However, those blue eyes weren’t human. In their depths, Deren saw an animal’s silhouette that bared its teeth for a fleeting moment.
“Fight me!” The man roared. Or was this an animal that had taken the form of a man?
“General, we’ve already won…” one of his commanders began to whisper to him.
Dragon Tooth only waved his hand imperiously, and his ‘advisor’ immediately stopped talking.
“At last, a worthy adversary,” the General said, nodding and raising his sword once again.
Finally, somebody who he would be happy to cross swords with was standing in front of him. Someone who could truly threaten his life and give him the joy of a bloody battle.
Victory over this foe would bring him glory for thousands of years to come!
Two war cries exploded across the mountains like thunder.
Stones cracked and fell to the ground.
The two armies watched in silence as the battle of the two swordsmen commenced.
Chapter 91
Hadjar, full of bestial fury, didn’t hesitate to block Dragon Tooth’s initial strike. The giant sword impacted against his own, scarlet sparks stung his shoulders, and it seemed as though the sky itself had cracked. Booming thunder shook the world, and the stones around Hadjar’s feet were crushed. They soared into the sky, thrown up by the sheer force of the hit, and then fell to the ground like a pelting, gray rain.
The opposing General, a mad smile on his face, loomed over Hadjar like a thousand-year-old mountain, pushing the huge sword downward with all his strength. The runes glowed and the artificial sun shone once again, but Hadjar refused to take even a single step back.
The soldiers couldn’t believe their eyes.
How was a lone swordsman, armed with only a simple, light blade, able to stop a strike from such a heavy sword?! This sword had killed dozens of warriors with one solitary strike, obliterated walls, and changed the course of battles. Heavy swords such as this one were considered the kings of all swords, and the people who wielded them were recognized as the gods of war.
And yet, Hadjar had managed to block it. The veins on his hands swelled and his muscles creaked so audibly that it could be heard over the sound of battle, but he had stopped the attack nonetheless.
Deren kept pushing his sword down, and the ravine where Hadjar was still standing expanded and deepened even more. The lower Hadjar found himself, the more pressure his sword and body felt. It was as though the very top of the mountain on which his father’s castle had once stood was bearing down on him.
When the pressure became unbearable, Hadjar turned his wrist slightly.
As he did so, an invisible, calm wind enveloped him completely.
Deren didn’t have time to react. The power of his own strike was directed back at him, hurled him a good thirty feet through the air, and slammed him into the side of a rock so forcefully that when the General fell to the sand, his silhouette was clearly imprinted in the rock face.
It was Hadjar’s turn to attack.
The soldiers saw only the fleeting image of a black raven’s wing before Hadjar was already next to his enemy. He moved in an odd pattern, the likes of which neither army had ever seen before, and five ghostly strikes formed a fishing net, then flew in Deren’s direction.
Deren, who was slowly rising to his feet, just swung his sword in retaliation. The golden wave conjured by the movement of his blade broke through the net with ease and, crushing rocks and tearing through layers of earth along the way, rushed toward its target.
His instincts were screaming at him, and Hadjar knew that he would be obliterated if he attempted to block the strike or the shockwave even slightly grazed him. Instantly choosing another course of action, he dodged to the side at full speed. The soldiers could only make out the blurry form of a raven’s wing as he moved faster than the naked eye could process.
The wing glided across the sand, avoiding the golden wave, but it didn’t stop its swift flight once it was safe, or even slow down at all. The ghostly blades continuously flew out of the wing as it moved around Dragon Tooth. They were so fast and there were so many of them that they merged into one continuous, blue stream of wind, sharp and merciless, that left deep gouges not only in the stones and ground, but also in the very space between them.
Deren plunged his sword into the ground before him. The runic sun caught fire and the blades burned up after сrashing into the golden ball that now enveloped him.
Message to host:
A Defensive Technique is being used by the enemy
Energy cost
2.9 Energy Points
No matter how much Hadjar tried, no matter how many blades he threw, he couldn’t break through the General’s defenses. His opponent was on the verge of becoming a true cultivator. He wielded a heavy sword, and he clearly knew very potent Techniques.
He was stronger in every way.
He was stronger, except for one thing—the dragon heart that was beating in Hadjar’s chest.
Suddenly, the wing turned into a black mist which swirled around Hadjar as he sat down on the sand. He held his sword in both hands and slowed his breathing.
In response, the golden false sun created by Deren flared up, getting brighter by the second. The sand melted, turning into a cloudy gas before the spectator’s very eyes. The air rippled as if someone had lit a bright fire.
Even the common soldiers knew that the ball would soon no longer be an impregnable defense, but rather, an unstoppable attack.
Hadjar stood still.
He controlled his breathing and listened calmly to the east wind.
With his next heartbeat, he suddenly stretched his right hand forward.
This time, a ghostly blade didn’t appear on the tip of his sword. Instead, the phantasmal tip of his sword cut through the air. The attack pierced the impregnable sun with predatory animal fangs.
It only resisted for a moment before it couldn’t hold out any longer. The heat was gone, the ripples disappeared, and scarlet blood splattered against the ground.
