Fate/Beyond Chapter 9: Brush With Death. (Patreon)

Immediately a window popped up in front of me when our eyes locked.

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[[Nameles Sword Master]]

Classification: Undead/Ghoul

Statistics:

Strength: [F]

Endurance: [F]

Agility: [E]

Mana: [Null]

Luck: [F-]

Most of its statistics have degraded over time yet the corpse of the swordsman still stands. Unable to be put under Gphyls control, it was sealed away.

Skills:

| Swordsmanship [D-] - [C-] |

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His mind immediately went into panic mode when he saw those stats. That E-rank agility was bad, BAD. And even worse was that when their eyes locked he could see a twinkle of intelligence behind them. Meaning that this was the first undead he was facing that actually knew how to align the edge of their blade.

*tap* *tap*

The ghoul was dressed in complete rags, its skin and muscles had nearly completely rotted off his skeleton, it held in its hand a traditional Japanese sword that was covered in rust yet retained a dangerous edge. Just the sword alone sent shivers up his spine for some reason. 

The sword-wielding nameless ghoul walked toward Noah calmly with steady steps. Even with its skinny and malnourished visage the still struck fear into Noah's heart. As he was frozen the ghoul reached him, the moment its arm moved Noah snapped out of his trance just in time to lean back enough to dodge the swordmaster's lunge. 

He felt the wind from the Ghoul's stab tickle his throat. Dread went down his spine.

His life was in danger. True danger. But just as fast as his eyes had lost their focus, the flame in them was reignited as Noah leaned his neck to the side before stepping forward two steps and swung his mace but the swordmaster jumped back. Noah didn't pursue, instead watching his foe intently.

Instead of moving forward once more the Swordmaster bent its knees slightly while shifting its center of balance forward. With one hand it resheathed his blade, before putting one hand on the scabbard and one on the handle before advancing toward Noah slowly.

Noah's mind quickly remembered the stance of Iado, a Japanese sword that focuses on awareness and the quickness of drawing the sword. The attacks themselves should be fast and precise yet leave a large opening.

But.

D- to C- swordsmanship really didn't bode well for him. This undead was at least better than him to unbelievably better than him. While his strength and endurance were a tad better, the agility gap wasn't negligible.

The gap between a single rank may not seem much. But in reality, it was big. Just that + can make a big difference let alone an entire letter. The best comparison would be like this.

Trying to put up someone with E rank strength against someone with D rank strength is like putting up Joe from accounting who is slightly overweight and started balding, his wife doesn't love him anymore and his kids ignore him. He has some problems at work and hasn't been to the gym in a long time.

Put that guy up against Mike Tyson in his prime. That should be a fair indicator between the gap of letters, maybe even higher.

 So his only real chance at this was turning this from a swordfight to a brawl. In order to do that he had to survive at least the first slash, hopefully. 

He focused on the ghoul alone and nothing else, backing off as the ghoul slowly inched forward. As he firmly stood his ground an idea came to his mind. Just as the ghoul was about to enter the striking range Noah took a step forward, taking the initiative in closing the distance with his own sword in hand.

The moment the sword master saw Noah stepping forward he started to unsheath his blade. But before Noah's step landed on the ground he shifted his center of gravity and pushed off the floor instead.

A feint.

The sword master was already too far committed to the swing to simply take it back. Noah decided to bet on the lack of intelligence that undead posses to fool it into falling for his feint. If they were alive it would probably not work, but as undead, they possessed little intelligence.

But even as Noah was barely out of the blade's range, he failed to notice the blade gaining a soft red hue around it. And at insane speeds, the blade lashed out, the red hue now visible. With the distance between the two the blade just barely grazed Noah.

But the hue extended slightly past that.

 Suddenly, Noah felt a searing pain flash through his midsection, a 3-inch deep cut had appeared on his midsection. If he had managed to fail that feint he would have been bisected completely.

The pain was intense, like a surge of flame had passed through his midsection. A pain worse than any other pain he experienced as a normal person.

Well, maybe that branch hitting his nards could compare.

But he wasn't dead. The intense pain proved that. And he had an opportunity right now, the ghoul was completely open after such a big attack.

Grasp that opportunity.

One chance. He had already wasted a chance at life and accomplished nothing. He wouldn't fail to grasp this one because of mere pain. 

Gritting his teach he recovered his balance and swung his blade toward the ghoul's right wrist. But just as the blade was about to cleave the ghoul's wrist off it flicked its wrist and clashed with Noah's sword instead.

But thanks to my better positioning and leverage I was the one who managed to knock the sword master away. But instead of retreating to get air, I pushed forward. Putting pressure on the ghoul.

If he does that slash attack again I'm done for. Basically dodging it nearly cut me in half. A direct hit would be far worse.

I leapt after him and swung my blade horizontally, and the moment he landed on solid ground he was able to meet my blade with his own. As our swords clashed he twisted his wrist and diverted my blow before slashing at my neck.

Swish 

I narrowly ducked before using the opening to kick his nards. But there was a grievous miscalculation in my plan.

His balls have rotted off long ago, rendering my kick obsolete. But not giving up I instead hooked my leg around his and pulled, throwing him off balance but he backflipped and did a diagonal slash which I was barely able to block with my gauntlets.

But he wasn't thrown off by my block in fact he kept slashing and slashing as he drove me to a corner, I could only barely block his consecutive slashes over and over. Miraculously his sword still hadn't chipped or broken with how ancient it was.

Even worse that my gauntlets were getting scrapped by that old ass blade. So much so that the cuts started nicking my skin with each slash.

But I wasnt just stupid. I was biding for time, an opportunity. And just as my back hit the wall I sprung out like a spring as I ducked under the slash and threw a mean uppercut to the ghoul's jaw.

BAM 

The blow was able to stagger the sword master but not enough for him to drop it. But that small window of stagger was all I needed. Just as the sword master started regaining his bearings I shifted my feet and started swerving side to side.

Just when he stabbed his sword toward my jugular my right first met his face.

And then my left.

Then my right.

Going in an infinity motion I didn't let the momentum dissipate and I chained punch after punch to the ghoul's face. Faced with my relentless stream of blows the Ghoul was unable to retaliate. After a few blows, instead of punching I reached for the ghoul's blade and grabbed his wrist,  but as I did so the bastard somehow dug his sharp claws into my side as I tried to wrestle his blade away from him.

I could feel his wrinkly old sausage fingers tickle around my kidney. I felt lightheaded from blood loss. As one last hurrah, I slammed my head into his nose, successfully making him lose his grip for a split second.

The precise split second that I needed.

In that small moment in time, I wrenched the blade away from those wrinkly sausage fingers. The moment the blade graved my hands I felt a sharp pain jolt through my arms, as well as a sense of familiarity with the blade, emerge. But I disregarded all of those flags at the moment as I spun and slashed the blade, taking off the ghoul's left hand.

Not allowing the flow of the blade's motion come to an end I braced before lunging forward with the blade, stabbing forward the blade pierced cleanly through the sword master's chest. Like it was made of styrofoam.

-_-_-

Noah retracted his blade from the temporary flesh sheath as he collapsed to his knees at the same time as the corpse of the swordmaster. The adrenalin coursing through his veins like a river was the only thing keeping him awake as the blood loss tried to put him to sleep. Reigning in the last bit of consciousness Noah had left he pictured a light switch before flipping it. His circuits flickered to life.

'{Restoration}!'

He poured every single nanometer of od he had into restoration. Barely managing to close his wounds before his circuits screamed and his blood boiled. Just as he salvaged his condition from critical to severe he passed out.