“If that's all you've got…”
Grois didn't say anything further. He waved his hand and five sickles rushed toward Hadjar from different directions. The General barely managed to rip the blade out of the iron mouth and block one of the sickles with his sword.
The force that hit him was equal to the might of the sickles that had protected the Snake Gates until recently.
The General was thrown a dozen yards away and dragged along the third and highest platform. Almost falling over the cliff and into the abyss, Hadjar stopped himself on the very edge of the ground and, leaping to his feet, was ready to repel the next blow. But, to his surprise, the Patriarch didn’t take a single step forward. He was still standing in the middle of the central area with an indifferent and disappointed look, staring at his opponent.
Hadjar assumed a low stance and waved his blade. At the same time, the steel platforms vibrated, making a sound like a flock of birds chirping. A storm wind rose up. The sharp threads cut through the stone easily and left deep gouges in the metal. Inside the waves, ghostly blades danced. They chipped pieces off the statue, covering the floor with golden feathers and amber crumbs.
This huge wave rushed toward the Patriarch. This time, he actually moved. Turning to face the attacking Technique, Grois raised his palms up. Whirling pitch-black energy spun around them. It merged with the claws that had grown out of the elbows of his plate gloves. They twitched and came alive.
They spread out and caught the storm wave. The advance of the Technique slowed down. The metal creaked briefly as the wave pushed forward a bit, but it was already frozen in place. Then Grois brought his palms together and the claws repeated his movement, dispelling the Technique.
To an onlooker, it might’ve looked as if it had been very easy for the Patriarch to dispel the ‘Strong Wind’. But he had, in fact, found himself surprised by the unexpected power demonstrated by this pitiful mortal practitioner. Such an attack was normal for a Heaven Soldier to use, but not a mortal...
Grois, unable to accept that a mortal could possess such an ability, decided that the General had been lucky enough to stumble upon an ancient artifact. Well, that artifact would now become his!
The Patriarch turned toward his enemy, but... he wasn’t there. Grois saw only a black flash, and a moment later heard an echo from the ringing platforms that Hadjar was moving across.
The General was behind Grois. With a wild roar, he stabbed his foe, angling his blade upward as he tried to kill the Patriarch. The steel dragon launched itself from his blade. Its fangs struck the black steel sickles. This time, three out of five blades formed an impenetrable barrier. Grois realized at last that he was facing a real opponent and started taking things seriously.
He waved his hand, sending the remaining two sickles and the claws in to attack. Their simultaneous advance forced the General to retreat, and that bought the Patriarch enough time to use his Technique.
He extended his arm, fist clenched and resembling a paw, then said:
“Spirit of Despair.”
If Hadjar had previously seen the energy around his opponents swirling slightly, then... in the case of the Patriarch, he saw a bright fire. A wave spread out from under his feet, filling the entire area where the combatants stood.
The five sickles writhed like snakes and disembodied spirits appeared in the air because of the vibrations. They screamed and floated beneath the distant ceiling. Every spirit held weapons in its hands: spears, shields, axes, maces, swords… They opened their ghostly mouths in a silent scream and stared at their prey.
Grois clenched his fist and the spirits charged in. Hadjar was fighting a wave of dead souls.
The General conjured a silver cocoon to protect himself. The dragon danced around him, but couldn't stop all the spirits. One in a thousand of them managed to harm Hadjar's flesh with its blade. They easily knocked off his steel armor and cut through the leather straps which the swords of the ordinary sectarians couldn’t have even damaged.
Hadjar carefully observed the vibration of the sickles through the stream of dark ghosts and the shining silver of the cocoon that his own sword had turned into. He knew that if he didn’t stop the sickles, he could say goodbye to his life.
Hadjar dashed to the side and swung his sword as he jumped.
“Spring Wind!” He roared, putting almost all of his energy into the strike.
The torrent of spirits struck the iron platform. The thousand-year-old metal cracked. It shattered into fragments and plunged into the deep, blue abyss.
Hadjar landed on the next platform and launched his attack, which took the form of a vertical dragon claw that was twice as large as the storm surge had been.
The bright, shining attack emitted waves of steel light, leaving gouges in the arches and platforms. The sword strike, multiplied by Traves’ Technique, crashed into Grois’ defenses.
The two metal claws grabbed hold of Hadjar’s Technique but were unable to block it like they’d done previously. Shaking violently, they bent further with every second that passed, allowing the General’s attack to move closer and closer to Grois.
Dumbfounded, unable to believe his eyes, the Patriarch was forced to make several gestures with his hands. His energy once again spread out like a black sea under his feet and the five sickles rose into the air. They latched onto each other, forming a pentagonal shield.
The sword Technique, after managing to bypass the metal claws, struck the shield and, before dispersing, forced Grois to take four steps back.
Grois waved his hands once again, roaring, and made the sickles break Hadjar’s dragon claw. It disappeared, melting away and leaving only scraps of energy behind.
The Patriarch looked at Hadjar, who was having trouble breathing; the General was covered in blood and sweat but still standing. If someone outside this backwater found out that a mere mortal had forced him to fight at full strength, he wouldn’t be able to attend the Demon Parade and visit the Empire because he would become a joke.