Dragon Tooth straightened up and brushed away a few droplets of blood from his cut cheek with a gauntleted hand.
“A worthy opponent,” he acknowledged as he took up a strange fighting stance.
He turned sideways, spread his legs shoulder-width apart, and took hold of his blade as if it were an axe—a huge, mighty axe that had been cutting down millennial oaks and crushing rocks for decades.
He swung it.
“Fire! Rain!” He shouted.
The soldiers clutched their ears because his roar was deafening. The General’s sword descended slowly but inexorably at the same time. And with every inch of space it moved through, it called forth a fiery hail from the sky.
Small pebbles the size of walnuts glowed with a consuming fire and rumbled as they rained down. They burned through the air, melted the sand, and pulverized stone with abandon.
Hadjar assumed the second defensive stance of the ‘Light Breeze’. The calm wind circling around him blocked the fiery hail from all directions. But, as it turned out, the veil of flames had merely been a clever distraction.
Hadjar instinctively knew that death was rapidly approaching him from the right.
Turning around, he moved Moon Beam in front of him and, at that very moment, felt as if a raging ocean had crashed into him, attempting to crush his very bones.
Hadjar was launched up and dragged through a hail of flames, easily thrown over twice the distance that he had managed to throw Deren previously. When Hadjar crashed into the rock, he didn’t leave behind just a subtle silhouette. Rather, the impact had been so strong that Hadjar now had to make an effort to get out of the hollow formed in the rock by his body.
Falling to the ground and spitting out blood, he shrugged off a dozen reports of severe internal injuries. He knew all about them even without the notifications from the neuronet.
Hadjar rose, preparing to parry or avoid the next strike, but Deren didn’t
budge. He only moved his palm over his blade, taking an all too familiar stance.
Swallowing nervously, Hadjar immediately launched a ‘Strong Wind’ attack by sending out a vortex of cutting wind with the ghostly blades hidden within it.
“Scorched Falcon,” Deren breathed out, swinging his gigantic sword only once.
Unlike the Master’s ‘Fried Sparrow’, a true ‘Falcon’ flew out of Dragon Tooth’s blade. The fiery bird with a wingspan of twelve to thirteen feet produced a cry which hurt the nearby soldiers’ ears and dispelled Hadjar’s cutting wind with only two flaps of its wings. It easily smashed through the blades with its beak and rushed toward its goal at full speed.
Hadjar watched as the Firebird approached him as if in slow motion. He felt its heat, and he saw its glittering claws and beak bearing down on him. The strong wings seemed to distort the very air around their battlefield. They turned the sand into glass, leaving a muddy, glittering trail behind the ‘Falcon’.
Hadjar took a more comfortable hold of his sword.
He was ready to parry Deren’s attack. Dragon Tooth just waited. He was confident that even the best disciples of ‘The Black Gates’ couldn’t have struck back, let alone an ordinary, though very decent, officer from Lidus.
The ‘Falcon’ would surely pierce through his chest, but his torn clothes and body wouldn’t fall to the ground. Instead, everything would burn up in the fury of the Firebird.
Hadjar swung his blade, trying to use the speed of the ‘Falcon’ against it and cut through it on its approach. At that moment, when he’d almost plunged his Moon Beam in the fire, Hadjar felt something mystical, unknowable, and enormous.
He felt the whole world around him.
Chapter 92
As Hadjar stood there, he realized that he could feel the caress of the east wind across his face. He also understood that he was standing on the ground, which gave him strength. This power flowed from his feet to his hips, from his hips to his body, and then from his body to his hands. Even while performing Techniques related to the wind, Hadjar still relied on the power of the earth.
The ground merged with the sword that had been forged in a furnace where the fire had been so hot that no flames could actually be seen. His hands held that sword, filled with his blood.
He realized that everything was interconnected. Even the ‘Falcon’, frozen before him in the air—as well as everything around him—was also a part of the mystery that he’d glimpsed for a moment—a mystery that was much deeper and more profound than he could have ever realized before now.
Hadjar was now able to understand what he’d been doing wrong.
Despite all his previous training, achievements, and insights, he was missing the main point. He had never been truly alone, even in those dark dungeons under the light of the moon and in the company of a single, ratty blanket. The whole world had always been with him since his birth. It protected and strengthened him, as well as every other being under this boundless sky.
The world had always been there for him. It was huge and lovely, reliable and caring. Hadjar just hadn’t noticed it before. He had ignored it brazenly, trying to rely only on his own power, although he’d never had any to begin with. At least not like everybody else had.
His power was a borrowed one; the world had given it to him for a time.
The spectating soldiers couldn’t make out anything. It seemed to them like Hadjar’s figure had become just as muddy as a drop of ink in clear water. They could only recognize the officer of Lidus by the red spot—the bloody part of his clothes—on his back.
Hadjar put his sword back into its scabbard calmly and met the ‘Firebird’... with only his outstretched hand.
“You idiot!” Nero shouted, but it was too late.
The ‘Scorched Falcon’ spread its wings and savagely plunged its beak into human flesh. Or rather, it tried to, but instead, Hadjar caught its throat in his hand.
