"The mock battle between His Highness Raphael and Sergei has begun."
The moment Michael struck his hand down, Sergei and I dashed toward each other. Before the first clash, Sergei lunged his sword forward with his one hand. From what I had observed, he was putting a lot of speed on it.
In response, I just swiftly spun around, avoiding the sword, and graciously swung my sword horizontally along with it, aiming his nape. Sergei immediately read my movements before he reflexively turned around and raised his sword downright while putting his palm on the other end of the sword to block the attack.
Clink!
Due to our levels, which were higher than most of the people in the courtyard, all the things happened in the matter of a few milliseconds. Our initial clash happened so fast that many of the onlooking knights could not comprehend what just happened.
"You got good reflexes, Sergei," I complimented as we crossed our blades still.
"Even though you are a lot younger than me, your strength is something else, Your Highness."
Shortly after he said that, Sergei swung his sword hard and pushed me away. For additional dramatic effect, I made a back flip, which Sergei took advantage of. As I was about to land and still in the air, Sergei suddenly posed a stance, and then he immediately released his move.
"Sword Wave."
When he swung his sword diagonally, a fast, sharp wave was made, and the Level 5 Sword Art technique was flying precisely toward my landing spot at an incredible speed. I decided to avoid it by conjuring a Level 1 Spacetime Magic spell, Foothold, and using it to do a double jump, successfully evading the Sword Wave.
Whoosh!
The wave quickly passed below me, and it was currently flying toward the crowd. In reaction to that, the knights on the spot where the Sword Wave would hit instantly began to panic and ran away from the spot in fear, leaving the place vacant.
But when the wave was only a few meters from hitting the spot, it suddenly had been stopped by an unseen force. At the same time, the translucent panel that seemed to block the attack manifested for a short time before the wave dissipated in the air.
The crowd was baffled by what happened to the Sword Wave and what stopped it. The truth was, before the match started, I had deployed some barriers to protect the audience from any stray attack.
When I landed on the surface, I thought it was the right time to take the offense and lunged at him. Sergei then accepted my invitation, rushed forward, and crossed swords with me.
Clink! Clink! Ching!
We then began exchanging swings and slashes, but we only clashed our blades together as we could predict where they would land. We had been targeting one another's blind spots, but the blades were either blocked or parried.
When our blades collided, I could not help but admit that Sergei had great skills with swords. His swordsmanship was almost flawless, and each of his swings was sharp and heavy.
He was somewhat as skilled as me in pure swordsmanship if we exclude stats and techniques, and he had a wide dynamic range of techniques available. No wonder he could challenge the first half of the dungeon floors alone.
Almost immediately, Sergei activated Martial Art Level 6: Dash technique and lunged himself at the stationary me in a tremendously fast speed. Just a few feet before he reached me, he slashed his sword at me and executed his technique.
"Hundred Slice"
In a matter of a second, he swung his blade a hundred times. In response, I casually countered it with a more powerful technique.
"Thousand Slice."
"?!"
Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink,
Upon releasing my move, the first one hundred strikes instantly parried each of Sergei's slashes, which snapped our sword. After that, I intentionally missed the remaining slashes and directed their shockwaves toward him instead, sending him flying until his back hit the barrier.
Crash!
Dust briefly obstructed our vision, and it subsided eventually, revealing the battered body of Sergei; his garments and gear were now all tattered. He was still breathing, though, and conscious but awfully exhausted.
Normally, he would not have survived being attacked hundreds of times, even if they were just shockwaves. That was why I toned my slashes low enough for him to sustain the damages.
Michael approached Sergei and scanned his condition. Judging that Sergei could not fight anymore, he announced the results of the match.
"Sir Sergei is unable to fight. I hereby declare His Highness Raphael the victor of this mock battle."
"Woohoo!"
When I was declared the winner, the knights erupted in cheer. But winning was not my intention in this battle. Once I approached Sergei, I immediately cast High Heal to treat his injuries.
"You did well, Sergei."
"But I lost..."
"That's not the reason for our battle. Win or lose, you just proved that you are more than deserved to work for us. With your strength, you can be immediately promoted to a captain position. But for now, I will assign you under Michael as his deputy to gain experience. Are you okay with that?"
"That's more than I could wish, Your Highness."
From that moment, Sergei had become our knight under the supervision of Michael.