by Lupine King
He was forced to abandon his thoughts and focus on the battle at hand. Why? Kalian had blurred forward. His treasure blade caught the sunlight when he swung it at Valerian but Valerian was prepared. He had recognised the solution even before coming to the arena today.
The only way to beat Kalian was to rob him of his mobility.
With his [Valiant Armour] strained from the arcane energy he had poured into it, Valerian reached his hand out to catch the blade. His qi surged, filling up his body and pushing it into his greatest state. This was a battle that required his all. Unfortunately, his opponent did not meet him head-on.
In a strange drifting motion, Kalian went sideways, resulting in his actual position being a little to the left of Valerian. Valerian had to think fast. Regrettably, despite his efforts, he was unable to get his body to move well enough or fast enough to execute the action he wished to.
Kalian’s sword struck his armour and glanced off it. Instead of stopping, he sped up circling Valerian and raining hit after hit on him. It did not matter what Valerian tried. He was simply unable to keep up with his opponent. Nonetheless, thanks to his defence, he was able to endure the barrage somewhat. Focusing on maintaining his shields, he began to lay the groundwork for another ploy.
Then something caught his eye. A spurt of anger shot from his heart. His plan was driven from his mind at that moment. With a cry, he released a massive pulse of arcane energy that sent his opponent flying away. The bastard had been hitting him with the back of the blade!
Immediately after doing so, Valerian regretted it. He had just wasted an opportunity to mount a counterstrike. Even so, the indignity his opponent had visited on him remained in his mind making his expression darken.
Determined to make the best of the situation, he pursued Kalian. The expelled energy had carried a lot of force knocking him back. Regrettably, the bastard was none the worse for wear. He actually hung in the air for a bit, floating down lightly like a falling leaf with a mocking smile on his face.
Seeing that smile made Valerian push himself just that much harder, forcing his qi to circulate as fast as possible whilst pushing his body enhancement to near unsafe levels. The effects of that could clearly be seen. He shot off like a stone from a sling, disturbing the coarse sand on the fighting platform. His target? Kalian of course.
Reaching the bastard, he swung his fist infusing it with all his murderous intent, hoping it would shatter his face. It was dodged but he expected that. He kept up the attacks delivering blow after blow with that same intent and ferocity yet, none of them connected. Kalian remained just a few centimetres out of range, somehow shifting positions in the most unpredictable ways.
Valerian felt his anger rising but he shoved it down. He had to keep level-headed. He kept his eyes open, trying to figure out his opponent’s secrets and weaknesses. Thankfully, the idiot was happy to keep up the display. No doubt, he was glad to put on a show for the people watching. After a few more attacks, Valerian began to notice a pattern.
What’s more, he could sense the qi his opponent was slowly releasing into his surroundings. At first, he believed it to be the reason he blurred when he moved but its true purpose was more insidious. Valerian was not sure how it worked but it was definitely the secret to Kalian’s evasive abilities. The qi stirred the air around his body in strange and bizarre was. It was something Valerian would never have noticed if not for his arcane abilities. He continued his unrelenting assault, watching how it reacted in the hopes of understanding it.
Unfortunately, Kalian had grown bored of his passive position. The current scene was becoming stale anyway. So he acted. His form shimmered in the air. Whilst everyone stared intensely not wanting to miss what was coming next, he moved swiftly and stealthily, circling Valerian and attempting a brutal backstab.
Imagine his surprise when just when he was extending his sword, another massive pulse of arcane energy pushed him away. Startled, he rushed back a further three metres. Valerian turned to face him. Refusing to let his shock show, Kalian straightened himself and begun clapping
“Well done! You have good instincts. This young lord is becoming more and more impressed.”
Valerian said nothing. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the Kalian that had been in front of him fade away. ‘An afterimage’, his mind supplied. That had been dangerous. The bastard was truly skilled. In addition, his technique was just too good.
Valerian had gotten too used to seeing the blur whenever Kalian moved. Thus, he was unprepared when Kalian seeming slipped out of himself and tried to get behind him. One Kalian blurred forwards, swiping at him with his sword. The other however had no blur. In fact, Valerian had not even been sure he was real at first. If he had not noticed that the one attacking was fake he might have been…
Tellurian afterimage skills are nothing like their natural counterparts. Often when an object moved too fast for the eye to see, the viewer failed to register the movement altogether. This created the illusion that the object was standing still when it was long gone. It was only when this false image faded away that the person would realise that the object was not where he thought it was. However, this was only true for natural afterimages. Tellurian skills were completely different.
For one thing, it is impossible to leave a natural afterimage intentionally. To do so required moving faster than your opponent's eyes could track. How would you know the correct speed to move? You could not. That ruled out any hope for precision. Also, how would you know if it worked? It only affected onlookers, not the moving object.
What’s more, the answers to these questions would differ from situation to situation and opponent to opponent. For example, creating an afterimage to deceive a normal person would be completely different from doing so to a cultivator.
What tellurian skills that created afterimages circumvented this by creating impressions from the user’s qi. Depending on the kind and rank of the skill, you could create false images with a variety of effects. Valerian had even read of skills that made images which had substance and were capable of attacking independently. Mercifully, Kalian’s image had been illusory allowing Valerian to detect its true nature.
