Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 207: Moon Empress vs Void Paragon

For a Weapon with Consciousness, not being used was torture. The sword was stuck in Jamie’s subspace for thousands of years with nothing to do, so it had induced itself into a deep slumber to prevent itself from having some sort of mental crisis.

During that deep slumber, Jamie had once summoned it to a different Universe called Valmone, where he was Projecting a portion of his soul, but that was a story for another time.

Anyway, the Galaxy Sword could never be at full power if its Ego wasn’t awake and said Ego was currently in a slumber deep enough that awakening it required rather forceful means.

Glancing at Lapis in front of him, Jamie unsheathed the blade and pointed it at her, questioning with a small smile.

"How about a little spar? Let’s see if you’ve slacked on your skills while I was asleep."

"You insult me, Sir Jamie. I would never slack on my skills."

Lapis maintained her calm expression as she spoke, and seeing this, Jamie’s smile widened.

"You haven’t slacked, you say? Let’s see about that, shall we?"

"..."

The woman went silent. To her, Jamie didn’t need to go through this roundabout means to find out if her skills had waned or not.

’He must be aiming for something else...’

She quickly arrived at that conclusion, a small sigh escaping her lips as she extended her hand towards the ground. The soil cracked and split, chunks of earth and stone rising from beneath her feet.

Attracted by an unseen force, the raw elements coalesced into a crude form, held together by gravity. Then she infused her alchemical powers into it and transformed the crude sword into a polished steel sword, pointing it at Jamie.

Both stood still on the barren sunlit field, swords pointed at each other in silence.

Suddenly, Lapis’ grip on her sword tightened and she shot forward with terrifying speed, closing the gap between them in a flash.

Jamie reacted instantly, stepping into a defensive posture. He raised the Galaxy Sword, the blade trailing iridescent mist as he brought it up just in time to meet Lapis’ initial strike.

Their swords clanged together with a sharp, metallic ring, sending vibrations up their arms. Jamie pivoted his body, using a traditional parry to deflect the attack off-centre.

Lapis rotated her wrist, transitioning her first strike into a rapid downward slash aimed at Jamie’s shoulder which he sidestepped, the mist from his Galaxy Sword trailing behind him as he used footwork to evade her attack.

They began exchanging blows, each attack releasing shockwaves that tore through the ground beneath them.

Lapis fought with a grounded style, her sword technique rooted in strong, earth-like stances built on classic principles—she maintained a low centre of gravity, attacking with controlled cuts, thrusts, and counters.

Jamie’s approach, however, was a fluid one that incorporated smooth transitions between offence and defence, exploiting the versatility of the Galaxy Sword’s nature.

He used impeccable footwork to always position himself just outside the reach of Lapis’ blade while preparing for counterattacks. He used techniques like feints and disengages to keep Lapis guessing.

When Lapis slashed horizontally, aiming to catch Jamie’s midsection, he rotated his wrist and parried, deflecting the blade downwards in a classic block. He then countered with a quick thrust aimed at Lapis’ chest, forcing her to shift her weight and use an inside block to redirect Jamie’s sword just inches away from her torso.

Flashes of light streaked across the sunlit plains as the two’s swords clashed in rapid succession.

Jamie swung low, aiming for her legs, but Lapis saw it coming from a mile away and shifted her stance accordingly, gripping the hilt of her sword with one hand while stabilizing the blade with her other, using the flat of the blade to block Jamie’s low strike.

She countered by stepping forward and driving her sword upward in a powerful thrust aimed at Jamie’s midsection, but Jamie twisted his body to the side to dodge her counter by a hair’s breadth, before retaliating with a quick diagonal slash aimed at her exposed flank.

Lapis raised her sword to block and then pushed forward, using her natural strength to push Jamie back.

She unleashed a flurry of sword strikes, each one forcing Jamie to take a step back, but she did not think for a moment that this meant she had the upper hand.

Jamie was the one who taught her almost everything she knew about combat—she knew besting him in a sword battle would not be so easy.

’Unless he lets me win...’

Such a thought crossed her mind as she continued to attack, however, Jamie responded with expert deflections, redirecting the force of her attacks rather than absorbing them.

His Galaxy Sword left streaks of shimmering light in the air with each movement, the iridescent mist swirling as if the cosmos themselves were bleeding into the battle.

