Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

The Dread Queen cleared her throat loudly, forcefully slapping her cheeks with both hands to snap herself out of her shameless fantasy.

”Ahem! Right!” Morwenna announced, her voice slightly higher-pitched than usual.

She walked over to the weapon rack, picking up a fresh wooden training sword and handing another one to Silas. ”Moving on! It’s time for the Second Style of the Tidal-Blade Arts!”

Silas took the wooden sword, raising an eyebrow. ”Alright. What’s the name of the Second Style?”

Morwenna held her wooden blade in front of her, offering him a mysterious mischievous smirk.

”I’m not going to tell you the name just yet,” Morwenna replied smoothly. ”Only after I’m done with the live presentation will I reveal its name.”

Silas thinned his lips, thoroughly suspicious. ”Why the mystery?”

Morwenna didn’t explain. She simply dropped into a strange unusual combat stance, her raspy voice filled with an ominous warning.

”Just come at me with everything you’ve got, Captain. Because... this presentation is going to be quite painful for you. And while you attack... try your best to perceive what’s happening.”

Silas looked at her serious expression, letting out a quiet sigh through his nose.

’As long as she doesn’t go after my ass cheek...’ Silas thought, ’it’s fine. A little physical pain during sword practice is normal.’

Silas raised his wooden blade, carefully analyzing Morwenna’s new stance.

Morwenna was holding her wooden cutlass unusually high... positioning the blade high above her right shoulder with her elbows flared outward.

To any trained martial artist, this stance was completely absurd.

By holding her sword that high, her lower torso, stomach, and ribs were left completely bare, wide open, and exposed to an immediate thrust or slash.

’It’s really going to hurt for Captain...’ Morwenna thought internally, feeling a brief pang of sympathy for him.

Truth be told, Morwenna actually disliked the Second Style slightly.

Out of all the various techniques in the Tidal-Blade Arts, the Second Style was the one that had taken her the longest time to master... requiring decades of intense atmospheric perception and core refinement back during her ocean days.

In a logical martial progression, a style this complex and painful should have been placed much later in the curriculum... perhaps as the Tenth or Eleventh Style.

But Morwenna loved variety!

In her mind, training should never be boring or predictable.

She preferred a rhythm where the First Style was easy, the Second Style was brutally hard, the Third Style was easy again, and the Fourth Style was a nightmare!

That chaotic unpredictable progression kept her mind sharp and her combat instinct razor-focused.

”Ready when you are, Captain!” Morwenna called out!

Silas didn’t hesitate.

Seeing her stomach left completely wide open and exposed by that bizarre high-sword stance, Silas’s instincts told him to exploit the opening immediately.

BOOM!

Silas exploded forward across the stone floor at high speed, he closed the distance in a fraction of a second, bringing his wooden longsword around in a devastating high-speed horizontal thrust aimed straight into her bare undefended stomach.

However...

That glaring undefended stomach opening was exactly what Morwenna wanted him to target.

The second Silas initiated his forward thrust—

Morwenna activated the technique!

’Tidal-Blade Second Style...’ Morwenna thought.

FWOOSH.

A subtle invisible pulse of high-pressure water mana erupted into the ambient air around Silas’s body.

To Silas, nothing seemed to change but to Morwenna... her entire perception of reality underwent a mind-boggling cosmic shift.

Time visually slowed down to a crawl.

In Morwenna’s hyper-focused perception, Silas’s high-speed forward thrust looked like a snail crawling through thick molasses.

But more importantly... the pressure-sensing water aura surrounding his body instantly highlighted dozens of microscopic flaws, delays, and structural weaknesses in his combat stance.

Lines of glowing blue light current materialized across Silas’s body in her vision... pointing to a slight weight imbalance in his left heel, a microscopic delay in his shoulder rotation, an open gap under his armpit, and an undefended rib alignment!

Naturally, Morwenna targeted the weakest and most vulnerable flaw!