Grois had to kill this puny insect that had just been lucky enough to come across an artifact. Or unlucky, perhaps, because he would lose not only his life in this fight, but also that treasure.
The Patriarch waved his hand, pointing at his enemy. He didn’t immediately realize that only four sickles appeared, rather than five. The fifth one, crumpled and torn apart, lay motionless on the platform.
This time, the walls of the cave shook not because of a dragon’s, but because of a human’s roar. The Patriarch rushed in, wanting to end his foe’s life quickly.
Chapter 180
If someone had entered the cave at that moment, they would’ve seen only a series of flashes as black and steel light collided. The sword strikes, that had taken the form of a dragon's fangs and claws, would also have been noticed among these brief flashes. Sometimes, they alternated with dark spirits, both combining to chip away at the rock around them and leave deep marks on the ringing metal platforms.
Admittedly, even a practitioner (not a cultivator, of course), would probably have been killed if they’d been anywhere near this battle.
Grois attacked his enemy with a force and zeal that he hadn’t displayed for a thousand years. The last time he’d fought with this much passion and determination had been his exam at the School. He had failed. The man who’d later become Raven Wing had beaten him in front of his teachers. Raven Wing had been a pathetic loser that he’d bullied for decades, and now he had to bow and scrape before him.
The memory of that fight only exacerbated his rage.
“Spirit of Mourning!”
The four sickles drew a symbol in the air and an enormous phantom skull emerged from it. It tried to tear Hadjar apart with a single bite, baring long and inhuman fangs. The General, lacking energy, used the “Spring Breeze”.
It was his third dragon claw attack that day and the General was absolutely sure that he wouldn’t have enough strength to launch a fourth one. He crashed into the black ghost skull and an explo
sion sounded; it was so loud that even the soldiers standing around the castle heard it.
Grois was thrown thirty feet away and skidded across the iron platform. Hadjar flew back a good hundred feet. He crashed into a stone wall and, after hanging there for a couple of moments, fell down to the iron platform. Bloodstained stones rained from above.
The warriors rose to their feet slowly. The Patriarch's armor was slightly scratched in several places, and he had a bruise on his right cheekbone...
Hadjar's red armor had been reduced to scraps of steel plates. His arms and torso were covered in lacerations. A piece of flesh had been torn from his right thigh where one of the blades had found its mark.
The neuronet was still unable to scan the Patriarch’s stats, but Hadjar didn’t need the information. He was sure that each of Grois’ parameters exceeded his own by at least a third.
“You must think you're a hero.” The Patriarch wasn’t even breathing heavily.
Disgusted, he pulled off his steel gloves. They fell to the floor and rolled in the direction of the cliff.
“But you’re wrong,” the Patriarch continued, slowly descending toward the swaying, stunned Hadjar. “You are not a hero. Tell me, Mad General, what did you come here for? To help the Baliumians? Ha! Pull the other one. I know you don't care about them, the same way you don’t care about the Moon army. You came here for your own purposes. You're just using the people around you. Just like me. So, tell me, why do you keep getting up? Accept your death with dignity.”
“Yuu arrr...wrrrrrg,’’ Hadjar whispered, spitting out blood. His lips were cut open and bleeding.
“What?” Grois asked, confused.
He came closer to the General and leaned down, placing his hand pointedly behind his ear.
“You're… wrong,” Hadjar growled out. “We're... different.”
“Yeah? Well, explain it to me, tell me how we differ.”
The sickles hovered near the General’ neck, but there was no fear reflected in his blue eyes.
No fear, no doubt.
Only an iron will that could break the Heavens and split the Earth asunder.
The Patriarch mistook it for madness. He couldn’t see the dragon dancing in the depths of his enemy’s gaze.
“You'll die here and I won't!”
Something changed in the General’s aura for a moment. His sword seemed to become sharper, his gaze deeper, he seemed to increase in size, becoming as impregnable and monumental as the highest peak of the surrounding mountains.
The Patriarch involuntarily took a step back, and when he realized what he’d just done, he immediately gave a mental order to his sickles. They were an artifact that had been passed down in his family for forty thousand years. He’d killed his own brothers and father in a fight to claim them.
The sickles didn’t have time to plunge into Hadjar’ neck. He put his other hand on the hilt of Moon Beam and now the energy was flowing like a lake under his feet. This new energy was different from the one he’d used to power his recent Techniques. The sight of it sent shivers down Grois’ spine.
The Patriarch tried to retreat for the first time, but he was too slow. Hadjar, clutching his sword with both hands, swung the blade much faster this time.
A dragon's fang didn’t come out from the weapon this time, a silver vortex wasn’t formed, and the storm surge remained dormant. The strike was a simple one. However, Grois felt the echoes of distant mysteries in it. It wasn’t a mystery that led to the spirit of the Sword, it led only to faint images of it, to the shadows of shadows, to the faded memories of a forgotten dream. But even that was enough to produce an attack that didn’t emerge looking like a ghostly blade, but instead…
It wasn't a blast of wind or air. It was the blade itself. It wasn’t its physical form, but the true spirit, the essence of it. The force of the strike easily cut through rocks thirty feet away from the epicenter. It split apart the steel platforms, sending them down into the bottomless abyss and turning the remains of the statue into stone confetti.
