hundred-meter-long trench in the earth and slicing off the top of a distant hill before disappearing into the horizon.
Standing unharmed, Reinhard looked back at Wood, who now wore a knowing expression.
"So that's one of your blessings, isn't it?"
With multiple worlds of combat experience, Wood knew that his blade couldn't have simply missed—it had been avoided, almost as if the attack had been repelled by some unseen force.
Reinhard smiled. "You're correct. It's one of my blessings, called The Blessing of Evasion. Any long-range attack will always miss its mark."
A knight through and through, Reinhard believed in fairness in battle. Although Wood was his opponent, Reinhard felt no need to hide the truth about his abilities.
Wood's expression hardened. "So, the reason you were able to walk out of that explosion earlier without a scratch—that was another one of your blessings, right?"
At the beginning of their fight, Wood had unleashed a fire-based attack that should have at least scorched Reinhard, yet the knight had emerged unscathed. Wood now realized that this too must have been due to one of Reinhard's blessings.
"You're correct again," Reinhard replied. "That was thanks to The Blessing of Fire Resistance. It reduces the power of any fire-based magic to just twenty percent of its original strength."
Wood raised an eyebrow. Reinhard was a double-blessing user, just like him. But was it really just coincidence that his two best chances of inflicting harm had both been negated?
"You're the strongest opponent I've ever faced," Reinhard said earnestly. "In fact, it's the first time I've seen the Dragon Sword Reid so excited. I want to fight you fairly, so I won't hide anything."
Wood's mind spun. Reinhard spoke casually about his "several blessings," as if having multiple blessings was normal.
Reinhard, oblivious to Wood's stunned silence, continued. "The Blessing of the Sword Saint is my most important one—it lets me wield the Dragon Sword Reid and unlock its full potential."
He went on to list his other blessings: The Blessing of Unfailing Arrows ensured his ranged attacks never missed; The Blessing of Magic Immunity nullified all curses and status effects; The Blessing of Wind absorbed eighty percent of wind-based magic; and The Blessing of Earth reduced earth-based magic by the same amount.
There were more: The Blessing of Water Reflection, which deflected water-based magic, and The Blessing of Darkness and Light, which weakened dark magic by eighty percent and transferred eighty percent of light-based magic onto another opponent.
Then there was The Blessing of Precognition, which allowed Reinhard to predict an enemy's moves, and The Blessing of First Strike, guaranteeing that Reinhard's first attack in any fight would land.
There were blessings for almost every circumstance, and Reinhard rattled them off as if it were perfectly normal to possess such abilities.
But the one that shocked Wood most was The Blessing of the Phoenix—a blessing that granted Reinhard the power to resurrect once, and if used, he would receive The Extended Phoenix Blessing, allowing him to revive indefinitely.
An ability that essentially made Reinhard immortal.
Wood was speechless. He had once thought the heroes and protagonists of other worlds were absurdly overpowered, but Reinhard's blessings took things to a whole new level.
Immunity to nearly all forms of magic, resistance to environmental changes, buffs in any weather condition, and unlimited revives? It was as if he had stumbled into a story where the protagonist had become an unstoppable force.
"The sheer number of your abilities is staggering," Wood muttered. "Just hearing about them would crush most people's will to fight. But no opponent is truly invincible—there's always a weakness, and even if magic is diminished, it's not completely ineffective."
Despite his astonishment, Wood wasn't about to give up. He had faced foes just as powerful before, like the Dragon God, who could destroy continents and bend time and space itself.
Wood had fought beings like that without hesitation, and now, Reinhard was no different.
"Emperor-Level Ice Magic—Ice Age!"
As Wood unleashed a torrent of magical energy, the temperature around them plummeted, and a bone-chilling wind swept across the battlefield.
Even Felt and Subaru, standing at a distance, shivered as the icy wind blew past them.
"It's here!" Emilia exclaimed. "Such powerful magic... even the spirits in the air are restless. What kind of person is Wood, to have such swordsmanship and this level of magic?"
The freezing wind howled, and when Felt and Subaru opened their eyes again, they were met with a sight that left them utterly speechless.
The once-barren plain had transformed into a vast, frozen tundra—a thousand miles of ice stretching as far as the eye could see.
Subaru, his breath visible in the frigid air, could hardly believe what he was seeing.
"I knew this was a different world… but this… this is beyond anything I could have imagined."
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Don't forget to give Power Stone
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