Chapter 138 - 139
As was a general rule among the three, Zech limited the amount of swordsman’s aura around his blade and also dulled its edges, assuring that the tip was blunted. The technique that he was about to use was called the singular lunge, which was quite difficult to use in an actual fight as it involved very subtle rotations of the shoulders and hips, with careful weight redistribution at the feet while focusing all of one’s strength on a single point in order to maximize the damage output.
While Jaden had yet to master the technique that he was now faced with, he had watched his friends use it many times and had received several in-depth explanations on its use from Alistar. Knowing this, he adopted the same defensive stance that Zech had used moments before and attempted to swat the tip of the oncoming sword aside while sidestepping the length of the blade and dashing in for a ruthless strike. Only, Zech’s move had been a feint to draw the other boy in, at which point he locked their swords together and then kicked Jaden in the stomach with all his might.
Jaden slid several paces backwards across the ice, throwing up an immediate defence that repelled Zech’s follow-up strikes, at which point Zech put some distance between the two of them and shifted his sword from one hand to the other while shaking the apparent numbness from his forearm.
"What do they feed you at the orphanage?" Wincing, he shifted his weight onto the leg that hadn’t been used for the previous kick.
"Living with Woods? Hardly anything."
"Then how are you so soli—"
Having recovered from the previous attack, Jaden seized the moment of his friend’s weakness to dash forward and lash out with all of his strength. Zech caught this vertical cleave with the face of his weapon, buckling to his knees as his eyes widened in understanding. A moment later, he tilted his horizontal blade downwards ever so slightly to redirect Jaden’s weapon to the frozen ground at his side, but was forced to dive out of the way after his sword was cut in half.
"What the hell, Jaden? You could have killed me!"
"I stopped using swordsman’s aura as soon as I broke your sword."