ZIP!

Morwenna didn’t block his sword and she didn’t dodge backward.

Pressurized water mana violently erupted through her legs like a roaring ocean rip-current.

In an instantaneous terrifying burst of velocity that completely bypassed the concept of linear speed, Morwenna vanished from his line of sight.

BANG!

”UGHHH!” Silas let out a sharp painful groan of agony.

Before Silas’s brain could even register that she had moved, a brutal strike from her wooden cutlass slammed flush into his exposed left ribs.

The impact knocked the breath straight out of his lungs, sending him stumbling three paces forward.

Silas spun around, gasping for air, only to find Morwenna standing behind him with her back casually turned to him, her wooden sword resting on her shoulder.

’What the fuck...?!’ Silas thought, his golden eyes wide with utter shock. ’How did she get behind me?! I didn’t even see her pivot!’

Refusing to yield, Silas grit his teeth, reset his footing, and launched a second attack... He executed a lighting-fast diagonal slash aimed at her back.

SWISH!

Morwenna’s gray eyes glowed with a bright sapphire-blue light.

ZIP!

Time slowed down for her once more as she saw the new flaw in his wrist alignment instantly.

BANG!

”AGHH!” Silas groaned again as her wooden blade struck his right shoulder joint with pinpoint brutal precision, completely canceling his swing before the wood could even touch her clothes.

”Heh,” Morwenna chuckled softly with her voice cool and relaxed.

Silas gritted his teeth, his Gold Core roaring as he launched a third ultra-fast thrust.

ZIP... BANG!

”URGH!” Silas groaned a third time as her blade struck his hip joint, throwing his balance entirely off.

Silas refused to give up as he gathered every ounce of his Gold Core speed, unleashing a furious four-hit combination slash.

ZIP... KRA-THOOM!

Morwenna didn’t just counter the fourth attack... she executed an instantaneous explosive rip-current step that brought her wooden cutlass slamming straight into the center of Silas’s solar plexus with catastrophic physical force!

”GHA-HAKK!”

The brutal blow completely knocked every single drop of air out of Silas’s lungs.

His vision flashed white, his knees buckled, and his wooden training sword slipped from his fingers, clattering against the granite floor.

CLATTER! THUD!

Silas collapsed flat onto his back on the cold stone floor, his chest heaving violently as he desperately wheezed for air with his entire body drained of physical energy.

”W-What... the... fuck... just happened...?” Silas wheezed out, his gravelly voice cracking as he stared up at the vaulted ceiling in total bewilderment.

Morwenna walked over, standing beside his fallen body, looking down at his sharp, wheezing face with a proud, breathtaking, and radiant smile that illuminated the torch-lit room.

”This,” Morwenna announced softly. ”is the Tidal-Blade Second Style: Rip-Current Perception.”

She leaned down slightly, her stormy gray eyes sparkling with love and pride as she delivered the final truth of the style.

”And as you can tell, Captain... this technique allows me to see the future.”

Silas laid in the center of the vault, holding his half-broken wooden practice sword while staring at Morwenna with a deadpan unimpressed expression.

”Future sight?” Silas raised an eyebrow. ”I immediately call bullshit.”

Morwenna froze for a fraction of a second, held her breath, and then threw her head back, bursting into a loud unrefined laugh that rattled the torch sconces.

”AHAHAHA!” Morwenna cackled, wiping a tear from her eye as she rested her wooden sword against her shoulder. ”You caught me, Captain! I can’t actually see the future!”

Silas let out a dry exasperated breath, rolling his broad shoulders.

He was well aware of that.

How on earth could a fundamental manipulation of the water element allow someone to peer into the literal fabric of future time?

Time magic was a legendary near-mythical branch reserved for primordial cosmic entities, not a sword style developed on the high seas.

”I knew you were full of it,” Silas muttered, crossing his arms over his broad chest. ”So what were you actually doing just now? How did you dodge my thrust and hit my ribs four times in a row before my eyes could even track your boots?”

