The two duos entered the building after the other students and directly moved to the gaping hole going downstairs into the ground. The tunnel was wide enough to accommodate the four of them side to side, and the slope wasn’t that steep. From how the walls were perfectly smooth, Mahon recognized the work of Earth magic users.

The group of students had already rushed forward, and Mahon’s group followed closely behind. The main tunnel led to a vast chamber where multiple paths went even deeper below the Earth. There were tools and transportation means scattered everywhere, along with raw metals. No one was in sight.

The guards had been sent somewhere else because of Tanyth’s blackmail, and the workers weren’t at work at such a late time. The whole mine was strangely silent, if not for the sound of rushing steps echoing through the side galleries. The students immediately scattered to look out for the remaining cultists through the multiple tunnels.

“Any idea where the main gallery is?” Jorik asked the remaining three people while glancing at the identical tunnel entrances around him.

“Maybe not the main gallery, but the most critical one. They are looking to collapse the mine with the most damage.” Mahon answered.

“There must be a map somewhere.” Zac said as he checked the nearby carts for information.

Some students came back from the side tunnels with information soon after. “According to the plan, there is an important structural room this way.” One of them said while pointing to the tunnel he came from.

“Let’s hurry there!” Jorik said, and the students immediately rushed into the gallery. Before they could all go, however, footsteps came from a nearby tunnel. A tunnel no one had explored yet.

Mahon and Jorik exchanged a look. They hadn’t much time to ponder on what to do as two familiar people exited the gallery. They stopped as they saw the few students in front of them.

“So, that’s what happened.” Belanor said as he eyed Mahon.

At his side, Maïa grimaced. Belanor held his usual sword, and Maïa had drawn two littles daggers. She glanced at Jorik and pointed at Mahon with her daggers.

“This man wants to stop the war. You know what I am, right?” She pointed to her veil. “Then you know you shouldn’t trust him.” She said, trying to instill discord in the students’ group.

Jorik glared back at her, unfazed. “He was the one who found you there, though. And now you’ve lost.”

Belanor laughed loudly as he raised his sword in a fighting stance. “No. You have lost. You’re just a bunch of students. You can’t stop us with so few.”

Mahon pointed to the tunnel where all the students had gone, and from where they could already hear battle sounds. “Leave them to us, Jorik. Go deal with the backer.”

Jorik acquiesced, and without looking back, he moved to the tunnel with his duo. Belanor couldn’t help but laugh even harder.

“Oh, boy. I admit you’re good, and I’m not sure about your friend, but come on. You know you don’t have any chance.” His smile turned into a scorn as he added. “And I’ll make you suffer for your betrayal. I had faith in you! You captured Rizzo yourself, isn’t it? You forced our hand before we were completely ready. You think you’re smart? You think you’ve won?”

Mahon didn’t say anything as he took his fighting stance beside Zac. Belanor continued to provoke them.

“You managed to find us here. I’ll give you that much credit. I trusted you. I thought you were a good man. I never thought you’d agree to do such dirty work. But I should’ve known when you tried to save the city guards the first time. You don’t have the guts to make the world a better place.”

Mahon ignored him completely and spoke to Zac. “I don’t think Maïa can Flow, but she is still probably too much for you alone. We play it safe, Zac. I’m leading. Better they escape that I have a really unpleasant conversation with Ash.”

Zac nodded. “We trained for this, Mahon. Let’s put an end to this now.”

“So serious.” Belanor taunted them. “But you’re misunderstanding your place.”

In a flash, the old veteran entered the Flow and rushed to Zac. He was at his side before the noble had time to react. Belanor had moved twice as fast as he did during his friendly fight against Mahon.

You kept that much hidden?!

Mahon didn’t hesitate as he let out the breath he was holding back. The Flow immediately slowed the action, and he rushed to Zac’s side. His spear stopped Belanor’s sword barely a few centimeters away from Zac’s chest.

Zac didn’t seem surprised at all as his trust in Mahon’s ability to protect him was absolute. Instead, he seized the opportunity to stab the surprised Belanor in the stomach. Alas, Maïa arrived just in time to deflect the blow, and the two duos took a step back to observe the other.

Belanor’s face was now completely serious, and he observed Mahon with new eyes. He hadn’t expected him to have held back that much either.

