Just as Ikaruga was about to give out, she suddenly stomped her foot, and a powerful rebound force surged from the cracks in the ground.
Using this force, her body shot upwards like a rocket, and the tachi in her hand arced, breaking free from the stalemate with Brain's twin blades.
Brain was caught off guard by this sudden change, his body swaying slightly in the air.
Ikaruga wouldn't miss this opportunity; her figure, like a white lightning bolt, rapidly circled Brain.
The tachi in her hand continuously swung out, and white sword qi slashed at Brain from all directions.
Brain hurriedly wielded his twin blades, and streams of sword qi formed a golden defensive net.
The white sword qi and the golden defensive net collided, producing a series of dense 'bang bang' sounds, like countless bullets hitting a metal shield.
Golden light and white light intertwined, making the entire battlefield so bright that it was hard to open one's eyes.
The sword lights clashed, but as time passed, the golden sword light gradually suppressed the white sword light.
"Is this all an Human Swordsman is capable of?"
Wielding his twin blades wildly, Brain still had the energy to mock her. After two fierce slashes, the mantis wings on his back spread open, and a powerful golden airflow erupted from him, scattering all the surrounding sword qi.
The twin blades in his hands were like two agile golden vipers, each attack carrying a deadly threat.
Ikaruga dodged left and right, her figure weaving through the trees, stirring up fallen leaves.
Her white kimono was already tattered from the sword qi, and several wounds appeared on her body, blood flowing down her fair skin.
"Do you only know how to hide in such a sorry state, Human Swordsman?" Brain laughed wildly in the sky, his twin blades slashing out a golden sword qi that poured down like a rainstorm.
Ikaruga, who had been dodging through the forest like falling cherry blossoms, suddenly stopped.
Her scabbard was stuck in the ground five meters away, and her left index finger gently traced the back of the blade.
The crimson blade suddenly vibrated at high frequency, and a visible vortex of qi condensed on the blade.
"Mugetsu Style · Chaotic Cherry Blossom!"
The crimson blade light surged upwards, colliding head-on with the golden rainstorm.
The two sword qi formed a tornado that rose from the ground, sweeping up all the rubble and broken wood within a hundred-meter radius into the sky.
Brain laughed wildly in the eye of the storm, his six wings vibrating at high frequency to maintain his aerial posture, his twin blades cleaving out crescent slashes at a frequency of thirty times per second.
Ikaruga's pupils suddenly contracted to pinprick size.
She saw Brain's slashing trajectories begin to overlap, and the golden sword qi, boosted by the tornado, gradually condensed into a materialized blade storm.
The crimson tachi let out a mournful cry under the strain, fine cracks appearing on its blade.
Ikaruga's blade tip traced a tiny silver arc in the moonlight, and the condensed qi vortex suddenly collapsed into a pinprick-sized speck of light.
Brain's six wings traced sharp zigzag trajectories in the air, his twin blades merging into a cross-star and rapidly descending.
"Golden Cross Slash!"
The moment the golden blade light collided with the crimson blade, the pinprick of light exploded.
A visible circular airwave spread radially, instantly severing trees within a fifty-meter radius.
The ground beneath Ikaruga's feet collapsed layer by layer, but she used the recoil to surge upwards into the air.
Blade lights intertwined into a galaxy of silver-white and gilded gold.
Brain's compound eyes' irises rapidly contracted, and his six insect wings suddenly split into afterimages.
His body strangely turned at a right angle in mid-air, his right arm joint twisted backward three hundred and sixty degrees, and the serrated blade slashed at Ikaruga's nape from an absolute blind spot.
"Clang!"
The crimson scabbard precisely blocked behind her, sparks falling onto Ikaruga's raised cherry blossom-like hair.
Using the scabbard as a pivot, she flipped in mid-air, the hem of her kimono blooming like a snow-white flower, and the crimson blade traced a full moon arc along her rotation.
Brain's chest plate shattered with a crack, and green glowing blood splattered into the moonlight.
But a mantis-like scythe foot immediately extended from his broken ribs, and a glowing bone scythe swept at Ikaruga's waist.
Ikaruga's toe lightly touched the surface of the scythe foot, and as she leaped back using the force, she unleashed a seven-strike combo.