It worried him. He had gotten drawn into his opponent’s rhythm, a taboo according to both the [Arts of Harry and Clude]. He begun taking what he saw to be the standard yet back then, Kalian had moved without a blur making him harder for people who looked out for the blur to see him. He even suppressed his presence and increased his speed.
Looking at the melodramatic DriftCloud, still speaking a lot about nothing, he came to a conclusion. ‘I have to be more careful’.
Meanwhile Kalian was saying. “…is now curious. How will you fare if I increased the difficulty slightly?”
Valerian only took note of his words only when he saw him blurring again. This time, three images appeared. Each one stepped out of the central figure. Valerian kept his eye on them keeping track of the real one. Given that Kalian did not know he could track him, it was best to keep it that way until he figured out a way to use that to his advantage.
This time, all four of them blurred as they came at him together. They moved in irregular patterns, often crossing each other’s paths to confuse him. After rushing about with no proper pattern, one came at him from the left. It was not the real one but Valerian chose to block it anyway. When he struck it, it dispersed. Turning into smoke that swirled around him and tried to block his sight.
‘Shit!’ Valerian cursed but his opponent’s attacks were already upon him.
The same pattern as before repeated itself. Only this time, Kalian was being more careful. He did not hit him as much but each hit was more than twice as powerful. He began to beat Valerian, pummelling him in an attempt to get through his spells and armour.
Valerian ignored him. He could take the beating. This time, he would not waste the opportunity it provided. For the first time since the battle started, Valerian smiled. His spell was ready. A rumbling filled the air. It was the on
ly warning Kalian and the watchers received, for the next moment, the sky fell onto the stage.
TWELVE
A Sporty Wager
The wind swirled without warning causing everyone to look up. They did not have to look far. The commotion was happening only fifty metres above the fighting platform. The more essence sensitive had a slight edge over their contemporaries. They could sense the ridiculous amounts of arcane energy that was directing the events.
An unseen hand shaped the wind to its wishes. Kalian took several steps back, his attacks on Valerian temporary forgotten as he stared upwards in fear. He was right to. Before his stunned eyes, the sky began to fall. At least, that was what it looked like to those watching.
Actually, that was not far from the truth. [Wind Fists] and [Wind Blades] begun to rain down from above. They came chaotically, in different sizes and intensities, from the size of a small blade or a child’s fist to massive fists that dwarfed men and blades that could slice oxen lengthways. Many did not even fly straight nor did they come straight down. Rather, they descended from a variety of angles. There were some that did not even hit the stage but flitted here and there like falling leaves.
Too late, Kalian turned back to Valerian to discover that he was smiling at him, safely ensconced in a massive, spherical, blue, arcane barrier. Realising that Valerian was the one responsible made his expression worsen. However, he did not despair. He began to blur again.
The raging winds lasted for close to two minutes. In that time, Kalian was everywhere. His characteristic blur did not even pause for a second. There were many instances where it looked like he had been chopped to pieces or crushed but he just kept going proving the others to be afterimages. He even seemed to stroll through some of the attacks and in some cases, you could hear his sword clashing with some of the wind blades.
The crowd watched mesmerised, strangely quiet as if afraid to disturb his concentration. There was not a single person who had expected the turn of events. One moment, Kalian was abusing his opponent, the next it was uncertain if he would even survive the onslaught that had been called forth. After all, not even Valerian was exempt from the wind barrage.
It was not something he could control. What he had done was not a proper spell. Even if it was, not all spells could be finely controlled. He had stirred up the wind essence around him and given it some guidance. Then, he sat back and let the rest develop naturally. However, he was not lax. Only an idiot would create something he could not control without putting up some countermeasures.
Valerian was not an idiot. The first chance he got, he cast [Mage Guard] to protect himself. Only then did he stand back calmly in his arcane dome and admired his handiwork. The entire surface of the fighting platform was scared and scoured. There were a variety of different sized craters and gashes in the sturdy stone and yet, it failed to put down his opponent.
Kalian stood in front of him, panting slightly but victorious. He raised a fist skyward and cried out in triumph, inciting the crowd to cheer. Valerian could only gape in astonishment. Besides being sweaty, the only signs that Kalian had been through an ordeal were the a couple of tears in his clothes and a shallow cut on his right forearm.
Deciding not to stand there slack-jawed, Valerian charged forward hoping to catch the idiot whilst his guard was still down. The nine weapons around him shot forward, forcing Kalian to parry them. Reaching him, Valerian did not hesitate to grab his arm and twist it into a hold. He attempted to force his opponent to his knees but with a queer flourish, Kalian’s arm slipped from his grasp.
He was like a ghost or better yet a plume of smoke. His arm seemingly became formless and with a twist, it escaped Valerian. Backpedalling quickly, he fell right into the second half of Valerian’s plan. When his foot touched the ground as he retreated, a circle of light appeared and numerous cyan bindings reached out and tied him up.
Valerian smiled as he strode forward. He had long since bowed down in recognition of Kalian’s superior evasive skills. It was like everything he saw he could avoid. The obvious solution to this was to give him an attack that he never saw coming.
