"Is this your Grandmaster Realm ability?"

Bard's eyes narrowed as he looked at the divine art that had just been destroyed without any warning, and he asked Liens.

Liens did not answer, but merely drew his longsword and pointed it at him.

On the flat wilderness, a gentle breeze brushed the moonlit grass, and an old man and a young man, vastly different in age, silently watched each other.

With a tacit understanding, their figures almost simultaneously vanished from their original spots, and then, two longswords, each carrying its own anomaly, instantly collided.

Great sound is silence.

There was no sound at that instant, but soon, a deafening roar echoed throughout the entire wilderness, so loud that even Kara City in the distance heard the tremendous noise.

The ensuing shockwave vibrated the air, spreading outwards from the point where Liens and Bard met.

The ground sank, and a deep pit several meters in radius instantly appeared beneath their feet, the green field turned to yellow earth, and the distant trees seemed about to be uprooted by the strong wind.

The massive commotion was like an alarm bell waking the beasts and demonic creatures slumbering in the night, their instinctive sense of danger making them subconsciously move away from the area where the loud noise erupted.

Liens and Bard did not pause, wielding their respective longswords, attacking each other with various Sword Styles.

Every collision they made created a huge impact, and every missed strike left scars on the ground.

But strangely, it was almost always Bard's attacks that missed, and more than half of his attacks fell short.

This was the effect of Killing Intent; Liens could sense Killing Intent to predict his opponent's next move, or even further attacks, thus preparing in advance.

Seeing his rapidly launched attack miss again, Bard's gaze sharpened, and his expression grew more solemn; he realized where the problem lay.

His attacks were being predicted.

The opponent was not reading the attack trajectory through experience and technical knowledge, but rather seemed to know what he was going to do even before he attacked.

Although his opponent was inferior in strength and speed, he was able to continuously contend with him by relying on that precognitive ability.

At first, he thought it was a mind-reading ability, so he calmed his mind and let his body act on instinct.

Under those circumstances, even he himself couldn't know where his longsword would strike before he attacked, but even so, his attacks still had little effect.

Instead, his opponent seized the opportunity, breaking the previously suppressed situation and turning defense into offense, with every move directly targeting his vital points.

"Clang!"

Parrying a thrusting longsword, Bard's expression tightened, and his aura changed abruptly, his longsword slashing towards Liens at a speed far greater than before.

Liens, who had already sensed Bard's intentions through Killing Intent, did not hesitate for a moment and instantly entered the Heaven and Man as One state.

He used greater strength to counter Bard's serious, or rather, desperate, sword strike.

As early as their first encounter in the Instance , he had noticed that Bard's body was ailing, possibly due to the lingering effects of the rumored "severe illness."

Therefore, the time Bard could maintain his peak condition probably wouldn't be much longer than the time he could maintain Heaven and Man as One.

Thus, when Bard entered his true burst state, it meant he was starting to fight desperately.

The sword speed in that burst state already exceeded his body's reaction capabilities; even if he could predict the attack trajectory through Killing Intent, he couldn't completely dodge it.

And with Bard's "focused" Sword Style, if he got hit by one strike, he would basically be dead or crippled.

Therefore, he could only directly enter the Heaven and Man as One state and clash head-on with Bard.

He had initially somewhat deluded himself into thinking he could slowly wear down his opponent with his normal combat power through Killing Intent but now it seemed that was just a delusion after all.

Bard was not a machine; he was a Great Knight with extremely rich combat experience, and naturally, he could quickly assess the situation and find a way to deal with it.

After a brief exchange, Bard quickly determined that no matter how strong Liens's displayed power was, it was a result of the Grandmaster Realm's enhancement.

The opponent himself was merely a Knight, and had not even condensed an elemental body; his basic physical qualities were certainly not bad, but definitely far inferior to his own.

Utilizing this point, Bard had already formulated a winning strategy, and Liens, through Killing Intent also saw his plan.

"Boom!"

The collision of the two swords created an impact far greater than before.

In an instant, the deep pit beneath Liens and Bard's feet expanded by more than double, with large amounts of soil rolling up and accumulating at the edges, indirectly increasing the depth of the pit.

"Whoosh!"

The enormous force generated by the collision of the two swords compelled both Liens and Bard to retreat; Liens was even directly sent flying backward.

"Crack!"

After quickly stabilizing his retreating body, Bard immediately sprinted at Extreme Wind speed towards the direction Liens was flying.

Although he was somewhat surprised that Liens's strength could force him back with that one sword, this didn't significantly affect his subsequent plan.

He knew Liens could predict his attacks, but as long as his attack speed far exceeded the opponent's evasion ability, then even if the opponent could predict, he would inevitably have to take his attacks.

Afterward, he would simply use the moments when the opponent couldn't evade to launch attacks, repeatedly forcing the opponent to defend, and ultimately overwhelm the opponent with the difference in strength.

This was originally a tactic used against fast but weak opponents, and it worked similarly well against Liens, who had precognitive abilities but was weaker than him.

Just like now, on one side was Liens, who was flying backward due to the difference in strength and seemed temporarily unable to control his body, while on the other side was Bard, who had already initiated a sprint and was rapidly approaching him.

At this moment, the future seemed to be moving in the direction Bard had envisioned.

But the more it was so, the more vigilant Bard became, because he didn't believe that Liens, with his precognitive ability, would make no reaction after understanding his plan.

"Here it comes!"

A feeling of being inexplicably locked onto by something arose in Bard's mind, and he thought to himself.

Although he didn't know what attack Liens was preparing to unleash, he knew this must be the opponent's counterattack against him.

Therefore, while maintaining his sprint, Bard also silently circulated his power, preparing for defense.

However, he probably didn't expect the upcoming attack to be faster than he had anticipated, so fast that it exceeded his imagination.

"Extreme Wind!"

In a flash of lightning, all things came to a standstill.

In many combat-oriented anime and novels, a very powerful move often appears: time-space stagnation.

At Liens's current realm, he naturally couldn't achieve true "time-space stagnation," but relying on the absolute control over all things granted by Heaven and Man as One, he could achieve a similar effect.

Essentially, it was similar to Esdeath's "Mahapadma" in Akame ga Kill both instantly stopped the movement of surrounding particles.

However, Esdeath relied on freezing, while he used powerful mental influence to stop the particles' movement.

Unfortunately, he couldn't move normally within that seemingly stagnant time-space, otherwise, he would interfere with the surrounding particles and cause the stagnation effect to fail.

But he still developed a move based on this, which is the current "Extreme Wind."

In the stagnant space, a semi-ethereal phantom detached from Liens's body.

It held a similarly translucent longsword, walked in front of the body-stagnant Bard, slashed at his neck, and stopped several meters behind him.

Speed equals displacement divided by time.

Displacement is the distance between his current position and where the phantom stopped, and time is the instant when all things begin to flow.

Wind is flowing particles; at that instant, he would transform into wind, propelling the sword in his hand across that distance.

As fast as the wind that crosses that distance in that instant, so too would his speed be.

This is Extreme Wind, the wind of extreme speed.

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