Lapis used a powerful downward strike aimed to overwhelm, but Jamie ducked and sidestepped. As she came in with a crushing overhead swing, Jamie saw an opening and deflected her sword just enough to disrupt her balance, then pivoted on his heel, stepping inside her guard.

With a smooth, upward arc, he brought the Galaxy Sword within inches of her throat, the swirling galaxies on the blade seeming to expand as it neared her neck.

But Lapis wasn’t finished.

She instantly dropped low and thrust her free hand to the ground, and a chunk of earth shot up between them, serving as a barrier to break the momentum of Jamie’s strike.

Lapis created distance in that moment, narrowing her eyes at Jamie who didn’t seem to mind that she had used magic and just twirled his blade around lazily.

"Not bad."

Jamie said, taking a step forward, and in response, Lapis raised her sword once more.

"You’re holding back.

Let’s fix that."

With those words, she charged forward again, her sword flashing in the sunlight as she slashed vertically through the air, releasing waves of white energy that shimmered like the light of the moon.

The ethereal slashes tore through the air, aimed directly at Jamie, each one bending and rippling like light reflecting off a calm sea, dangerous in its beauty.

Lapis was known as the ’Moon Empress’ and that was due to her main magic attribute.

Moon.

Recalling this, Jamie simply tilted his body to the side, allowing the first slash to whizz past him, just a hair’s breadth from his torso. The second one came and he leaned slightly in the opposite direction, the shimmering energy rushing past him in a soft hum.

He moved barely enough to avoid the attacks but never lost his balance.

As the final slash passed him, Jamie nodded and spoke.

"Impressive. Your energy quality is higher than I remember."

Lapis did not respond to his praise and instead swung her blade towards his head and he met her slash head-on.

Their swords clashed with a sharp ring, and the force of the impact sent small shockwaves through the ground beneath them.

The shapes of the galaxies on Jamie’s blade changed rapidly as he deflected Lapis’ strikes. He suddenly feinted to the left, forcing Lapis to parry wide and then drove her back with a powerful thrust.

Lapis, caught off guard, took a step back, her heels digging into the ground as she tried to regain her footing. Jamie pressed the advantage, adding a touch of aggressiveness to his strikes, pushing Lapis back.

The two were near the base of a mountain, and with each step back, Lapis was edged closer to the rocky wall, however, she didn’t realise this until her back touched the stone of the mountain.

’How didn’t I-?! He did something!’

Lapis didn’t bother questioning how Jamie prevented her from sensing that something as large as an entire mountain was behind her and instead moved to get herself out of this trap.

She tried to teleport away as fast as possible, but before she could vanish, Jamie’s hand shot out and the space around her rippled like a disturbed pond.

He pulled her back through the fabric of space and prevented her escape, before asking with a teasing smile.

"Where do you think you’re going, young woman?"

"Tsk..."

Lapis clicked her tongue in annoyance and, with a sharp turn, launched a strike aimed directly at Jamie’s chest. He quickly raised his blade to meet her, and their swords clashed once again, the shockwaves blasting the mountain behind them to smithereens.

Now back in an ’open field’, they continued exchanging swift strikes, their blades clashing with rhythmic sounds, like the beat of a drum, growing faster and faster.

Suddenly, a mischievous grin spread across Jamie’s face and Lapis felt a chill when she saw it.

She instantly figured he was up to something but didn’t know what so she could only switch to the defensive, her focus sharpening and her attacks becoming more measured.

At first, she didn’t realise Jamie’s new target, but in the next minute, she noticed something peculiar.

Jamie’s strikes were getting closer and closer to her face, each one barely missing the glasses perched on her nose.

She frowned.

Jamie feinted left and then swung his blade from the right, his blade missing the tip of her glasses by a mere inch. Lapis’ eyes widened, and she immediately jumped back, creating distance between them.

Her hand instinctively reached up to adjust her glasses and her frown deepened.

"That’s not fair, Sir Jamie."

The woman spoke in a lightly exasperated voice. She removed her glasses carefully and held them up for a moment before slipping them into a small pouch.

"You know these glasses belonged to my grandmother, and you know how much they mean to me. Yet, you still targeted them."