Stone Will

by Kirill Klevanski

  Colin snorted and took off his silk cloak. It slowly fell to the ground, but before it finished its journey, Colin was already standing in front of Hadjar.

  “While you might’ve been able to trick this poor citizen, you peasant, I can see you're holding a sword for almost the first time in your life. Talk all you want, you won’t fool me. Your death is nigh.”

  Colin unbuckled his sword belt defiantly and threw it aside. He kept only the scabbard, holding it in his left hand and standing as proudly as if he were a mountain, not a mere man.

  Everyone looked at the General. They spent ten seconds waiting in silence, and then she waved her hand to signal for the fight to begin.

  “Say goodbye to your life, peasant!”

  Chapter 35

  “Don’t be hasty, Colin,” the general finally spoke. She had a very warm, quite an ordinary female voice. She sounded friendly, more like a woman that sold fruit at the market than a stern general. “You are at the Transformation stage, aren’t you?”

  Colin turned to the General and replied, teeth grinding as he did so, “Yes.” After a pause, he added a very reluctant “Sir.”

  In this world, ‘sir’ was used to address superior officers of both sexes.

  “This fight will be meaningless,” the General responded, completely ignoring his hesitation, “if you use all of your power.”

  “This bastard needs to be taught a lesson!”

  After a few more seconds of silence, she went on. “Adjutant, heed my order,” she said, in the same exact tone as before, but Hadjar immediately wanted to bow down and apologize to her. The other soldiers and officers were already on their knees, trying to look inconspicuous. Even Colin bowed low but didn’t kneel. “You may not use a level of power higher than the ‘Bodily Rivers’. I forbid it.”

  “I shall obey your order,” the General’s son said through clenched teeth and saluted her by banging his fist against his chest.

  He straightened up, turned toward Hadjar again, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, his aura became... calmer and weaker.

  Hadjar just shook his head. Colin hadn’t done much. Limiting his power like this only influenced the amount of energy that he could use. But as Hadjar already knew, each new stage a practitioner reached not only increased the amount of energy available to them but also transformed their body.

  The neural network couldn’t scan Colin, but it was clear that he was at least four times stronger than Hadjar in every way.

  And that didn’t even make it the same as fighting against four people who were as strong as him. It was much more difficult. Hadjar had fought such an opponent only once in the past— when he’d fought the Alpha of the deer. At the time, Hadjar, using all of his power, had only managed to injure the beast.

  Now he had to contend with a human practitioner who was possibly even more powerful than the deer had been. One wielding a sword. Oh, joy.

  “Thank the general,” Colin hissed, “for dying slowly.”

  He drew his blade, unsheathing it in a flash of movement. He held it tightly, too tightly. His stance and grip showed Hadjar that his opponent wasn’t particularly good at wielding the magnificent weapon. But the difference in their levels of cultivation easily made up for Colin’s lack of skill.

  Did that stop Hadjar?

  Did any fear or hesitation show in his gaze?

  No, everyone watching could still see both the human and the… beast in the center of the arena. A cautious beast that bided its time and waited for the perfect moment to strike. They were still unnerved by the sight, forcing them to grip the hilts of their weapons for comfort.

  Hadjar charged his foe, his blade out, moving unpredictably and trying to come at him from the side. Colin charged in as well.

  Despite being pompous and arrogant, he wasn’t a fool. He didn’t actually intend to blindly rush at an enemy, who, while only being at the first stage of the ‘Bodily Rivers’, had stopped a Mortal Technique attack.

  The General watched it all with an unchanging, stoic expression. Only by watching closely could one spot a mild flicker of interest in her gaze.

  Colin attacked first.

  His sword was longer than Hadjar’s, allowing him to do so with impunity.

  His blade shot forward as an arrow fired from a siege bow. It whizzed toward Hadjar’s belly, leaving a dark, smoky trail in its wake. It wouldn’t be a fatal strike. Not immediately fatal, anyway. Its victim would have enough time to try and pull his intestines back into his body.

