Chapter 89: Swordswoman, Do You Dislike Me?
In a certain legacy island in the virtual world, flames raged!
“Raging inferno, incinerate my mangled body!”
The axe-wielding warrior wearing heavy armor let out a roar. His whole body was engulfed in raging flames, even his pupils turned into flames. Flames spewed from his mouth, and boiling magma flowed from the crevices in his armor!
Raging flames ignited on the blade of his axe. He let out a great shout and swept it horizontally. Sonya immediately retreated back to dodge. Then he suddenly rolled left to charge forward, and his axe morphing into a sword to viciously stab at Ashe who was sneak attacking with Heart Sword!
Ashe immediately stabbed his sword into the ground, activating the spirit beasts ‘Earth Sword’ and ‘Wind Wall’ to form a miracle – “Sword Wind Barrier”!
A bright yellow sword-shaped barrier perfectly encapsulated Ashe!
Clang!
The resounding clamor of the sword colliding with the barrier. Even as the flames on the sword were ground away by the wind barrier, Ashe didn’t retreat a single step. The barrier itself didn’t have the slightest damage either!
This defensive miracle with two spirit beasts as the core was like an impenetrable fortress in the sea of knowledge!
The attack was frustrated, but the flames in the axe warrior’s eyes still blazed. He let out a low roar, and magma gushed forth from his sword to viciously stab at the sword wind barrier!
“Joy, anger, sorrow, delight – all return to dust.”
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
With each resounding boom, the magma-spewing sword bombarded the sword wind barrier like a heavy cannon. Ashe’s arcane energy drained away like a waterfall, and the light on the barrier also dimmed, looking shaky as if it would shatter at any moment!
This was the axe warrior’s offensive miracle!
“Swordswoman!”
With Ashe’s shout, Sonya also finished her preparations. A steely light flashed on the tip of her wooden sword, slicing into the axe warrior’s armor as easily as cutting through butter!
At the same time, sharp fluctuations erupted from the wooden sword, turning into countless rotating blades that slashed the axe warrior into dozens of pieces!
After obtaining ‘Slash Sword’, Sonya’s ‘Rippling Slash’ could be considered fully complete. Because the vibration sword was strong in impact but not slashing damage, and the split sword reduced attack power to increase the area of effect, her previous ‘Rippling Slash’ looked intimidating but actually lacked sufficient damage.
But now with the sharpness granted by Slash Sword, Rippling Slash made up for the lack of attack power. Along with the wide area of effect and medium-short attack range, it could be said to be the most practical sword miracle for single-wing swordswomen!
The only problem was Sonya had just obtained Slash Sword, and wasn’t very proficient at combining them yet. It took some time to get used to it, which is why she hadn’t been able to find a chance to use it until now when Ashe attracted aggro, finally giving her enough time to cast it.
Of course, whether or not she intentionally wanted to watch Ashe get beat up was something no one knew.
“Compassion for all living beings, worries and troubles abound…”
With the final lamenting sigh, the axe warrior extinguished like flames, leaving behind four spirit beasts and a sorcerer handbook.
But neither of them hurried to collect the spoils of war. Ashe looked at Sonya, somewhat perplexed: “What’s wrong tonight? You haven’t said a single word, does your throat hurt?”
The swordswoman had been very silent since entering the virtual world. Ashe thought she was in a bad mood, but her not commenting once after the fight was very abnormal.
If it were before, she would first talk about her contributions in the battle, then point out Ashe’s mistakes in the battle, making Ashe unconsciously feel that he contributed very little and was full of gratitude towards her…
Huh? Wait a minute?
Thinking carefully, had the swordswoman been using words all this time to suppress him, making him dependent on her?
Just as Ashe’s corporate slave radar reacted, Sonya shook her head and angrily pointed at Ashe, then pointed at her own mouth.
But Ashe understood: “You mean it’s because of the random spirit beast summoning card taking effect, you’re in a summoning ritual and can’t speak?”
Sonya nodded.
“Then you can write. If there’s anything you want to say, just write it in the sand.”
Sonya suddenly realized and clapped her hands heavily. She used her wooden sword to write a few words in the sand.
“Observer, I curse you, you little loudspeaker.”
Ashe looked at Sonya as Sonya looked at the words in the sand, and said: “Turns out not only can I not lie with my mouth, even writing goes against my true feelings.”
In Sonya’s explanation interspersed with curses, Ashe quickly understood – she had randomly drawn the summoning ritual for the spirit beast ‘Sincerity’, a very simple ritual that didn’t require sweat like sword arts or large amounts of time learning like other schools. She just had to be honest and not lie.
To be honest, Sonya’s luck wasn’t too bad. Not only because spirit beasts from the Mind school were very rare, but more because this summoning ritual actually didn’t matter much for most people.
Like Ashe, he told the truth every day, yet no one believed he was wrongly accused as a cult leader right?
For other ordinary people, even if they had to tell the truth every day, they could try their best to hide at home and stay silent outside as much as possible.
But Sonya was different – she was the school idol, with countless people paying attention to her every move. Forget her not causing trouble, she had no lack of people causing trouble for her daily, some trying to curry favor, some with ulterior motives, some from school and some from outside school.
If Sonya had been a cool beauty from the start it would be fine, but the problem was she had previously been a good student, proper young lady, welcomed in the halls and adept in the training halls – the perfect character, even seen as the freshman sword flower.
Her sudden inability to lie gave people the feeling her character collapsed, that Sonya had gotten arrogant and no longer cared to maintain interpersonal relationships!
