Opening Moves (The Lion Knight Book 1)

by Aurelius L. Zero

  Bone, teeth, muscle tissue, everything went.

  A single bladed tentacle whipped at Loewe’s head, seeking to separate it from his shoulders. He didn’t even move to block it, only smiling as the appendage impacted against a solid impenetrable wall of vibrating air.

  Billions upon billions of microscopic wind blades held in position essentially functioned as a giant sander.

  As the limb struck, it was grinded into a fine red mist that was funnelled away. Not one speck of gore landed on Loewe’s immaculate attire.

  Pausing to inspect his fingernails, Loewe made a show of cleaning them before blowing on them. Seemingly satisfied with the results, he flicked them at the Revenant.

  The effects were instantaneous and awe-inspiring.

  One half of the battered monster simply crumpled in on itself, as though it was struck by a freight train in a head on collision at max speed.

  Deforming as the gargantuan hammer of air pushed against it while inertia kept it still, it didn’t stay that way for long.

  The unstoppable force won in the end and the Revenant was sent airborne.

  Its massive bulk lifted into the air and thrown bodily across the chamber and back onto the balcony.

  It landed with a sickening series of cracks as its bone spike armour shattered on impact sending bone chips flying all around the room.

  An undignified screech was released from its already healing maw, and despite the Revenants alien nature and the anger in the screech, the undertones of fear were unmistakable.”

  Pushing itself to its feet, lightning cackled along the remaining bone spines as new ones grew to replace the broken ones.

  Loewe could feel the flux being gathered in its maw, clearly the Revenant was gearing up for a finishing move of sorts.

  “Hoh? Still wish to fight? Eh, what the hell, I’d give you props for that cockroach but it is ultimately futile. But by all means go ahead, your despair will be all the more delicious.”

  Loewe gave a bow to the Revenant and awaited its charging to finish, a mocking smirk on his face.

  His smile only grew all the more disdainful as the abomination’s maw unhinged to open up fully, its magic at full capacity.

  Quirking an eyebrow as the beast became even more distorted, Loewe found that to be most amusing and started to comment on it.

  “You are one ugly mother-”

  Anything else he said was lost in a roaring tempest of electricity as the largest lightning bolt he had ever seen was loosed at him.

  Far outclassing even the strongest lightning spell available to Leon with nine Ceph crystals, this was pure destruction given form.

  The amount of energy in it easily outstripped some of the worst storms the world had ever seen.

  This wasn’t an anti-personnel spell or even anti-armour, this was a siege class weapon made to erase entire fortresses condensed and brought to bear against a single man.

  Colour washed away in the impossibly bright flash of lightning, and the roar of thunder wiped out all sound.

  Lighting up the evening sky, if there was anyone in the Brune region still unaware that something was happening at the Vitae Tower, they were now.

  As the flare faded away, the Revenant was visibly trembling.

  Its stature much diminished, that attack clearly cost more than just flux.

  No longer a terror inducing behemoth, it was only the size of a particularly large lion, and just barely standing on its feet.

  A screech of terror died in its throat as it tried to back away only to flop to the ground. Its legs severed at the joint and subsequently shredded into mincemeat.

  Trying to wiggle away with what was left of its body, it found itself violently nailed down by three broken stone pillars rammed through its back.

  Before it stood two undying monsters, and it knew those two would be its end.

  “Ahahhhahahaah, wonderful! Your despair is most delicious indeed. Like I said, futile. But did’ya listen? No. Of course not, no one ever listens and I have to literally beat the facts into their skulls before they see things my way. And now… is that it?”

  A weak cry came from the crippled beast as it struggled to heal its wounds.

  Terror had overtaken whatever sense of self it had.

  Its wounds weren’t healing well, too much biomass had been lost. Worse still, the three pieces of masonry embedded in it weren’t organic and thus it wasn’t able to absorb them.

  And as it was incapable of expelling the foreign entities, its wounds would not close and its lifeblood continued leaking from the holes.

