Stuck in a Chinese novel

"What is AyaAkusa you ask?" An Asian man asked as he stood with a katana in his hand while a young boy sat on the ground cross legged. While the traditional Japanese way was to sit was 'Seiza' during such moments, the boy had a mind of his own.

The master also didn't mind because he wasn't a stickler for such things. What he did care about was the question the boy had asked. It showed how much he had learned in just a short amount of time. Although the boy couldn't wield the power like him, the man still taught him the essence of his sword. How he used it and all in great theory.

And from those lessons, that question stemmed. What was the main essence of his swordsmanship?

"You see, the human will is to survive. You take a leg, a hand, an eye, or something else. In some cases, one can survive even without the lower half of their body. That's the will to live. It's too strong." The man said before he looked at the boy and said, a slight tinge of worship in his eyes as if he was describing something beautiful, like his first love, "But AyaAkusa cuts that very will. The will to live is split in half so even a nick, even a prick, ends up taking a life."

The man then stood up straight, "That's what AyaAkusa is. To target what is beyond flesh. To kill, perfectly and completely."

~~

AyaAkusa was a fantastic sword art. There was no need to worry about your target making it through. Especially on a battlefield where you can't afford to lose your guard but also cannot make sure that your target was dead. Sometimes, the target survived and in a desperate last-moment attempt, took you to hell with them.

Not the kind I was worried about. But, these weren't normal people, were they? Even the slightest distraction could give the bigwigs a chance to attack me and injure me. In front of such a massive army, I wasn't allowing for that to happen.

Anyway, if I had to mention a drawback of AyaAkusa, then that would be the big movements of the sword. Unlike a traditional sword technique, AyaAkusa didn't have a defensive movement. It only had a slash and a stab, which could also be called a pierce.

But it had nothing else than them and they consumed a high amount of soul power to kill only a few enemies and the movements were very big as well. So, after repeated improvements, I came up with a technique that absolved these weaknesses.

I still couldn't create a defensive technique for it because AyaAkysa was too complete for me to make any changes, but I could shorten the movements easily. It was like keeping the recipe the same but using modern ingredients.

[Massacre]

Unlike the name of the move, it didn't really massacre the targets before me. No. No. What it simply did was target the life inside the flesh with a simple nick. No sign of the life inside the body would remain, but the damage would be small enough to contain the soul.

AyaAkusa was originally a sword movement that cut the essence of everything itself. In case of humans, or other creatures in this world's case, it would be their soul.

But that was only if the damage was too big. However, if it was just a small nick, just a small one like the prick of a needle, it'd would cut the string of life but not the string of soul. My master was actually very shocked when I showed him that improvement. Of course, since it was my and mine alone improvement, he never asked me to teach it to him. He was born with AyaAkusa while I perfected an already perfect technique.

It was all mine.

And so was this massacre…

~~

As the army of the nobles got into position, the scene got even more intimidating and even Max, who had great faith in his master started to waver whether or not his master would survive the upcoming battle or not.

However, what flabbergasted him even more that his master just kept walking forward with a normal gait. No armor on him and no weapon in his hand. He simply walked.

The army of the nobles had plenty of time to get into position which they did. Archers at the back and behind them stood mages. However, in front of the archers weren't knights which was the usual lineup but warriors, the main vanguard of the battle. The physical attackers if one had to say.

And the order was once again changed when there were knights in front of the warriors with shields in their hands. It was a battle of defense and long-ranged attacks from the obvious lineup.

The best response was to get close but getting close wouldn't help much if the massive wall of shield couldn't be breached. After which there were warriors, the main vanguards of an army. Finally there were archers which seemed like the main attack force as long term battles were made for them and the magicians were probably there for support.

A long-range counter was out of the question because the enemy had the number on their side while there was only one person on the other side. Max had mixed feelings about this. After all, Adrian hadn't even taken him for defense so he could go all out on attack.

Until Adrian crossed that distance, he would also have to remain on the defensive to protect himself from the archers and the possible mage attacks.

"What a fool." Duke Carmon said as he watched the sole young man making his way towards them and as he did, he could see the confidence in the gait. That was the walk of a leader yet the current action of the man was anything but of a leader.

A good leader would have put his subordinates to use and fought back. Well, given the scale of the army he faced, the good decision would have been to surrender but if even that wasn't done, then nothing good could be expected from the current leader walking towards them.

Adrian kept walking. He didn't slow down for even a second and kept his gait as constant as it was.

"Archers at the ready!" The commander of the archers yelled. Almost 10,000 archers raised their bows, all of them in different ranks but even the weakest of them was B rank and the strongest of them was an S rank.

As they imbued their mana into the arrows, the arrows began to glow shinier and if looked from afar, they looked like arrows made of light.

"Steady!" The commander said and once they were already, "Fire!"

"Shwah!" The arrows left the bow with a strong blow and made a straight beeline towards the sky and then made their way down on their target who kept walking without stopping.

The arrows grew closer and closer until they were so close to their target that it seemed liked there would be a giant explosion from the amassed fall of the arrows and since they were pinpoint by magic, all ten thousand of them aimed at the same spot, on the same target.

However, just before it seemed like they were about to fall, they all stopped. The rain of light suddenly came to an abrupt stop. The stop was so strong that waves of wind were produced that blew away the surroundings and even got to the point of the army and Max.

Max felt a cut on his cheek as he saw that the massive shock wasn't from just air but also from the amassed mana.

Yet, they stopped in front of their target, the target who remained unharmed and simply raised his hand and something emitted from his hand. Something so transparent to the point it was invisible.

But it was there. It then spread across all the arrows and just when everyone thought that was it, the arrows suddenly blew up.

The commander didn't know what happened but the attack seemed to have failed. To him, that was all that mattered. So he raised his hand and issued another order.

"Reload!"

Reload. He was asking them to pitch their arrows in their bows once again, the classic example of try again if you failed once which the archery squad did.

The earlier scene repeated once again. The arrows were charged with mana once again and they began to shine intensely once again as they threatened to change the density of mana in the air.

The charge of the arrows was even stronger from the looks of it.

"Steady!" He once again told them to be ready to fire and then he brought his hand down, "Fire!!!"

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Like someone had pulled the plug, the shining arrows suddenly darkened from the front to the back but that wasn't just it, their wielders began to fall one by one as well. From the front to the back of the archer squad, ten thousand people began to fall, their fates uncertain.

"What the…"