“Lance, Flow, incredible fighting abilities and previously Nightmare warrior” Maïa said. “It’s him.”

“What an honor to finally meet the great Lone Wolf himself!” Belanor grinned.

“Do I know you?” Mahon asked back while keeping a wary eye on the duo.

“No, you don’t.” Belanor answered. “I left Nightmare before long you made yourself known. A shame. I would’ve loved to see your true abilities with my own two eyes.”

“But here I am.” Mahon retorted as he slowly spun his spear, ready for whatever would come next. He could feel Belanor wasn’t the simple old veteran he had thought he was.

“Hahaha… We’re not in Nightmare, boy. You think you’re good enough here? Do you really think you were the only one to have learned stuff in Nightmare before? It’s been twenty years since I came back to Ratho. You have no idea how powerful I’ve become. Ah, it’s a shame. I could have trained you, but who would have thought you were a noble?”

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“I’m not.” Mahon answered while slowly moving forward with Zac.

Belanor watched them advance carefully, but didn’t move back. “Then why are you helping them?”

He didn’t even finish his question that he was already swiping at Mahon’s throat while Maïa tried to find a dead angle in Mahon’s defense. The two Nightmare veterans exchanged attacks and counters at a frantic speed under the careful eyes of their duo. They fought one versus the other while Zac and Maïa were slowly circling their fast-paced duel.

Mahon couldn’t afford not to take Belanor seriously, and he had Flowed from the beginning of the fight. It was his first time really fighting Flow against Flow in Ratho. The two Flows kind of canceled themselves, and they couldn’t properly grasp the rhythm of their opponent.

The cultist feinted left with his sword before stepping forward to punch Mahon. Belanor tried to shorten the distance between them to nullify Mahon’s spear reach advantage, but Mahon always had a step in advance. He targeted the cultist’s feet, forcing him to dodge to the side, and pivoted to chain a series of attacks.

Belanor parried them all with difficulty, but he managed to remain unscathed after the exchange. He glanced at Maïa, and the woman understood the cue as she immediately approached Mahon’s for a pincer attack. Mahon read it all through the Flow and knew Zac would handle the threat.

As Zac approached, Belanor tried to attack him, but Mahon stabbed at the cultist multiple times and pushed him further away. He aimed at the face, and no one was stoic enough not to step back in front of such direct, threatening attacks. Now back to back, but two meters apart, Mahon and Zac had their own duel to handle.

The Flow helped Mahon keep an eye on his friend, and make sure he wasn’t in trouble. Maïa seemed stronger than him, but her shorter range helped Zac stay away. He would be able to hold his own safely with such a strategy. He wouldn’t be able to kill the woman himself, though.

Exhaling deeply, Mahon focused on his own fight. He slid under Belanor’s sword and threw the back of his spear towards the cultist’s knee. Belanor took a step back to dodge the blow. Mahon spun his weapon and swiped at the exact timing Belanor was in slight imbalance from the step back.

Although the old veteran was firm on his legs, he was still lacking a bit of strength to push back the heavy spear, and he had to take another step back. Mahon didn’t let the cultist go, and he stepped forward while stabbing at Belanor’s stomach. The angle forced the old veteran to parry with a weak posture, and his sword almost slipped from his hand.

Mahon pushed his advantage further, and little mistake by little mistake, he drove his opponent to the path he wanted him to take. The fight had fallen under his control.

Belanor perceived it as well, and he didn’t stay idle. Diving even deeper into the Flow, his motions became ever faster and efficient. He screamed his rage at Mahon’s face in an attempt to shake him off the Flow, but Mahon’s didn’t bulge. Instead, he matched the old man’s speed by following him even deeper into the Flow.

The world around them lost its color and shapes as it started to blur in front of the two warriors’ eyes. They were not relying on their basic senses anymore. Instead, the magic fuelled them with the necessary information. Dozens of blows were exchanged in a heartbeat, and yet it was still becoming faster and faster.

Mahon managed to push Belanor further away from Zac, afraid that the maelstrom of attacks would hurt his duo. Belanor’s face was torn in pain, and an ugly grimace showed his teeth. Yet, the veteran didn’t stop there. He yelled insanities, and let himself get carried by the Flow.

