Chapter 250 Training (2)
Chapter 250 Training (2)
In the sky laden with mist, the sun found it a herculean task to penetrate the mist and grace the land of vampires with its presence. Under the watchful eye of the mist, a beautiful garden was flourishing with plants that no werewolf had ever seen before.
However, at this moment, the spectators gathered around the garden were not appreciating the beauty of the flora, but the ones clashing swords in their midst. The loud sounds of metal clashing had left everyone mesmerised. After all, it wasn't every day Alucard used his 'soul sword' to spar against someone.
The soul sword wasn't an ordinary sword. It was a weapon that had a will of its own, hence the name 'soul sword'. Unlike other weapons, Alucard didn't need to wield this sword himself, all he need to do was to think about what he wanted to do with the sword and it did it all by himself.
It was also a weapon that was the closest to Alucard as her mother was the one that blessed the weapon, providing it with a soul in the process. Thus, when Alucard used the sword to its full potential, it almost felt like fighting two Alucards at the same time.
But for now, Alucard decided to use the sword as usual, because he wanted to teach Ashton, and not test him. Not yet, at least.
"Oh, so you're already applying what I told you yesterday? Impressive." Alucard praised Ashton, "However, you're still full of openings."
He then kicked Ashton's exposed abdomen, forcing him to take a couple of steps backwards. Although Alucard used about 70% of his strength behind the kick, Ashton did not feel an ounce of pain. The only thing the kick managed to do was to push him back a bit.
"You are so used to attacking others, that you don't know how to defend your openings," Alucard once again emphasised his shortcoming, "You take too much time to switch from offence to defence and even then, your defensive form is only half-assed. Thus, even your defence is a tad bit useless."
"Focus on defence. Got it." Ashton replied and got back into his battle stance, "Let's do this one more time."
"Oh, don't worry about that." Alucard smiled, "We'll do it as many times as I need to beat it into your head."
"Look at him go. I can't remember the last time he had this much fun." Verina said with a smile, "I wonder if he's doing this for his own training or for Ashton's"
It was a rare sight to see Alucard spar with someone because there wasn't anyone in their kingdom that was strong enough to challenge him. As a result, he only ever practised with his soul sword.
But now that someone stronger than him was standing in front of him, Alucard was more than happy to spar against Ashton to assess both of their strengths and sweat a bit himself... the only thing was, it was impossible for a vampire to sweat.
"I think I understand why father never taught us the soul art," Irina mumbled.
"Why?"
"Maybe only someone with a soul can master that art. Since we have none, we can't?"
"I'm pretty sure that isn't the reason. Still, we can ask him about it later. Let's watch them for now. Who knows, maybe we'll be able to learn a thing or two?"
Their swords clashed once again, but the result remained the same. However, it wasn't as if Ashton wasn't improving at all. he no longer senselessly charged at his target but took a moment to analyse their posture, their demeanours, everything.
Basically, he was taking in every bit of information he could about the target before coming up with a plan to beat them. Even though, all that was a failure in front of Alucard.
'If only I could use my abilities...' Ashton thought as he was pushed back again.
[They are the reason why you never perfected your skills at swords. The only thing you did was perfect your abilities and skills which made you overpowered. What would you do if your skills did not work against a certain enemy?]
'Yeah, yeah, I get it.'
Before Alucard started his training, he had made one thing absolutely clear. Ashton wasn't allowed to use any ability, it didn't matter whether it was an active ability or passive. Because the training was to enhance his swordsmanship and not his battle aptitude.
To ensure that his passive abilities didn't work 'passively', Ashton had to wear a special cuff that disrupted the mana links within his body, rendering him unable to use mana at all. Alucard also used the same cuffs. But since he didn't require mana to use the soul sword, it didn't matter too much to him.
However, the cuffs themselves weren't too staring and Ashton could rip them off whenever he pleased. Since the cuffs were designed such that in an emergency, they would not limit the abilities of the one using them.
"Did they decide to stop?" Verina asked her sister who was much more knowledgeable when it came to swords.
"No, Ashton is about to do something-"
Before Irina could even complete her sentence, Ashton disappeared from their sight. However, he wasn't using any ability or item. It was his own speed that he hadn't been using till now.
The sisters weren't the only ones shocked to see the speed at which he was attacking Alucard. For the first time since they started sparring, it seemed like Alucard was on the backfoot. His speed had forced Alucard to use his full strength as well.
"The best defence is a good offence huh?" Alucard smiled, "Why did I even bother to lecture you about defence?"
He was forced to use swing his swords hard in order to merely block the strikes coming at him at blinding speeds. Dodging the strikes was out of the question because one wrong step could lead to a bunch of shattered bones.
Not only that, Ashton's ability to use his sword to jab his enemies at such speed was astonishing.
'I got this!' Ashton thought to himself as he launched an attack at Alucard's back, however, his attack ended up getting blocked.
"Congratulations, Ashton. You just cleared the tutorial." Alucard said as he let go of the soul sword to defend his blindspot, "Now the real training begins."