  Even if it manged to stem the flow and heal around the pillars, they would be a serious impediment.

  A new tentacle burst forth from one of the Revenant’s leg joints, trying to wrap around the stone and forcibly remove it. A flash of pale green and it was amputated before being disintegrated.

  Fading back into view by Loewe’s side, a fully restored Geahart stood blade at the ready.

  With Allant’s sword, it was a piece of cake to no-sell the Revenant’s final ace. His inhuman speed courtesy of Loewe’s incredible mastery of time magic only made it even easier to do so.

  Time was essentially moving faster for it than the rest of the universe. The end result? Everything appeared to be in slow motion and the puppet could easily outpace even lightning just by walking.

  “Shame, for someone who gave my other self so much trouble I expected more. But in the end, you’re even weaker than I thought. You know, initially I wanted to ‘study’ you a bit, open you up find out what makes you tick. And then add anything useful to my puppet. Now though, you’re a disappointment, harvesting you will just weaken me.”

  A mournful growl came from the Revenant’s downed form.

  “I no longer have use of you. Now… disappear.”

  Raising his sagent, Loewe prepared to erase the Revenant from existence.

  A massive amount of flux flooded into his glove, causing the restored Ceph crystals to light up.

  As seven of the crystals glowed green and one yellow, a wave of power blasted outwards.

  This time, there was no wave of light, however there was a visible distortion in the air.

  As the distortion rapidly approached the Revenant, it did its best to escape only to fail.

  Instead of impacting the beast, the warp spread outwards and surrounded the beast in the shape of a sphere.

  The air rippled once, twice before a low hum could be heard and the image blurred.

  Even through the haziness of the image, the fallen abomination could clearly be seen to be writhing in pain.

  “I will never understand why my other self refuses to use wind magic like I do. Fire and lightning? How unimaginative. Where is the creativity? Where is the spark? Nowhere, that’s where. One burns and the other shocks, throw in a few explosions and you pretty much have everything.”

  Sinister smirk growing just a tad bit darker as he watched the shrunken behemoth dance under his spell.

  “But wind? Ah the possibilities are endless, I mean it’s really up to your imagination no?”

  It’s just a shame I don’t hear screaming.

  But then it only does shrieking doesn’t it? Hurts my ears it does.

  Oh well there’s been quite a bit of blood spilled today so I guess It’ll have to do.

  “To form a wind sword and cut down everything in your path? Can do. To form a mass of tiny vibrating blades that shaves instead of cutting? Possible. A solid gust of wind strong enough to act as a giant hammer? Done and done. Pressure bomb? Ah the basics how I miss them so.”

  Throwing his head back for a good long laugh, Loewe’s laughter held more than a tinge of madness in it. His eyes burned with more than just the unnatural glow, in them the light of insanity held sway.

  “And of course, my own personal favourite, pressure damage. To create a zone of compressed air and constantly force it to shrink inwards? Such a simple yet wondrous execution method. Oblivion by crushing, being cooked aliv
e by the rising temperature or grinded into nothing by the wind. That… is art.”

  True to his words, Loewe began closing his outstretched fingers into a fist.

  As he did so, the rippling sphere in the air grew smaller and smaller yet.

  As it shrank, the distortion worsened and the Revenant’s form became harder and harder to see.

  Soon enough, the sphere had compacted into the size of a human, its interior a mass of black as the beast was crushed inwards to fit.

  And then it became smaller still.

  “And last but not least, never forget what happens when you introduce a spark into a highly oxygenated environment.”

  Snapping his fingers once, the pumpkin sized ball of compressed wind exploded into a massive inferno. Whatever remained of the Revenant was consumed in the blaze of white hot flames.

  “Boom.”

  Loewe and his ever faithful puppet took a moment to breathe in the atmosphere.

  The Revenant was well and truly gone now.

  After being sliced up and compressed into a tiny ball and then having everything burnt away, there was nothing left for it to heal from.