Seven pure white crescent sword qi pierced through Brain's insect wings, but they were solidified by the viscous fluid secreted by his golden armor the moment they passed through.
"Surprised?" Brain's vocal cords emitted a vibrato like insect wings, and his pierced insect wings regenerated at a visible speed, "This body is a perfect creation, fused with the genes of seven demonic beasts."
He suddenly opened his mouth, and a scorching white light glowed deep in his throat.
High-frequency sound waves, carrying an energy cannon, shot out with a roar. The moment Ikaruga dodged by tilting her head, a blood flower bloomed on her left earlobe.
The cliff three hundred meters behind her collapsed with a roar, and the debris was pulverized by the subsequent sound waves before it even hit the ground.
Ikaruga's blood-stained lips, however, curved slightly upwards.
She suddenly sheathed her tachi, her right hand's five fingers pressing on the end of the hilt, her entire body and the scabbard forming a perfect thirty-degree angle.
This posture caused a momentary disorientation in Brain's compound eyes—as if twelve sword-wielding phantoms simultaneously assumed the drawing stance.
"Mugetsu Style · Instant Cut!"
Pure white blade light burst forth in a spiral, and twelve phantoms simultaneously unleashed a reverse-surging sword qi storm.
Brain's six wings vibrated rapidly, trying to ascend, but he found that the surrounding airflow had been drawn into a vacuum by the sword qi.
His scythe feet deeply pierced the ground, and his twin blades danced into a golden round shield in front of him.
The sound of metal clashing became an incessant wave of sound.
Each sword qi carved an indentation on the golden shield, and Brain's shins gradually sank into the rock layer.
When the thirty-third strike landed, Brain's eyes widened, and he roared, plunging his twin blades into the ground, golden energy erupting skyward like a volcanic eruption.
Ikaruga's consecutive slashes were directly interrupted, and her entire body was shaken away by the energy.
"It's not over yet!" Brain's voice suddenly became a dual tone, his golden armor completely shattered, revealing the insect-like green carapace beneath.
His arms suddenly grew by half a meter, and his joint's reverse angle reached an astonishing 270 degrees, "Mantis Liberation · Predatory Instinct!"
The blade light suddenly vanished.
A bloody scent and an extreme sense of crisis assailed her. Ikaruga only had time to turn her head, and a burst of blood bloomed on her left shoulder.
Immediately after, intense pain came from her right ribs, back, and thigh simultaneously.
Brain's figure flickered rapidly, with only golden blade light flashing from various tricky angles.
Ikaruga barely raised her blade to protect her vital points, and seven wounds bloomed like bloody flowers on her white clothes.
The crimson tachi suddenly flew out of her hand.
A trace of doubt flickered in Brain's compound eyes; this flaw was unusually large.
The next second, he felt a chill in his chest—Ikaruga's left hand was holding the scabbard that should have been stuck far away, its opening only three inches from his heart, and her calm eyes held killing intent.
"Mugetsu Style · Oni-Kiri."
The sword qi bursting from the scabbard was sharper than the blade.
Four of Brain's six wings were instantly severed, and green blood splattered on the scorched earth with a sizzling sound.
He staggered backward, seeing Ikaruga catch the falling tachi, the moonlight flowing on the crimson blade suddenly becoming dazzling.
"Final strike." Ikaruga's voice was terrifyingly calm.
She slowly returned the scabbard to her waist, this simple movement causing ripple-like waves in the surrounding air.
Brain's compound eyes saw countless afterimages overlapping around the woman, the crimson blade light seemingly existing simultaneously in the past, present, and future.
"Mugetsu Style · Bai Zhan (Moonless Style · Hundred Slash)!"
Time seemed to suddenly freeze.
When Brain realized what had happened, his vision was already filled with pure white sword light.
One hundred and eight slashes descended at the same instant, pure white sword qi raging like rain.
The golden armor made a crisp sound like breaking glass, that mantis exoskeleton-mimicking armor shattered into thousands of fragments.
As Brain knelt to the ground, he saw Ikaruga slowly sheathing her crimson tachi.
With the light click of the tsuba against the scabbard opening, the golden twin blades on his back suddenly broke into four pieces, extinguishing along with the red light in his eyes.
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