Blade Over Magic

A Proper Fight II

’Yup, this feels familiar.’ Xander thought as he got utterly flung across a large distance when he and the wyvern collided, his arms feeling numb as he lost out in the competition of raw strength.

He’d more or less suspected this would be the case, but he did it anyway because he wanted to see where his sheer physical stats got him compared to other species which were obviously strongly built physically.

Granted, Xander hadn’t used channeling for this, so it truly was just his raw physicality. And the fact that he, a human, managed to withstand a head on collision with a literal wyvern and only feel slightly numb in the arms was horrifying for normal mages who were almost all glass cannons.

Anyway, Xander’s body should have smashed through several trees, but while he wanted to test his physical abilities, he wasn’t very keen on being used as a terrain editor. Especially since much of the immediate terrain was made of hard crystal.

Hence, using vibrations, Xander phased through a crystal tree he was meant to smash into, and as he did so, he intentionally let most of his momentum bleed out of him until he came to a calm stop just behind the tree.

He then traversed away as said tree exploded, sending sharp fragments of crystals everywhere. Courtesy of the wyvern.

He didn’t get very far, though, as the crystal floor he was traversing through suddenly released a strong sense of rejection, and Xander was forced to come out as the wyvern had made it hostile towards him.

As soon as he did, the microscopic crystal dust floating in the air condensed around him, essentially creating a cage covered in sharp spikes that began to moved in a grinding motion as it constricted.

Before it could harm him, though, red lines flashed as Xander cut himself out of the cage.

Then Abscinde flashed, and the immediate area around him had the concept which the wyvern employed severed, removing it from its control and giving Xander a small sanctuary he could stand in without worrying about a sudden attack.

With its unfurling, the resistance Abscinde faced in its severing had reduced significantly. And Xander overlapping it with other sword projections increased this effect further. However, he did not attempt to brute force the wyvern’s concept. He was still ascertaining what it truly was, after all.

But even then, the situation wasn’t great.

’It’s not a domain per se. But I’m still deep inside its territory. It’s able to attack me from whatever angle it wants and doesn’t need to get close. It can just bombard me from all over. Hm. It has a larger range, raw output, and overall better stats than me. Yeah, this is definitely familiar.’ Xander hummed. He just noted how unfavorable the situation was, but he did not become somber. He simply acknowledged how familiar the situation was.

Because that’s what it was.

Ever since arriving on Tatonia, one recurring theme about him was the fact that, technically speaking, he often lost out in terms of raw stats when compared to his peers.

Processing speed and perception went to Aubrey, physical stats went to Curtis in his wolf form and Falael whose starlight mana tempered her body far more effectively when she used mana breathing. It was hard to say now, but back then, Sparrow was definitely faster than him too.

He’d been dealing with whatever he came across in this forest with relative ease. But now he encountered an opponent that properly exceeded his stats. Not to an obscene degree, but definitely noticeable. So yeah, it was familiar.

And so, Xander did what he always did when he faced opponents like that.

While within the brief sanctuary He’d created for himself, he entered a defensive stance.

It seemed absurd. The wyvern was huge, definitely bigger than Keir’s current size. So the sight of a human entering a stance in front of it was almost laughable.

But he did it anyway.

The wyvern growled and spread its wings wide.

All sorts of crystal constructs formed in the surroundings. Spikes, chains, walls, and so on.

It flapped its wings, and all of these shot forward at Xander, the sheer quantity completely engulfing him.

They weren’t just a lot, either, as the concept the wyvern employed made it so that these attacks were both incredibly durable and held a sort of petrifying effect where whatever they struck also became crystalline, much like how Curtis’s ice behaved.

Yet in the face of all of this ..

’Flowing Tide.’ Xander’s movements became smooth and fluid, his paths also taking on this quality as they showed him the optimal path to defend.

The attacks rained down on him ceaselessly, and most common defensive arrays wouldn’t have lasted even a moment under such an assault, yet despite this, the wyvern only grew more serious.

Because in the center of this assault was Xander, and no matter how much the wyvern threw attacks at him, he always managed to defend.

His movements remained fluid as he deflected or guided any attack that was small, as for those that were large, his paths showed him the optimal path to cut through them, stopping him from getting crushed or slammed.

His footwork was impeccable, yet he never moved outside the safe zone he carved out for himself.

When the wyvern tried to expand its influence to the crystal beneath his feet, Xander would calmly guide its paths away, and in the eyes of the wyvern, it felt like whenever it tried to control that specific piece of crystal, its attention would suddenly drift away, like it got distracted.

Xander wasn’t just parrying things physically either. The concepts the wyvern employed also failed to reach him.

At first, the wyvern thought that he was currently under immense pressure, and sooner or later, his stamina or mana would give out.

And yet, despite how fast they were moving, seconds turned into minutes, and the wyvern began to doubt its original intention.

And that’s when...

’Alright, I have it down now.’ Xander thought as he raised a glowing Abscinde above his head and swung down, then...

The wyvern suddenly found itself right in front of Xander.

Xander had cut through the ’distance’ between them, effectively reducing how far it was from him in a single swing.

Startled, it tried to pull away, but Xander was already attacking as he once more thrusted forward.

Rupture Thrust

Seeing this, the wyvern snorted, and the scales on its body once more lit up to resist the splintering space.

But that’s when it noticed a change.

The collapsing shards of space... were lined with red lines. And when the collapsed reached the light, they resisted... before actually getting pushed back!

After Abscinde unfurled, its ’severing’ attribute had risen dramatically, and the overlapping of sword projections only amplified this further.

However, the most important factor... was Xander himself.

There were two things he was known for. His ability to slice the mana convergence points in spells, effectively negating them, and his ability to grasp the vibrations of something, allowing him to effectively bypass it entirely.

He did not abandon these skills. And in fact, he took them to even further heights!

The red lines tracing the spatial cascade weren’t just meant to amplify it effects. Rather, under Xander’s guidance, they specifically targeted the points within the wyvern’s concept where they converged the most.

Because when using a concept, one didn’t just grab it and throw it at whoever they were fighting. No, just like with mana, they still needed to shape it in a specific manner to achieve a certain effect. Otherwise, Xander wouldn’t have needed to take so long or try so hard to bypass the wyvern’s concept.

Then there was the thing with vibrations as well.

Back in Landor, Xander pulled up his first space-severing feat when he managed to sense the underlying buzz of the obscure yet ever-present concept and matched his frequency to it perfectly. This was how he killed the Void Raptor.

Xander had taken this skill to another level as one thing he learned... was that concepts also had their own frequency!

So when he unleashed Rupture Thrust, he wasn’t just repeating an attack.

No, Xander had done the same terrifying thing he’d done before. He faced off against an entity that, ordinarily, should have stat gapped him by a significant bit, and rather than panic, he simply analyzed them using his own unique means, like they were a puzzle to be solved.

And once again, this paid off.

The wyvern roared as despite its attempts to retreat, but of the cascading space still struck its chest, and crystalline blood spilled as it was flung backwards heavily until it crashed into the tree it made its nest.

It growled in obvious pain as it began to adjust its body, the surrounding crystals moving and flowing along its body like a liquid as they went to the large wound in its chest where many of its scales had been torn through.

Then it looked at Xander who was back in his stance, his eyes wide open as they took in everything, indicating that he was well and truly locked in.

He exhaled in that distinct way which told one that Mana Breathing was active, and he noted inwardly.

’I get it now... Let’s continue, then.’