Hadjar clenched his fist and the Technique vanished, falling to the sand in a shower of fiery, evaporating feathers.
“One with the World,” Deren said respectfully, and the smile on his face grew wider.
The soldiers looked at each other and, in unison, they began to whisper: “One with the World.”
He had achieved ‘Oneness with the World’.
Almost a thousand masters who were also at this level served in the army of the Moon General, and yet none of them had been able to defeat Hadjar in a spar. And now the Senior Officer of the bear squad had reached this level in swordsmanship as well.
Deren swung his blade and touched his amulet. His armor swiftly disappeared the same way as it had appeared, ‘going back’ into the locket held in Deren’s palm.
The wind was blowing, ruffling Hadjar’s shabby clothes and long hair.
It brushed against the boulders that were Dragon Tooth’s muscles.
The fighters stood opposite each other, and the soldiers felt like they weren’t people at all, but rather two cliffs, two flames, two rivers, or two storms, fighting before their very eyes.
They were both ‘One with the World’.
They rushed toward each other almost at the same time.
Dragon Tooth turned into a fireball, and Hadjar turned into a black raven.
The soldiers could discern only their silhouettes. The forms then dissolved into a ghostly darkness and gold flashes. The swords sparked and the human silhouettes froze in the air.
Golden waves tore out huge chunks of stone as they appeared in the air with each strike. But the attacks never reached their goal. Bright blue flashes sometimes filled the air. They left terrible, long scars on the surface of the earth and rocks below.
The combatants moved quickly, but Hadjar was the faster of the two. A blow from Deren would swiftly be followed by three from Hadjar. But a heavy sword was stronger than a light one, so three swings of Hadjar’s sword only corresponded to one strike from the huge Dragon Tooth.
Their might was almost equal. The scales being balanced in the hands of the goddess of war constantly shifted. Sometimes Hadjar’s blood fell to the sand, and other times, the blood of Dragon Tooth soared into the sky and irrigated the ground accompanied by his earth-shattering roar. The ground beneath the feet of the fighters howled with the intensity of their clash.
Craters, huge cracks, and ravines constantly appeared around those that were watching, causing the spectators to gradually move back from the scene of the battle.
The power of the whole world could be felt in each of their strikes. There was wind in every movement they made, there was fire in every breath, the strength of the earth was in their bodies, and the elegance of water in their lethal and well-crafted blades.
The soldiers stared as the two generals dueled. Many of them had never seen such a thing and had only heard about it in epic tales; stories where battles between the heroes of old featured prominently.
Deren and Hadjar both flew back following their latest collision.
They’d both been launched about thirty feet away, which meant that their strength was equal to each other’s.
The two armies could now see the results of their rapid engagement.
Deren was breathing hard. Covered in bloody cuts, he plunged his sword into the ground and leaned on it, panting heavily. Hadjar didn’t look any better himself. A large chunk of flesh was missing from his left shoulder. White bones could even be seen protruding from the wound.
Each of them took a low stance without saying a word.
They moved their right leg back, put their swords behind their backs, and looked at each other.
Serra clenched the hand of a very worried Nero.
They were going to end their battle with one final attack.
Deren’s sword was enveloped in a furious, orange tornado. At the same time, a similar, blue tornado whirled into being around Hadjar’s blade.
Less than a moment later, they stood in the center of the gorge, back to back.
Blood stained the ground
beneath them.
The army roared victoriously when they saw whose body ended up toppling over.
***
“You’re late today,” a familiar voice told him.
Deren saw a cozy house in front of him. Children were playing in the yard. They were running after a yowling cat and trying to catch it. Deren wasn’t holding a sword in his hands, but rather, a couple of fishing poles and a bunch of fish.
The door opened and a girl of unprecedented beauty walked out. Her long, tight braid hung over her shoulder and ran down to her waist. She wiped her hands on her white apron, and her beauty melted his heart.
A silver spear and a heavy sword hung behind her in the hallway.
They didn’t need them anymore.
Dropping his fishing rods and fish, Deren approached her, hugged her tightly, and then buried his face in her fragrant hair.
He was finally home.
***
Dragon Tooth fell to the sand.
His severed hand, still gripping the sword, flew in a wide arc through the air and his gigantic blade plunged into the ground near the silver spear.
The General of Balium’s army didn’t move. In addition to his hand, he had lost his right leg to above the knee, and four cuts forming a “W” marked his body. Hadjar had managed to launch six strikes in a short time, and he’d put all his strength and skill into each of them.
Hadjar turned to face his army.
His friend was the first to shout.
“General Hadjar!” Nero roared as he struck his shield with his sword.
Hundreds of thousands of other soldiers joined him.
The King dropped a cup, getting wine all over the floor and his clothes. He looked around the empty palace hallway. Something had made his heart waver.
The exhausted old woman, deprived of her eyes, but not her willpower, was hanging on rusty chains in a dungeon. She turned her face toward the north and started laughing hysterically and with a frightening glee.
“General Hadjar!” The army welcomed their new commander.
Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2 Page 11
