She smiled back before hurrying out of the door.
I glanced at Grant, who was looking back at me with an ugly smirk. The look on his face made my blood boil. I kept a calm outward appearance, however, because it wouldn’t do to let hatred cloud my judgement.
“It appears fate has decided you were going to be unfortunate enough to face me right from the beginning,” Grant taunted. “It’s too bad… for you. Now I’m going to teach you what happens to people who try to steal my things.”
“Your ‘things,’ is it?” I murmured before walking away from him. I had no desire to trade banter with a moron.
My lack of a response must have upset Grant. His glare hardened as his face turned an ugly shade of red, but he walked over to where Rainer and Valence were standing. He stopped when he was about ten meters from where I stood.
“Are the two of you ready?” asked Rainer.
“Hmph!” Grant removed a pair of gloves from a pouch at his hip. He put them on, the left first, then the right, in a very methodical fashion, as if he were showing off. Then he clapped his hands together and tightened them into fists. “I am ready.”
I removed the ruler from my shoulder, holding it in a single-handed grip, and nodded to Rainer. “I am also ready.”
“Then I declare this match officially underway.” Rainer raised his hand in the air, and then swung it down. “Fight!”
Chapter 7
A Humiliating Defeat
“You remember the terms of our agreement?” I asked.
Grant sneered. “Of course, I do.”
I didn’t let his sneer bother me right now. I hated this person more than anyone save maybe the Great Overlord of the Seventh Realm, but I wouldn’t let that rule me. Taking several deep breaths somehow allowed me to keep my cool. Right now, I needed to remain calm, placid, like a perfectly still lake.
Deep breath. In. Out. I could do this.
“Should I win, you will cease any and all attempts to force Fay and Kari into an arranged marriage. Furthermore, you will stop bothering them. Never darken their doorstep ever again.” I spoke loudly enough that everyone in the stadium could hear me. The stadium was quiet as well, which helped project my voice to every corner of the Colosseum.
“And if I win, you will cease speaking to those two,” Grant said. “You will never come near them for as long as you live.” He paused to sneer at me. “Though I will let you attend our wedding. It’s the least I can do.”
I nodded. Once again, I didn’t let his last comment rile me up. That was the agreement we had made when I challenged him to this duel.
The Colosseum was completely silent, with not a single soul speaking out. Everyone stared into the arena. As I glanced at them, I could see several people leaning over and whispering to each other.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment,” Grant said as he and I stood across from each other. He hadn’t touched the sword at his waist, which made me guess the sword was decorative or perhaps only used for specific Spiritual Techniques. “Ever since I discovered that you have been trying to seduce my Kari, I’ve longed to let you feel the shame and humiliation that comes from being beaten like a dog.”
“The only person who has tried to do anything to Kari is you,” I said in a clear voice. “I’d call what you attempted seduction, but you’re so inept that you can’t even get a woman to love you and have to force them into an arranged marriage using your family’s influence. Men like you are the most pathetic wastes of space in existence.”
I couldn’t remember a time when I had said something so insulting before, but this man had earned all the enmity I could possibly have for a single individual—even the Great Overlord of the Seventh Realm didn’t have to deal with this much of my hatred. Kari might have died at that otherworldly being’s hands, but this man had caused her to suffer for years. I’ll admit it. I wanted this man to suffer.
Grant’s ears turned a startling shade of scarlet as his face morphed, becoming ugly and twisted. “We’ll see how long you can spew such insults after I’ve burned you to ashes!”
A powerful Spiritual Aura ignited around Grant, swirling around his body like intense flames. The red energy held a serious heat. The ground beneath his feet was actually getting scorched because of the intense fluctuations in temperature, though it was also because he lacked control. Had his control over his Spiritual Power been better, he could have chosen what to burn and what to leave unharmed.
“The only one who is going to lose right now is you,” I said, raising my ruler and pointing it at him.
Grant screamed at me as he shot forward. His speed was quite something, actually. He was using short bursts of fire projected from his feet to propel himself across the ground. It was similar to my Flash Step, but it was inferior.
Far inferior.
I watched him come toward me and channeled lightning through my ruler, which glowed a pale blue before the segments detached from each other and raced forward. With naught but a thought, the Dragon’s Tail Ruler shot straight for Grant. Sadly, the other man proved adept at dodging and stepped aside.
With another thought, I changed the ruler’s direction, making it curl around and attack from behind. Grant had been expecting it. He moved again, allowing the ruler to race past him and continued running.
“That won’t work on me! I’ve already seen this trick!”
After reaching a certain distance, Grant moved his hands in intricate figure eights, generating more flames, then slammed his hands onto the ground. Two jet streams of fire blew from his hands and launched him into the air. He traveled in a parabolic arc, descending toward me as he rotated his body in a forward flip. The leg that he extended suddenly ignited as he prepared to drop his heel on my head.
The ruler came back, the segments once again locking into place. I took exactly one step back. Grant’s heel slammed into the spot where I was standing, an explosion of fire scattering across the ground. The heat caused me to break out in sweat. However, I channeled the water element through my body and used it to cool down. I wanted to appear completely unperturbed, as though nothing he did could so much as make me sweat.
