Chapter 264 - A Blade And It’s Owner

"Die!" the guard which had been forced to move out of the way by Julius yelled out as he leaped towards Julius in an attempt to knock him out with a single punch. Even though it should have been easy for Julius to dodge the attack as he was slightly stronger and had a lot more experience than the man who was attacking him in battles, Julius had overestimated himself due to the many years he had spent as the sole strongest person in his world. Although there were those who managed to put up quite the challenge, he was always being protected by Duke Drake; however , now that they were in heaven, which is the home realm from which Duke Drake came from, he couldn't do anything extraordinary. He could do some generic things however over powering the very strongest people in the realm was now out of the question. As such, Julius ended up getting hit with the attack from the guard.

"Why the hell does it hurt so much," said Julius after he had gotten on one knee due to the force of the attack he had taken before getting back up to battle his opponent.

"I see, I guess I don't need strategy around these parts," said Julius with a grin as he tried to rush towards the previous guard which simply grabbed Julius by the neck before slamming him back down to the ground. Due to being angered from what Julius had just cost him, his attacks were caused to be more powerful than they would have been in the past.

"Damn it," said Julius as he tried to get up but the previous guard just continued to slam his head on the ground continuously without giving him a single break.

"GET OFF OF ME!" Julius yelled out as he placed his feet on the ground while the previous guard was pulling his head up so that he could slam it back down to the ground. As such, he managed to gain some balance which he used to his advantage as he pressed down on his feet to push his head up and headbutt the previous guard right on the nose.

As such, the guard was forced to back away as his nose was bleeding. However that wouldn't even be the beginning of Julius' attacks as he wanted to get revenge ten times the amount that he had suffered. As such, Julius leaped on the shoulders of the previous guard which was still trying to control his bleeding nose and began to punch the guard over and over again until his eyes could see. Even so, Julius just continued to bombard the guard with an endless fury of attacks.

"Break already!" Julius yelled out as he continued to punch the man with a large grin on his face as if he was having a fun time which he was actually having as he had a lot of frustration that he had to let out. This had continued for so long that Julius forgot where he was and by the time he had come back to his senses, the man was on the ground, fully unconscious and even though no one could get close to him due to Julius constantly bombarding him with attacks, they all knew that the previous guard was dead.

"Wow, that's pretty harsh. It's not every day that you see a newcomer willing to go this far," said one of the members of the clan as they watched what was taking place.

"Wow," said Julius as he got up from the ground with his fists covered in blood as he sought it to find anyone else who wanted to challenge him and he would be lucky as someone was there that was willing to challenge him in the middle of the night.

"I presume you're the guard for today," said a man with a rather gentle smile as he began to walk towards Julius.

"Yes I am," said Julius as he stared back at his new challenger. It was a man that was shirtless and wore long and wide green pants and carried a perfect sized blade much resembling a katana as he slowly began to move forward with his blade pointed to the ground.

"What is your name?" the man asked as he calmly approached Julius.

"Why does it concern you?" Julius asked in a rather arrogant tone as he didn't feel like answering the questions of his enemy.

"I would like to know the names of those I am about to kill. It gives me a peace of mind and allows me to respect my victims before they have an unfortunate encounter with my blade," said the man while breathing so gently that it was in sync with the wind itself.

"Rather arrogant of you don't you think? Anyway, my name is Julius," said Julius as he replied to the man that stood in front of him.

"Hey Julius, step back, this isn't a battle that you want to partake in. He's in a league of his own. His goal is to become the vice commander of our guild. The only one who can stop him is the guild leader himself, however it'll take a lot of us to hold him back until the old man returns," said someone from the guild. Although they all seemed to have disliked Julius, they were kind enough to warn him about the man that had come to challenge him.

"Step back," said the guild member a final time. However, instead of feeling grateful for the generosity of his guild members, Julius just seemed annoyed. He felt as if he was getting looked down upon and as such began to grit his teeth with an annoyed expression.

"Wow, you're starting to resemble a dog," said the enemy to which Julius had heard enough and leapt at the man to which the man quickly brought his blade forward and almost sliced off Julius' hand however Julius' instincts kicked in. The same ones which he had grown into his body through the months of training he did in the non cultivation world. Those techniques would once again come to save his life as he placed his palms on the flat parts of the katana and swiftly grabbed the blades out of the hands of his opponent before landing back on the ground.

"Now what?! You no longer have your blades, you're not a threat to me anymore!" said Julius as he began to brag about his accomplishments.

"Oh how mistaken you are. You must not understand what it means to be a swordsman yet. You see, a swordsman is who they are because of their skill, not their blade. It doesn't matter what object you carry, I can still slice through that piece of trash metal with my bare hands," said the man with a grin and he seemingly teleported in front of Julius and moved his hand so fast that it sliced the blade which Julius had just stole as if it was a piece of butter then the man tried to slice the black blade which Julius had stolen from an old man however that had failed.

"How peculiar, it seems that I'm not strong enough to cut through your blade, maybe a blade has a connection with how strong a swordsman is," said the man as he snatched the blade from Julius to which the glow of the blade began to disappear.

"Give.. it back," said Julius with a rather angry tone. He didn't know why, however he was rather upset that another person dared to touch his blade.

"Calm down. I'll allow you to live in exchange for this blade however if you insist on attacking me, I'll take your blade and also kill you," said the man to which Julius simply ignored and leaped at him and tried to snatch the blade away. Unfortunately for him, he had leaped right in front of the blade and the swordsman prepared to cut Julius however something odd took place as right as the blade was about to make contact with Julius' head, it turned soft as butter and didn't even cause a single scratch or dent in Julius' body.

"Huh? I see them. It seems I still have a long way to go. Even if I have mastered the ways of wielding a blade, it seems I've misunderstood something. I always believed that a blade is nothing more than an extension of the weilder's skill, however that couldn't be further from the truth. A blade is a partner of a swordsman. The two become one. How could I have been so careless?" the man asked himself before dropping the blade to the ground and teleporting away as he needed to search for something which Julius as well as the entire guild thought was weird.

However the guild leader who was watching from a distance was aware of something. That being that the next time that man returned, he would not fail to achieve his goal.. He had found what he was missing and now needed to perfect it.