While he had hoped that the spell squall he called down would do the job he was not one to leave things to chance. Using the storm as a cover, he prepared other spells as failsafes. Who would notice a few more wind attributed energies in the midst of storm raging with them?
With this thought in mind, he prepared his spells in the middle of the storm itself and then sent them down, anchoring them all over the platform in the chaos. The anchored spells were all trap and binding spells. The only to win this battle was to prevent his opponent from making use of his speed. This was his solution. You cannot
Valerian stretched out his hand and his mace responded. It flew up from its resting spot on the side of the arena and shot right at Kalian. With his other hand, Valerian cast his favourite attack spell: [Heart Seeking Bolts]. Those nine weapons that he always carried with him. The ones that had been the doom of many a wild beast shot forward with deadly intent.
“[Burst]!” Kalian yelled frantically.
Just then, the pendant on his chest let out a bright light and shattered. When that took place, a massive brown energy dome appeared around him. With the sound of arrows meeting a stone wall, the heart seeking bolts were turned away.
‘Damn it!’ Valerian yelled inwardly.
He swiftly diverted the mace’s course, making it fly into his hand instead. Taking a deep breath, he gripped it with both hands and brought it down on the earthen barrier. With a resounding crash, cracks quickly spread through the barrier and it collapsed. The moment it did, Kalian rushed out at full speed, not giving Valerian the chance to dish out another attack.
In his usual blurry motion, he made his way far away from Valerian. Unfortunately, it was not so easy to get away. In his haste, he stumbled into another anchored spell. This one flipped him into the air, dangling him there even as it bound his limbs. He screamed petulantly causing Valerian to smile as he launched his [Heart Seeking Bolts] once more.
This time, however, the distance between the two was quite a bit and Kalian with his incessant blurs managed to slip out before the spell reached him. He darted away like a fleeing hare only to stop suddenly and turn back to rush at Valerian. Drawing his sword, he began to fire beams of sword qi at him.
Valerian rushed to block, discarding his attack and going on the defensive. This was undoubtedly what his foe wanted because once Valerian’s assault stopped, his did as well. He stepped back and began clapping yet again.
“Well done. Well done!” he spouted. “This young lord was worried there for a moment there. You are really quite good. Unfortunately, you are lacking in too many areas. If not, then you might actually give this lord a challenge.”
For a brief moment, Valerian wondered if his opponent was insane. Who did this in the midst of battle? Valerian did not have much combat experience but thus far every foe he had faced had been the type to quietly fight things out. The bandits, Blake and of course, Richard, none had been the type to have meaningless conversations in battle.
“The way things stand now, things will surely end in my victory. You know why?” Kalian said.
Valerian gripped his mace tighter, feeling the urge to rush up and bury its flanged head in his foes annoying face. Slowly, he began to build up more arcane energy, taking his time to prepare his next spell. A thought occurred to him.
“Why?” he asked Kalian. If his opponent wanted to talk so much why not give the chance. It meant more time for him to get ready.
Truthfully speaking, Kalian was not an idiot. Well… he was not much of one. He was a combat genius. Fighting was what he knew and possibly the only thing he was accomplished at. However, he had been given special instructions for this battle. He had not come to DaleGuard simply to win. He did not understand the specifics but apparently, the Steelborns had begun to think too highly of themselves.
It was his duty to show them their place. He was to crush his f
oes. Let them expend every effort they could muster and then reveal to them and to all those watching, the futility of trying to match the DriftClouds. His actual target was Ethan Steelborn, the Steelborn heir. Nonetheless, he had been given an appetizer. A younger, weaker Steelborn. One just as gifted but not as accomplished.
This was to be his warm-up. All he had to do was reveal his superiority before the watching crowd. All he had to do was show just how more incredible he was in comparison. That was why he acted as he did. It was a task that he was aptly suited for. A battle hungry, glory hound like him could not ask for anything better.
Like an artist, he had been given canvas and the chance to paint whatever he wanted so long as he got the job done. Of course, he took some liberties. Alas, things were not going exactly as expected. That he was faster, more powerful than his opponent was a given but this Valerian brat was a tricky one. If not for his luck and skill, he would have been done in by now.
What’s worse, he had been forced to use a protective talisman in the last exchange. He could sense the crowd wavering. He had to divert their attention from his opponent’s achievement and back to himself. The entire objective of this battle was come out victorious and smelling of roses whilst making his opponent look much weaker and hapless by comparison.
So he began to speak.
“I’m glad you asked. You see, the mistake juniors like you often make is to not listen to their seniors. Since you are such a good prospect, this young lord would take some of his precious time to give you some pointers. You want to know your first mistake?” he asked.
Without waiting for Valerian to answer, he did so himself. “Your first mistake was entering into this tournament!”
“It was a foolish, naïve decision. Honestly, I wonder what your clan elders were thinking when they entered you into this tournament. You are what … fifteen… sixteen? This young lord is twenty years old and yet, this is my first Zebre. It is not because I could not win by entering earlier but because of common sense. It is always better to shore up strength first before attempting something.
