A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

Quaaauuuuuu!
An earth-shattering, thunderous roar that seemed incompatible with human lungs and vocal cords unleashed a shockwave that shook the entire heavens and earth. Like the resounding peal of a massive bell intermingled with rampaging storms, even the evacuating Aghno civilians trembled in terror at the violent sonic onslaught.

Feeling the resonant vibrations that even rattled their barrier, Hildegard and Conra forced wry smiles before hastily reinforcing their defenses. Conra bolstered the five-elemental array banishing malign energies by positioning the elemental spirits directionally, over which Hildegard invoked the blessings of Регин, the blacksmith god and patron of fortifications.

As they reassured the uneasy survivors while fortifying their sanctuary, the drake confronting Sophia became increasingly unsteady. Having neutralized its sight with radiant force and echolocation with the leonine roar, its perceptual faculties naturally deteriorated, hampering its movements.

But Sophia quickly discerned the drake’s other sensory organs beyond sight and hearing after studying its behavior.

“Bioelectricity detection, thermal sensing, serpentine olfaction…Let’s deal with that sense of smell first.”

Since bioelectricity detection would be useless outside conductive liquids, the thermal and serpentine senses required attention. Sophia decided to neutralize the more straightforward snake-like olfaction first.

Snakes used their bifurcated tongues to sample scents, pinpointing prey and threats directionally. Disabling this was simple – she merely had to sever one side of the drake’s forked tongues.

With airy grace and masterful swordsmanship, Sophia adroitly penetrated the drake’s defensive thrashing to slice off its flickering tongues – a sight truly worthy of awe.

Yet ultimately human, the momentary lapse as she severed the tongues created an opening in Sophia’s guard that could not be avoided. And unfortunately, the drake possessed a weapon to exploit that fleeting opportunity.

Swish – one of the drake’s jaw tentacles lashed out, coiling around Sophia’s leg.

“Ugh! This!”
‘Ah, I was careless!’

While flexible weapons like whips and chain-whips lacked swiftness, their key advantage lay in unleashing unpredictably dexterous yet forceful strikes.

And if each independently writhing tentacle seemed autonomously controlled, their erratic movements could easily penetrate the narrowest openings.

Ensnared mid-leap, Sophia immediately countered by kicking off with her free leg to loosen the binding, then swung her longsword in an arc to sever the tentacles. However…the tentacles reacted first, flailing her skyward before the drake’s gargantuan palms slapped in from both sides like clapping.

Unable to evade the unavoidable strikes, Sophia instinctively extended both arms, emitting a repulsive force.

Quaang!

The drake’s calamitous palms were vast enough to flatten Sophia’s entire form with just one. As they collided against her hastily-manifested repulsive force while airborne and disoriented, Sophia felt her bones rattle from the shockwaves wracking her body before coughing up a gout of blood.

Observing Sophia plummet while vomiting blood, the distant Hildegard and Conra guarding the evacuees recoiled in horror.

“Sophia!”
“Master!”

Fortunately, Sophia’s repulsive force mangled and crippled the drake’s palms, rendering them useless. Unfortunately, the drake still had two pairs of arms remaining, which promptly charged with fresh corrupted elementals. Unable to watch further, Conra finally handed the barrier’s control to Hildegard before dashing forward.

“Hey, what are you suddenly rushing out for!”
“Leave it to me!”

Sophia was his master and mentor, while he was her disciple and squire. Could he simply stand by while his revered teacher faced peril?

Conra’s form shot forth with the leaping gait of a salmon ascending rapids. Experiencing unprecedented focus, time seeming to slow while his vision simultaneously broadened yet sharpened with paradoxical density, Conra gripped his staff-spear tightly.

Transforming into a werewolf form one instant, then a werebear the next, Conra’s body further metamorphosed into a hybrid blending both lupine and ursine traits in the subsequent moment.

“Arth sparedh! Bane sleá an-fenú oll-shudh, a Shrullion do shearsam! (Spirits! Lend me the lance of judgment against those who defile your dignity!)”

Without breaking stride, his chanted invocation summoned lightning that coalesced around Conra’s spear. The beast-man’s form then streaked skyward like a bolt of lightning itself.

