“Who gave you that Technique, Ian?” Tom asked sternly, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
“Shut up, Dinos!” Gorr’s roar contained thunder and the menacing crackle of lightning. He turned to Hadjar. “As for you… I’m taking you with me, you bastard!”
Ian’s movements were too quick for most spectators to follow, even though all of them were true cultivators and their perception was heightened thanks to that.
There was a cloud of white mist in the air where Ian had just stood, and a two-foot-deep crater appeared in the ground. He materialized above and to the left of Hadjar. With a cry of rage, he swung both of his sabers. Their crushing power merged together. Assuming the form of a huge lightning blade, it fell with incredible speed toward the former General.
Hadjar brought the Black Blade up to block the attack, but it wasn’t enough. He was only able to defend from part of the blow, but about a quarter of its total power still struck him in the chest. The spectators managed to step aside. He was sent flying back a dozen yards through the air, and then crashed into a tree. It fell to the ground with a crack. His canvas shirt was torn to shreds, and the spot where the attack had landed was covered in a horrific burn. The charred edges of the terrible, but not bleeding, wound made the younger disciples shudder.
Ian wasn’t going to let his opponent catch his breath. He disappeared into the air. The same white cloud remained behind him once again. A thunderclap followed, and then a wave of power scattered the turf and small stones.
“Calm Wind.”
Hadjar slapped the ground. The descending stream of wind covered an area of ten yards all around him. The grass and ground sunk by four inches. Trees creaked. The thinnest and youngest among them burst at the roots. Even their splinters didn’t scatter all over the place, but fell right to the ground. Ian, who’d had no time to react to his enemy’s Technique, lost almost half his speed. It was now possible to see him. He looked like the silhouette of a saber covered by a ball of lightning.
“The Steps of Thunder…”
“Both of these Techniques are in the ‘Thunder God’s Manuscript’!”
“How did he learn Techniques worth twenty-five thousand Glory points?”
“They’re normally only available to the inner circle disciples! They’re kept on the fifth floor of the library!”
Hadjar didn’t care where Ian had gotten the manuscript from and how he’d been able to study two stances that definitely required an incredible amount of various resources to learn. He was more concerned with the question of how he was going to survive.
“Sixth stance: Wind!”
Tendrils of black smoke swirled around Hadjar and he disappeared, leaving ghostly afterimages in his wake. A moment later, the spot where he’d stood was struck by another combined attack of the two sabers. The giant lightning blade easily ripped through the ground, leaving a charred scar across its surface that was over twenty feet long. Hadjar came up behind Ian and swung his blade in a wide arc:
“Spring Wind!”
Using the third stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique increased the power of his attack threefold. The blue-and-black crescent surged out of his blade, containing the silhouettes of writhing dragons.
Hadjar’s slash hit Gorr’s back, but as soon as the crescent touched the outer edges of the lightning armor, it exploded in a shower of sparks. The flash of bright light created vortices of power that burned, crushed, and cut through everything within a ten-foot radius. The trees and stones turned to dust. Ian’s defense also had an active component, which made the Technique truly terrifying.
Gorr was about to turn around and counterattack when he suddenly staggered and coughed. Dark blood spurted from his mouth, and the lightning Technique suddenly began to fade.
“Damn it!” Ian roared, shoving a handful of pills into his mouth.
His energy spiked yet again, and the veins in his bare torso, arms, and face turned blue. Gorr roared like a wounded but immensely strong and furious beast. The roar made his ‘Thunder Armor’ denser and brighter. It formed an almost complete layer of defense around him, still radiating electric discharges that left terrible burns behind on everything they could touch.
“Idiot,” Hadjar heard a soft, feminine whisper.
With his heightened senses, he felt Anise standing somewhere nearby, her sword still in her hand.
“He’s using an alchemical poison. If you hold on for another fifteen seconds, he will die from exhausting his blood and Core. You won’t even have to kill him.”
Hadjar remembered his battle against the adjutant of Moon Leen that happened so long ago. That guy, before his death, had also taken some kind of poison, but it had contained no secrets or mysteries of alchemy, only the energy of demons. However, Hadjar wasn’t about to back down.
