In the map of the expedition, within the Zhenyuan Guard House, on the cliff terrace, Zhenyuan, with her giant ship equipment floating behind her, stood facing Guhan, who held only a simple sword in his hand.
"The rules of the match: Neither side is allowed to use ship equipment, sword maidens, cannons, sword qi, or any supernatural means. The battle can only be fought using the most basic sword techniques. Once either side is hit by three strikes, they immediately lose!" As the referee, Ganggang loudly announced the rules of the duel.
This was a duel of swordsmen, discarding ship equipment, sword maidens, cannons, and sword qi, purely relying on their own sword skills to determine the winner.
Zhenyuan patted the ship equipment behind her and sighed, "I've long been used to fighting with these effortless cannons. I never thought there would be a time when I would fight with a sword again. It's truly nostalgic!"
As she finished speaking, the giant ship equipment burst like fireworks, scattering into points of starlight and disappearing into the void.
After retracting her ship equipment, Zhenyuan suddenly thought of something. She turned around, showed her empty hands to Guhan, and shouted, "I haven't used a sword in so long, and this new body doesn't come with a built-in sword. Could you lend me one?"
"Actually asking me, your enemy, for a sword..." Guhan's face darkened, but he dared not refuse. What if the other side used this as an excuse to ruin the hard-earned opportunity for a sword duel?
Guhan hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly pulled out a shiny bronze longsword from his dimensional pocket. He had no other choice; he didn't have a second sword. As long as he didn't infuse it with sword essence, no matter how famous or precious the sword was, it was just a bit more durable than an ordinary sword.
"Here you go!" Guhan threw the sword to Zhenyuan, secretly worrying, "I hope Mingyue and the others recognize this sword, or there will be trouble."
"Good sword!" Upon receiving the bronze sword from Guhan, Zhenyuan immediately felt its extraordinary nature. Although it looked no different from other bronze swords, a chilling aura flowed beneath its surface.
"Considering this sword, I'll hold back three-tenths of my strength to make your defeat more graceful!" Zhenyuan smiled, her beauty and ease like a valley in spring. In her view, holding back three-tenths or seven-tenths of her strength made no difference; it was more than enough to deal with this human who didn't know his place.
"No need! Show me your true sword skills, Zhenyuan!" Guhan, with his sword at the ready, took a step forward and charged at Zhenyuan. "I also want to know how far my sword skills have come!"
"Big sister! Why does the sword in Zhenyuan's hand look familiar to me?" Anning, who was watching from the side, found the bronze sword too familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before, but couldn't recall where.
"It's probably a replica of the Sword of Goujian... It seems Zhenyuan is a fan of the Queen of Yue. This replica isn't cheap." Mingyue recognized the Sword of Goujian, but she never imagined it belonged to Guhan's sword maiden. She assumed it was a replica Guhan bought for appreciation... which was quite normal, as many swordsmiths earned their main income by crafting 100% identical replicas of famous swords, even though creating artificial sword maidens was their primary job.
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"This man is so strong!!"
This was Zhenyuan's heartfelt exclamation after three minutes of fighting with Guhan. She never expected this human to be so powerful in sword skills, almost on par with her.
The boastful words she said at the beginning, about holding back three-tenths of her strength, were long gone. If she had really held back, she would have been KOed by Guhan by now.
Zhenyuan's sword skills came from the sword masters of the Beiyang period. At that time, many martial arts masters still existed in China, and the Qing dynasty had looted many sword manuals and stored them in the imperial treasury.
After learning that Zhenyuan loved sword skills, Li Hongzhang obtained many secret imperial texts from Empress Dowager Cixi and invited sword masters to teach Zhenyuan. Combined with Zhenyuan's natural talent for sword skills, these three factors made her sword skills invincible.
After two years of practice, the sword master who taught Zhenyuan resigned in shame. During several visits to the Japanese naval base, Zhenyuan defeated all the shipgirls, including the shipgirl named Taketori, who claimed to have received the true teachings of Princess Kaguya. Taketori was thoroughly defeated and never spoke of swords again.