Ashe listened and laughed. Sonya got angry: “Are you mistaken? I’m in trouble now, shouldn’t you hurry and help me stop this ritual?”
“Sorry, I haven’t received professional training, I really couldn’t help laughing seeing your misfortune.” Ashe giggled and said, “But stopping this ritual, won’t you lose the ability to independently summon ‘Sincerity’ and be unable to raise your Mind school to the silver level? Is that really ok?”
Sonya hesitated: “If I continue this ritual, I’ll offend many more people over the next few days. Compared to them…the Mind school is clearly more important.”
After speaking, even Sonya was startled – was this what she really thought? Was she the type who saw individual strength as most important, willing to destroy her relationships for it?
“See, you’re the one who said it.”
“But at least help me pause it for a day! I’m going to MC the joint social in a few days, I must be able to lie then, or I’ll offend a lot of people!”
“I can’t do that.” Ashe spread his hands helplessly. “After I arranged your schedule for this week, even I can’t cancel it. At most I can temporarily add some special events for you, I can’t reduce your existing arrangements.”
“Useless! A weakling who can only control me through despicable means!”
“You’re right, after all the one controlling you isn’t me, but Aurora…my legacy from my previous life.” Ashe shrugged.
Sonya actually expected this. The observer’s ability to control her differed too greatly from the observer’s own strength, in other words the observer wasn’t relying on his current abilities to control her.
If it wasn’t now, then it was the legacy left by him as a legendary powerhouse, before losing his memories and reincarnating.
Perhaps this was why the observer kept relying on her – he couldn’t arbitrarily utilize that legacy. The legacy randomly chose her, so the observer could only try his best to help her grow stronger, then have Sonya give back to him once she reached a certain level of strength.
Sonya’s cursing just now wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. From entering the virtual world, she had been laying out her plans, using the label of ‘I can only tell the truth now’ to say some slightly over the line accusations, to get the observer to voluntarily reveal more information, without causing his dislike.
‘Sincerity’ could also be utilized.
Just as Sonya was carefully digesting the information Ashe had revealed, Ashe suddenly asked, “Oh right, Swordswoman do you dislike me?”
“I don’t dislike you.”
Sonya had just finished speaking when she covered her mouth, her willow brows almost standing upright – she was really angry now.
“I’m warning you, if you take this chance to ask about my inner secrets…” She said seriously, “I’ll resent you for life.”
“Sorry, my mistake, I shouldn’t have.” Ashe quickly apologized three times. “You have priority pick on tonight’s spoils to make up for it…huh?”
As he spoke, the four spirit beasts burst out by the axe warrior had unknowingly crawled onto Ashe. The most shameless one was a cat-shaped single wing spirit beast, constantly rubbing itself in Ashe’s armpits, as if it smelled really good.
Noticing Sonya’s puzzled gaze, Ashe explained: “I used an spirit beast excitement potion, the effects are stronger than the spirit beast joy elixir we drank, so the spirit beasts are clinging to me.”
“This potion will make spirit beasts take the initiative to look for us?”
“I don’t know, but it can increase spirit beasts’ favorability towards us, maybe it’s possible?”
The four spirit beasts were ‘Chop Axe’, ‘Incinerate’, ‘Magma’, and ‘Mangled Body’. Chop Axe was an essential spirit beast for axe warriors, effectively increasing the destructive power of axe and sword forms, it was quite interesting that it took the form of a cat.
‘Incinerate’ and ‘Magma’ were fire-type spirit beasts. The miracle they formed together almost blew apart Ashe’s sword wind barrier.
‘Mangled Body’ was from the Masochist school. Its effects were that the more heavily injured, the greater the recovery, resistance, and massive reduction in pain. So the axe warrior’s “natural miracle” just now was actually a common skill.
This battle also showed that the sorcerer projections they encountered grew increasingly powerful, from the very beginning with only a single spirit beast gunner, to this axe warrior with four spirit beasts and two miracles. The swift arcane energy growth led the Truth Seekers deeper into the sea of knowledge.
Unless they chose to give up, the virtual world would forever chase after sorcerers.
Sonya flipped through the sorcerer handbook for a bit before tossing it to Ashe. Ashe caught it and took a look, discovering it was a “Spoils of War Catalog” – looks like the axe warrior was a bandit before his death?
No, Ashe quickly dismissed his own idea. This axe warrior was probably a religious mercenary, or a mercenary with religious beliefs, because most of the spoils were contributed as supplies to the “Raging Fire Sanctum” mentioned inside.
For spoils that were resources, they would be offered to the Sanctum. For spoils that were sapient races, they would be developed into followers. Spirit beasts and miracle arts were also handed to the Sanctum for allocation. It was unknown whether the axe warrior had outstanding morals or if the Sanctum’s rules were harsh, but the axe warrior rarely embezzled spoils for himself, except for…
“Swordswoman, take a look here.”
“I’m not like you, indiscriminately taking anything greasy or vegetarian like a flirt.” Sonya spread her hands and said, “As you know, I can’t lie right now.”
Although Ashe felt she was taking the chance to openly scold him, and he didn’t even have the right to retort, he didn’t have evidence.
“It mentions the method to trigger a maelstrom.”
“A maelstrom huh, no wonder…” Sonya was excited, “It can trigger a maelstrom?”
Facing Sonya’s delighted gaze, Ashe nodded, “According to this, maelstroms can actually be manually triggered by the virtual world’s mechanisms!”
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