I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 765: Shogun Festival Battle Royale (3)

Then their swords met.

BADOOOM!!

The impact exploded through the arena.

A deep cracking boom burst from the collision, so violent that it sounded less like wood striking wood and more like something heavy tearing through stone. A shockwave blasted outward from the point where their blades crossed, ripping through the surrounding sand in a wide ring. Dust and grit erupted into the air. Nearby fighters were thrown off balance at once, some stumbling backward, others sent sprawling to the ground as the force tore through them before they even understood what had happened.

The wooden swords did not survive it.

The instant they connected, both weapons snapped in half.

Fragments spun away through the air. One broken piece struck the sand hard several paces away. Another bounced near a fallen fighter who stared at it in open disbelief. The nearest men had no chance to hold their footing. A large brute was knocked onto his back with a cry, while another was sent rolling sideways, his weapon flying from his grip.

For one suspended moment, the entire area around them cleared.

Nathan and Shiina stood at the center of it, close enough to feel the force of the clash still trembling through their arms, each holding only the broken remains of what had been a sword.

The noise of the battle around them faltered.

Not everywhere, not across the whole arena, but in that part of the field, men hesitated. Heads turned. Faces went blank with shock. Even those locked in their own struggles spared a glance toward the sudden burst of power that had cut through the melee like thunder.

Nathan looked at the jagged half of wood left in his hand, then at Shiina.

She was staring at him too.

And then, incredibly, she laughed.

It was soft at first, almost breathless, as if she had been surprised into delight. Her fingers loosened around the broken weapon, and she let the splintered piece fall into the sand.

“Well,” she said, her red eyes bright with interest, “that answers that.”

Nathan dropped his own broken blade.

He could still feel the sting of the impact in his palm and wrist, but it was nothing worth caring about. What mattered was the certainty settling deeper in him now. This woman was no ordinary swordswoman. That one exchange had proven more than several minutes of observation ever could.

She had met his speed.

She had met his strength.

Around them, the stunned fighters began to recover.

One man looked from Nathan to Shiina and cursed under his breath. Another backed away altogether, suddenly less eager to involve himself. But not everyone had enough sense to retreat. A few, rattled and angry, chose the worst possible moment to rush in, perhaps thinking that the two of them would be vulnerable after such a clash.

They were wrong.

A fighter came at Nathan from the side with a roar, wooden club lifted high.

Nathan turned and met him with a single step forward. His hand shot out, caught the descending arm at the wrist, and stopped the blow cold. The man’s eyes widened in panic. Before he could react, Nathan drove a brutal punch into his stomach, folding him in half, then slammed his elbow across the back of his neck and sent him face first into the sand.

At the same moment, two others lunged toward Shiina.

She moved with infuriating ease.

Her body dipped between them in one smooth motion. One hand caught a wrist and guided the attack harmlessly past her shoulder while her other palm struck the first man under the chin. His head snapped back. Before he even hit the ground, she had turned and drove a sharp kick into the second man’s ribs, sending him skidding away across the sand in a gasp of pain.

The brief clearing around them erupted into motion again, but now it was different.

The fighters nearby no longer looked at Nathan and Shiina as easy prey.

They looked at them with caution.

Some with fear.

From the stands, the crowd had begun roaring louder than before. The spectators had seen it too. They had seen the impossible speed, the shattering clash, the men knocked away like leaves in a storm. Excitement spread through the arena in a fresh wave, louder and more focused now as more and more eyes locked onto the pair standing at the center of the disruption.

Even the announcer’s voice rose above the noise, half shouting, half laughing in disbelief as he tried to stir the people further.

But Nathan barely heard him.

His attention remained on Shiina.

She brushed a loose strand of dark blue hair back behind her ear, then looked at him with that same bright smile, only now there was clear challenge in it.

“I really wonder who you are,” Shiina said.

Her tone was light, almost teasing, but her eyes stayed fixed on Nathan with clear interest. The broken remains of her wooden sword lay forgotten in the sand at her feet, and yet she looked no less armed than before.

Nathan kept his gaze on the men shifting around them. “I have the same question.”

Shiina’s smile deepened. “Would you tell me who you are if I reveal who I am?”

“Probably not,” Nathan replied.

That made her let out a quiet laugh.

Neither of them said anything more after that.

They did not need to.

The mood in the arena had already changed.

All around them, the fighters who had rushed in blindly at the start were beginning to understand what stood before them. They had seen men sent flying with single blows. They had seen wooden swords shatter on impact. They had seen Nathan and Shiina tear through opponents with an ease that made the rest of this battle royale look almost childish by comparison.

Fear spread quickly among fools.

So did desperation.

Nathan noticed it first in the glances.

Men who had been attacking whoever was nearest were now looking past one another, measuring, hesitating, silently reaching the same conclusion. If Nathan and Shiina remained in the fight, no one else would win. It did not matter whether the prize was fame, money, or favor. As long as those two stood, the rest were simply struggling for second place.