However, with the development of cannons, battles between shipgirls had become a matter of firepower and aerial bombings. Sword skills had no place in naval battles. The era when shipgirls like Zhiyuan relied on their sword skills to ram and even die together was long gone.
Returning to the duel, Zhenyuan and Guhan exchanged dozens of moves, using all their best techniques, but Zhenyuan gradually fell into a disadvantage, being suppressed by Guhan's sword momentum and finding herself in an unfavorable position.
"An opportunity!" Suddenly, Zhenyuan spotted a weakness in Guhan's movement. Eager to turn the tide, she didn't hesitate and attacked the weakness immediately.
"Good move!" Guhan admired her, surprised by Zhenyuan's strength, which was almost on par with his. Fortunately, she didn't notice that the weakness was a deliberate trap!
Zhenyuan never expected the weakness to be a trap. Her sword was easily dodged, and her back was exposed to Guhan, who slashed her clothes.
"Zhenyuan, one hit!" Ganggang quickly announced the result.
After being hit first, Zhenyuan became anxious. Her next attack was like a fierce tiger, full of aggressive moves and deadly strikes, combined with her endless stamina as a shipgirl. For a moment, the situation reversed, and Zhenyuan began to suppress Guhan, putting him in a disadvantageous position.
"Exciting! First time meeting an opponent who can suppress me head-on!" Guhan felt his blood boil. Many basic sword techniques he had neglected in practice were now exposed.
The Nine Swords of Xuantian were not just sword techniques; most of the nine moves relied on sword essence and sword qi. Sword skills were the foundation, hidden within each move, often overshadowed by powerful sword qi skills. This time, under Zhenyuan's pure sword skill pressure, Guhan refined these neglected aspects, making his sword skills more perfect and harder to counter.
On the other side, Zhenyuan gradually felt the situation turning against her. She could no longer suppress her opponent. If Guhan had used a cunning trick to create a false weakness earlier, now he was surpassing her in strength, like a mountain pressing down, making it hard for her to breathe.
"Hey!" Zhenyuan shouted and launched three rapid strikes, each faster than the last, all aimed at the same spot. This was her ultimate move, the Three Plum Blossoms. Despite its name, it was the most powerful move in the Qing dynasty's manuals.
"Good!" Guhan saw the danger and knew the outcome would be decided now. Focusing his mind, he felt the world pause for a moment...
"Clang!!" The simple sword struck the Sword of Goujian, which cried out and deviated from its path. Seizing the opportunity, Guhan struck, leaving another sword mark on Zhenyuan's shoulder!
"Enough..." Zhenyuan dropped the Sword of Goujian, waved her hand, and her beautiful face showed fatigue... mental fatigue, as the battle intensity was not physically draining for her powerful shipgirl.
"One more hit..." Guhan didn't want to take advantage of Zhenyuan.
"Enough, I admit, in terms of sword skills, I'm not as good as you... I never thought there would be a human with such strong sword skills in the real world... Didn't I hear that humans forgot how to use swords after having sword maidens?" Zhenyuan waved her hand.
Hearing Zhenyuan's words, Guhan suddenly felt something was off. There seemed to be a significant secret in her words!
"This is for you..." Zhenyuan pulled out a dimensional box from her pocket and threw it to Guhan. "This is what you wanted! It's rare to skip work, but I have to go back early!"
"Ganggang! Setsubura! We should go back!" Zhenyuan waved to Ganggang and Setsubura, turned to Guhan, and said, "If there's a chance, I look forward to fighting you again with ship equipment... of course, on the sea." Zhenyuan tapped the void and disappeared in front of Guhan.
"Wait! Zhenyuan, I want to play more..." Ganggang shouted, saw Zhenyuan leave, made a face at Guhan, and disappeared.
"Goodbye!" Setsubura also waved to Guhan and disappeared.
"System notification: The Zhenyuan Guard House expedition task is complete. The task map will close in ten minutes."
"System notification: The Zhenyuan Guard House expedition task is complete. The task map will close in ten minutes."