Viviana darted through the corridors, not holding anything back. She was using [flash step] both offensively and defensively, moving with such speed that she was afraid she was gonna get whiplash.

  She could have fought like this earlier, but now there was nothing to stop her from doing so. If she died, the mission would still be accomplished. The Landsknecht would have no effects besides having her captured for two months.

  They would not dare to treat her badly. Although an exile, she still was an Adler-Stern.

  It meant that with no one else around, there was no one to protect besides herself. With no true consequence for dying, Viviana was willing to risk it for the level up. Are you watching, system? Is this feat-worthy for you?

  The dog’s attacks were true to his newly granted nickname– viscous, brutal, and with little care for himself. It meant that Viviana had to stay on her toes the entire time, because one small slipup would be fatal. Even so, Viviana was slowly but surely winning the exchanges.

  The other knight provided an auxiliary role. Instead of fighting head on, like the dog, they constantly moved, circling and trying to sneak in Viviana’s blind spot. They worked well as a team. The dog would chase, the other would kill.

  Adam simply stood back, grapples fired into the wall to balance himself, watching.

  The dog’s longsword suddenly glowed red. A skill. Viviana had no idea what it did, but she tried her best to not get hit, using [flash step] wherever possible. She had been saving her mana for this situation, so now was the time to use it.

  Battle adrenaline pushed aside the feeling of mana fatigue. Swords clashed as Viviana quickly realized she had a lower STR value than everyone here. Her parries had to be perfect, her strikes had to cut deep, but theirs did not.

  Like in all fights, Viviana knew that moving unexpectedly would be the key to victory. I need to bait out an attack. Viviana just then placed herself slightly out of balance, allowing the other knight to slip into her blind spot. She knew that they would capitalize on the attack, but–

  Fast! The blade came faster than she expected, knocking her off balance as she desperately parried and tried to counter, but her strike was simply too unstructured due to her poor parry.

  She dropped her grapples and ducked, a hand holding her injured side subconsciously. It hurt far more than it was supposed to, but Viviana imagined that the force of the knight's skill blew through her parry, fracturing ribs, somehow even breaking skin. Viviana immediately backed off, gaining as much distance as she could before observing her opponents again.

  They were unphased. Viviana, on the other hand, was not. Blood flowed from the fresh wound on her side, but not naturally. She watched as the blood flowed to the dog’s red blade, drinking it up and making the red mist deeper, darker.

  Then the dog rushed at her, faster and more ruthless than ever. Viviana moved her sword to intercept, but it was all to hide her next movement.

  She fired her grapple directly at him. He reacted, batting it away with his blade. Viviana activated [lightning trap] at maximum capacity, pouring as much mana as she could muster into it.

  The charge flowed through her, through her grapple line, through his blade, and into him. It was only a split second shock before the grapple was pushed away by his blade, but it was enough.

  Viviana had already prepped her other grapple, and was rushing towards the dog with [flash step]. She slashed out in a straight forward strike. Viviana was aiming for a kill shot, but he snapped back into consciousness at the last second, narrowly dodging the fatal blow.

  Her sword took his arm instead.

  The other knight wasn’t idling during this entire interaction. Realizing what Viviana had done, the other knight immediately switched into offensive action, drawing Viviana’s attention before the dog could be defeated.

  Viviana grimaced. This wasn’t the outcome she was hoping for. If his VIT stat was high, that arm would be functional again before she knew it.

  “You bitch!” the dog snarled. “You cut off my fucking arm!”

  “...She did get you there,” a calm voice from a little distance away. Adam. “You should pay more attention, you know.”

  The dog simply snarled again, tying his arm back to his stump. Viviana would not have it. She worked hard for this temporary advantage, so she had to capitalize on it.

  Viviana fired her grapple when suddenly– it didn’t fire.

  Viviana had instantly realized her mistake just then. Her stunt with the [lightning trap] had fried the right side grapple, rendering it completely unusable. She only had her left side grapple remaining.

  To make matters worse, the loss of her grapple caused her to slip up in her defense, allowing the knight's sword to cut into her leg. Not a fatal blow, but a heavy one– she needed it to heal to get it to full capacity, and using [flash step] with it now would just make it worse.

  No more defensive actions, then. So she fought inwards, pushing in with more ferocity, desperately trying to get a blow in on the other knight. Blades clashed as Viviana forced her movements to speed up. To get faster and faster. She had to make an opening, somehow.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Viviana placed a [lightning trap] on her dominant arm. I don’t see how it would only work for my legs. If I can accelerate my sword…

  Viviana activated the [lightning trap], causing her muscles to contract as she led her blade down. Miraculously it worked, speeding up her blade, causing her opponent to stagger backwards from an unstructured parry.

  The knight prepared another to parry again, anticipating another attack, but Viviana wasn’t hoping to finish the fight.

  Fuck the leg, she thought, activating [flash step]. Pain rushed through her as she activated the skill through her injured leg, ripping open the already bad injury. I’m killing the dog.