Gripping the Black Blade more comfortably, he disappeared once again, followed by afterimages.
“Another idiot…” He heard her but didn’t react.
Lightning followed Ian’s sabers. Electric discharges of power filled the air. Trailing behind Hadjar’s blade was a plume of black fog that had dragon-swords writhing within it. For both of them, fighting at any kind of range was not what they wanted. They both considered close combat, the clash of blade against blade, to be their strong suit. A furious battle began.
Chapter 461
Нadjar, even with the help of the sixth stance, could barely keep up with Ian, who was still being slowed by the pressure of the ‘Calm Wind’. If he hadn’t used the combination of two ‘Light Breeze’ Techniques, Hadjar would’ve lost in an instant. However, a battle between cultivators didn’t care about hypotheticals.
Ian swung his sabers three times. Leaning back, Hadjar let the first slash pass by a few inches above his nose. Gorr’s lightning blade flew fifty paces before it struck the defensive Technique of one of the spectators. Alas, the boy was unable to withstand such pressure. With a cry, leaving a crimson trail behind, he flew a dozen yards through the air and fell like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Anise!” Tom shouted.
“Yes, my Lord,” the girl said, and plunged her sword into the ground.
A string of hieroglyphs surged out from her blade. They covered an area of six hundred square feet and turned into a golden glow that soon formed a cage.
“Mida’s Box!” Anise whispered.
She didn’t know why, but she kept her eye on the black-shrouded swordsman. Hadjar didn’t even notice what was happening around him. He was completely engrossed in his battle.
Recovering from the near miss, he pushed off the ground and then straightened up, catching Gorr’s wrist with his free hand. Redirecting his foe’s second attack, which struck the golden wall, he spun the man around so that they stood back to back. Ian’s third slash hit only air, and Hadjar, moving his foot to the side in a sharp motion, threw his enemy over his head.
Gorr slammed into the ground. A powerful explosion raised a cloud of dust. Ian leapt out of the deep crater that he’d dug up with his body, and was met with his foe’s furious attacks.
Hadjar, holding his blade in a reverse grip, started to spin. He became a whirlwind of blades, each trailing a plume of black fog.
The lightning bolts of the ‘Thunder Armor’ flashed. They repelled Hadjar’s fierce attacks. Ian, noticing a brief opening, let Hadjar’s sword sail through the air behind him and, rolling forward, struck him in the chest with his elbow. Hadjar staggered back a few steps. He decided to avoid the counterstrike shrouded in lightning rather than try to block it. With a wave of his left hand, which held the hem of his foggy cloak, he dove to the side and wrapped the saber in his cloak. The black fog swirled around the blue lightning bolts. Ian shouted something, but it was already too late. Using inertia and his own weight, Hadjar jerked his body to the side. Gorr’s trapped arm couldn’t withstand the pressure. With a sickening crack, the bone snapped and, tearing through the skin, came out of his forearm.
Ian screamed in pain and kicked ou
t, aiming for his opponent’s stomach. Hadjar managed to block with his left arm. The blow landed right on the foggy armor that protected his left forearm. Hadjar had expected to feel at least a flash of pain, and maybe even a fracture. He was therefore surprised when he was simply pushed back a few steps, and his arm went numb for a fraction of a moment. That was it.
“You’re a monster!” Gorr roared.
With an effort of will, he sent a massive bolt of lightning toward his fracture. It gripped the bone, pulled it back into the flesh, and then cauterized the edges of the wound. It looked creepy.
Ian spat out another mouthful of blood and launched a frontal attack. His sabers flashed, and the slashes alternated so quickly that the air whistled. Hadjar deflected and parried with all the speed he could muster.
He elected to dodge some attacks while deflecting others in order to immediately launch his own counterattacks. Dodging the thrust of Ian’s right saber, Hadjar deliberately let his left one slash across his chest. Gorr, who’d lost his tempo, didn’t have time to bring the weapon back to a defensive position. Hadjar ducked and moved even closer. He viciously stomped on the toe of his foe’s foot with his heel, his left fist struck Ian in the nose, and then he attacked four more times. He attacked so quickly that most of the spectators saw only two of the slashes.
