Inside the underground testing ground, the cozy atmosphere created by the tea party had long vanished.
In its place were two completely distinct yet equally profound waves of battle intent, colliding silently in the air.
The undisputed strength of The Captain clashed with the unknown depths of Daigan’s power.
It was a suffocating pressure that set hearts pounding, as if even the air itself had solidified into something heavy and crushing.
“A rare sight,” Arlecchino remarked, leaning lazily against the observation window.
She lightly stroked her chin with her fingertips, her sharp eyes gleaming with intrigued interest.
When it came to a fight involving the First of the Fatui Harbingers, hardly anyone could fail to be interested.
If the legends of The Captain’s immortal body were true, then this was likely not just a display of strength, but the reemergence of an ancient martial art.
“Is Daigan really going to fight The Captain?!
This is incredible!” Tartaglia was as excited as a child, his blue eyes burning with pure passion for battle.
To him, observing an actual combat session between masters was the greatest joy in the world—not to mention it involved The Captain, whom he had always revered, and this mysterious Daigan.
“It’s just a shame I can’t join in.” Still, the insights he stood to gain from watching would surely take his understanding of combat to the next level.
“But…” Columbina tilted her head, her innocent expression filled with confusion.
“Does fighting really make people happy?
Why does everyone seem so…
excited?”
As she pondered, her gaze drifted toward Sandrone for no apparent reason.
“Don’t you dare start fighting up here!”
Seeing the aura between the two in the room growing increasingly scorching, Sandrone panicked and hurriedly slammed down on an emergency button.
Accompanied by the roar of machinery, the floor in the center of the laboratory slowly sank, revealing a vast subterranean arena buried deep underground.
Tartaglia snapped out of his excitement, looking down at the cavernous arena in disbelief.
“How is there a giant pit here?!”
“What do you mean?!” Sandrone said, her heart aching at the potential damage.
“I usually use this place to test heavy machinery!
The factory floor is only so big, so of course it has to fold!”
“The space down there is big enough.
Go wild,” Sandrone added helplessly.
“Much obliged,” The Captain said with a slight nod.
His voice was deep, magnetic, and carried an indisputable authority.
He looked toward Daigan, whose eyes remained completely devoid of ripples.
…
The testing ground was surrounded by thick alloy walls and explosion-proof tempered glass.
The ground was littered with scorch marks and deep craters left behind by previous artillery tests.
There was no clutter here—it was barren to the extreme, resembling a massive iron cage waiting for a duel between trapped beasts.
“How is it down there?
Do you need me to add some terrain features?
Like cover, or fog?” Sandrone’s voice echoed through the loudspeaker across the vast arena.
Behind the glass on the top floor, several pairs of eyes were staring unblinkingly at the two men on the field.
Daigan didn’t reply.
He simply drew his plain iron sword without a word, pointing the tip diagonally toward the ground.
His entire presence became like an ancient, immovable boulder.
The Captain surveyed his empty surroundings and shook his head, his voice steady as a mountain:
“No need.
This is fine.”
The sparser and more open the ground was, the better he could observe the opponent’s combat style and decipher their moves.
Besides, terrain could easily be created by oneself.
“Then let us begin,” Sandrone sighed.
She prayed the training facility wouldn’t end up scrapped; she had already applied for every bit of funding she could for the year.
*Ding—*
As the communication device shut off, the temperature in the arena instantly plunged to a freezing point.
[First Harbinger: The Captain] [Level: 90]
*Another Level 90?
I thought only gods were Level 90?*
[There are disparities even among Level 90s.
Rest assured, Host—as long as you develop properly, the Level 90 you reach in the future will definitely be the strongest among all at that tier.]
“Good.”
The Captain’s health bar lit up.
Without any useless chatter, the battle erupted in an instant.
Daigan held his iron sword and lunged toward The Captain like an arrow leaving the string.
Capitano watched Daigan approach at terrifying speed without moving a muscle.
His gaze finally settled on the seemingly mundane iron sword, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Is this the sword you choose to hold, even after setting aside the divine weapon granted by Her Majesty?”
Without rushing, he flicked his wrist.
The Delusion on his back burst into brilliant light, and a single-handed sword condensed from dense Ice element—gradually tainted with a black mist—was summoned into his hand.
*Clang!*
Daigan didn’t say a single word and struck directly.
Capitano didn’t attack; he simply held his sword at an angle to defend, intending to test the young man’s weight.
*Clang—!*
A crisp metallic clash reverberated through the venue, sparking fire and ice fragments in all directions.
The Captain’s arm sank slightly, his defensive blade pressed down several inches.
“Your strength is impressive.”
Capitano applied force through his wrist, slanting the blade to skillfully shed part of the impact while pinning Daigan’s sword.
Having lived for so long, his martial arts had long reached perfection.
Just as he locked Daigan’s blade and prepared to contest him in raw strength, Daigan abruptly pulled back his sword.
The movement was fluid as flowing water; from an unbelievable angle, he slashed forward once more.
Another metallic clash echoed from Capitano’s blade.
He was somewhat surprised—this was a sword style he had never seen before.
“Your sword technique was likely not learned in the military, was it?” The Captain remarked, effortlessly blocking the relentless onslaught while offering his assessment.
“Even in the strictest armed forces, they would never teach a style that completely abandons defense for near-suicidal offense.”
During the entire exchange, Daigan never stopped.
In just a few seconds, the two had already exchanged nearly twenty moves, their sword shadows weaving a dense net in the air.
*Clang—!*
“A sword style like this is undeniably fierce, but its flaw is equally glaring.” Capitano parried Daigan’s strike once again, his sword remaining rock-steady this time.
