The Black Swordsman

Chapter 14: VR Pain Pt. 2

Suguha's gold and green sword gave off a brilliant green glow, signaling the pre motion of a sword skill. She was within slashing distance of one of the guard dogs that her and the rest of her teammates were fighting. Suguha used a combination of sword strikes to create the shape of a rhombus against the enemy guard dog, executing the sword skill named "Horizontal Square." This brutal attack was able to severe the last remaining bit of the enemies' health, causing it to shatter into blue polygonal shards. Suguha began to pant due to exhaustion and before she could switch her attention to another target, one of the other guard dogs tackled her, harshly, to the ground. The guard dog attempted to take a bite out of Suguha's throat but she managed to block the bite with her sword, placing it right in the mouth of the feral beast that was trying to kill her. The sharp edges of the sword not only were able to hold the mouth of the guard dog open but caused the mouth of the enemy to begin bleeding.

"D-damn it", cursed Suguha as the guard dog's face and sharp teeth inched closer and closer to her flesh. She used all of her strength to keep the guard dog at bay.

"Don't worry, Suguha, I got your back!" yelled Lisbeth as her mace turned a bright pink color, indicating that she was in the pre motion stage of a sword skill activation.

Despite being a small distance away from the enemy, Lisbeth slammed her mace into the creature with destructive force, completing the sword skill "Vorpal Strike." The attack was so powerful that it drained more than half of the guard dog's health and killed it in a single strike. Luckily, before the face of the feral beast could get any closer to Suguha's throat, it shattered into tiny blue polygonal shards, allowing Suguha to take a deep breath, relieved that she was saved just in time.

"That strike was intense", commented Suguha as she picked herself up off of the grass.

Lisbeth fell onto the grass, herself, exhausted from the execution of her high leveled sword skill that she had learned from Asuna.

"T-thanks, Asuna taught me that one when I was training with her. I...I've never attempted it before. I didn't think I had it in me, to be honest."

"She'd be proud if she saw it in action", claimed Suguha which managed to bring a smile to Lisbeth's face, despite the danger that they were both still in. "How are the others doing?"

Lisbeth and Suguha turned to look at Klein and Agil, who were fighting the last remaining guard dog and Kazuto, who was still fighting the Guardian.

"Klein, keep it distracted for a second!" ordered Agil. "I'm going to try something."

"Man, why the hell do I have to be the bait?" complained Klein as he proceeded to keep the enemy distracted while Agil held his two-handed battle Axe a certain way, initializing a sword skill, causing his battle axe to glow orange.

"Alright, ready!" yelled Agil in his booming, deep voice.

Klein hopped, backwards, away from the guard dog that he was fighting, giving Agil the opening that he needed. Agil executed a devastating spin attack with his battle axe that landed perfectly on the side of the guard dog's face. This was the sword skill "whirl wind" and it was so powerful that it managed to finish off the rest of the final guard dog's health bar, causing it to disintegrate into blue polygonal shards.

"I-is that all of them?" asked Agil, tired from the strike that took a lot of energy out of him.

Agil and Klein noticed that Lisbeth and Suguha had already taken care of the other two guard dogs and Klein smiled to himself.

"Seems like the girls beat us to it", Klein said, smiling.

"Yeah, but it looks like your boy is still busy", interjected Agil, who was watching Kazuto fight the Guardian with not one but both of his swords at one time which was called dual wielding in the world of SAO.