Chapter 538: Heartseekers
Before her head could fly far from her body, Sofia extended her upper cervicals into a spike that stabbed into her neck, and promptly reconnected the bones.
When a follow-up strike came right after from the opposite direction, she was already expecting it and managed to place her shield correctly in the way. The blade dug into the bone but stopped before it could reach the shield’s mithril core, and the swordsman pulled his blade back before Sofia could riposte in any way, jumping back into the flames.
Fast, but not that strong.
Since it looked like the fire was useless and obscured Sofia’s vision more than anything, she unsummoned the choir, and started channeling a piercing bolt over her scepter instead. Knowing that she was the lesser swordsman and with lackluster speed, she decisively summoned a mana pearl from her storage and threw it in her mouth before the enemy attacked again. The thinking speed bonus the pearls from [Crystalized] was going to be precious here to be able to even perceive the enemy’s attacks, Sofia thought. With her preparations ready, she jumped to the offensive, switching to the Chaos state of [Dodge - me] for the bonus speed.
Another sweeping horizontal sword strike came for Sofia’s neck from the right, and this time, she was able to properly react and block with the scale armguard. These moments where she blocked the swordsman’s strikes were the only times she could clearly see him, and she used that opportunity to strike with the bolt, using it as a longsword.
As she used her blocking arm to attack, the sword was free to go for her head, but she could just heal that up a second time if she had to, yet instead, the sword phased through her arm to block it from the other side preventing the blot from reaching its target and locking the two fighters in a standstill for an instant. With the bolt as her weapon and her ability to reconnect lost limbs in an instant, the power dynamic had switched to the swordsman being the one on the defensive.
Sofia and Rekosi locked eyes. Sofia knew she was stronger and could break out of the standstill but with how fast the zombie was, she thought he was likely to dodge anyway, so she instead sent a sneaky burst of mana toward the swordsman.
Rekosi pulled away before the mana could reach him, jumping to the other side of the room.
Very perceptive for a zombie.