“If your opponent’s strength surpasses your own…”
He precisely captured the moment Daigan retracted his sword.
Countering downward, his pitch-black blade tore through the air with a howling cold wind, aiming directly for the space between Daigan’s eyebrows.
“…you will be easily suppressed!”
However, Daigan’s reaction exceeded his expectations once again.
At the critical moment, Daigan violently tilted his head, dodging the strike by a hair’s breadth.
Even while unable to exert full force from that position, he twisted his body, thrusting his iron sword straight toward Capitano’s chest with absolute disregard for defense.
“Hmm…”
Perhaps for a youth, a painful lesson was often far more effective than verbal instruction.
Seeing how Daigan stubbornly persisted, Capitano held back no longer.
The flow of his blade shifted from offense to defense, pressing down toward Daigan’s neck.
In the next instant, Daigan tapped his left foot on the ground and leapt into the air.
He turned his head slightly to dodge the blade, twisted his waist midair, and retracted his sword to stab downward.
Capitano was somewhat surprised.
Stepping back slightly, he drew his sword back to block.
Daigan’s strike was intercepted once more.
Yet, as Capitano glanced down at his own blade, he fell silent.
The sword condensed from Ice element was currently pockmarked with deep, fine cracks.
Daigan’s sword was far sharper than he had imagined—it had broken through his elemental defense directly.
*Clang!*
The wear and tear caused by the continuous slashes made it difficult even for Capitano to keep up with the weapon’s durability.
With a thought, wisps of black energy spilled from his chest, rapidly repairing the ice sword and making it even harder and darker.
That was the modified Khaenri’ahn heart at work, converting memories and souls from the ley lines into raw power.
Beginning to draw upon his true trump card, Capitano’s eyes sharpened.
“Watch yourself.”
Capitano slashed downward, his pitch-black blade screaming as it sliced through the air.
Daigan continued his dash to dodge the incoming damage, stepping aside to avoid the strike before flash-stepping behind The Captain and bringing his blade down.
Capitano met the blow with his ice sword, now reinforced and hardened by black energy.
When the two blades collided, the dark-infused ice sword actually began to sink into Daigan’s iron sword…
“Daigan lost,” Tartaglia couldn’t help but say upon seeing this.
Yet the scene that followed made him shut his mouth instantly.
The two blurred figures exchanged sword shadows in the arena, followed by a crisp, ear-splitting snap.
The weapon that shattered wasn’t Daigan’s sword—it was Capitano’s reinforced ice blade!
As the broken fragments of the sword scattered through the air, Capitano visibly failed to react in time.
Harbingers were forbidden from fighting among themselves, and spars were supposed to stop at a touch.
Yet Daigan hadn’t held back in the slightest.
[The Captain’s white shield broken, entered swordless stagger state]
Taking advantage of the moment The Captain’s shield broke, Daigan immediately followed up with a relentless flurry of slashes.
Capitano leaped backward to dodge a strike.
His movement was tiny, just enough to clear the blade’s edge.
“Hm?”
Yet his brows furrowed as he realized something was wrong.
Daigan’s sword came sweeping back.
Capitano backed away again, making a much larger leap over a greater distance this time.
What happened next left him even more shocked.
Before he could process his doubts, Daigan’s next slash transitioned smoothly into another strike.
Capitano directly summoned a wall of ice to block it.
Yet Daigan’s iron sword was like molten lava, melting through the ice wall without a moment’s pause and striking down once again…
Just like that, dozens of slashes rained down.
Capitano continuously attempted various methods to dodge those dozens of strikes.
With every dodge, his brow furrowed deeper.
Daigan’s offensive rhythm completely shattered his ability to predict movements.
When swung, that iron sword seemed to ignore the limits of reach and distance.
Every single blow landed precisely where Capitano had just stepped, as if calculating his escape route in advance.
Most importantly…
It continued until the iron walls of the testing ground groaned under the pressure of their battle shockwaves, threatening to collapse.
Sandrone’s voice calling a halt echoed from above, and only then did Daigan stop his slashes.
The testing ground was in absolute ruin, littered with shattered ice mounds and deep gouges in the metal floor.
Capitano stood in place, holding his shattered ice sword once more.
He looked silently at Daigan, his thoughts unreadable.
…
After the two rode the elevator back up from the factory floor, Tartaglia was both excited and surprised.
“I didn’t expect Daigan to be so incredible—he actually matched Captain-senpai in a contest of swordplay!”
Arlecchino shook her head, her tone chillingly calm.
“His speed isn’t actually that fast.
If Lord Capitano wanted to evade him entirely, it wouldn’t have been difficult.”
Even she had noticed Daigan’s complete abandonment of defense.
That kind of fight-to-the-death style had only ever existed in the old House of the Hearth.
Could he truly be a cold-blooded assassin secretly raised by Her Majesty the Tsaritsa?
“Although Daigan’s offense was relentless, Lord Capitano didn’t miss a single move from start to finish.” She looked toward The Captain, waiting for his explanation.
Sandrone was busily sorting through the battle data, preparing to recycle and reuse it.
Once she built new machinery, she could ask the Tsaritsa for more funding—or collaborate with Regator.
But she was far too “solitary” to ever work with a guy like that.
“Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…” Columbina, uninterested in the battle itself, was off to the side counting the ice mounds created by the residual elemental power from Capitano’s attacks.
Though busy with their own tasks, everyone kept their ears perked, eager to hear The Captain’s evaluation of Daigan.
Yet under everyone’s watchful eyes, Capitano uttered words that shocked the room.
“No.
I didn’t dodge a single one.”