  No more biomass to sacrifice.

  The beast that had haunted Leon since the Umbra Forest was now nothing more than a bad memory. Reduced to nothingness by Loewe’s cleansing fire.

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

  A round of applause came from behind him and Loewe turned to face the newcomer.

  Raising an eyebrow at what he beheld, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

  An inhuman blob stood near the veil, it looked to be made entirely out of shadows.

  The applause was coming from it despite the lack of any moving limbs. Deciding to humour the figure for now, Loewe would just play along.

  Giving an extravagant bow, he awaited its reaction.

  “Good show! Jolly good show old sport! Hahahaha! Now that’s more like it, no pussyfooting around this time eh? Just straight up blood and guts.”

  “I’m glad to see you so entertained. I’d strike you down where you stand, but… you’re not even here anymore are you?”

  “Perceptive. Just what I’d expect from a student of Libra. What an interesting turn of events, the foundry won’t be happy I broke their new toy but this is the most entertained I’ve been in years. Tee hee hee, now just like in the Umbra Forest, a good show deserves a reward no? You must have questions, so ask and if I can I shall enlighten you.”

  Loewe’s eyes narrowed at the sudden show of generosity from someone who had come exceptionally close to ending his existence.

  Clearly picking up on his distrust, the blob made to allay his fears.

  “Come now Leon or Loewe or whatever you choose to go by, I’m not your enemy… well not today at least. I’m just a harmless spectator who wishes to reward the puppeteer for such an impressive performance. Ask and I shall answer.”

  “Alright then, first off, who’s your employer and why is he after Noire. Come to think of it, why’d you address her as ‘princess’?”

  “Oh my, you caught that slip of the tongue eh? Well that’s because your lovely lady friend is a princess. If you haven’t already figured out, she is Noire Esmelas, granddaughter of the current queen, and one of two claimants to the throne of Albion.”

  “What? Ah, I see now… your employer would be Gaspard Esmelas then. Noire’s uncle and the man slated to be the next king. Taking out the competition? How unoriginal. Still, I wasn’t aware there was a princess.”

  “Few are, and even fewer know who it is. The good queen decided that it’d be for the best if no one knew of her existence until the time was ripe, that way no one can ice her early.”

  “Didn’t work out so well did it?”

  “No it did not. Heeheeheehee, just so you know, I’ll be coming for her soon little boy, try to entertain me again would you?”

  Demented giggling came from the shadow blob as it was clearly looking forward to engaging the puppeteer personally. The bloodlust was unmistakable.

  “Noire… is under my protection, she interests me and I won’t let you take her. If you do come, what I did to your… pet… will seem merciful in comparison to what I’ll do to you.”

  “Bold words student of Libra, bold words indeed, but in the end, that’s all they are. As you are now, your blade won’t even reach me, let alone scratch me. I’ll tell you this, your other self, your weaker side as you refer to him, he has a far higher chance of actually beating me then you do… even if he won’t actually succeed.”

  “We’ll see about that won’t we?”

  “Hahahaha, I guess we will. You’ve got stones kid, I respect that, hehehehe, I guess someday soon you’ll be making the lovely princess very happy no?”

  Loewe’s cheeks actually coloured slightly at that statement.

  Threats of violent retribution he could deal with, the most depraved insults one could imagine he could deal with.

  Hell, even another bombshell along the lines of Libra being Equinox he could manage.

  But this… this sort of compliment was frankly something he’d never dealt with.

  “Wha! I-she- we’re are nothing of the sort! She is my liege lord and I am her vassal, that is all there is to it!”

  “Hmm hmm, for now maybe. Trust ye old uncle Nightmare, I’m never wrong about this sort of stuff. When you finally have her pinned, you’ll remember this little chat, I’m sure of it! Hehehehe!”

  “Enough about this! Libra being Equinox, explain that… NOW!”

  Cheeks still tinged pink, Loewe made an effort to redirect the exchange to something a little less out of his depth.