Soaring past the plummeting Sophia, Conra hurled his spear. Seeming to squirm with life for an instant after leaving his grasp, the spear zigzagged like forked lightning, piercing through the corrupted elementals. The impure, unstable elemental composites could not withstand the intrusion of such a pristinely concentrated elemental lance.

The penetrated elementals swiftly dissipated into powerless motes.

“Master!?”

Without even a moment’s relief at neutralizing the elementals, Conra’s focus urgently turned towards Sophia’s landing site. Fortunately, having momentarily regained awareness, Sophia safely touched down and steadied her ragged breathing. Her astral muscles’ temporary overexertion had absorbed much of the drake’s brute force, so her internal injuries proved less severe than expected.

As soon as she stabilized her breathing while channeling luminous force to heal her trauma, Sophia’s eyes snapped open, azure pupils flashing as she glared at the drake.

Barely relieved, a chill ran down Conra’s spine, causing him to reflexively roll aside. Just as he evaded, the drake’s forelegs stomped the very spot he had occupied. Regaining his footing to look up again, Sophia had already moved from her previous position, and Conra witnessed an uncanny sight.

Balefire flickered as Sophia’s longsword took flight.

Her hands formed mudras, trailing afterimages as the seals wove and unwove in an intricate cadence. With each rhythmic cycle of forming and breaking the mudras, her longsword maneuvered freely – sometimes swimming like a living fish, other times soaring like a bird through the skies.

At times, it exhibited physically impossible motions, Sophia’s longsword relentlessly harried the drake’s body from all angles.

Wreathed in a faint golden luminous force over its azure aura, the airborne longsword resembled a sacred sword bestowed by celestial deities. Yet Conra knew it was merely tempered steel through the Church’s consecration rites.

“—-!!!”

Then, as Sophia unleashed another soundless roar, Conra momentarily doubted his own eyes while tracking her longsword’s elegant trajectories around the drake’s massive form.

The sword’s continuous paths abruptly began fragmenting, its movements failing to connect smoothly. If it severed the tendon on one arm after passing the other, there should have been an interim trajectory arcing between the two – yet Conra could no longer perceive those transitional motions.

Now Sophia’s longsword skipped the very process of cleaving through the intervening air, manifesting instantaneously at each successive point across the drake’s body with no delays.

The resulting wounds escalated at an alarming rate. What began as mere lacerations soon extended to severing tendons, ligaments and muscle strands across the entire physique.

The moment the drake’s six legs had their tendons severed, it collapsed. As its six arms followed suit, they hung limp towards the ground. When the muscle fibers along its spine shredded, the drake’s torso crumpled. Finally, as the musculature around its three necks sundered, the immense skulls plummeted.

“—-!!”

In the blink of an eye, Sophia had taken to the air, her longsword floating up to support her like a platform. Her outstretched arms spread like wings as sparks began arcing between her palms.

Since antiquity, lightning represented the most destructive yet sacred force – heaven’s judgment to condemn the profane. Its currents flowed unobstructed along any conductive path, penetrating to the deepest recesses.

Thus, the ancient esoteric teachings contained the Five Thunders Mudra (Pañcāmṛtāstra Hasta) – a method and technique to shatter all curses while vanquishing evil through the power of thunderbolts.

Fifteen lightning bolts coalesced between Sophia’s hands as she commanded the triply-stacked Fifteen Thunders Mudra. Standing atop her hovering longsword, she slowly advanced towards the prone drake.

“—-!!”

Raising her arms towards the three powerless heads sprawled on the ground, the fifteen lightning bolts divided into five tendrils each, simultaneously striking all three skulls. Converging down their necks, the five lightning tendrils from each head reconverged at the drake’s heart, overlapping once more into the Fifteen Thunders Mudra. Immediately, its destructive energies detonated from within the drake’s body in an explosive upheaval.

The thunderbolts meticulously scoured every inch of the drake’s interior, as if leaving not a single trace of impurity. When the relentless, searing conflagration finally emerged, only the remnants of the former dread drake remained.

It was finally over. Exhaling a long sigh as a wave of fatigue washed over him, Conra felt drained from their frantic journey to Aghno, followed by the immediate, protracted battles. And the one who had undoubtedly played the most pivotal role was none other than his master, Sophia – she must be utterly exhausted.

Just as Conra glanced around with this thought, a heavy thump reached his ears, followed by his own heart dropping.