Chapter 56: Don't Lie to Yourself Either
Reinhard watched the incoming onslaught, the corners of his mouth twitching upward in an almost imperceptible expression. He was smiling.
Yumesaki had once asked him if he had ever encountered an equal—an opponent who could force him to unleash his full strength. His answer back then had been no. Because he was simply too strong. He wasn't just exceptionally capable in every metric; he also possessed an absurd number of Divine Protections. With that divine backing, Reinhard had never found an opponent who truly challenged him in battle. Even across the entire Kingdom of Lugnica, he couldn't find a single enemy capable of making him push his limits.
But right now, in this world, having lost every single one of his Divine Protections, he had finally met someone who could.
He readily acknowledged that Esdeath was incredibly powerful. These Ice Cavalry units were exceptionally formidable as well. Each individual unit possessed the raw strength and speed of an elite heavy cavalryman, and their tactical coordination multiplied that threat exponentially. If the standard cavalry of the Kingdom of Lugnica were to encounter this Ice Cavalry, the outcome would be predefined: they would be trapped in a multi-layered encirclement and systematically worn down until they died of exhaustion.
Unfortunately for them, the opponent the Ice Cavalry faced was not the standard cavalry of Lugnica. It was him—the Sword Saint, Reinhard.
Reinhard bent his knees slightly, lowering his center of gravity. His left hand moved up to grip the hilt, shifting into a two-handed stance for the very first time.
An unprecedented pressure—one so immensely heavy it felt capable of collapsing the entire subterranean chamber—radiated from his body. The frozen ground beneath his boots simply couldn't withstand the residual weight of this energy, fracturing and caving in across a massive area as web-like cracks spread outward frantically.
This was a stance he very rarely showed anyone. In his home world, he almost never needed to use two hands on his blade, because there were simply very few people capable of forcing him to do so. But now, out of sheer respect for Esdeath's full-power assault, he would offer an equivalent display of his own capabilities.
In the next instant, he swung.
A brilliant, blinding fan of sword energy erupted forward, layering and stacking upon itself to form an unprecedented hurricane of raw force. It was, without a doubt, a strike capable of shaking the heavens and rending the earth.
The storm of ice spikes hurled by the rear ranks of the cavalry was shredded like scrap paper the moment it touched the periphery of this gale. The dozens of cavalry units charging in the front rank—their lances, their heavily armored bodies, and the dim lights burning within their eyes—instantly dissolved into pure destruction upon contact with the sword energy.
After obliterating the forces directly ahead, the massive wave of energy didn't dissipate. Instead, it continued its forward surge, erasing every single obstacle left in its path.
Watching the spectacle unfold, Yumesaki could only think of a single phrase to describe it: *like crushing dry twigs and sweeping away fallen leaves.*
Thousands of Ice Cavalry units, under the weight of a single strike, were completely wiped out. Not a single one survived.
The entire battlefield fell into a deathly, absolute silence.
Reinhard stood exactly where he had started, his long red hair drifting slightly in the freezing air, completely untainted by a single flake of frost. His breathing remained perfectly steady, his gaze entirely serene, as if he had done nothing more than take a single deep breath.
Then, he raised his head to look across the clearing at Esdeath.
Esdeath was down on one knee amidst the shattered ice. Her maid uniform was heavily torn and ruined, and her long blue hair hung messily over her shoulders, soaked in sweat and frost. Her entire appearance was incredibly disheveled.
The army she had poured the entirety of her strength into creating had been reduced to powder by a single slash. If it had been anyone else, they would have collapsed long ago, completely broken by despair. But Esdeath didn't. Her eyes were still burning. Deep within those ice-blue pupils, a light brighter than anything she had shown before was blazing.
The stronger the enemy, the more ecstatic she became.
Reinhard stood ten paces away, his blade already resting back inside its scabbard, his red hair catching the cold breeze. To any outside observer, Esdeath was clearly at the absolute end of her rope. But Reinhard knew better; this woman had no intention of accepting defeat. The burning light in her eyes told him everything—she wasn't done yet, and she still held a final trump card she hadn't deployed.
Reinhard was genuinely curious as to what that move could be. The Ice Cavalry had already left a massive impression on him, making him look forward to whatever she had left even more.
And Esdeath did not disappoint.
"You really are strong, Reinhard... you're far stronger than I ever imagined."
"To encounter a powerful opponent like you... it really is wonderful."
"I will risk absolutely everything to bring you down."
"Take this strike of mine—"
"Mahapadma!"
In that exact fraction of a second, without a single shred of warning, an impossible phenomenon occurred.
The world froze.
The wind died instantly. The floating ice crystals suspended in the air came to a sudden halt, looking as if they had been nailed directly into the fabric of space. The rolling fog ceased its motion, solidifying into milk-white sheets. Even the breath Reinhard had just exhaled stopped exactly three inches from his lips, no longer dispersing, no longer moving.
In this moment, even sound itself ceased to exist.
Mahapadma. The ultimate hidden art of the Demon's Extract—an absolute domain that froze both time and space.