Grant had some modicum of talent. He didn’t let the fact that he had missed stop him. Pushing himself to his feet, he launched a series of rapid punches. His fists were coated with red flames. Each punch caused a gout of fire to shoot from his hands, extending the range of his punches. A left straight was dodged when I tilted my head. The fist grazed my hair, but the water element kept the fire from burning it. I leaned back as he swung at me with a hook. An arc of fire jettisoned from his fist, but it dissipated with a hiss before reaching me. Taking two steps forward, Grant launched a powerful heel strike, his foot similarly coated in flames, but I brought my ruler between us and let it take the attack instead.
“Pathetic,” I murmured just loud enough for him to hear.
Gnashing his teeth in anger, Grant leapt back and moved his arms. His fists traveled in a circular pattern that caused flames to ignite in the circle’s center. Then he tucked in his elbows before slamming his fists into the fireballs.
The attack he launched looked like a pair of fireballs at first, but then the two fireballs collided together, and the flames changed shape. A reptilian muzzle emerged from the flames, followed by a long, serpentine body. Two wings flapped as the creature flew forward. It was a type of fire dragon.
“Oh… so he knows a B-rank Spiritual Fire Technique,” I murmured as I slid my feet apart and set my ruler on my shoulder. I could feel the heat from where I stood. Gripping my ruler with both hands, I channeled the water element, encasing the massive slab of metal in a condensed blade of water. “It’s awfully impressive that you know a B-rank Spiritual Fire Technique, but it’s obvious that you haven’t even come close to mastering it yet. This fire dragon should be at least sixteen meters in length, but it isn’t even half that.”
I didn’t think Grant could hear me. Not that it mattered. I was mostly ta
lking to myself.
As the fire dragon drew near, I released a soft grunt and swung the ruler down. I felt some resistance as my blade split the dragon in half. The two halves separated down the middle and flew in opposite directions. They didn’t explode, which was what would have happened if Grant had mastered this technique. Instead, they just quietly dissipated.
“What?” Grant’s eyes grew wide and round as his arms dropped to his sides. “You… but you… my most powerful attack…?”
“That was your most powerful attack?” I wanted to frown because of how weak that attack had been, but instead I smiled. “I hate to tell you this, but a Spiritual Technique of that caliber isn’t enough to make me even break out in a sweat.”
Grant’s face had gone pale as his knees shook. I couldn’t stop the hatred I felt for this man as I saw his face. I knew, logically, that the Grant standing before me had yet to truly commit any heinous acts. I knew that. However, even if the Grant from this life hadn’t forced Kari into an arranged marriage, driven Fay to her death, and poisoned Kari’s entire family, I also knew it was only a matter of time before he did.
That was why, upon taking a single step forward, I unleashed my Spiritual Power and bombarded him with the intensity of my Spiritual Pressure.
* * *
When Eryk’s Spiritual Pressure swept over her, Kari felt her body jolt. She straightened her spine as though a Spiritual Lightning Technique had struck her. Staring down into the arena, she watched as intense waves of Spiritual Power swept across the ground, creating tremors and cracks that spread along the arena floor. A massive pillar of pale blue energy swirled around like a water cyclone as arcs of lightning skittered across it.
She wasn’t the only one who appeared to be shocked from the Spiritual Power that Eryk was releasing. Her three brothers had gone completely silent. Geirolf looked like he’d swallowed something unpleasant. His wide eyes and gaping mouth were very telling. Meanwhile, Mykkel had straightened his back and opened his eyes wide as he stared onto the arena floor. Earland was also staring at Eryk, but there was an intensity in his eyes that shocked Kari.
“This Spiritual Pressure… it really is the same… The exact same…”
Kari barely realized she was whispering to herself as she pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was thudding wildly against her ribcage, like a caged Demon Beast trying to break out. She felt as if her soul was resonating with Eryk’s Spiritual Power.
“What is the same?” asked her mother.
“Do you remember that intense Spiritual Power that appeared around three months ago?” Kari asked. She didn’t give her mother time to respond as she nodded at Eryk. “That Spiritual Power has the same feeling as Eryk’s… except his feels, I don’t know, more refined, I guess.”
“I thought as much,” her mother murmured. “I’m not as sensitive to his Spiritual Power as you seem to be, but I certainly recognized this boy’s unique Spiritual Signature. I thought I might be mistaken at first, but if you’re confirming it, then it must be true. Really…” the woman murmured as she frowned, “how did this boy manage to slip under our perceptions for so long?”
Kari had no answer for her mother, so she remained silent and stared at the boy who was releasing a Spiritual Power that, for some reason, resonated with her soul.
* * *
“Holy shit!” someone in the waiting room said, though Fay didn’t know who.
The waiting room was mostly quiet as everyone looked out the window to watch the fight. The battle between Eryk and Grant had started off simple enough, but now it had become something far more.
Spiritual Power unlike anything she’d ever felt was pouring out of Eryk like a geyser. It swirled around his body, coalescing into a whirlpool of water containing arcs of lightning that lashed out at the surroundings. Oddly enough, while the lightning felt like it was powerful enough to destroy this entire Colosseum, none of the arena received any damage. Only the cracks along the ground from when he first unleashed his Spiritual Power were present to showcase his strength.
