Chapter 27: The Bowel Hunter vs. Leander
"No!"
Subaru shouted anxiously.
The scene before him was a replay of Elsa's battle against Old Man Rom.
Elsa sidestepped the sweeping guandao effortlessly, and her right-hand scimitar slashed toward Leander's waist.
But Leander was no mere civilian like Rom.
The strike collided with his armor, showering sparks, and the rebound knocked Elsa's arm back.
In the next instant, Leander's guandao smashed into the ground.
What should have been an even clash tipped decisively.
When Leander's blade hit the earth, it was as if a fragmentation grenade had exploded—except the fragments were stone instead of shrapnel.
Leander's armor emitted a sharp, dense sound as Elsa, using her left hand, drew another sword from her back to defend.
Still, multiple stone fragments struck her body, sending her reeling and spraying over ten streaks of blood.
Even Subaru, standing 50 meters away, felt the sting of the impact.
The ground bore a crater nearly half a meter wide where the blade struck.
Without hesitation, Leander launched a follow-up attack, swinging his guandao horizontally at the wounded Elsa.
She barely dodged by bending low, while a few sparks lit up from the collision between Leander's gauntlet and Elsa's blade.
Leander ignored the light damage and again smashed the weapon into the ground.
Though Elsa hastily retreated and used her dual blades to block, fresh bursts of blood bloomed across her body.
"Ah, the pain—this is the feeling of being alive!
So that's it. I thought you were just a brute with strength, but it turns out you don't need anything else.
Technique, speed, reflexes—they're meaningless to you.
Leave defense to your armor, and focus solely on attack. How wonderful."
Elsa licked her own blood from her hand, wearing a look of ecstasy.
"A monster who feels alive only at death's door… I wonder, if I crushed your corpse under a boulder, would you still revive?"
Leander retorted coldly.
"It seems you only have one life when fighting me—and unlike the blessing of Earth, yours doesn't regenerate wounds."
As if confirming something, Leander smiled and charged again.
Whether due to prior injury or the realization she only had one life, Elsa became far more cautious.
Each time Leander struck down with his guandao, she retreated rapidly.
Her agility was incredible—just one second was enough for her to create over 20 meters of distance.
Modern fragmentation grenades have a kill radius of only 5–15 meters; even though Leander's ground-shattering technique exceeded that, Elsa's retreat was enough to stay safe.
"Have you no honor as a warrior!?" Leander roared in anger.
Still, he diverted his attack to swat away a short blade thrown toward Subaru.
This was both to protect Subaru and because Leander needed accurate information about this attack.
"Warrior? First and foremost, I'm a killer, a mercenary. Completing the job is what matters most."
Elsa replied. Her voice, however, carried fatigue.
Blood poured continuously from her wounds, staining half of her black outfit a dark red.
The ground, too, was soaked.
The blood loss had cost her much of her agility.
Yet her eyes were locked on Leander's waist—specifically the spot she had spent six broken blades to damage.
"What a shame. If you'd listened to that brat and abandoned him earlier, you'd have won. You could've protected your mansion too."
Elsa grinned as she pointed behind Leander.
"A mansion can be rebuilt. We are the inheritors of Reinhild's will. I believe the others will understand. And I need him—for the information he provides." Leander maintained his flawless stance.
Elsa smiled.
She rushed forward, tossing her dulled, jagged left-hand blade at Subaru.
The knight instantly changed his ground-splitting slash to an upward leap.
"Foolish."
Elsa muttered as she dodged with a sliding maneuver.
Holding her curved right-hand blade with both hands, she slammed it down onto the cracked section of Leander's armor.
This was an attack she'd learned in desperate conditions last week.
Her blade and his armor shattered together, even as Leander's guandao cleaved through the distraction.
Smiling cruelly as she anticipated the counterattack, Elsa drew her final weapon and struck the same cracked spot again.
This time, her scimitar began to sink into the armor.
Leander raised his guandao, but Elsa no longer needed to retreat. In mere seconds, she would dig out his intestines.
What would the bowels of such a noble knight look like?
Her blade struck something hard.
Elsa immediately understood—it was armor.
The man before her wasn't wearing just one layer of armor.
Normally, such heavy armor would be a burden even for elite knights, yet this man moved fluidly while wearing two layers.
She had been defeated by the Divine Protection of Strength.
No, more than that—she had been defeated by wealth.
The kind of armor that had broken so many of her blades—she knew exactly how expensive it must have been.
Her weapon stuck fast. Some material between the two layers of armor had trapped her blade.
"Who's the fool now?" Came the cold voice, with an equally cold stare. Elsa understood—she was the prey.
Her arrogance had led her right into his trap.
Without hesitation, Elsa abandoned her blade and jumped back.
But she knew—it was already too late.
At that critical moment, something collided with Leander's weapon.
A metal ball, roughly the size of a human head, covered in spikes—a flail.
A weapon connected by a long iron chain, like a lethal bowling ball.
The violent impact slightly diverted the trajectory of Leander's guandao.
"Flora..." Leander muttered at the familiar voice.
In the next instant, sparks exploded from his arm.
After two successive heavy blows, Leander's perfect strike finally revealed a small opening.
Elsa seized the chance and escaped the danger zone.
"Rem and Ram!" Subaru called out the names of Elsa's unexpected reinforcements.
"Why?" He asked aloud, but in his heart, Subaru had already guessed.
So that was what Ram meant by seeking death.
"Everything is for the sake of fulfilling that person's wish." Said one of the girls.
"What person? What wish? Speak clearly!" Subaru shouted back.
"Enough. Sister doesn't need to speak to this guy."