Esdeath stood within this completely static world, the sole entity capable of movement within the frozen continuum. She lifted her leg, stepping smoothly through the motionless environment. One step, two steps, three steps... she walked straight up to Reinhard.
Raising her left arm, her fingers closed together as she directed the final, residual strength of her entire body straight toward his throat.
"It's over, Reinhard."
Yet, in that exact microsecond, Reinhard's sky-blue eyes shifted within the frozen time. His pupils tracked smoothly, locking directly onto Esdeath's face. Then, Esdeath watched as the corners of his mouth curved upward, softening into a genuine smile.
Her pupils sharply contracted. The fact that someone could actually move within this technique was completely beyond her calculations.
"I see. This technique... is truly magnificent," Reinhard's voice rang out.
Then he moved, his actions perfectly natural and fluid. It was as if the freezing of time and space was nothing more than a slight resistance in a running stream—present, but nowhere near enough to truly confine him. He reached down with his right hand, his fingers wrapping around the hilt at his waist, and drew the blade.
Watching from afar, Yumesaki couldn't help but offer a silent compliment. As expected of Reinhard, even a conceptual time-space freeze meant absolutely nothing to him. From the look of things, even stripped of his Divine Protections, this man was a pure, unadulterated cheat code.
The strike Reinhard delivered was breathtakingly beautiful—so exquisite that Esdeath found herself almost unable to look directly at the blade. The moment the sword swept out, the domain of Mahapadma shattered with a resounding crash.
Time resumed its flow, the wind picked up instantly, and the suspended ice crystals resumed their fall.
Esdeath felt an irresistible force travel from her fingertips up her arm, through her shoulder, and into her entire body, violently throwing her backward. Her boots left the ground entirely as her frame traced an arc through the air, crashing heavily onto the frozen surface ten meters away.
Yumesaki watched her slide a massive distance across the ice, only coming to a halt when her back slammed hard against the cavern wall. Broken ice splinters rattled down from above, dusting her hair, her shoulders, and her face. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but the only thing that surged up her throat was the metallic taste of fresh blood.
Yumesaki wasn't remotely surprised by the outcome. Back in his own universe, Reinhard had once demonstrated the ability to slice the world open and restore it with a single swing. Breaking through Esdeath's ultimate technique was well within his normal operating parameters.
On the other hand, Esdeath had reached the absolute limits of her physical frame. She had deployed multiple massive techniques only to have them systematically dismantled, culminating in being thrown clear across the room by a single casual counter-strike. Even for a combat fanatic like her, the accumulated damage from those consecutive impacts was immense. Her vision was rapidly blurring.
Through her fading sight, she watched Reinhard sheath his sword and walk toward her. His steps were perfectly steady, his expression entirely composed, as if the fierce clash that had just occurred had never even happened.
He dropped down onto one knee before her, his sky-blue eyes looking into her face.
"That technique of yours... if you had used it against anyone other than me, it would have been enough to kill them," Reinhard said with absolute sincerity. "It is an extraordinary move. You are truly much more formidable than I expected, Esdeath. I am thoroughly satisfied with this battle."
Esdeath wanted to laugh, but her body wouldn't let her. Her energy was draining away at an alarming rate, leaving her body feeling entirely hollowed out. The severe backlash from having Mahapadma forcefully shattered, combined with the extreme exhaustion of the fight, had completely squeezed out the very last drop of her stamina.
Her eyelids grew increasingly heavy, her vision dimmed, and Reinhard's composed face dissolved into a blurry halo of red light.
"What kind of... joke is that, you... bastard," Esdeath muttered weakly. "How can someone whose eyes... didn't change a single time... be satisfied?"
The moment the words left her lips, her body slumped to the side, collapsing onto the cracked ice as she lost consciousness entirely.
In the next second, a faint, almost imperceptible ripple vibrated through the air, and an Air Door materialized. Yumesaki stepped through the portal, his hands tucked casually into his pockets. His gaze swept across the heavily damaged battlefield, lingered briefly on the unconscious Esdeath, and finally settled on Reinhard.
"Tsk, tsk," he clicked his tongue, looking at Reinhard. "That fight was a lot rowdier than I expected. You two almost took down the entire thirtieth floor."
For the record, the Yumesaki who had just entered wasn't his actual physical body. As a God of Death, if his true essence entered the Dungeon, it would trigger a massive, catastrophic frenzy from the labyrinth itself. This version was a magical clone he had manufactured specifically for the occasion, possessing zero divine aura to perfectly bypass the Dungeon's perception.
Faced with Yumesaki's casual banter, Reinhard replied with a neutral expression, "She was exceptionally strong." There was no excess emotion in his voice, merely the statement of a plain fact. "If her power had been even a single level higher, or if her stamina had lasted just a bit longer, the final outcome could have been entirely different."
Yumesaki rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself from retort, "I don't believe you for a second."
Let alone Esdeath being a single level stronger—even if her overall power had doubled, whether she could actually defeat Reinhard would still be a massive question mark.
"You can probably get away with lying to other people, but don't lie to yourself either."
Reinhard stood silent. For a brief moment, he genuinely didn't know how to respond to Yumesaki's comment.
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