Undead Beast Master: Living Solely for My Desires-Chapter 309: Dance of Endurance

Digging his feet deep in the ground, Zaroth hurled himself forward toward Eldros once again.

Unlike last time, however, his muscles weren't tensing the whole way. There was no need to use the muscles of his hands if he was just running with all he had; the only energy he used was to hold his odachi with his right hand firmly.

The instant Eldros reached within range of his attack was the time when Zaroth's hands mildly tensed as they moved his odachi with blinding speed.

Eldros, in turn, rose one of his greatswords and met the attack head-on. This was all the power Zaroth was able to muster, yet it was stopped just like that.

Before, he would have continued to apply pressure, trying to shake his opponent's center of gravity, but there was no point doing it. Even if he was successful, it was going to take too much of his energy while not giving enough of a benefit.

As such, the moment his brain registered that his attack had stopped, his hands weakened their grip a little as he moved his legs in a short burst, managing to position himself to Eldros's left.

He took another swing, this one diagonal, aiming for Eldros's knee.

A loud clunk was heard as the attack was stopped once more in its tracks. Eldros, having stopped Zaroth's advances, prepared himself to attack with his other weapon—but before he could, Zaroth was out of his line of sight once more.

He had positioned himself in Eldros's blind spot, forcing him to move his head, and rather than attack, defended for the third time by Zaroth's strike.

'This is so much better!' Zaroth thought in his mind as he moved quickly around Eldros, not stopping his relentless attacks.

'Usually, if I was in this kind of situation where I am unable to reach my opponent, I would use as much stamina as possible trying to overwhelm my opponents. But this meant even if I was successful in taking them down, exhaustion would have forced me to take a break,' a pale smile appeared on Zaroth's face.

'Now, however, I am able to attack for much longer before gassing out!' With these thoughts, Zaroth began to move even faster, positioning himself in Eldros's blind spot each time before attacking.

Eldros was forced into a defensive position due to how fast he was receiving nonstop attacks.

It had been about a week after the two started to spar with each other, and it was safe to say that the end result had been much better than expected. During the sparring sessions, both of them had learned a lot from one another, but the biggest lesson that Zaroth learned was it didn't only matter how much stamina you have if you don't use it sparingly!

One, ten, a hundred swings were performed by him, trying to tire out Eldros without him stopping at all. In the past, it would have seemed like a dream for him to do such a thing, but that dream was now a reality.

More than ten minutes had passed since this session began—hundreds of attacks—yet Zaroth felt like he could go for much longer. His breathing was relatively relaxed, and his heart was beating completely stable at the moment.

This was the benefit of one person being able to control how much energy to use for each action.

Every single time his legs moved, changing his position, his hands got a moment of rest. Each time he attacked or defended, his legs didn't move, giving them their moment of rest as well.

There was still much to learn, but Zaroth's fighting style no longer looked wild or reckless. It now resembled flowing water—each movement deliberate, using just enough force to be effective.

Eventually, Eldros smiled. "My turn!" he declared confidently.

Now Zaroth wasn't the one that was attacking—instead, he was defending.

Immediately, Eldros began to rain attacks on him, one diagonal, one horizontal, hoping to catch him off guard.

With a smirk, Zaroth ducked under the horizontal, and at the same time he moved his odachi so that he would deflect the diagonal.

Deflecting was more cost-effective at the moment. Eldros was physically stronger, so stopping one of his attacks was going to tire Zaroth out too much. It was smarter to use the blade of his odachi to tap the side of Eldros's sword and redirect the strike to miss him by a few inches.

Their training session continued for a while, both taking turns attacking and, in response, defending with everything they had.

They were trying to conserve their energy, but everything had its limit, and soon, both of them had to stop to take a breath.

"How long were we going against one another?" Zaroth released an exhausted sigh as he sat on the ground.

"Not sure, probably about three hours?" Eldros guessed.

'Three hours…' Zaroth's eyes widened as he gazed at his two hands. He knew that there was still a fire in him—he could probably continue to fight for about an hour if he pushed himself to the limit.

'This is incredible! If I can fight for so long, I may be able to defeat a whole army alone without using my beasts and not even sweating in the slightest!' he thought as a smile appeared on his face.

Noticing what his owner was thinking, Eldros warned, "Keep in mind that we were fighting one-on-one. If you are to face against many people at the same time, you can't just afford to take it easy and relax your muscles during certain actions against them—you will have to be always ready."

Zaroth raised an eyebrow. "Maybe that is the case for now, but this will change in the future, right?" he questioned.

Eldros shrugged his shoulders. "If you fight in enough battles, maybe. Who knows, if you are that obsessed with strength, you could become so efficient in using your stamina that no matter how many cannon fodder they send your way, you will just cut them all down."

Zaroth was satisfied with that response, plus the fact that he had learned somewhat how to move while also conserving his energy meant he would be able to surprise Midnight and the other girls when he returned to the city.

"What about the skills you wanted to learn? Have you made some progress on the matter?" Eldros asked.

Seeing it wasn't a bad idea to try again, Zaroth closed his eyes. He visualized himself becoming Silverfang.

'My jaws are his jaws—it is one and the same.'

Oxygen began to fill up his lungs as they expanded until they reached their limit. Then, opening his eyes that were shining with green energy, he let out a howl.

Roooaaaaaarrr

"I feel like you are almost there. The power is present—I will say the only thing that is missing is the lack of volume. You will have to up the notch a bit," Eldros advised.

Seeing that today's training was pretty much done, Zaroth rose to his feet and motioned for Eldros to follow.

"Come on. Tomorrow we are going to see that elf in the auction house, but before that we have to have dinner, right?"

With a scoff, Eldros got up as well and followed. "I'd be a fool to say no to free food."

Zaroth raised an eyebrow.

Seeing this, Eldros's grin widened. "What? I'm basically your servant—least you can do is pay!"