Seria motioned for the two remaining elders to attack the clawed immortal.

The two elders appeared in front of their target with blades in their hands within an instant. As they were about to attack, they found themselves held by the their throats, and hung in midair.

The elders’ blood and life force were directly drained from their bodies, quickly turning them into mummified corpses.

Seeing this, Seria coldly humphed, turned towards the great elder Asher, and said, “You know what to do.”

Asher nodded, and the two of them fearlessly ran towards the clawed immortal, disregarding the fates of the elders just moments ago.

The clawed immortal quickly released the mummified corpses, reaching out and grabbing onto the necks of Seria and Asher. The clawed immortal smirked, and prepared to drain the the blood of the two in her grasp.

Shock showed on the clawed immortal’s face when the two immortals in her grip morphed, transforming into two piles of snow. She hurriedly looked around for the two when she suddenly felt her ankles being grabbed.

Hands were coming out of the snow beneath her, restricting her movements. She sensed something coming from above her, and she looked up.

She was captivated by the sight of a beautiful girl wielding a blade of ice slashing downwards, and that was the last thing the clawed immortal saw. Her body was split into two halves down the middle.

Truthfully, if the members of Sphinx hadn’t had such hard battles with other immortals before their arrival, they wouldn’t have fallen so miserably.

An old man with an indifferent smiling expression on his face came up from the ground beneath her. That old man turned out to be a great elder of the Weiss Clan, Asher.

Asher clasped his hands behind his back and stood subserviently behind Seria while watching the others fight the lazy immortal and Gyro off into the distance, asking, “What should we do now, young mistress? Should we help the others?”

A similar smile appeared on Seria’s face as she said with disdain towards Asher, “We obviously wait for the others to exhaust themselves first. When all of them are moderately weakened, we’ll take away Aegis at the end and be the final winners.”

“Young mistress is truly intelligent,” the great elder Asher smiled thoughtfully. A glint of killing intent flashed across his eyes momentarily when he looked ahead, before quickly vanishing as soon as it appeared. Who this killing intent was directed towards went unnoticed by anyone.

Simultaneously, Roy was pressured and also on the verge of being defeated by the combined efforts of the trio pushing him back.

…

Zieg’s sword glowed a bright red, absorbing the blood from the previous wound inflicted on Gyro’s shoulder.

How many times have they sparred in the past? Zieg had already lost count. All he knew was that of the hundreds of battles he had with Gyro, he had always lost decisively lost. Back then, Gyro appeared to be an enormous mountain in front of him, someone he could never defeat in a millions years. Everytime he felt like he was close to victory, Gyro would increase his battle ability and utterly defeat him. Zieg now understood that Gyro had always held back his true combat ability when sparring with him, and yet he was still unarguably defeated every single time. An enormous gulf, there was a huge gap in ability between them back then.

The figure that appeared gigantic in the past now appeared substantially smaller. Zieg knew that he had long caught up to Gyro, no, he had already surpassed him. No matter how strong Gyro might have been in the past, Zieg knew that like Cain with Aegis, someone who solely relied on the abilities of an external existence like an artifact could never truly match up to him.

(Even if his body has the defense and constitution of an artifact, bodies still hold many weaknesses. Everything has a weakness, even things that appear undefeatable at first glance. This was something I learned from you...) Zieg considered. His eyes flitted and scanned Gyro’s body. He noticed that the metallic left arm Gawain was unnaturally dim, and he could faintly hear it droning in agony. The sound went unnoticed to all, even Gyro, but Zieg. The legendary artifact might have resonated and approved of the Gyro in the past, but it clearly didn’t approve of the current him. The artifact seemed like it was suffering, being forced against its will to adhere to the will of its wielder. Zieg sighed.

(I will free the both of you) he vowed in his heart.

Several ideas sprang into Zieg’s mind, the joints, the fingers, the organs, the eyes. Some of these things were weaknesses that couldn’t be enhanced normally via training. He had also considered the weakness of Gyro’s choice of weapon, a halberd. Polearms had the weakness of being slow, a fact which was negated by Gyro’s absurd strength given by Gawain, but also had the flaw of being weak in close-ranged combat. Zieg had made a decision on the spot, although Gyro’s body possessed the hardness of an artifact, his eyes did not. Targeting his eyes would also take away one of his senses, a thing that people fatally relied on in battles. Deciding what to do, Zieg slowly stood up.

