The dragon's harem - C.910: How to Slash; And the Woman of Ice

As the hot arid wind blew through the rocky desert, Arad stood on a large boulder staring at Kayden who was standing in the distance. He had already learned how to accelerate and how to teleport mid-acceleration for greater movement efficiency.

This day was the third in his training, and Arad didn't have a clue about what was awaiting him. He looked at Kayden, wondering what kind of lesson was awaiting him.

Kayden unsheathed his katana and looked at Arad, "Today we'll try cutting things." As He slowly lifted his katana, Arad could hear the blade screaming as it contacted the air, ripping it apart. It rumbled like a chainsaw, and the ground beneath Kayden's feet started shaking.

The katana suddenly went silent and a massive demon appeared before Kayden. The giant monster stood almost three meters tall, muscular with dark purple skin, two horns on its forehead, and a long black and leathery tail.

Arad gasped, with just a single look he could tell how powerful that demon was, he wasn't an ordinary existence.

The demon extended his arm forward and Kayden put his katana on it. "If I push down directly, my sword won't cut his skin." After a good push, Kayden lifted his sword to reveal that the demon didn't have a single mark on his skin.

"Slashing is achieved by moving your blade across something to slice it." He once more laid his katana on the demon's arm and with a slashing motion, he managed to get a cut in. Arad knew that, so it wasn't something new.

Kayden wasn't done explaining, and what he had in store was bound to shock Arad. "But look at this." Kayden repeated the same motion and the demon didn't get cut. "There is a common method to resist such slashes. That is what makes ordinary slashes useless against the most powerful beings. So, you'll need a new way of cutting."

Kayden once again lifted his katana and it roared, "You're a void dragon so this should be easier for you to achieve than normal people." He showed Arad the katana, "The edge has two sides, a left side, and a right side, you can see both of them taper down. Listen carefully, as I'll explain what you must do."

Kayden approached Arad and pointed at the blade, "I want you to control the space around each side of the edge separately. Deform it forward by a tiny bit toward the tip of the blade, drip it down a bit, and then pull it back. Like using a saw. Do it for each side separately and make sure that when one side is getting deformed forward, the one is deformed backward."

As Arad looked closely at the katana, Kayden took it back toward the demon and dropped it on his arm without any force. The katana fell right through the arm like it was made of air, cutting it. "As you can see, it can cut with ease. It's like having two powerful saws moving beside each other."

Kayden opened his palm and his katana flew into his hand and disappeared, "Do it right, and you'll increase your cutting capacity, do it wrong and your blade will shatter." Kayden put his hands together as the demon behind him healed. Countless swords fell from the sky and grew from the ground, for several kilometers, all that Arad could see were swords growing from the ground like grass.

"I want you to be able to use it with different types of edges. Those are all swords, and bladed weapons from all over the world. Some are powerful, some are old and rusty. Use them, and try to master this." Kayden pointed with his thumb at the demon behind him, "I want you to kill this demon. He's fast and strong and extremely hard to cut, but his attack power is quite low."

"What about that defensive move? The one where slashing won't work?" Arad asked.

"You can cut through it with this skill." Kayden replied, "But if you want to learn it, you won't be doing that today. Since I don't want you to reverse use it to cut, I want you to learn how to cut first." He knew that if Arad learned how to protect his body against slashes with a barrier, he'd find a way to bypass the demon's defenses, and that was bad. He wants him to learn how to actually cut, not cheat his way through.

"So, I'll learn that eventually?" Arad looked at him with a smile.

"Tomorrow if you learned how to cut today, I'll teach you how to defend against attacks of all types." Kayden turned to leave and Arad called him out, "Where are you going?"

"One of my orphanages has an event today. The kids want me to sing for them, and I'll have some papers to do in the afternoon. Those who grew old without getting adopted are going to be sent to training ground to learn a craft so they can provide for themselves." Kayden took a step forward, "See you in the evening." He silently disappeared, like a ghost, even Arad couldn't track his magic.

"What kind..." Arad was about to speak when he sensed demonic magic engulfing him. He stared at the demon that Kayden left, sweating.

The demon stood and roared, the ground around him cracked as he lunged at Arad with a clenched fist.

Arad grabbed one of the swords and swung it at the demons, only to have it shatter upon impact. He had expected that. Arad had tried a normal slash in his first attack and concluded that he indeed couldn't cut him with normal means.

After dodging the attack, Arad grabbed another sword from the ground and tried to do what Kayden told him, only to have the blade explode instantly. When shifting the space between the two sides of the blade's edge, the blade won't be able to handle it and will crack instantly. It was like trying to bend ceramic dishes or glass, those things would shatter before bending. When using Kayden's technique, the swords would vibrate at a high frequency. But since not all swords were the same, each one of them had different thresholds of vibration that it resists before shattering. To be able to use this skill with multiple swords, Arad must figure out and learn how to tune the vibration's frequency and intensity based on each sword.

Since all the swords and weapons weren't made equal, there wasn't a single rule to use.

Arad ran across the whole battlefield while grabbing new swords and attacking the demon with them, even after an hour, not a single sword had survived. Even if two swords looked identical, even a slight difference in how they were cooled or treated would cause them to have extremely different profiles and thus need a different tune.

All that Arad could do was go by feelings and guesswork.

****

Isdis walked through the hallway, barely able to drag her legs. Each time she moved a step forth, her hips felt as if they were about to crack. There is escaping it, she has to rest tonight. She had tried, but sadly she couldn't handle Arad alone for two days straight, and the potion she had from Hati had worked against her.

She must find a way to get stronger, even Mira had become a demi-goddess and her stamina and durability are slowly rising with time. With each passing day, she felt more desperate, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was getting left behind out of her heart.

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! As Isdis was drowning in her sorrow, she heard the sound of armor clacking. She slowly lifted her head, and her eyes fell on a strange figure. For a second, she thought she was looking into the mirror, but she wasn't wearing any armor, and the woman before her looked more mature.

With long flowing hair and burning blue eyes, the woman wearing a set of silver armor stood at the end of the hallway, staring at Isdis. Isdis noticed the words written on the woman's chest plate [Absolute Zero]

The woman slowly lifted her hand and Ice longsword appeared in her hand. Isdis immediately formed an ice sword to use as the woman charged forth with a thrust and blocked her attack,

"Who are you?"

The woman didn't respond and swung her sword several times, but Isdis managed to deflect all of them. The woman's attacks seemed strange, but familiar as well, even if she was too fast for Isdis to actively defend against, she was able to predict them.

Alice took a step back, staring at the woman who looked a lot like her with a confused face, "Ruris's Royal Swordsmanship? And the old-school art at that? Who are you?"

The woman finally spoke, her voice gentle and soothing like cold ice on a painful and swollen wound, "So you aren't completely incompetent. My name doesn't matter, but if you want to know... Isbert Silver Ruris..."

"The..." The moment Isdis gasped, she found herself standing in the middle of an ice storm, buried to her waist in snow. Her skin started to freeze and die as she looked at Isbert standing

before her.

"Control the cold, you've got my blood. Find peace in the cold, beneath layers of ice."