  Repeating what he’d done in his fight against Crab, Hadjar unsheathed his sword and stepped aside smoothly, turning his body slightly. It looked slow, but in reality, he’d moved with the speed and grace of a predator—fast as a bolt of lightning and not wasting a single action.

  Hadjar’s clothes fluttered, hiding Colin’s blade from view for a moment.

  When everything was still again, the spectators saw some rags falling to the sand. They had a few drops of blood on them. The beast pressed a paw to his wounded side.

  Colin chuckled haughtily and swung his sword around, painting the sand purple and getting the blood off the blade.

  “If you immediately fall to your knees,” he pointed at the ground with a smug grin, “and crawl, like the worm you are, over to me—I’ll let you live.”

  The onlookers glanced at each other. Everyone knew how nasty Colin was and doing this wouldn’t shame the newcomer. How could a simple country boy ever defeat a military officer? Even if he was a stupid and lazy one, like Colin. Still, years of training and a rich family had provided him with undeniable advantages.

  But they hadn’t taken into account the fact that it wasn’t just any ordinary man standing in front of them, sword in hand, and with his clothes torn.

  It was Hadjar.

  Colin flinched. The senior officer unsheathed his sword slightly. The General stretched her hand out toward her spear.

  For a moment, they’d seen… not a swordsman, but a dragon standing in front of Colin. It had been there for a fraction of a second. It went by so quickly that they didn’t even notice it consciously. Their subconscious, however, did.

  “Idiot!” Colin laughed, but his knuckles turned white from how tightly he was gripping his sword.

  Without knowing why he wanted to get rid of this annoying ant as quickly as possible. His goal was to demonstrate his strength in front of the other officers and put that deluded daughter of an insignificant merchant in her place. In his father’s Palace, she would’ve been just a common servant, the kind of nobody he would’ve fucked whenever he felt like it.

  Why did he have to obey a commoner?!

  Colin was going to take out all his rage on this talented countryman.

  Hadjar took a few practice swings with his blade, testing the feel of it. He took the sword in both hands, raising it to eye level and turning the tip of it toward his enemy. He bent his legs slightly, ready to keep fighting.

  In front of him was an enemy who was only four times stronger than him. Could they have made it any more unfair? Of course, it was unfair to his foe, not Hadjar.

  Even if the devil himself were to stand before him, Hadjar would kill him too. As long as he held a sword, no one would stop him!

  Colin swung at Hadjar. Once again, his sword whistled as it cut through the air. But this time, it swerved and went from side to side as it was swung, leaving a ghostly zigzag in its wake. The speed of the strike was incredible, despite the complicated pattern it was tracing.

  Such an attack could’ve easily broken through the guard of most senior officers, but not Hadjar’s. He ducked beneath the strike but slipped on the sand as he was trying to attack Colin’s legs. The powerful counterattack, which had been capable of crushing the arrogant man’s ankle, only kicked up a lot of sand, instead.

  The very next instant, Hadjar had to roll in order to avoid a follow-up attack which would’ve most likely ended with him skewered and pinned to the ground.

  “You pathetic worm!�
� Colin laughed, lunging forward.

  He tried to find a gap in Hadjar’s defense. And he did. Hadjar, despite all his speed and dexterity, was always a little slower than the enemy’s attacks.

  Small cuts covered his arms and torso.

  Colin wasn’t going to forgive this arrogant commoner. During his next lunge, he aimed for the stomach again. But this time, instead of feeling his blade cutting through the yokel’s flesh, he felt it strike... another blade.

  Hadjar had managed to block the deadly attack.

  The vibrations caused by the blades crashing against each other made him wobble unsteadily. Trying to keep his balance, he took five steps back, almost ending up outside the arena. An imperceptibly angled shield kept him from falling. The officer who’d helped him stay on his feet also pushed Hadjar back toward the center of the circle. His expression didn’t change, as he was afraid that even the smallest hint would give away that he’d helped the newcomer.

