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Sapphire Shield herself was a fortress of a tank and overwhelming her in a full-frontal attack was previously unheard of. While that could partially be explained with the talisman array, Torch had also been holding her own against both Sapphire Shield and Emerald Blade, who was a prodigy with that saber.
Allie asked, “Anything new with the rest of ‘em?”
“No. In fact, Queen has still not dropped the manifestation of her Concept.”
He projected an image of the masked woman and showed the massive greatsword she hugged as she watched video after video of swordsmen in the top ten private lounge.
Allie looked shellshocked. “Still? It’s been at least two months! Are we sure that keeping her Concept manifested isn’t her Talent?”
Zack shook his head. That still seemed wrong for all the reasons they had previously debated. “It’s almost unheard of for a Talent to focus on something someone doesn’t even have yet. Unless you’re suggesting she managed a Concept manifestation even before her Awakening. That’s all the more absurd, though. She wouldn’t have the cultivation cores to even sustain that. At best, she could know her image and phrase, but that shouldn’t be enough to spark a Talent for its manifestation.”
Allie tapped his marker on the screen and then circled the sword. “Yeah, but the girl is Tier 10 and has kept her Concept manifested for two months. Even if she’s instantly dismissing it the second she’s behind closed doors, there’s no way she has this much willpower. Heck, even a Tier 15 wouldn’t be able to make their sword last that long. It would even be a slight hassle for me,” she said with a wry smile before she resumed gnawing on the back of his marker.
Humming to herself, she pitched an alternative. “I mean, it could also be a greatsword Concept that’s almost completely geared toward manifestation? It would be a weird one, but how else do we explain it? The top contenders are now cracked skill, Talent, or something with the Concept itself. I got close enough to rule out some kind of insanely unique growth item at least. Definitely would have felt that. Maybe the Talent is related to object summoning, and she was able to weave her Concept into it? A cracked skill…not sure. The glitchy things can be too unpredictable to really rule out.”
Together, they trawled through the woman’s fights again.
The first one occurred when she had first arrived on East Flower and joined The Masquerade. In her first duel with the rank two-hundred-eleven solo Pather, she had wielded her greatsword so elegantly that most people didn’t even realize it wasn’t a real blade made of metal. In just three exchanges, she eviscerated the man with nigh perfect sweeps of her blade.
Zack appreciated it for the meticulously controlled attacks. She knew the length of her blade and perfectly maneuvered her opponent into backstepping, just not quite far enough to completely dodge.
Her movements recited poetry in visual form, and the precision of them resonated with him down to his core. He even caught his hand idly drifting to where his rapier usually hung. Of course, it wasn’t there, which meant he’d annoyingly moved his hand all that distance for no reason.
It was similar to how he’d analyzed decades worth of lower Tier mundane blade tournament records in search of Queen’s identity for no reason. Given her prowess with the blade and obsession with dueling, those competitions should have been her domain to conquer and rule with an iron fist. Yet, not a single competitor seemed like a viable match for the mysterious fighter’s skill level, age range, and general description.
The next fight showed her battle with the then third-placed team. Even in a five versus one showdown, she decimated her opponents in under five minutes despite being outnumbered and bombarded at long distance by both an archer and mage.
With her presumed greatsword Concept, Queen deflected all the projectiles without interrupting her attack patterns. That was the only battle so far that had forced her to use a skill, a simple [Mana s***h]. With it, she had eliminated both her ranged opponents from the fight.
That act would have been impressive if she had been fighting normal combatants, but the Pathers she had been fighting never slipped below the sixth rank and had preserved their ranking despite three other challenges.
That single [Mana s***h] had simply moved so quickly, it crossed the fifty-five-foot distance in less time than it took for the team’s mage and archer to blink.
Zack had timed each, just to be certain.
While increasing the movement speed of a skill was possible, it was one of the hardest modifications to make to a spell, and usually resulted in a notable reduction in power. Queen’s attack suffered from seemingly no side effects, but that could be explained through the use of her Concept.
Except, that brought them around to the fact that Queen had her Concept manifested at all times. To imbue her Concept in a skill and send it out would be easy, but her sword didn’t even flicker. That wasn’t something seen until after Tier 15, when people had long years to train their Concept.
To manage a double layering of her Concept at her Tier made her an enigma. The Empire seemed to have a surplus of those these days.
Allie drew a tongue sticking out of Queen’s paused mask and sagged her head. “Ugh. She’s a pain in my ass. Let’s just move on. What about first and second place? Still squabblin’?”
Zack brought up a projection and played their most recent fight.
The two solo Pathers had been duking it out incessantly for the last two months. Their current record was a near-even split, but they carefully kept their little feud out of the public view.
That may have helped them if Zack didn’t have the feeds to all the glass orbs.
Currently in first place was the Pather code-named Adam.
The man’s mask changed consistently, but with an illusion Talent, even they weren’t sure what his real face looked like.
Sometimes, he wore actual masks that covered his identity but, other times, he wore ‘nothing’ or just a ‘mask’ that covered his eyes and cheekbones.
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