  It should have been an easy kill. But the dog was even faster than before.

  He used his own blood to empower his red mist ability, instead of healing his arm.

  I’ll take a hit. But it doesn’t matter. It's a worthwhile trade.

  Viviana led with her non-dominant arm instead of her blade, sacrificing it as the dog’s blade chopped down, cutting cleanly between her fingers, down her forearm, and stopping at her bicep.

  Then Viviana’s sword plunged into his chest. My arm for your life.

  [You have slain a level 7 soulbound.]

  [+12 exp] [stored]

  Viviana wasn’t done. One more opponent. And then Adam.

  Viviana moved in an arc, courtesy of her single remaining grapple. The other knight had recovered. He moved, grapples firing in sequence, but Viviana was already prepared.

  A rapid exchange of blows, back and forth. Viviana had seen it all before. The knight had some skills that she had to watch for, but once his options were exhausted, Viviana had committed his entire playbook to memory. Then it was over.

  Not even close to as tricky as Selenne is.

  [You have slain a level 6 soulbound.]

  [+12 exp]

  [You have won a difficult battle.]

  [Feat recognized.]

  [Congratulations, Viviana Adler-Stern! You’ve leveled up!]

  [2→3]

  [You have (5) undistributed points.]

  For a split second, something resembling joy settled in Viviana’s chest. She stared down at Adam. He had done nothing but watch, casually anchored to the wall. Viviana did the same, attaching her singular working grapple to the wall, and floated out to the edge of it, in the middle of the stone corridor.

  He’s not attacking. If he won’t I’ll take advantage.

  Viviana went through her status, dumping most of the stored experience points into MIN, and a couple into VIT alleviating her mana fatigue and injuries somewhat.

  She inspected her left arm; the one that was split by the dog earlier. It was pulling itself back together slowly. She kept an eye on Adam the entire time.

  “Are you ready to fight yet? I sensed that you levelled up. I’m sure you have an ability to learn. Go ahead.”

  Viviana raised a brow, but proceeded anyway. She thought she didn’t have time to read through her ability list, but if her opponent would grant her time, then so be it.

  Viviana navigated through her status and pressed on the [Available Skills] button.

  [Strike - Common]

  [Empower your next attack based on mana consumed. Medium to high mana consumption. STR scaling.]

  [Thundering Strike - affinity - Rare]

  [Your next attack produces an aftershock. Consume a medium amount of mana. Your aftershocks have a chance to apply a lightning sigil, based on the amount of hits the opponent has taken from this ability. STR and WIL scaling.]

  [Lightning Spear - affinity - Epic]

  [Summon a spear of lightning in a hand. Throwing the spear causes it to accelerate, scaling off of DEX and WIL. Upon contacting an enemy, stun the target for a brief period of time and deal a small amount of damage, scaling off of WIL. Consume a medium amount of mana.]

  There’s only one choice. Viviana chose [Lightning Spear]. A ranged attack!

  Viviana decided to try it out then and there, excited to experiment. She activated the ability, summoning a spear in her left hand. It slowly grew and grew, sapping her mana at a slow rate. After a second it grew to its full length– about seven feet long. It felt strange in her hand. Near massless, but powerful. It crackled; golden lightning.

  Viviana looked down at Adam. “Impressive,” he said. “Not many abilities create new weapons. It’s antithetical to being soulbound, after all.”

  Viviana couldn’t help but agree. It was very cool. “Wanna take a closer look?”

  Without warning she threw the spear at him. Her eyes widened as it left her hand– because it suddenly accelerated, speeding up far faster than she intended to throw it. It shot out of her hand like a bullet, smashing into Adam.

  Viviana was so surprised that she didn’t even attempt to follow up. She wasn’t expecting the attack to even go that far, let alone land.

  She watched as Adam shook it off. The attack had shattered his helmet completely and took off a bit of his ear. Not bad for a ‘small amount of damage’.

  “Ah. That hurt a little more than expected,” Adam said.

  “You let yourself get hit on purpose?”

  “I.. I did not,” he said, uncharacteristically looking away. “It was an unexpected attack.”

  Then Adam did something even more strange. He pulled out his phone. Viviana watched, perplexed, as he typed something into it and projected it out for Viviana to see.

  [Helmets are recording. I cannot reveal my true skills to the guild. You have destroyed that functionality. This is optimal.]

  Viviana looked back at the two floating bodies behind her. Conveniently, their helmets were pointed away from them. Assuming the cameras remained facing in that direction, they wouldn’t be recording anything.

  She looked at Adam again. “What do you want, Adam?”

  “Same thing as you right now. You are strong, Adler-Stern. I need to test my skills.”

  Viviana floated over to one of the dead knights, removing their grapple gear and replacing her own. I’m sure he won’t mind.

  She checked herself over. She was now free of injuries. Now that she distributed her points, her mind felt clear. She had a new skill to test.