A Clash of Irregulars

"Arms Inventory Visible Mode," I mutter while having a black void aura emanating from me in direct contrast to his light. My Inventory becomes visible, and I take out Rebellion. And reinforce it with my Black Hole Sphere Shinsu Control as well giving it a sinister look.

"Arms Inventory Invisible Mode," I whisper, making it invisible.

"Hmm? You are a swordsman? I wonder how you compare to that old man." He just crosses his arms to see what I will do next while completely looking down on me, which he has all the right to at the moment. But that doesn't mean I like that.

I know I feel like a whiny bitch but nobody should like the feeling of weakness. And seeing the man in front of me just makes me realize how weak I truly am. Still, I suppose it just makes reaching that level of power, all the more fulfilling for me.

Yeah, let's go with that for now.

And so done with my inner monologue, I look at Urek and just charge at him at my full speed and power.

I reach him in around a millisecond while completing my third slash at him. He just stops my attack with his fingers. There are no shockwaves from my attack that affect our surroundings because I think Urek mitigated them with his Shinsu Control. That's the only conclusion, I can come up with.

"Whoa, wait a minute."

He says while releasing my sword.

"If we just fight normally like this, it would be quite unfair to you and that will be boring. So why don't we play a game?"

I just nod my head as if to say, "Go on."

"In a few minutes, Zigena will flip its body. The flower that you are looking for is up there, we will fall near it when Zigena flips. If you get that flower before me, then I will give you that flower. Otherwise, you can just forget about it. Additionally, I will only use 1% of my power to make it a bit fair."

After finishing his explanation, he looks at me with a smile.

"So what do you think? Are you up for it? Oh and if you want a fight before that, I am up for it."

"Okay."

I just give an unenthusiastic reply to him. And start my assault on him again. This time he just doesn't defend he attacks with his fingers at a mind-numbing speed too.

While a few seconds of this back-and-forth occurs, I hear a notification from my Pocket that makes me smile.

So I doubled my efforts on improving myself through this battle, Urek just seemed partly amused though.

He then yawns exaggeratedly and says, "Boring!"

And just flicks his finger in my direction. This results in a massive Shinsu Tsunami coming towards me and hitting me hard. It hit me so hard that my A+ Rank sword Rebellion cracked.

"Baby, is that all you got? Tsk tsk, I suppose I expected too much. You are not a natural Swordsman, so there is no way you can defeat me by imitating someone else." He looks at me with what I feel is a bit of genuine disappointment.

That disappointed expression just rubbed me the wrong way. So I decided to just go all out for once.

I form a massive Void Black Orb above my head and the entire Zigena heats up from the inside, it even starts shaking.

Just as it starts to shake too much, Urek suppresses the heat from Shinsu with his own.

"Hey, there is no need to harm Zigena even if you are offended by the truth," Urek says with a smirk and I just answer that by adding my black flames to Rebellion and striking at him.

Urek's smirk vanishes in a brief moment and is replaced by an irritated expression, as he flicks his finger once again which completely obliterates my attack.

And I lay down on the ground (or whatever the insides of Zigena are called) from the result of the attack.

My sword cracks even further. What am I missing here? Is my physical strength holding me back? Am I not supposed to be a close-range fighter?

"Baby, how many times do I need to tell you? Don't imitate others," He says again in a partly amused and partly irritated face.

But I don't want to acknowledge him, I mean I spent so many years refining this swordsmanship and he just says that it's a wasted effort. That I am just not suited for it. Fuck him, he doesn't know me.

And there is a voice inside my head that agrees with me, that this is the right path to more power.

"Well in 10 seconds, the Zigena is going to flip. And this short game will be over. Sadly for you, it will be my victory."

I get up immediately and stretch my limbs. While he starts the countdown.

"You can jump to the opposite side now, I can give you that much of a handicap and I will come for you when the countdown is over."

I just suppress my anger at his looking down on me and just smirk while jumping towards the opposite through the massive hole created by Urek before.

I land on the opposite side easily and stabilize my footing.

I then check my Pocket for the notification.

<>

"Just as planned."

I smirk a bit, at least something went according to plan.

I just message them to come to my coordinates in a couple of seconds.

As I wait, for the Zigena to flip in a few seconds. I take a look at my cracked Devil sword.

"Well, I should try this maybe it would work. After all, I do need more Power."

After all, even if I won my little game before it began. I still don't feel I have done enough.

So I do the obvious thing that a protagonist does when he wants more power, that is take the sword, point it towards myself, and stab myself with it. Hwaryun just comes and sees this with others. She doesn't panic like them, however.

Urek just raises his eyebrows at this. But inside me, I just feel a massive surge of power and a new ability. There is also this huge silhouette that wants to come out and take over but I just push it down. My body is amazing.

I can now manipulate my body's time. In limited instances even the time around me if there is no interference from others. It's the power of the Devil inside the sword, it was named Dahaka it seems.

But before I can revel in this power. Urek interrupts me and says, "Let's get the party started, babies."

"Sorry to rain on your parade, but I already won Mazino."

"Eh?"

His resulting shocked expression was hilarious to see.

***

So that was the chapter, I know it wasn't great. But I realized that this couldn't have been a great fight anyway so I cut it short. I also decided against MC becoming a swordsman because of certain reasons. He will become the type of fighter that suits him.

Hopefully, it wasn't too cringe. Since I just edited this chapter from my old drafts of it.

Also, I decided to do both. I will continue this fanfic with slow updates since I am not really in my writing flow. And I would also write the new fanfic. Both will have a very irregular update schedule.