“What an intense Spiritual Pressure,” one of the women present muttered as she placed a hand on her chest.
“I’ve never felt anything like this,” another person said.
“Ugh, now I want to fight this person. I wonder if I can switch opponents?”
“Ha! If anyone is gonna battle that man, it’s going to be me!”
“In your dreams!”
As Catalyna and Marko Kriger began arguing with each other, Fay raised a hand to her chest, feeling the loud, powerful pounding that made it seem as if her heart would beat its way out of her ribcage.
Why is my heart beating so fast?
She didn’t have an answer.
* * *
I walked toward Grant one step at a time, moving with a calm, glacial slowness. I was doing this on purpose. The longer it took me to reach him, the more frightened my opponent seemed to become.
By this point, Grant was already frozen in place. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. My Spiritual Pressure kept him from moving, locking up his joints and forcing him to watch as I slowly stalked forward, dragging the Dragon’s Tail Ruler across the ground as I did so.
It seemed like my Spiritual Pressure’s effect increased the closer I got to Grant. At fifteen meters, Grant’s pale skin became covered in sweat. At ten meters, his body shook like a frightened rabbit. At five, Grant had fallen onto his backside and could only stare up at me with wide, horrified eyes. Finally, I stopped walking after reaching the one-meter distance, but it wasn’t because I had intended to. Grant had lost control of his bladder. An acidic stench hit my nose as a puddle appeared underneath my opponent.
I wrinkled my nose at him. “This match has been decided. You’ve lost. I expect you to honor our agreement. You will cease using your family’s power and influence to try and force Kari and Fay into an arranged marriage, and you will not talk to them ever again. Darken their doorsteps even once, and I will show you no mercy.”
There was no telling if Grant even heard what I was saying. His eyes were wide, unseeing, and his pale face was trembling in abject fear. I clicked my tongue and sealed up my Spiritual Power. The moment my Spiritual Pressure faded, Grant’s body became like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head as he fell backwards in a dead faint.
A frown appeared on my face as I turned to Rainer, who I realized was looking at me with a shocked expression as though he was staring down the muzzle of an A-Rank Demon Beast.
“Are you going to call the match?” I asked.
“Oh. Right.” My words snapped Rainer out of his stupor. He raised his hand and called the match. “The winner of the first match is Eryk Veiger!”
I nodded, satisfied, and turned toward the door. As I began walking off the arena floor, I noticed Valence giving me an odd look. I wondered about that expression for a moment, but then I shrugged and wandered through the door, down the hall, and into the waiting room. When I arrived, all eyes turned toward me. I looked at the people in the room, frowning at them, but then I dispelled my discomfort and wandered over to Fay.
She was standing by the window. As I approached, she smiled at me and tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear.
“That was a pretty crazy match.”
“You think so?” My frown deepened. “Grant was really weak. To be honest, I had been hoping to extend the match a little longer, but he was so weak there wasn’t much point.”
“You wanted to keep the match going?” Fay looked at me like I’d said something weird. “Why would you want that?”
“Because I was hoping to crush his spirit,” I answered. “Grant was trying to force you and Kari into an arranged marriage with him regardless of the fact that neither of you wanted it. Our agreement was that if I won, he would stop and never bother the two of you ever again. However, Grant and the Leucht Family as a whole are arrogant and remorseless. I do not have any confidence in them honoring their agreem
ent.”
Fay didn’t say anything for several seconds, but then she nodded. “And so you were hoping that by completely overwhelming him and crushing his spirit, he would become so afraid of you that he would go out of his way to avoid coming near us.”
“Yes.”
Fay hesitated. “You did that… for Kari?”
“And you,” I stated without pause. “I told you before that I was going to help you. We trained together so you could defeat him on your own, but even if I was the one he went up against, I wanted to make sure he couldn’t pressure your family into selling you off like chattel.”
“Will Hellen Brynhild and Arild Kriger come to the arena?” Rainer’s voice pierced the quiet atmosphere that had been left in the wake of my victory. I only now realized that no one had clapped for me this time.
Two people suddenly moved toward the door. One of them was a powerful woman with a solid build, a masculine face, and full-body armor that clicked together as she walked. A sword hung at her hip. It was a broadsword with a plain scabbard. While her weapon didn’t look like much, I knew better than to underestimate her. This woman was Kari’s instructor, if I was not mistaken. That meant she was powerful.
The other person was a younger woman with pale reddish hair that bordered on pink, which she currently wore in a leather band. Her body was not covered in full armor like Hellen’s. She wore a chestplate that covered only her breasts but left her stomach exposed. Shoulder pads rested snugly against her, held together by a set of leather straps. The light blue clothing she wore underneath her armor shifted as she walked. The ends of a white tabard swayed back and forth around her legs. Her weapons consisted of two short swords that were slung across her back, forming an X-pattern.
Fay and I watched the two leave the room, and then she turned to me.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
WIEDERGEBURT: Legend of the Reincarnated Warrior: Volume 4 Page 11