  Hadjar cracked his neck and approached his hated foe once again.

  He caught on to the enemy’s fighting style. He saw the general outlines of Colin’s Technique, which were based on impetuous, thrusting attacks, almost as if he were wielding a spear. It was like fighting against a scorpion or a wasp. Lots of deadly, quick strikes, followed by an immediate retreat.

  That’s why Hadjar didn’t block the next attack. Instead, he rushed toward it. It looked like the poor country boy had gone crazy and was going to impale himself on his opponent’s blade in a desperate gamble, but...

  The tip of Colin’s blade grazed Hadjar’s shoulder. A few drops of blood fell to the sands. But Hadjar was already in the safe zone where he couldn’t be hit by his enemy’s sword. This was the biggest disadvantage of Colin’s lunging attacks—if they didn’t hit the target, they’d leave a large gap in his defense. A skillful warrior could’ve compensated for this using raw speed, but he was far from one.

  To the spectators, it seemed like Hadjar’s blade didn’t whistle, but growled instead. Some of them thought he was wielding a white fang instead of a sword.

  Hadjar slashed Colin’s chest.

  But instead of blood, he only saw sparks.

  Colin dodged aside and put some distance between them.

  He felt his chest incredulously. Under his shredded silk robes, white armor could be seen. Obviously, it wasn’t ordinary armor, as most kinds of armor wouldn’t have stopped such a powerful attack, especially at point blank range. However, Colin had remained completely unharmed, despite his armor being destroyed.

  “Oh, you stinking bastard!” He growled.

  The black fire flared up around his sword.

  “Scorpion’s breath!” Colin shouted.

  Scorpion’s breath

  Energy Points

  1.01

  Threat Level

  High

  This time, as he lunged forward, an actual stinger rushed toward Hadjar. A scorpion’s stinger that had been woven together from a ghostly, almost imperceptible flame. This attack was over three times more powerful than the ‘heron’ that Hadjar had managed to block, and that was just the energy level.

  The audience didn’t even bother to send for a healer this time. They knew that no one at the ‘Bodily Rivers’ level, especially at its initial stages, could block this Technique. Despite being technically at the ‘Mortal’ level, it was used by practitioners at the ‘Transformation’ level.

  And yet, Hadjar didn’t get out of the way.

  He got a more comfortable grip on his blade and, half-turning, swung it. It all looked so casual as if he were doing some morning practice.

  And yet, it was this very ordinary-looking slash that finally caught the General’s interest. She even leaned forward slightly, but the conjured scorpion’s stinger obscured her view. It covered Hadjar with a fiery veil.

  Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Colin smiled haughtily and was about to sheathe his sword, when he saw it...

  On the sand, with his left hand behind his back, Hadjar stood, unharmed. There was no hole in his chest, as there should’ve been. But two of the tents behind him had been slashed and set on fire.

  The Technique had been split in two, not harming a hair on Hadjar’s head.

  “You eat far too much spicy food,” Hadjar commented dryly.

  “One with the Sword,” the audience whispered.

  Some of them even gulped nervously. This level of skill was much more frightening than any Technique. After all, to use any Technique, you had to spend the energy you’d accumulated in your body. How many stings could Colin create? Five? Ten maybe?

  The calm countryman could simply split them all with a single slash. His strikes, made at a distance of several steps, didn’t require a single drop of energy from him. He would just use his skill and a sword.

  “That’s impossible…” Colin gaped in astonishment.

  Even his father had only recently reached this stage, and he was considered to be the best swordsman in the whole prefecture.

  For a moment, Colin thought he’d heard the bumpkin utter a name. A name that he’d already heard somewhere before.

  Who was this Eina?

  Colin didn’t have the time to try and remember.

