Kirito's provocation was crude, but it had the desired effect: Seiya responded fully.
Having practiced kendo for over a decade, it was impossible for Seiya not to be interested in Kirito's swordsmanship, even in a game.
So when Kirito challenged him, Seiya gripped his sword and nodded with a quiet smile, ready for the duel.
Seeing Seiya accept, Kirito's own grin widened. With a few swift gestures, the system confirmed that both had entered fair PVP mode.
In this mode, there was no death penalty. Matches lasted three minutes, and the winner was determined either when one player's HP bar hit zero or by who had more HP remaining at the end of the time limit.
Klein, standing nearby, was visibly excited. Compared to the dull task of farming monsters, witnessing a duel was infinitely more thrilling.
One was a beta "overpowered" player; the other, a real-world kendo champion with natural combat instincts. Even at such low levels, this was undeniably a peak showdown.
SAO's system skills required prerequisites—sword type mastery, level requirements, and so on.
Kirito, even with his beta experience, had access to only a handful of skills at this point.
Seiya, meanwhile, might have been able to generate "original skills" in-game using his real-life expertise, but Kirito doubted that he could fully unleash those skills at his current level.
Seiya was strong, but he was still new to the game. Kirito's advantage lay in familiarity with the system after a full month of beta testing.
Kirito planted a foot, kicking up a gust of wind behind him, and in an instant, he surged toward Seiya.
"Dash," a universal skill in SAO, allowed short-distance bursts for any class.
Unlike his reserved real-world personality, Kirito in-game was all offense. From the start, he intended to dictate the pace.
Using the dash skill, he closed the distance in just a few breaths—speed far surpassing that of the boar from before.
Normally, dash caused a brief delay before and after movement—what players called pre- and post-animation lag. But Kirito, smoothly chaining sword skills, minimized this lag.
As he reached Seiya, Kirito swung his sword downward: a diagonal slash.
A basic SAO skill, but combined with dash, it was faster and more powerful than usual. Had Klein been in Seiya's place, he'd likely have been sliced through instantly.
But Seiya was no ordinary opponent.
"Clang!" The sound echoed across the grassy field as Seiya blocked Kirito's blow with a steady horizontal grip.
Spinning his blade, Seiya countered with a thrust aimed at Kirito's head. Kirito tilted slightly, letting the tip slice past his ear, sending a few strands of hair flying.
Their swords clashed rapidly in a dazzling exchange of strikes, sparks flying with each impact. Klein could only gape.
Looking at his battered old sword, Klein realized he was playing a completely different game from these two.
Though both were low-level characters, and both used the most basic universal skills—diagonal slashes, thrusts, overhead strikes—the execution was on an entirely different plane.
In this high-speed duel, Seiya and Kirito were evenly matched. Klein could see their HP bars depleting before his eyes.
Seiya took more hits, still unaccustomed to the game's mechanics, while Kirito's reflexes were near inhuman.
In real-world kendo, reaction speed was limited by the body. Here, in a full-dive VR environment, mind and body were perfectly synchronized.
Kirito's lightning-fast reflexes and familiarity with the system let him dodge, parry, and counter with terrifying precision.
Yet Seiya was far from helpless. Despite taking more damage, he fought tenaciously, trading blows to land even minor weak-point strikes.
He absorbed multiple hits to deliver a single well-placed counter.
Kirito noticed, too: as the fight progressed, Seiya's movements became smoother, more confident.
This rookie was learning mid-battle, adapting to the game on the fly.
And that thought alone sent a chill down Kirito's spine.
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(End of Chapter)