'Rather than just looking at Eternal Arms Mastery and Arondight, it will be more direct to test them. Azure, show us your talent.'
With Wu Ling's permission granted, Azure possessed Sasaki Kojiro. Wu Ling tossed him a long blade.
The instant Azure caught it, Shade seemed to flip some kind of switch. With a roar, he charged at Azure. During that time, Wu Ling and Rose hurriedly activated the barrier covering the entire house.
Shade, clad in pitch-black armor, wreathed in black mist, and radiating a mad aura, swung a kitchen knife at Azure.
Watching this extremely mismatched scene from the side, Wu Ling silently covered his face with one hand.
'Sorry, Shade. I did not mean to.'
The scene looked ridiculous, but Azure, the one facing it, did not dare relax at all.
Azure raised his blade to block. Then he seemed to think of something, turned the motion into a pivot, and barely avoided the strike with a backward jump.
With a boom, a small pit appeared where Azure had been standing. After dodging, Azure wiped imaginary cold sweat from his forehead and muttered, 'So this is the difference between Strength C and Strength A. On this magically reinforced ground, I can at most leave a few blade marks, but this guy just smashed out a pit.'
Then Azure quickly shouted toward Wu Ling, 'Hey, main body, hurry up and give me a new sword and reinforce me. With this guy's strength, if I had not dodged just now, the sword would probably have broken and I would be dead.'
Wu Ling nodded in agreement and first made Shade pause. 'Right. I almost forgot. In the original work, Sasaki being able to push back Berserker probably had Medea's support. Otherwise, if Berserker brought that stone axe down, a mere ordinary sword might break several times over.'
After that, Rose applied Reinforcement to Azure, while Wu Ling projected a long blade for Azure. While he was at it, he also made one for Shade. Watching Shade wave a kitchen knife around had made Wu Ling want to laugh too.
Once every preparation was complete, the fight began again.
Azure adjusted his breathing and took his stance. Shade covered his long blade with Knight of Owner.
'Roar!'
With Shade's roar, his body vanished from where he stood. But Azure, with Mind's Eye, could easily sense his position.
With Rose's Reinforcement, Azure could block Shade this time. After a fierce sequence of impacts, the long blade covered in Reinforcement Magecraft and the long blade covered in blood-red markings collided.
At first, Azure could still easily suppress Shade. But after only a few exchanges, Azure's expression turned serious after their blades clashed again. In that strike, he sensed the shadow of technique.
Watching the increasingly intense flashes of blades in the courtyard, Wu Ling said to Rose, 'So this is Eternal Arms Mastery. Refined martial skill praised as unmatched in a certain age, allowing mind, technique, and body to become one. It lets him display powerful combat ability without being affected by any mental influence.'
'Relying on this skill, even in a berserk state, he can still display his original skill. In the original work, Lancelot (Berserker) showed it clearly when fighting Gilgamesh, dodging and catching one Noble Phantasm, then using it to knock down a second.'
'But compared to martial technique, I feel this is more like a state. Just now, the legendary Lancelot, who should never have used this kind of single-edged long blade, went from only chopping at first to now already having a certain pattern of attack.'
'Even if it is only instinct, he can still use instinct to learn and master techniques.'
Rose glanced at Wu Ling, whose smile had appeared at some point, and immediately understood that the main body was excited.
Among the first three Spirit Rings, Sasaki Kojiro's swordsmanship had already been learned by Wu Ling to a high degree. Even if Heroic Spirit Sasaki personally appeared, Wu Ling had the confidence to stand against him without falling behind.
Hassan of the Hundred Personas and Medea, however, did not have much to do with martial technique. Hundred Personas knew many things, but precisely because it was too mixed, Wu Ling had not focused on learning it. As for Medea, a Caster, Wu Ling had handed her entirely to Rose.
So when Wu Ling, who had practiced swordsmanship for a long time, saw Shade display Eternal Arms Mastery, it felt like getting a second dish after eating the same one for too long. That was why he was so excited.
After that, Shade's swordplay became increasingly polished. But Azure's swordsmanship was also top class. Even if Azure occasionally gained the upper hand, he could not find a chance to kill.
Finally, Azure deliberately exposed an opening and pulled away from Shade, taking his stance and preparing Swallow Reversal.
While pursuing, Shade seemed to sense something. One moment, he threw his blade to the ground. The next, the black mist vanished, revealing a face that looked eighty percent like Wu Ling's. Then a pitch-black double-edged sword appeared in Shade's hand.
Seeing that newly appeared sword, Wu Ling narrated the information passed to him by his Martial Soul. 'That sword is the holy sword, Arondight: The Unfading Light of the Lake. Arondight, like Excalibur, is a treasured sword entrusted to humanity by the Lady of the Lake. Because they share the same origin, its toughness can even rival Excalibur.'
'Fairy letters are engraved across the blade. Its defining traits are a brilliance like lake water shining beneath the moon and an edge that never breaks. But because Lancelot used this sword to kill Knights of the Round Table, it lost its qualification as a holy sword and was classified as a demonic sword.'
'This is Lancelot's true Noble Phantasm, only released after sealing his other Noble Phantasms. When he draws this sword, all his parameters rise by one rank. Because he also has the story of having defeated a dragon, it deals additional damage to Heroic Spirits with the Dragon trait.'
'By overloading the perfectly still light of the lake, the magical energy hidden inside overflows and is converted into an attack. Originally, that energy should have been released as a slash of light, but because of Lancelot's sword technique, he closes in and releases it when he strikes the opponent. So in FGO it appears as a single-target Noble Phantasm, though it was originally an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm.'
'Because that is not its original method of use, it increases single-target attack power while placing a heavy burden on Lancelot himself.'
Shade raised Arondight and stepped forward, entering Azure's three-meter range. That step was like pulling a trigger. Swallow Reversal instantly descended toward Shade.
Facing slashes coming from three directions at once, Shade chose to protect his fatal points. He used Arondight to block the strike aimed at his neck. The other two cuts landed on his arm and thigh respectively.
Fortunately, Shade's armor was thick. After cutting through the armor, Azure lacked enough remaining force. He only wounded Shade's flesh. The tendons and bones underneath were unharmed.