33 Risen#re

Lirian frowned and took a step back, he was used to always being attacked first in his past lives, he managed to react quickly but it was a surprise to see someone from a great family acting dishonorably.

'Maybe, I pushed him to far,' he thought and adjusted his posture.

Alastor opened up with a simple sword form called 'A Thousand Cuts', it was mainly built up of slashing techniques with a total of 27 movements, the form was made to make the opponent slowly bleed out over the course of a battle.

Lirian shifted his posture from the 'Wobbly sword', and matched Alastor's form perfectly, the harmony of their strikes rebounded of each other, and with every strike it looked like two balls running into each other at the exact same speed, as the balls struck each other they would immediately go their separate ways.

Lirian glanced at his system and smirked, his body reached 87 over the years, his mana hit 50 and his mind broke 123, his strength would no doubt surprise Alastor, he even felt Alastor probe his energy centre's only to find that Lirian was naturally so strong.

His pupils shrank, the strength behind that little body was hard to believe, but he had done a proper probe and found nothing out of the ordinary.

As he grew bored of using a single form Lirian switched it up, he continued using the same type of slashing attacks but moved his feet closer and closer to Alastor's to trip him up it was a sword form more suited to a short sword called, 'Locking Vise', where you keep close to the opponent by locking their feet.

The form was designed to prevent one's opponent from making any big moves, by keeping them pinned down.

Alastor had to admit that Lirian had talent, being able to mix different forms while still so young was a marvelous achievement worth celebrating.

He quickly imitated Lirian and implemented another form into his movements and pushed Lirian back, and almost as quickly Lirian started to add more forms into his footwork and strikes.

It appeared like an overwhelming tide of strikes moving in on every opening like steel attracted to a magnet, and suddenly Lirian kicked his ankle and knocked his sword to the side, without even realising it Alastor fell into Lirian trap.

He became so focused on trying to figure which forms each move was coming from due to Lirian mixing in so many that he failed to realise that Lirian switched to a single form and completed every movement in sequence, which created a massive opening that even a toddler could exploit.

As he saw Lirian's sword thrust coming closer he washed away the combined sword forms and entered into the next stage of swordplay, Free Striking.

Sword forms were just a guide for someone to learn how to use a weapon, combining multiple forms showed great skill, especially for someone of Lirians age.

In truth, most people took about twenty years to study the forms before they ever attempted to fuse them, as a mistake could cause many problems to the muscles.

Form fusing was a very delicate process, that people would deliberate carefully on for weeks before attempting to fuse them, form fusing depended more on one's control over their own body rather than just incorporating different styles together.

One's height, physical strength, dexterity, insight into the way of the sword, and several other aptitudes could influence the success of form fusion.

Form fusing took even the most talented of people about a century to master, but that was just the baby steps of swordplay, Free Striking was where real swordplay began.

Alastor pulled his legs and arms in and grasped the pommel of his sword with both hands and cleanly intercepted Lirian's strike, a clean and crisp ring sounded across the field and the screeching swords came to a standstill as they pulled apart.

Miss Hira's eyes quivered frantically, to call it an embarrassment for the commander to use free striking against a student was an understatement but what was even more terrifying was Lirian himself.

Not only did he force a seasoned combatant a saint no less, which is the class most proficient in close combat to use Free Striking but at the very last second, Lirian washed away the forms as if it were second nature for him and entered into Free Striking.

She'd dare to say that the ease with which he did it put even the commander's grace to shame.

The forms use a series of movements to build up tension in the muscles, the build-up of tension increases the power behind every strike and as a battle continues the tension grows with it.

By combining forms it is easy to mix up the tension in one's muscles and in doing so reduce the effectiveness of the forms and in many cases it is possible to pull a muscle or create knots in the muscles and in bad cases, people would tear their own muscles.

For a 14-year-old child to already effectively mix forms perfectly was incredible but to reach Free Striking was impossible without a great amount of experience.

Free Striking is when someone gains perfect control over their every muscle allowing them to create the tension in an instant without using the forms to build it up, it's a level of control that takes the very best at least a century to master.

Free striking is the most important discipline for any close-ranged combatant as it allows them to freely attack however they wish to, hence its title of Free Striking.

"Why do you look so shocked already?", Lirian asked rubbing his chin while looking at Alastor's trembling eyes, "It's just Free Striking, honestly if this already shocks you, I take back what I said about you earlier."

"You're not a frog in a well, but rather a worm whose heads been stuck beneath the soil unable to experience the light of the sun, how pitifully ignorant you are!", Lirian sneered not even pretending to hide the disdain in his voice.

"I hope that you don't hold onto a cup of tea with what I'm about to do next, we wouldn't want you crushing it like a fool," he added with a derisive chuckle.

The students didn't understand enough to understand just how exceptional Lirian's performance was but they were in absolute awe of his skill he managed to push back the commander several times and force him to try harder, in their books Lirian already won, but the last insult Lirian threw out flew over their heads.

Even Alastor paused for a second, narrowing his eyes as he wondered what Lirian was saying when he remembered his reaction to the footage of Lirian, his eyes trembled as his face lost several shades of color going pale.