He became pure instinct, and a man with his experience didn’t lack much. He moved with inhuman speed and launched explosive attacks one after the other. He used all his arsenal of feints and tricks to pass through Mahon’s defense, switching his fighting styles multiple times in a row, sometimes even during the same series of strikes.

Belanor used footsteps to pounce on Mahon from different angles, at different timing. The flurry of attacks mixed all of the old veteran’s tactics, ruses, and skills in a bewildering tempest of steel.

And yet Mahon smiled at his opponent. He walked through the deadly traps laid all around him with eeriness. He saw through the ruses and tricks with a single thought and foiled them all. Efficiency was his master word.

Where Belanor used all his strength to pull out feat after feat, Mahon pointed the little incoherences with his spear, and the house of cards crumbled in front of him. Like a needle in a well-oiled machinery, his interventions made the whole system collapse.

Belanor redoubled his efforts, in vain. Mahon always exploited the smallest defects, the tiniest flaws, the invisible deficiencies. Tempests after tempests arrived at his shore, but with exquisite sleights of hand, he always managed to turn them into a warming breeze. Like a true magician.

The cultist raged and screamed, but nothing changed it. He was useless in front of Mahon’s fighting style. Belanor had a formidable Flow, a wide experience, and a cunning mind, and yet he couldn’t even get close to touching Mahon’s shadow.

When Belanor finally reached his limits, the battle’s pace changed. Mahon’s Flow was a bottomless pit, and he left Belanor behind as he immersed himself even deeper within the Flow.

And then he stepped forward.

The first Step was a simple stab, but it encompassed so much that Belanor didn’t know how to react properly. The old veteran’s Flow saved him from the worst, and the spear only grazed against his ribs, drawing the first blood.

Belanor immediately switched to the defensive as the second Step came at him with explosive power. A drop of sweat rolled down the cultist’s jaw while he was forced to step back to absorb the blow.

The following steps came at him even faster, but Belanor wasn’t anyone. Losing himself to the Flow, he reduced the critical damages to shallow cuts and bruises.

Mahon rolled into the ninth Step, switched his grip on the spear and struck in a swift motion. The blow left afterimages behind it, even in the Flow. Belanor pushed himself to his limits and parried. The spear screeched against his trembling sword, but he held on. Alas, he didn’t even have time to blink that the tenth Step plucked him in the chest and opened a nasty wound.

Blood spurted as the cultist screamed his frustration at the world. The eleventh Step waited for no one, however, and Belanor jumped to the side to avoid it, opening his injury even wider.

The old veteran knew he had a single hope of winning this, and that was only after the 12 Steps of the Lance were over. If he could hold until then, he might have a unique chance of a deadly counterattack to win the fight.

It wasn’t his first time fighting against the Steps. He knew it was a very hard move to pull off, and that there was always a backlash afterwards. If he could time a deadly blow right during the backlash, he could kill Mahon and win this fight.

His injury was severe, but he could live with it. He forgot about everything else as the next attack would mark the climax of their fight, and his only chance at a comeback.

The twelfth and last Step came towards him at unbelievable speed. Mahon’s face didn’t show anything as the deadly blow closed the gap between them in a flash. In a final jolt of sheer will, Belanor gathered all his strength to deflect the hit. The spear bit his left thigh, barely missing the vital artery a centimeter above.

A single thought crossed the cultist’s mind as he realized he had survived through the twelve Steps. Now was his chance to flip back the fight. He raised his sword to swipe at Mahon’s throat, expecting the Last Red to be rendered too still from the backlash to avoid it.

However, contrary to his expectations, Mahon stepped to the side and disappeared. Gone.

Belanor looked at the empty space in front of him with disbelief as his sword hit nothing. He then felt a dull pain coming from his chest and lowered his head. A spear had pierced him through, and he didn’t even see it coming. He didn’t even feel it coming. A last flash of disbelief raced through his dying brain as he realized the blade was just under his eyes. The spear had come from behind him.

A horrifying thought went through his mind, but he couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. Yet, his situation showed otherwise.

He needed to know. He turned his head at an excruciating slow pace while his body started to shut down. Life was leaving his body, but he had to know. To be sure. As he collapsed on the ground, his body finally twisted enough for him to see behind.

Mahon glanced back at him with insolence as the old veteran exhaled his last breath.