Chapter 349 Woman Of Madness [Part 2]: Demon Of Adaptation
She lunged again, her spear aimed straight for his heart.
Northern sidestepped, bringing Gengar around in a sweeping arc.
The staff's twin blades clashed with her spear, sending a shockwave through the ground beneath them.
Dust and debris swirled around them, caught in the tempest of their battle.
The woman's eyes gleamed with a wild light as she pressed her advantage, her spear slicing through the air with a deadly elegance.
Northern met each strike desperately. There were imperfections here and there but he was honestly trying his best.
The twin blade staff, he had never used anything like it, although everything about it was perfectly resonating with him but that was not just it.
The timing of the strikes, the unconventional movements, precise and accurate calculation of his strikes, he had no control over any of those.
And was forced into a desperate defense from the lady's strikes.
She paused and looked at him with a slight smile on her face. She moved her eyes to the weapon in his hands and moved them back to his face, hers still besmirched with that little smile.
If Northern could describe her, he would call her a psychopathic beauty.
She had dark eyes like she had not slept for days; she had stressed lines beneath her eyes too. Her hair was rough and had a dark brown hue to it.
It looked so unkempt, the only thing appealing about her was her armor which was more like a uniform. Her spear was a beautiful weapon with a blending color of red and black.
Thin and long. A deadly and beautiful weapon indeed.
While his seemed so… crude.
The lady shifted her leg back, drifting through the sand, then lunged forward, running towards Northern. Immediately she approached him.
A vehement and violent throw of her spears from all sides began. Northern felt like he was being attacked by multiple angry hornets in a disturbed hive. The tips of their spears, glinting with a malevolent light, stabbed towards him like a relentless swarm.
Northern tried to parry, to block, to deflect but his tries were like a clueless child attempting to grab every snack that came his way.
At some point, it looked like the lady's spear was playing tag with him and his crude weapon.
And through it all, she had that irrefutable expression of disappointment.
An expression that told Northern he wasn't measuring up at all. It was much worse than the one before; at least a couple of minutes ago when they started she looked like she was enjoying him.
But her expression right now just made his insides churn with anger.
The unfamiliar weight and balance of the twin-bladed staff added an extra layer of difficulty to the already intense fight.
Each time he swung to block, he felt the awkwardness of the weapon, its unwieldy length testing his coordination and timing.
And she? She moved with the unpredictability of a storm!
Her attacks coming from all angles, each one more aggressive than the last!
Her extremely malleable pattern of movement caused Northern to struggle to adapt. His mind and body were straining to keep up with the chaotic rhythm of her strikes.
Even though adaptability is his forte. He was finding this one harder than any other.
Her combat style seemed like it was specially built to throw off one's own style; this was not a style fashioned to kill monsters!
This lady was not just any kind of seasoned fighter.
She seemed like a person that had lived for a singular purpose ever since she was born.
To kill.
The ground beneath them became a battlefield of dust and debris, each step and movement sending up clouds of grit that stung his eyes and throat.
A swift downward slash came from her right.
Northern barely managed to block it, the force of the blow pushing him back a few steps.
He tried to counter with a sweeping arc, but the move was slower than he intended, the unfamiliar weight of Gengar throwing off his timing.
She dodged effortlessly, her mocking laughter ringing in his ears.
"Is that the best you can do, Northern?" she taunted, her voice dripping with manic excitement. "I expected more from you!"
"Who the fuck are you to expect more from me?"
Northern gritted his teeth, his frustration mounting.
He swung Gengar in a wide arc, hoping to catch her off guard, but she was already moving, her spear slicing through the air towards his midsection.
He barely managed to twist out of the way, the blade grazing his side and drawing a thin line of blood.
Immediately she licked her lips and smiled as if she was enjoying the taste of his blood.
Northern felt a sharp sting on his side, but that pain served to focus his mind.
He couldn't afford any more mistakes.
He needed to find a way to turn the tide of this battle.
Remembering the words the faceless voice… Sura had said to him, Northern adjusted his grip on Gengar, trying to find a more comfortable and effective way to wield the twin-bladed staff.
Most had been done because the staff felt so perfectly fitted into his hand no matter what point he held.
But Northern at this point felt like perhaps there had to be a more comfortable point, like a point of equilibrium which he would find to be the best.
At least this should allow him to easily shift his hands through the length of the staff to effectively swirl and swing it with ease and not feel his precision and accuracy lacking.
He didn't know how he knew; at this point, he felt like it was something he knew because of his experience with battle.
The incessant swings of his sword whether it was training or battle.
All of those experiences were now building his battle IQ and improving his grasp on this thing called Combat.
All to think, he was at one point clueless. He finally found the grip that felt so natural.
Perhaps it was because Gengar was a weapon of Chaos, he could feel this sense of merge. It was like the weapon was not on his hands at the same time it was.
The weight seemed to completely disappear at the point he was holding it. But Northern knew it didn't.
This just allowed him to be able to accurately calculate the entire weight of the weapon and determine his strikes, the angle they come from—weight after all played a huge role in the impact of attacks.
He lowered his head a little and spread his legs moving into a slightly low stance as he held the weapon to his side with both hands, breathing out, with a steamy breath from his mouth.
"Chaos Art form one…"