And desperate men were always quick to compromise.

A few shouted to each other. Others nodded. Some backed away from smaller clashes altogether and began drifting toward the same center point. In only a few breaths, the shape of the battle changed. What had been chaos became something uglier.

The mass turned toward them.

Nathan saw the swell of bodies moving in from several sides at once and clicked his tongue softly. “So they finally used their heads.”

Shiina glanced over the crowd, then stepped closer until they stood almost shoulder to shoulder.

In the next moment, without discussion, they shifted into place with their backs nearly touching.

It felt strangely natural.

Nathan could sense the warmth of her at his back, light and steady, her stance relaxed but ready. Around them, the circle tightened. Men with wooden swords, staffs, clubs, and bare fists spread out through the sand, trying to surround them fully before rushing in. There were too many to count at a glance. Dozens at least. Perhaps more.

The crowd in the stands was losing its mind.

Roars rose from every tier as the spectators realized what was happening. They had come for a battle royale. Instead they were about to watch half the arena throw itself at two people.

Shiina tilted her head slightly. “How about we get rid of them together?”

“An alliance,” Nathan said.

“A short one. Like the one they are making now.”

Nathan looked ahead at the men creeping closer, weapons raised, faces tight with nerves disguised as determination.

“So be it,” he said.

Shiina grinned.

Then they moved.

The first rush came from Nathan’s side.

Five men broke at once, perhaps thinking that numbers alone would be enough to crush him before he found room to move. The one in front came screaming, sword lifted overhead. Nathan stepped in before the blow could fall and drove his palm straight into the man’s chest. The impact sent him stumbling backward into the two behind him. Before they could untangle, Nathan snatched the wooden sword from the first man’s loosened grip and swung it in a hard flat arc.

The strike cracked across one jaw, then reversed and smashed into another temple.

Both men went down in opposite directions.

The fourth tried to seize Nathan from behind, but Nathan twisted, caught him by the arm, and hurled him over his shoulder. His body crashed into the fifth attacker so violently that both rolled away together in a heap of limbs and curses.

At the same time, three men charged Shiina.

Nathan felt more than saw her move.

Her shoulder brushed lightly against his back for a fraction of a second, then she was gone. One of the men lunged with a clumsy thrust. Shiina turned just enough for it to miss, caught his wrist, and guided him past her as if she were merely redirecting a guest at a doorway. Her other hand struck his throat with vicious precision. He dropped gagging. The second swung low. Shiina stepped over the blow and drove her heel into his knee. As he folded, she snatched his weapon free and used it in the same motion to crack the third man across the side of the head.

The stolen sword spun once in her hand like it had always belonged there.

More poured in.

Now it was ten. Then fifteen. Then too many to meet one by one.

Nathan and Shiina moved as if they had fought together before, though neither of them had planned it. When one shifted left, the other filled the opening. When one drove opponents back, the other struck the gap that formed. Fighters tried to overwhelm them from both sides, only to crash into a wall of force and precision that gave them no rhythm to exploit.

Nathan fought like a storm breaking lines apart.

He hit hard and directly, each movement carrying brutal weight even when he held back. A man rushed him with a staff and Nathan shattered the attack with one swing, then kicked him so hard he slid through the sand into another group. Two more came at once. Nathan ducked one strike, rammed his elbow into a ribcage, turned, and hammered the wooden sword across the second man’s collarbone with a crack that made several nearby fighters flinch.

Shiina fought like flowing water sharpened into steel.

Where Nathan broke formations, she slipped through them. Her blade flashed in short clean lines that struck hands, wrists, throats, and knees with maddening control. Men who thought her smaller frame made her vulnerable discovered too late that she was never where they expected her to be. She would vanish from the center of a rush, appear at its edge, and leave two or three men collapsing before the rest understood they had already lost their chance.

At one point a burly fighter managed to get past Nathan and swung for Shiina’s blind side.

Nathan caught the motion from the corner of his eye and knocked another attacker aside with his shoulder, but he did not need to intervene. Shiina dipped under the club without turning, let the man’s momentum carry him forward, then stabbed the butt of her wooden sword backward into his stomach. As he doubled over behind her, Nathan seized the opening and smashed another charging man across the face.

“Not bad,” Shiina said.

“You too,” Nathan replied.

That was all the praise either offered.

The assault intensified.

The fighters had committed now. There was no pride left in them, only urgency. Some tried to distract Nathan so others could rush Shiina. Some aimed for Shiina first, clearly believing Nathan would be easier to manage alone once she was down. None of it worked.

Nathan planted his feet as four men came in from the front and met them head on. He batted aside one weapon, drove his fist into a stomach, twisted under another strike, and brought the hilt of the wooden sword up under a jaw. The fourth leaped onto him from the side and earned a savage headbutt that sent him reeling away dazed and bleeding from the nose.

