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Chapter 320: Pre-Initiative
Looking at the elf girl collapsed in a pool of her own blood—her right leg twisted and deformed, the light entirely drained from her eyes—a surge of retroactive terror gripped Aiden's heart.
If he had arrived even ten seconds later, this strong yet fragile elf, this avenger who shouldered an unbearable burden of sin and agony amidst her despair, would have undoubtedly died today.
"ROOAARRR—!!"
Inside the Juggernaut's hollow sockets, the blood-red orbs burned brighter and brighter like exploding supernovas. It let out a roar drenched in fury and sadism.
Within its primal, chaotic consciousness, it couldn't comprehend why its hunt had been interrupted. Even less could it tolerate a creature daring to challenge its absolute authority head-on.
In response, Aiden simply raised the Godslayer: Surtr, its blade roaring with crimson lotuses of flame, and pointed the tip steadily at the pitch-black monster.
No superfluous words. Not a shred of hesitation.
The battle instantly detonated!
Accompanied by another deafening roar, the Juggernaut moved.
At the exact same moment, Aiden moved as well.
The hard crystal ground beneath both their feet shattered explosively. Countless crystalline fragments were kicked up by the violent air currents, only to be crushed into fine powder by the even more terrifying shockwaves midair.
Two figures—one pitch-black as ink wrapped in a blue-purple glow, the other fiery red burning with white-gold flames—turned into two blurred, maddeningly crossing streams of light on everyone's retinas.
A hyper-intense, close-quarters melee that completely surpassed the realm of mortal comprehension erupted.
"How... is this possible...?"
Dozens of meters away, Ryuu—still tightly guarded behind Asfi—widened her emerald eyes, which were slightly unfocused from blood loss. She stared fixatedly at the center of the battlefield that had transformed into a storm of destruction.
No one understood the Juggernaut's terror better than she did. This was the absolute Calamity that had unilaterally and effortlessly slaughtered the elites of the Level 4 Astrea Familia. It was pure speed. It was pure power. It was a flawless, unreasonable biological weapon existing solely for the purpose of slaughter.
But now... Mr. Aiden was...
Ryuu's heart swelled with worry and self-doubt.
Clang! Clang! Clash! In the center of the battlefield, crimson slashes and blue-purple claws collided, crossed, and separated at a maddening pace within fractions of a second. Every swing of Aiden's sword left gashes of varying depths across the Juggernaut's black exoskeleton, scattering droplets of blue-purple sparks.
Just as he had anticipated, the monster's speed and power were maximized to their absolute limits, but the trade-off was its defense and durability—its most glaring weaknesses.
Simultaneously, the Juggernaut's claws, sharp enough to rend steel, left gash after gash on Aiden's body. Strangely, however, every time those indestructible claws seemingly struck a vital point, they merely grazed his body by the slimmest of margins.
The blazing Everlasting Flames wrapping his form acted as a remarkably resilient second skin. The moment the claws made contact, the flames erupted with astonishing heat, drastically sapping the momentum of the strikes. Combined with Aiden's superhuman, limit-breaking reflexes, he consistently managed to execute the most precise evasions with minimalist movements at the critical second, forcibly reducing disemboweling fatal blows into harmless flesh wounds.
Thus, while the battle appeared to onlookers as a brutal, bloody brawl between two afterimages tearing each other apart, the reality was entirely different. From the very first second of the clash, Aiden had seized complete, absolute dominance.
As time marched on, the wounds on the Juggernaut multiplied and deepened, while Aiden's breathing remained perfectly steady, his offensive flowing like an endless tide.
Aiden didn't use any magical bombardments. He knew perfectly well that the most crucial piece of intel on the Juggernaut was its pitch-black armor—it possessed the near-unsolvable property of Magic Reflection. Any form of attack composed directly of magic would be deflected, absorbed, or even returned to the sender.
However, enchantment magic was exempt from this rule. The fire generated by the Everlasting Flames was not a pure magical blast, and naturally fell outside the scope of Magic Reflection.
Screech—! Another claw strike from the Juggernaut was solidly caught by the flat of Aiden's Godslayer: Surtr. The terrifying force—enough to split the webbing of a Level 5 adventurer's hand—transferred to Aiden, only to vanish like a clay ox entering the sea.
Aiden rotated his wrist, tilting the blade slightly to masterfully redirect the massive kinetic energy to the side. Immediately capitalizing on the deflected momentum, he launched a devastating crimson slash, sweeping sharply upward and slamming viciously into the Juggernaut's lower jaw.
Godslayer: Surtr was a Spirit Weapon. Its structural integrity was directly tied to the power of its core Spirit—Murata Himeko. As long as Himeko's power wasn't drained, the sword possessed the absolute attribute of being virtually "indestructible," impossible to be broken by any physical attack in this world.
Therefore, even the Juggernaut's claws of destruction, capable of effortlessly shredding super-hard metals, failed to leave a single scratch on the sword after countless collisions. Instead, the claws sizzled audibly, burned by the high-temperature flames coating the blade.
"ROAR!!!"
With its jaw heavily battered, the Juggernaut unleashed a howl of ultimate agony and rage.
Aiden's eyes narrowed slightly as he calmly analyzed the state of the battle. In terms of pure speed and power, the Juggernaut indeed held the upper hand, even surpassing his current state.
But that was all there was to it.
On the level of "technique," he held a crushing, absolute superiority. The Juggernaut's assault was ferocious and berserk, but a monster was still just a monster. It relied entirely on its over-specced physical capabilities to execute the most primitive attacks. It had no system, no rhythm. Its attack trajectories and intentions were perfectly predicted by his meticulously forged combat intuition.
If one had to describe his current state with a single term, it would be: Pre-Initiative.
The very moment the Juggernaut formulated the intent to attack—even before its brain could transmit the command to its limbs—his body, utilizing ultimate reaction speed and logic-defying combat instincts, moved first. In doing so, he achieved an absolute, guaranteed first strike.
As a result, this brutal battle in the cavern had been flawlessly dragged entirely into Aiden's rhythm.
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