Witnessing Zieg’s resolute figure, Gyro knew what he ultimately decided to do.

“It’s a pity… A damn pity…” Gyro sighed with a cold gaze. He thought that the result of a clash between the two of them was already a foregone conclusion. He had always won during the spars with Zieg in the past, how would now be any different? He had always held back his true strength, not to mention he was even stronger than he was in the past with Gawain by his side. With “The Guardian,” he didn’t have to focus as much on defense, and could channel all his energy into an overwhelmingly destructive offense, an offense that could split apart bodies like nothing. Nevertheless, as an hardened veteran, Gyro didn’t let his guard down in the least.

Gyro lowered his body, bringing his halberd behind him and spreading his metallic left palm open in front of him into a stance. The stance had no openings whatsoever, it gave off the impression that all those who entered its range of attack would be easily cleaved apart into lifeless lumps of meat.

The only advantage Zieg had in this fight was that Gyro was still unaware of his artifact, Bloodwhistler’s ability, and would miscalculate his attack speed at the last moment, giving Zieg a single opportunity. He had probably assumed that his earlier speed from when he had injured his shoulder was his fastest.

Zieg decided to wager on this opportunity to see if it could overcome Gyro’s stance and reaction speed. If he failed, he envisioned his body being split into two halves. This vision was eerily similar to the four elders that Gyro cleaved directly into two by the stomach at the Weiss Clan’s mountain chain.

They both reacted at nearly the same time. Zieg dashed at a blinding speed towards Gyro, and Gyro’s left hand turned into a silver blur as something was thrown out of it. Gyro continuously took out and threw three throwing knives towards the approaching Zieg.

Zieg continued to undauntingly run towards Gyro, not stopping in the slightest. Clangs rang out as all three knives were successfully deflected by Zieg. When the third knife rebounded off of Bloodwhistler, its handle faced Zieg, and his hand flashed as he accurately threw it back towards Gyro’s chest.

Gyro made no effort whatsoever to dodge or defend. There was a sound of metal hitting metal, and the knife harmlessly bounced off his body. It was at this point that the two reached one another.

Gyro’s halberd had a much longer attack range and reach, so he calculated the distance between the two of them and prematurely made a horizontal swing. At this rate, his attack would reach Zieg first.

(So slow) Zieg thought to himself. Was this really the same Gyro from back then? The impossibly strong figure from back then was actually this slow, this weak? The halberd’s horizontal swing seemed to move in slow motion in Zieg’s eyes.

Zieg jumped onto the halberd’s axehead mid-swing, and used it as footing to propel himself towards Gyro’s head. He then made a clean horizontal slash aiming at Gyro’s unprotected eyes.

Zieg thought he was already safe at this point. He was thinking to himself, did he really grow so much stronger after a decade? Or was it that he overestimated Gyro, and the Artifact Hunter was actually incredibly weak?

Gyro abruptly brought his head backwards, but his action speed still couldn’t be compared to Zieg’s. Bloodwhistler slashed and was dragged directly across his face, digging deeply into both of his eyes. A long cut appeared on Gyro’s face, effectively blinding him.

Despite Zieg’s successful attack, he suddenly felt incredibly uneasy. His intuition told him to escape.

Zieg was still airborne in front of Gyro and his option of maneuvers was severely limited. A silver arm appeared under him and struck at his stomach, launching him into the air. Zieg vomited a mouthful of blood as his body shot vertically upwards at an absurd height.

Chains appeared around Gawain from Gyro’s interspatial ring with a flick of his wrist, and he sent them towards the airborne Zieg. The chains wrapped around Zieg’s small body and dragged him downwards, directly towards Gyro.

Gyro swung his halberd above his head in an arc towards the incoming Zieg.

Zieg panicked and cut the chains that coiled around him with Bloodwhistler just as the halberd made contact with his body. He used the momentum of the chains to slightly push his body backwards. This last minute action saved him from being completely butchered into two separate body parts.