  “Still hung up on that are you? What’s there to say? The two of us went round carving out a place in this god forsaken world of ours and cutting down all who would deny us our rightful destiny. If you’re going to ask me how or why or anything about why he disposed of someone close to you… don’t.”

  “But you said-”

  “I know what I said. But our individual headcounts are in the five digits, you can’t seriously expect me to remember each and every one of my projects can you?”

  Loewe gnashed his teeth in frustration at that reply.

  Anger at the situation threatened to overcome him.

  That reply was a perfectly logical answer and he couldn’t refute it no matter how much he wished to.

  It bummed him out that the one of the men he looked up to more than nearly everyone else might have been responsible for another being taken before his time.

  And worse yet, he might not even remember it.

  Father Shakir… I’ll get to the bottom of your death soon. Just wait a little longer.

  “Human life is cheap boy, the sooner you understand that the sooner you’ll be able to sleep well at night. Like me! Hmm what else to say… oh I know! Around ten years ago, something happened to change him. He decided to call it quits and dissolved our partnership to find his own way. I never did find out the reason why and I haven’t seen him since.”

  Ten… years?

  “I mean sure, I’ve heard of him in passing, enough to know you’re his new apprentice. But I’ve always missed him just by a bit. If you do see him again, inquire it of him for me would you? I’d like to hear the answer before I paint your little toy with your juices.”

  Upon finishing that statement, the shadow blob began to dissipate into thin air.

  Knowing the moment was over, Loewe commanded Geahart to put away the sword as the two watched their nemesis disappear.

  “Well, that’s all the time I have for Q and A today. Once again thanks for the entertainment. Try to find what you’re missing yes? Your demise wouldn’t be as beautiful or satisfying without it. AHAHAHAHA! I’ll see you soon.”

  And with that the shadow vanished completely and Loewe was left alone in the destroyed chamber with his puppet.

  The glow in his eyes dimming, his irises faded back to their usual onyx and his eyelids began to droop.

 
The swell of flux in his reserves had faded away again, leaving him depleted and exhausted.

  I think I’ve done enough for the day.

  Try not to mess up Leon, today was too damned close.

  Still a princess huh… heh… Libra’s gonna have a field day with this.

  Still it would be wonderful wouldn’t it? Some happiness after so, so long….

  His vision was swimming in and out of focus now and a large yawn escaped his battered frame.

  I… I think I’ll take a nap now.

  Loewe’s eyes closed and he swayed on the spot twice before collapsing to the ground. The only thing stopping him from a hard fall being the mechanical arms of his puppet.

  The last thing he thought he heard was a voice calling out to Leon before his world went black and unconsciousness took him.

  Chapter 9: Aftermath

  For the first time in a very long while, Leon’s rest was peaceful.

  No nightmares invaded his subconscious, no threat drove him to constant vigilance even in his sleep.

  And best of all, none of his memories rose up to haunt him once more.

  And so for a time he slept, held tightly in the embrace of slumber.

  Peace within and without. But alas, all things must come to an end.

  As the sun’s warm and gentle rays caressed his face, Leon began to stir.

  Eyelids fluttering slightly at the light, Leon slowly began to return to the land of the living, leaving his waking dreams behind.

  Eyes opening slowly, he squinted and raised an arm to block out the sunlight, his sensitive eyes not used to the sudden illumination.

  Blinking rapidly to get used to the brightness once more, he belatedly noticed he was on a bed.

  His bed.

  Somehow he had returned to his room back at the inn.

  Memories still jumbled and mind not fully awake yet, he wasn’t able to make sense of the situation.

  The rapidly clearing haze of sleep still afflicted his mind, even if only for the time being.

  Trying to raise himself into a sitting position, he found himself incapable of doing so. A weight on his chest seemed to be pushing him down.

  “What?”

  Turning to look at whatever obstruction was pinning him down, he was startled to find Noire by his side.