  For the first time since the fight had begun, Hadjar pressed the attack. But he didn’t just lunge forward like Colin had—at every step, he swung his blade in a wide arc. And with each sweeping motion, a phantasm was conjured at the edge of the blade, like a shimmering mirage, ready to disperse at any moment, but somehow still visible to the naked eye.

  Merging into one ghostly attack, they flew at the shocked Colin. By the time he’d come to his senses, it was already too late.

  The ten attacks became one. One strike, which had absorbed the power of ten, and was no longer just a ghostly mirage. The spectators saw a huge crescent, ready to sever Colin’s unprotected neck.

  This crescent was held back, however. It covered the sword, emanating a smooth, blue light.

  Hadjar wouldn’t rely on his luck and a ranged attack. He chained the strikes to his sword, reinforcing them further with cold iron and his own strength.

  “Stop!” The senior officer, who had started the whole argument, shouted.

  He knew what fate awaited the man who would kill Colin, the son of the prefecture’s General. It was not a fate to be envied.

  However, Hadjar didn’t slow down. His sword didn’t waver.

  In his blue eyes, the burning rage of a dragon smoldered.

  General Larvie’s son?

  Ha!

  He could’ve been the Emperor’s own son and Hadjar wouldn’t have cared!

  The blue crescent on the sword crashed… into a spear.

  Hadjar was flung ten yards away, like an ordinary ragdoll. He crashed through several tents and rolled on the ground.

  The General stood in front of him.

  She held her siege spear, which now had a black scratch on it.

  “How dare you threaten the life of an officer?” she snarled.

  The officers and soldiers pressed their fists to their hearts and bowed simultaneously. Each of them knew that this misconduct wouldn’t go over well for the newcomer. They also knew that, perhaps, the general had just saved not only Colin’s life, but the countryman’s as well.

  But Hadjar didn’t think about that.

  They’d taken his prey away from him, and an animalistic roar almost tore out of his throat.

  After regaining his senses, Hadjar knelt and pressed his forehead to the ground.

  A real storm raged inside him, but outwardly, he was more submissive than a sheep. “Please, forgive your unworthy servant,” he lifted his head, and then, forcefully, lowered it back into the sand.

  As he did so, he would repeat the plea every time: “Please, forgive...”

  With every humiliating repetition, the storm in his chest grew more turbulent.

  Hadjar was able to bow to anyone, as long as he knew that, in the future, his sword could drink the blood of someo
ne from his list. And now he knew where to find one of the people for whom the goddess of justice had been waiting far too long.

  “You’ve passed the officer’s exam,” the General sat back. “But your behavior demonstrates that you don’t know how to follow orders, nor the army’s laws. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to ensure that you won’t negatively affect others in the army. Senior Officer Dogar?!”

  “Yes, General!” a mighty man fell to one knee.

  Compared to him, the General looked like a little girl. Admittedly, compared to this bear of a man, any other officer would’ve looked the same as well.

  “You’ve been asking for an assistant. Here he is—your new assistant.”

  “Thank you, my General.”

  The spectators exchanged glances again.

  Dogar’s squad? No one survived there for more than a year! Even a penal battalion would’ve been a milder punishment than Dogar’s squad!

  Chapter 36

  Senior Officer Dogar, in Hadjar’s opinion, was even more impressive than the residents of the Valley of Streams had been. He was almost eight feet tall and nearly five feet wide at the shoulders. He truly looked like a bear that had shed its fur.

  He could’ve probably crushed rocks in his massive jaws and smashed the city gates to pieces with just a glance. He used military gloves as weapons. Apparently, this was due to the fact that it was impossible to find a weapon he could wield comfortably, as his arms and hands were too big (one of his biceps alone was as big around as Hadjar’s waist).

  It seemed to Hadjar like the earth shook slightly when Dogar walked. Though, admittedly, he could have been imagining it...

  The neural network, of course, reported only the following details when asked to analyze Dogar:

  Name

  Dogar

  Level of cultivation

  ???