Beside him, Shiina spun through a tightening cluster of attackers with breathtaking control. Her sword traced a blur near her body, each movement small, fast, exact. One man cried out and dropped his weapon, fingers broken. Another collapsed to one knee after a strike to the ribs. A third took one look at the men falling around her and tried to retreat, only for Shiina to close the distance in two graceful steps and tap the side of his neck with enough force to send him sprawling unconscious into the sand.

The ring around them began to break.

It was subtle at first. A step back here. A wavering stance there. Then the doubt spread. Men who had charged with the confidence of a pack now found themselves staring at the bodies piling around Nathan and Shiina and realizing that even together they were being beaten back.

One fighter shouted in panic and lunged anyway.

Nathan caught him by the face and threw him down.

Another raised his weapon toward Shiina, then froze when she looked at him.

He turned and ran toward a weaker group instead.

The crowd erupted at the sight.

Their cheers rolled down like thunder, wild and hungry, feeding on the spectacle below. The announcer’s voice boomed over it all, barely able to keep pace with what was happening in the sand. Nathan ignored every bit of it. His eyes stayed on the next threat, then the next, while the ground around him filled with groaning bodies and discarded weapons.

For one brief moment, a pocket of open space formed around him and Shiina again.

Both were still standing.

Both were breathing evenly.

And all around them, the men who had tried to bury them beneath numbers were low.

Shiina angled her sword down and smiled without looking away from the fighters still circling at a distance. “They seem less confident now.”

“They should be,” Nathan said.

The few who still remained standing looked at one another with growing unease.

What little resolve they had left was already gone. Their eyes moved from the bodies scattered across the sand to Nathan, then to Shiina, and whatever stubborn courage had kept them in the fight finally broke. One by one, weapons slipped from nervous hands and landed in the arena with dull knocks. A staff fell first. Then a sword. Then another. A man with a bruised face lifted both palms and took two steps back.

“We forfeit,” one of them said hoarsely.

Others quickly echoed him.

“Yes, we give up.”

“No point continuing.”

A strange pause followed, as if even the arena itself needed a moment to understand what had happened.

Then the realization spread.

Only two were left.

“Wow,” someone shouted from the stands, the single word somehow carrying over the rest.

In the end, only Nathan and Shiina remained standing in the wide churned field of sand.

The crowd erupted.

Cheers crashed over the arena from every side, louder than at any point before. The people of Minami Kyoto had been handed something far better than a messy ending. Now they had two monsters left standing after tearing through everyone else, and the hunger in the stands changed at once. It sharpened. It focused. They wanted the conclusion now. They wanted to see which of the two would crush the other.

Nathan turned fully toward Shiina.

At last, there would be no interruptions.

No fools charging from the side. No swarming mob to break the rhythm. No need to divide attention between a hundred lesser threats. He could finally see what she was truly capable of.

Because he knew now with complete certainty that she was not ordinary.

She was a monster.

No, more than that.

There was no other explanation for the wariness she stirred in him, that instinctive alertness deep inside his body that had refused to quiet from the first moment he saw her. Nathan had fought powerful people before. He had crossed blades with men of skill, monsters of violence, and beings far beyond the reach of ordinary warriors.

That feeling was different.

Shiina had to be some kind of demigod of power, otherwise his instincts would not have reacted this way. And that truth only made him more curious, because contrary to Morosuke who had used an artifact to reach demigod power so a fake one, Shiina was clearly not.

Across from him, Shiina smiled.

She lifted the wooden sword she had taken from one of the fallen fighters and settled it lightly in her hand. Her posture was relaxed, but Nathan saw the precision hidden inside it. Even now, even after the chaos of the battle royale, she looked composed enough to begin a real fight.

Nathan tightened his focus.

The crowd screamed for them.

For a moment neither moved.

Then, instead of stepping forward, Shiina looked at him, gave a small amused exhale, and let the wooden sword fall from her hand.

It struck the sand and rolled once.

“It is your win,” she said.

The arena went silent.

Not completely, not in truth, but so suddenly that it felt like the sound had been torn out of the air. The cheers died mid breath. The anticipation that had gripped the stands broke into stunned confusion. Even the announcer said nothing.

Nathan just looked at her.

For the first time since she had approached him in the waiting hall, he did not have an immediate answer. He had expected many things from her. A grin before a charge. A testing strike. A duel fierce enough to shake the whole arena.

Not this.

Shiina only raised both hands lightly, as if to show there was no trick in it.

“I lose,” she said, taking a calm step back.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Her smile returned, smaller this time, touched with something unreadable. “Because I felt enough.”

That was all she gave him.

No grand explanation. No excuse. No visible frustration at surrendering in front of the entire city. If anything, she looked faintly entertained by the shock spreading through the arena.

Then, from above, the sound of applause rang out.

Nathan turned at once toward the raised seats.

The instant his eyes found the source, his expression hardened.

At last.

There he was.

Norihiro.