Gorr managed to dodge the first one. The other three slammed into his chest. They could’ve easily cut through artifact armor at the Spirit level, but their power wasn’t enough to overcome the Thunder Armor. Instead of turning his enemy into a pile of meat and bones, Hadjar only managed to inflict three deep gouges on the man’s torso.
“Impossible,” Ian croaked. Panting, he clutched his broken arm to his chest. The sword in it was shaking so badly that it seemed like it was about to fall out of his grip. “A damned commoner shouldn’t even be able to scratch the ‘Thunder Armor’, let alone cut through it. How did you do that...? How!”
Hadjar, swaying due to fatigue and pain, couldn’t say he agreed with Ian. In his opinion, if he had actually broken through, Gorr would’ve already gone to his forefathers. Nevertheless, their fight was coming to an end, one way or another. Gorr’s blue veins didn’t look as impressive as they had before. They gradually faded and Ian’s skin and flesh seemed to peel off. Like the pieces of a puzzle, parts of him seemed to be falling off. Blood coated his body, turning the blue lightning scarlet. Hadjar’s Call was almost exhausted, too. The cloak barely reached his waist, and the Black Blade was rapidly losing its shape, changing from a sword into a strip of fog.
“Scarlet Lightning,” Ian said.
His entire body was immediately covered in deep cracks. It looked like he would crumble like a statue made of sand if he took just one step. His energy condensed and the lightning bolts coiled together, creating a monstrous armor. Gorr, turning into a scarlet spark, charged in to attack.
Hadjar stood motionless. His sword was back in its scabbard. The scarlet lightning streaked toward him and was behind Hadjar in an instant.
“Thunder Flower!”
Behind him, there was an explosion of such power that Anise’s golden walls cracked. The girl coughed and a trickle of blood ran down the corners of her mouth.
“What the fuck!”
“How can an ordinary disciple know and use all four stances of the ‘Thunder God’s Manuscript?’”
“He was even able to injure Anise Dinos…”
Lightning shot up into the sky from the spot where Hadjar stood. Contrary to all the laws of nature, it didn’t fall from the sky, but tried to pierce it instead. Gradually, the ball of lightning that the vertical electric discharge had come from turned into a flower bud. A thirty-foot-long flower, created from lightning and imbued with the Saber Spirit, vaporized a huge chunk of the ground, seven feet in diameter and thirteen feet deep. No one could’ve survived such an attack. Even Dora, who was watching with her mouth slightly open, doubted that she could’ve withstood this power by using only her artifact armor. Even the eldest heiress of House Marnil would’ve had to use a defensive Technique.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning to Einen.
She’d expected any number of reactions, from deep sadness to the appearance of emotional wounds, but what she saw confused her far more. The always calm and sedate islander was grinning slightly. It was as if he were holding back a very bloodthirsty smile.
“I’m sorry, but my time hasn’t come yet,” a voice sounded in the darkness.
When the flower disappeared, all the spectators could see was the black fog falling away once the afterimage disintegrated.
“But-”
Ian didn’t get to say his last words. The gradually disappearing Black Blade protruded from his chest, near his heart. Gorr twitched a couple of times. Even then, he didn’t give up on trying to take Hadjar with him to their forefathers. However, all his dying body could do was lift the sabers a little.
With the next gust of wind, Ian Gorr disappeared, scattering into gray dust. His sabers sank into the ground. His silver token landed near them. Hadjar collected the Glory points that had belonged to his deceased opponent with an effort of will. Ian had recently spent a lot of them on something, because he had only six hundred and eighteen points left.
Before the Dinos, Dora, and Einen came up to him, Hadjar glimpsed a familiar and frightening object. It was under the token.
Hoping no one saw him do this, Hadjar picked it up with the toe of his boot and slipped it into his pants pocket. It was a trick he’d learned during his time as a circus freak. He’d used to pick up coins that fell from cut purses this way, and now… Now he’d picked up the fragment of a red, demonic stone!
