Chapter 95: Chapter 95: A Spar
Damon found her in the training hall a few hour later.
She stood in the center of the courtyard, her posture rigid, hands clasped behind her back.
The air around her crackled with a cold aur. She was trying to wear the mask again, to be Elder Selene, the untouchable sword master.
She didn’t turn as he entered.
"You are late." she said, her voice flat and authoritative.
Damon walked toward her, his steps echoing on the stone. He said nothing.
He stopped a few centimeter away, his golden eyes fixed on her face. He didn’t need to use his Incubus Aura. He just looked at her.
Selene’s shoulders tightened. A faint tremble ran through her fingers, the still locked behind her back.
She tried to hold his gaze, to maintain the icy detachment, but her eyes flickered away after a second. A soft, almost imperceptible sigh escaped her lips.
The cold authority she’d mustered melted like spring snow. Her knees actually wobbled, just for an instant, before she locked them straight.
"Don’t..." she muttered, the word barely audible.
"Don’t what?" Damon asked, his voice calm.
"Look at me like that." She finally turned to face him, and the proud elder was gone.
In her place was a woman flushed with memory, her icy eyes wide and vulnerable.
"I... I need to train you."
"Then train me." Damon said, a faint smile touching his lips.
She swallowed, gathering herself. She gestured to the rack of practice swords.
"We will spar. You will defend. I will attack with the intent of a King Spirit Realm master. Do not hold back your Sword Aura."
"I never do."
She summoned a blade of solid glacial ice, formed from her own qi.
Damon picked up a simple wooden practice sword from the rack.
The difference was absurd. In her eyes Damon still True Spirit Realm.
But she know cultivation was useless in front of Damon.
For the past weeks other that training Selene how to form Sword Aura, she also spar with Damon.
Although Damon had the memories, he still lack actual battle sense, all his fight up until now always ended in a single slash.
It was only when he fight Ancient Flame Lion, he actually dodge and fight a few exchange. When it come to fight another cultivator he have zero experience.
The spar also help Selene understand about sword aura better since she can observe it closely.
Then Selene moved.
The air screamed as she vanished, reappearing in front of him in a blur of platinum hair and azure robes.
Her strike was a simple vertical slash, but it carried the weight of a King Spirit Realmf.
The sheer pressure of it would have crushed a normal Earth Spirit cultivator into paste.
Damon didn’t dodge. He raised the wooden sword.
He didn’t pour spiritual energy into it. He simply let a wisp of Sword Aura bleed from his fingertips, wrapping the cheap wood in a shell of invisible, cutting intent.
Her ice blade met his wooden sword.
There was a sound like the world tearing.
The glacial sword shattered into a fine, sparkling mist that hung in the air like frozen glitter.
The force of her own attack rebounded through her arm. Selene gasped, stumbling back two steps, her hand numb.
She stared at the empty space where her weapon had been, then at Damon’s utterly untouched practice sword.
Her breath came in quick, visible puffs in the cold air. Not from exertion, but from shock.
"Again," Damon said.
A flash of her old pride ignited in her eyes. She formed another blade, thicker this time, and her movements became a blizzard.
She came from above, from the side, in feints and flourishes that would have carved a master swordsman into ribbons.
Damon stood in the center of the storm.
He parried, deflected, and redirected with minimal movements. His wooden sword became a blur, each motion precise and economical.
Wherever her ice met his sword, it shatter into mist.
He wasn’t even using Sword Aura offensively. He was just coat his weapon, making it indestructible against her power.
After the fifth shattered blade, Selene stopped. She was breathing heavily now, not from tiredness, but from a building, frantic frustration.
She was a King Spirit Realm expert, a natural genius of the sword! He was supposed to be her student!
"You’re not even trying." she accused Damon.
"You’re also holding back. You’re fighting like an elder teaching a disciple. You’re not fighting like you want to kill me." Damon countered.
Her frosty eyes widened. Then they narrowed, a true, competitive fire lighting within her.
"Fine."
The temperature in the hall plummeted. This time, when she formed her sword, it was black ice, swirling with dark blue energy.
She shot forward with a brutal speed. The strike aimed for his throat.
Damon moved.
He took a single, sliding step forward, inside the arc of her attack. His free hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
At the same moment, he let his Sword Aura from his body.
An invisible wave erupted from him.
Every practice sword on the rack splintered into sawdust.
The ice on the walls vaporized with a hiss.
The terrifying black ice blade in Selene’s hand simply ceased to exist, the energy snuffed out like a candle.
She was left standing there, his grip on her wrist, utterly disarmed. The fight had lasted three seconds.
The fire in her eyes died, replaced by a dazed, humbled awe.
She looked from her empty hand to his face. Her proud, unshakable confidence in her own sword path... it cracked.
She thought after able to use sword aura she will be able to fight ote to toe with Damon.
She sank to her knees on the cold floor, not in submission, but in sheer, overwhelmed defeat.
"How?" she whispered.
Damon released her wrist.
"Sword Aura isn’t just a stronger Sword Intent. It’s a different language. You’re still trying to speak with words. I’m speaking with the concept of cutting itself."
"You just come to be able use sword aura, you just have get use to it and find a was that fit you fighting style." Damon told selene to cheer her up as he offered her a hand.
She took it, her fingers trembling in his.