Morwenna’s laughter died down into a satisfied sharp smirk.

She took a step forward, tapping the tip of her wooden sword against the stone floor to emphasize her words.

”What you experienced wasn’t future sight, Captain,” Morwenna explained. ”It was pure swordsmanship... When I activate the Second Style, I release a dense microscopic field of water mana into the air surrounding us. Water naturally seeks out the lowest point which is the path of least resistance.”

She gestured toward Silas’s torso with her blade.

”The second you shift your weight to initiate an attack, your muscles tense, your breathing pauses, and your internal mana flow experiences a microscopic lag,” Morwenna continued clearly. ”The water field around you senses that sudden drop in atmospheric pressure... To my eyes, your body lights up with clear, flowing current lines pointing directly into your exposed weaknesses before your sword even moves an inch.”

Silas listened intently, his golden-ringed eyes narrowing as his sharp mind processed the mechanics.

”So you aren’t seeing what I will do ten seconds from now,” Silas analyzed smoothly. ”You’re reading the physical telegraphs my body makes before I even realize I’m making them.”

”Precisely,” Morwenna nodded with a proud glint shining in her stormy gray eyes. ”Your brain sends the nervous signal to your arm, but before your muscle can contract, the water current has already delivered the answer to my blade. Combined with an explosive burst of rip-current footwork, I can slip into your flaw and strike before your guard can close.”

Silas looked down at his calloused palms, shifting his grip on the wooden longsword.

”How do I learn it?” Silas asked directly, looking back up into her eyes. ”How do I train my core to sense those fluid pressure drops?”

Morwenna let out a quiet sigh, looking at him with a complex, almost sympathetic expression.

”The ability to create openings, or to use water to view and exploit an opponent’s flaws in real-time... isn’t as easy as everything you’ve faced up until this moment, Captain,” Morwenna warned him honestly.

She wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest.

The First Style of the Tidal-Blade Arts was simple momentum manipulation... a basic wave slash that required decent footwork and mana flow.

The Sub-Style was merely high-frequency rotation... a technical trick to eliminate surface friction.

To a natural monster like Silas, who possessed Gold Core and an insane comprehension speed, those two were mere child’s play.

”If you manage to learn the Second Style in less than a single day,” Morwenna grumbled, crossing her arms defensively over her chest, ”I swear on the seven seas, I will officially quit being a swordmaster. It took me decades of bloody combat on the ocean just to perfect this single style.”

Silas chuckled dryly, but didn’t argue. He could respect the sheer, painstaking effort it took to invent a style from scratch.

Morwenna looked away, her gray eyes staring blankly at the stone wall as old dusty memories from her past resurfaced in her mind.

Truth be told, Morwenna had never considered herself a true master of the blade.

Back during her early years before she awakened her power, she had met countless prodigies, martial geniuses, and legendary swordsmen who possessed far superior innate talent than her.

Naturals who could master sword styles in their sleep.

...But talent didn’t mean a damn thing if you ended up dead in a ditch.

And almost every single one of those talented prodigies she had known in her youth was long dead, buried beneath the ocean bed or turned to dust by the passage of centuries.

Except for one.

Morwenna’s jaw tightened with her fingers clenching into a tight fist as a sudden, intense spike of cold irritation flared in her chest.

’That fucking bastard...’ Morwenna cursed silently in her mind. ’The Sword God.’

Centuries ago, before the ocean claimed her, Morwenna and that insufferable man had been fellow disciples under the exact same legendary master.

While Morwenna had relied on gritty survival instincts and relentless repetition to build her Tidal-Blade Arts, he had been a natural terrifying monster who could cut down mountains with a flick of his wrist.

She wondered... if fate ever brought them face-to-face again in this modern era, and her ocean sword style went head-to-head against his absolute cutting path... who would walk away victorious?

’Meh, it’ll probably be me.’