Grois made a few gestures, using more than half his energy and his best defensive Technique. This Technique had saved his life many times before.
“Spirit of Sorrow!”
A ribcage appeared around him, and the crossed sickles added to the structure in the form of a black medallion. Hadjar's attack met the double layer of defenses and exploded with the force of a natural disaster.
The Patriarch shouted something, trying to hold back the avalanche. It was actually overpowering him. The ribcage cracked, crumbling. The sickles vibrated and were quickly covered in a web of cracks.
The artifact broke first. The ancient legacy surrendered to the mysteries of the Sword spirit and exploded into steel dust. The remains of the sword strike’s energy hit Grois in the chest, assuming the guise of a simple slash.
A thick red line blossomed across the Patriarch's chest and he fell to his knees. He looked incredulously at his palm, which was covered in blood, and at the pitiful shards of the once mighty artifact.
The Patriarch rose to his feet, swaying. He was prepared to use his last treasure, which was kept in reserve for just these kinds of occasions, but the General's appearance made him smile and reconsider.
Hadjar looked even worse than before. Launching that terrifying attack that couldn’t possibly belong to a mortal blade had apparently harmed him as well. Even Heaven Soldiers who were at the second stage of their level couldn’t have wielded such immense power safely.
The General's skin wasn’t visible beneath all the blood. The capillaries in his eyes had burst, turning them into a scarlet mess. He had trouble breathing and was leaning on his sword, which he’d stabbed into the ground. His head was bent so far down that it was below the sword’s hilt, and he could hardly stay upright without collapsing to the ground.
Grois bent down and picked up the two largest pieces of his sickles with his bare hands.
“It’s possible to use the energy of a Spirit before reaching the highest stage of the Heaven Soldier level? The best Academies of the Empire would gladly open their doors to you. Alas, like any genius, you are most vulnerable when you are young. And nobody will ever know how great a swordsman you could’ve been, Mad General.”
The Patriarch, wasting his last bit of energy, turned into a black whirlwind. He flew across the distance separating them and hit his enemy like a torrent of chaotic slashes.
Hadjar defended himself somehow, but his sword moved sluggishly, and his hands grew heavier with each new strike he blocked. He knew that he’d overestimated his abilities, and that, even after sacrificing his connection to the wind and gaining knowledge about the Sword Spirit, he was still unable to fight on equal terms with true cultivators.
One of the sickle shards was rammed into his left side. Hadjar inadvertently bent over from the force of his bloody cough. He grabbed Grois’ wrist, but the Patriarch just pushed the General’s hand aside and raised the second shard over his head for the finishing blow.
A question appeared in front of Hadjar's eyes with a loud click.
[The enemy's attack patterns have been successfully processed! Would you like to use the forecast module?]
Hadjar had no idea what the forecast module was, so...
He said yes.
Chapter 181
It was impossible to use the Sickles of Five Spirits without being a skilled melee fighter. Grois was famous for his skill at dual wielding weapons; he always attacked in the most unpredictable ways and from nearly impossible angles. No one at the School could predict his Techniques and movements, not even Raven Wing.
That was how it had always been.
Until today...
The Mad General pulled the sickle out of his side and pushed Grois back with his shoulder.
A pathetic attempt to prolong his agony. Still, if the General wanted to be reduced to bloody chunks, Grois wouldn’t disappoint him. After all, a person's dying wish was a sacred thing.
The Patriarch attacked
in an unpredictable way once again. Or at least he thought so at first. However, his sickles couldn’t even touch the General’s disheveled hair.
Hadjar was making just one subtle, elusive gesture instead of the three movements he’d been using previously. He would flick his wrist slightly instead of using all the power he could muster.
He seemed to have guessed all the possible variations of Grois’ attacks and now knew which ones to prepare for.
Hadjar had also somehow figured out the best counters to these attacks, allowing him to inflict maximum damage and avoid getting hurt at the same time.
Grois felt like the General had turned into a disembodied spirit that was having carefree fun in the midst of his ceaseless attacks. He moved like a leaf in the wind, avoiding every stab and slash. The General's sword reached Grois' body, but the General himself was out of reach.
The Patriarch might’ve thought that the General had advanced to the next level of blade mastery, but...it almost seemed like he was fighting Raven Wing in his current form!
“What the...?”
Hadjar didn’t allow Grois to finish his sentence. He saw a brief opening in the rhythm of the frantic attacks. And that was enough for his blade to open up the Patriarch's throat. The whirlwind of sickles immediately stopped, and Grois, holding the severed artery with his hand, staggered back.
He couldn’t believe his eyes and refused to understand what was happening.
He’d already touched the ring, intending to use his last trump card…but the world was already getting dark. Bloodied and barely breathing, wounded and nearly unconscious, Hadjar stood behind the Patriarch. He didn’t waste much time. The General quickly dropped to his knees, leaned on his sword, and cut Grois’ body into several pieces. Grois’ murky blood, blackened by the experiments he’d performed, drenched the ground around them.
Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2 Page 53