A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

As she responded to each of the dread drake’s assaults, Sophia inadvertently wore a faint smile.
Exhilaration. And delight.

The drake’s sheer bulk rivaled a massive citadel. Between its colossal size and Sophia’s form, an insurmountable gap in dimensions and mass was inevitable. No matter how much she enhanced her physical abilities through Reverse Muscle Cultivation or gripped her greatsword two-handed, that disparity was an inescapable reality.

When size differences reached such extremes, martial arts became utterly ineffective. Martial disciplines were fundamentally designed for humans to battle other humans, accounting for size variances within the human spectrum – the lightest versus heaviest weight classes still fell within those parameters.
Against titans of incomparable scale, those criteria became obsolete.

Yet while combat techniques lost relevance, a warrior’s insights and accumulated battle principles clearly manifested in her very movements. Amidst this predicament where the slightest misstep courted irreversible consequences, Sophia relished navigating these sensations.

The drake’s three reptilian heads, each bearing a hundred twitching eyes, pursued Sophia’s form with grating breaths. Its six arms incessantly generated and hurled corrupted elementals, while its rabbit-like haunches closed distances in an instant. Its camel and elephant-esque forelegs unhesitatingly stomped towards Sophia.

Each time the drake bounded, the earth shook like an earthquake, its pillar-thick tail lashing ponderously like a coiled whip through the surroundings. Yet Sophia deftly wielded her longsword’s aura to slice through the rampaging winds, employing gravity-defying stances to suppress the tremors, all while steadily maneuvering to determine an optimal engagement range.

The insights that restored traces of the martial arts and mystic principles across her past lives fully demonstrated their profound applications in this one. Sophia began refining viable defensive, evasive and offensive doctrines by continuously comparing the drake’s movements, dimensions and her own capabilities in real-time.

‘Come to think of it, Reverse Muscle Cultivation didn’t even exist in my previous life.’

While the myths and legends of past heroes slaying dragons, sea monsters and other titanic beasts persisted on ancient Earth, those heroes lacked universal self-enhancement skills like Reverse Muscle Cultivation. They wholly relied on their personal prowess, wisdom and fate’s blessings to challenge such feats.

Compared to those mythical heroes, how much more advantageous were Sophia’s current conditions? Moreover, her previous incarnation as Yibum-seok had undergone visions of antiquity to re-experience the very ordeals of ancient heroes, etching the ‘Martial’ and ‘Heroic Ordeal’ lineage blessings into his soul.

Before long, the lineage blessings for vanquishing dragons, monsters, demons and giants activated across Sophia’s limbs, lending her their legendary might. Her otherwise ordinary movements became rhythmically intricate thanks to the inner ki coursing through her meridians and the kundalini resonating through her chakras.

As Sophia deftly neutralized the corrupted elementals with her whirling sword trajectories before vaulting skyward through aerial techniques, the drake swung all six arms to attack her.

‘But to no avail.’

Sophia’s form agilely danced through the air like windblown feathers. Contorting her posture, altering angles and vectors midair while nimbly dashing along outstretched limbs, two of the drake’s heads instinctively sensed danger and lunged forth.

Yet their attacks could not match Sophia’s fluid evasions, the serrated fangs of both gaping maws missing her form with resounding snaps as their squid-like tentacle beards lashed out fruitlessly. Though corrosive drool and noxious gases washed over her, Sophia’s thin warding talismans protected her body and equipment as she relentlessly retaliated.

Krrrrrr…..

The two heads that lost their quarry emitted grating, lizard-like breaths as their combined two hundred eyes rolled frenetically tracking Sophia’s movements. By then, she had adroitly repositioned onto the drake’s nape. Soon, her longsword began glowing azure.

Bzazzzt – accompanied by a crackling sound, Sophia’s blade flashed like lightning. The azure aura rippling along the quivering blade whirled like a cyclone before lashing out, scouring the myriad eyes bulging from the drake’s right head.

Kkkyyyaaaahhhh—-!?

Anguished by the instantaneous damage to its countless eyes, the drake thrashed about screeching like scraping metal. But Sophia did not relent.

“Your breath stinks. Be silent.”

Abruptly emanating luminous force across her entire body, Sophia unleashed a dazzling light spell from her sockets. Momentarily blinded by the searing radiance assaulting its remaining eyes, the drake froze, forgetting even to breathe.

However, this drake’s other senses were highly developed. Flickering its bifurcated tongues to detect body heat, bioelectricity, echolocation and scents, its heads gradually began pinpointing Sophia’s location through synesthetic awareness.

+++++

Observing Sophia’s distant battle, Hildegard and Conra gritted their teeth.

“Kugh, we must hurry.”

As they rushed the civilians’ evacuation, Hildegard spoke. Conra agreed, glaring hatefully at the corrupted elementals the drake unleashed.

“We need to quickly secure the people to safety and then rejoin Master. The elemental spirits are being defiled by that fiend’s vile power. As a druid, I cannot allow such an abomination.”

Even as he generated a banishing barrier against the malign power while catalyzing nature’s restorative force to shelter the evacuees, Conra grit his teeth in frustration – their movements were far too sluggish compared to his expectations.

“I understand your heart, but calm yourself a little, Conra. Demonic energies seek cracks in one’s mind. We must fortify our spirits.”
“…Thank you for the advice.”

Chastened that his lack of composure warranted Hildegard’s counsel, Conra felt abashed before regaining his serenity.

“Still, Sophia is truly formidable.”
Watching Sophia hold her own against the drake, Hildegard marveled.
“Aren’t most Paladin knights that powerful?”
Conra asked quizzically.
“Certainly, the Church’s monk knights and nun knights count among the continent’s mightiest.”

Hildegard affirmed it, yet shook her head:

“But even among them, Sophia stands apart – exceedingly seasoned and polished, I’d say. Perhaps her prowess places her among the top echelon of Paladins?”

Conra nodded at Hildegard’s estimation. Indeed, his revered master was undoubtedly extraordinary even for a nun knight.

While guiding the evacuees with summoned animal and plant spirits, Conra’s gaze kept returning to Sophia’s ongoing clash against the drake.

It was the very moment Sophia had roughly perceived the drake’s auxiliary senses and prepared corresponding countermeasures.

+++++

Even after blinding its sight with luminous force and a dazzling spell, the drake’s heads began perceiving the battlefield through other means.
A synesthetic world of body heat, bioelectricity, echolocation and scent. The different sensory inputs carved patterns into space, their combined impressions more intricate than what its hundred eyes per head could visually discern.

‘Let’s neutralize that echolocation first.’

While called echolocation, it ultimately relied on auditory data processed from ultrasonic waves. In other words, if she could generate a mass of soundwaves to disrupt that auditory input, she could incapacitate its echolocation.

And Sophia happened to know just such a technique. With her lineage blessings activating, inner ki stirring and kundalini moving, a sound amplification spell engaged as she unleashed a resounding truth-shattering roar from deep within.