F-ranker Sword Saint: My Soulbound Sword is Secretly SSS-tier!-Chapter 362: A Lesson in Cold Steel

Daru didn’t even need any warning from his comrades.

Before him as he turned was an oddly familiar face, one he had buried in a mythical den once.

Ae’shkar was out for blood, moonlit eyes blazing for a fiery revenge.

Daru and his comrades, ahead in numbers as they were, were all spent. Even the princess was almost out of consumables.

"Die!!"

The tall and lean Veshari, once with white hair — now bald, stabbed viciously in a quest for vendetta.

Daru had very little time to react, much less do anything else.

But he had time to pose ridiculously...

With a deafening clang, Ae’shkar bounced off his body, to its furious wielder’s utter bewilderment.

"What?!" roared the Veshari as he stabilized his footing a few meters away from his target.

Somewhere to his side, another skirmish had begun between his two SSS-ranker comrades and the three SSS-ranker humans.

They were outnumbered, and it seemed illogical to attack, but they did so anyway, grabbing firmly on the opportunity to lay ruin upon their enemies’ advantages.

They didn’t have to win.

They just needed to kill at least two spent and wounded humans. With Sylvares around, Ae’shkar wasn’t too worried.

He just needed to worry about and defeat Onimaru Kunitsuna, his mortal enemy — the adversary who handed him his first memorable defeat.

The day remained fresh in his mind, as though the Somber Swamp Disaster had just happened yesterday.

Ae’shkar had dreamt of this moment for months now, sweating blood in his mission to avenge himself one day.

He was even ready to slow-cook his vengeance for years.

Who could’ve expected that the bastard would actually be selected as the representative of his race in the Yggdrasil Race?

That his chance would come around so soon?

Then, to the curse of the five moons, the hateful human said:

"Who are you again?"

Ae’shkar froze, his heart threatening to burst in sheer bewilderment and pristine wrath.

After everything he went through — the nights he couldn’t sleep as the greatly disappointed faces of their grove’s elders burned in his mind — he...was forgotten by the one who inflicted such a thorn in him?

Like a mad beast, the SS-ranker Veshari roared to the moonlit heavens, exploding forward.

Was he not remembered? 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Fine, he’ll make him remember...

Daru, meanwhile, asked because he found the guy’s face a bit familiar. It was just that he couldn’t remember where he had seen the guy.

He would’ve focused on that Veshari Party in Kazuraga’s den to identify, but the enemy was already upon him.

Daru sheathed his tachi, then countered with the Seven Glasswind Slash. All seven struck his moonlit opponent, but his attacks only passed through.

He got a closer look at his opponent’s face, muttering as he swiftly tumbled to the side: "Ah, I remember now..."

Unfortunately, Ae’shkar didn’t hear him, still lost in anger.

A massive silver crescent tore the winds and the outer layer of the ground open as it passed through Daru’s previous position.

Immediately as he settled, Ae’shkar was reaching for him again.

The Veshari was as fast as ever.

Yet, Daru found it hard to be fazed, especially after fighting the Elite Gray Ateles Mortis and surviving its enraged onslaught.

His mind and focus were somehow sharper than ever after his memorable blunder against the massive monkey.

None of the sounds around him mattered.

The skirmishes — both the close and the farther one between two monkey tribes — were ignored, and he only focused on Ae’shkar’s movements.

The tall Veshari was a shooting star, streaking everywhere as though untethered by the ancient and undefiable laws of physics...but Daru was a shadow swallow, always darting out of harm’s way at the last moment.

This greatly frustrated the already frustrated Ae’shkar.

And this...was Daru’s plan. His mind was so clear that, despite the powered-up opponent, he was able to concoct something that tapped into combat psychology intuitively.

He knew his foe would become more irrational the more he bided his time.

It was difficult to capture a timing on someone so fast, but just one...

He just needed one good hit from one good angle.

Daru was not scared of Ae’shkar’s raw strength; he was just making it look like it.

The Veshari would simply not be as strong as a level ninety-five elite death monkey, plain and simple.

So...he executed his scheme well.

With every evasion, his foe boiled over, and while the monkey skirmish was dangerously close to concluding to whatever end, all he needed was one moment.

It soon came.

Standing right in front of a tree, he courageously Swallow Stepped forward, ducking Ae’shkar’s strike.

As soon as his momentum stopped, he turned, swinging with all his might — Mountainsplitter activated — as his instincts encouraged him ten times over.

His foe was bound to be there.

Every little thing that had happened in their sudden duel contributed to this inevitable action from the SS-ranker Veshari.

In the next moment, a satisfying clang rang as Ae’shkar’s face, maddened with anticipatory vindication, instantly turned into a frown, then disbelief as he was sent flying...and crashing straight into the tree.

"PUHAAHK!"

Red cubic particles burst into the air as the Veshari felt both air and consciousness flow out of his body, and he was only able to hang onto a bit of the latter through sheer will.

But he was far from having his wits about him to defend himself from the incoming attack.

The muscles in Daru’s arms bulged as he thrust forth, the air around his tachi turning ghostly cold.

At the last moment, however, a hand appeared out of a spatial rift that suddenly opened, pulling Ae’shkar in.

His Spectral Thrust only hit the dead tree, almost toppling it over as splinters of wood flew everywhere.

"We’re retreating," declared the Veshari named Sylvares.

A second later, the three grays simply vanished as if they’d never been there.

Daru looked around in confusion, finding not a single enemy around.

"H-Hey, fool! Stay with me!" Elara’s voice boomed, a tone softer and slightly shaking in budding anger and bewilderment.

There were three of them and only two of the opponents.

Till the very end, neither she nor Durandal noticed that a hole had already been punctured in Peter’s throat, and before they could even get a response from the Aziyan SSS-ranker, the light in his eyes dimmed.

It was partly true that the three of them had been a bit too complacent, but regardless of the reason, Chi Xiao became a casualty in those short few seconds of battling the enemy representatives.

Sylvares gave them a cold wake-up call that the Vesharis are not to be taken lightly.

This lesson was engraved deeply into the remaining human trio’s hearts.