Chapter 462
Hadjar was sitting on one of the stumps that had been created by his battle with Ian. Bright stars were shining in the sky, almost defying his somber mood.
Pleasant, fragrant smoke wafted from Hadjar’s simple, old pipe. It was as dear to him as the memory of the days when he’d been able to play the Ron’Jah as much as he’d wanted, but for some reason, he’d always thought of that time as the worst period of his life. On evenings such as this, he always longed for music.
[Time until the system finishes updating:
44 days, 21 hours, 13 minutes, and 16... 15... 14 seconds]
Sometimes, it seemed to Hadjar like he was missing more than just his neural network’s computing module. Chiefly, its ability to play the music that had accompanied him from his previous life.
“We aren’t angels, dude,” Hadjar breathed out rings of smoke. They were much worse than Nero’s had been. “No, we aren’t angels... we’re dark beasts…”
“A beautiful sentiment,” someone said from behind the nearest bushes.
For some reason, Hadjar wasn’t surprised that Anise had come out to see him beneath the starlight. Her emerald eyes seemed to glow in the night, even more than her emerald earrings did. On her forehead was a gold decoration in the shape of a miniature fang. She held a bow in her hands and had a quiver of arrows on her back. She was still wearing the same black skirt and blouse from before.
“Do you know what angels are?” Hadjar asked.
“No.” Tucking her hair behind her ear, she sat down next to him on the stump. “Are they something that the peoples of the barbarian kingdoms believe in?”
The girl used the word ‘barbarian’ without any desire to insult him. She was just stating a fact.
“Probably.” Hadjar shrugged. “Maybe they do, somewhere out there.”
He continued to smoke in silence for a while. Any other time, he might’ve been happy to sit next to the girl whom he liked so much, but not right now. This night reminded him of the past, which felt like someone was prodding his scarred over wounds. Back then, in the magical lake, if he’d been a true cultivator, he would’ve endured torments ten times worse than his Master’s death. It hadn’t been strength that had saved him that time, but weakness. Hadjar could sense something mysterious and mystical in that thought that he couldn’t
discern quite yet.
“Can you tell me more about them?” Anise asked.
Hadjar exhaled another cloud of smoke.
“They’re like the messengers of a god... as far as I can remember.”
“You mean like fairies?”
Hadjar smiled. He liked the idea of angels assuming the form of fairies better than them being white-clad defenders... Well, he’d never been very good at theology. He had no idea what the angels even defended. Nor was he surprised to learn that Anise Dinos, a member of the Predatory Blades clan, knew that fairies existed. By the High Heavens, maybe one of them was listening to their conversation right now.
“No, more like the Beautiful Female Warriors of the North. But asexual.”
“Asexual Beautiful Warriors,” Anise smiled. Any other time, Hadjar would’ve called it a beautiful smile, but not now. Right now, he was just smoking and looking at the sky. He was waiting for a guest. “Which god are they the messengers of?”
Hadjar choked on the smoke of his pipe, swore under his breath, then shook the ash out of his pipe, wrapped it in a rag, and put it back in his pockets. As he did so, he tried not to look at the slight mockery in Anise’s gaze. It wasn’t malicious, but it still stung.
She was barely sixteen, and he was almost thirty. Given the local customs, she was young enough to be his daughter. It was funny, but he didn’t feel a sense of wrongness about what was happening. For true cultivators, time was very different than for mortals. A day meant as much to a mortal as a month did to a cultivator.
“What do you mean by ‘which god’?”
“Well, you said that angels are the messengers of a god, but you didn’t say which one. The Beautiful Female Warriors,” Anise said thoughtfully, tapping her finger against her chin, “are the messengers of Derger.”
At that moment, she didn’t look like a powerful warrior who could easily send Hadjar to his forefathers. She appeared to be a simple girl. One of the countless others you could find in countless cities. But for some reason, Hadjar couldn’t take his eyes off her. He thought he could see the distant stars in her eyes.
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