Zieg hastily made a large jump backwards to widen the distance between the two of them. Just as he thought he dodged the attack, Zieg’s clothes was shredded, and a deep cut appeared on his stomach. The wound bled profusely, and blood was unceasingly pouring out of his mouth.

No wonder he felt so uneasy. He realized that he had severely underestimated Gyro, and it had almost cost him his life.

Gazing at the blinded Jaeger across from him, Zieg felt a burst of oppression, much like the many spars he had with him in the past. Whenever he felt that pressure, he had always undoubtedly lost shortly after.

Gyro was completely blind, but he was still smiling a vicious smile. A smile that foretold victory. Zieg felt pressure weighing down on him.

Even without the use of his eyes, Gyro could still see. Together with his immortal sense and naturally heightened senses honed from many battles, nothing could escape his notice. That was how he was easily able to tell Zieg’s every movement. Gyro was actually utilizing a rare ability that Paragon’s blind guildmaster frequently used, “Divine Vision.” He could sense everything that happened around him.

In terms of absolute abilities, compared to the average immortal, Gyro was a weakling. Without Gawain’s abilities he was nothing more than the weakest of immortals that didn’t possess a single Worldbreaking technique. He wasn’t a genius. He didn’t possess an ounce of talent. It took decades for him to become an immortal. He had even lost to Volheilm, who Zieg had defeated. As far as immortals went, Gyro’s base strength was among the weakest. His speed was among the slowest. He wasn’t the smartest and couldn’t come up with detailed plans. Despite all of these things, he had held his own against Volheilm who possessed several Worldbreaking techniques for three consecutive days. Gyro was a complete and utter weakling, but survived for decades in hundreds of battles with other immortals. Why was this?

Gyro possessed only a single strong point compared to other immortals. This one strong point of his was overwhelmingly high. It vastly exceeded those of his peers and could equal or even exceed those that the peak existences in the transcendent realm possessed.

This one advantage he held over others was simply: experience. Gyro had survived countless battles with those that had abilities that were on an entirely different level than his. Those many life-and-death battles he experienced had honed his battle sense into a tier of its own. His experience and battle sense was so high that he could adapt effortlessly in battle. To the extent that he instantly used Divine Vision for the first time when Zieg took away his sight.

In order to survive on the battlefield, he willingly discarded his own worn weapon that he was familiar with and accustomed to, an act that would be considered suicide by others, and picked up the unfamiliar weaponry of his fallen enemies. As a result, Gyro knew hundreds of strange and unique weapons like the back of his hand. A weapon master.

Gyro’s absolute abilities were the weakest among immortals, but… He was a monster that could surpass geniuses in flexibility. Solely due to his experience, his battle sense, adaptability, and mastery of weapons was the strongest.

He was familiar with and skilled in hundreds of different weapons, but in the end, he, an experienced weapon master’s weapon of choice was a halberd. A weapon that excelled “only,” in mid-ranged combat. A weapon other geniuses and Zieg deemed to possess the flaw of being, “Weak in close-ranged combat.” If Gyro had heard someone say those words, he would consider those so-called “geniuses,” to be nothing more than inexperienced amateurs, and laugh at their ignorance.

A long polearm that was a cross between a spear and an axe. A weapon that had the capability to both pierce and slash. It had a longer range than the popular sword, but was often judged to be weaker at close-range than a sword by geniuses and other weapon masters, but Gyro knew… The halberd possessed only a single flaw compared to other weapons like the sword that possessed many more, and that was that it could not be used effectively in enclosed spaces, something that didn’t apply in his current situation. In an open space, the halberd was indisputably the greatest weapon.

Gyro was confident that Zieg had misinterpreted his weapon’s non-existent weakness. It didn’t matter if he was slower than Zieg. He planned on abusing this misconception, a fatal flaw, to end the battle in his next exchange with Zieg when he tried to take advantage at close-range. He could already envision the scene of Zieg being dismembered.

The halberd. Range that exceeded a sword’s. Slashing ability that exceeded a sword’s. Piercing ability that exceeded a sword’s. Even the infamous flaw of “close-range,” ability that exceeded a sword’s.

The halberd was the ultimate weapon.