Despite how Leyna's little bit rushed start resounded in my ears, neither of us moved.

My eyes were focused, my senses sharp and my brain started running overtime, trying to come up with any idea how I could overcome this wall before me. All this time, I was looking at my father very closely, trying to notice even his smallest movements that might give me a hint on his next move. Yet, he was standing still, doing the same thing as me. As he seized me up, I felt like he saw right through me, as if I was a finely crafted statue made purely by glass.

Despite sparring with my father countless times while we were training, I felt like my very being was pushed back by those eyes, telling me to back out because this was not the fight I need. I felt a pressure from them that I’ve never felt before. It wanted to crush me. To destroy me. I started doubting myself if this was really the time to be here, if I was ready for it, despite knowing deep down that I couldn’t think about these things.

In the end, my father was the one who made the first move.

He started jogging towards me sluggishly, as if trying to mock my hesitation to start, and slowly picked up speed as he closed in on me. He charged towards me, yet I was rooted in place, unmoving.

Instead of focusing on what he will do with the sword in his hands, I tried to maintain looking at him as a whole. My father trained me, so I knew what he can do. But at the same time, in this duel, he was fighting me differently now. I don't know what he might come up with that he had never shown before. As such, trying not to get a tunnel vision so early on, I raised my sword, not anticipating that I would be able to attack him, but dodge anything he might use on me. This strategy worked out for me.

While he was nearly at slashing range, I noticed that he suddenly switched up his movement and started doing something with his legs. I didn't wait for him to finish up what he started and backed out to the right. As soon as I did that, I saw a big smoke screen on the spot where I was standing.

Apparently, his leg movement was a sweep to pick up dust and pebbles, while I got really lucky that I dodged in the good direction. If I would have gone left, the swipe would still hit me because of the leg he used. Though, I didn't had time to hesitate, as his next attack followed at lighting speed.

As soon as I dodged out, I had to lift up my sword to take the attack coming from the right. Our blades connected with a loud "thud" sound and I felt the power vibrating through my arms. Then an upward slash, which came with such speed that I could barely dodge with my sword. It was even stronger than the initial slash and it pushed my arms up a bit. This was enough of an opening for him.

I could have dodged another downward slash coming my way due to our sword positions, yet he didn't use his sword. What he did was slide closer to me and bash me with his shoulder, making me roll backward on the ground. As I recovered nicely from the bash with a back roll, without a moment of hesitation, I rolled to the left, now of my own accord after seeing a sword thrust flying in my direction. After standing up, the attacks stopped.

"Hope you are still holding out, because this was just the warm up." My father looked at me pretty smugly. Can't you give your own child at least a little rest?

Meanwhile, Leyna was on the side, looking at us with all-seeing eyes, waiting for the moment that will decide this duel.

"Konda, a little help. Boro was nicknamed the Wild Wolf on the academy because of his fighting style. Also, totally not because he had to be a lone wolf as no one wanted to team up with him because of his erratic and weird style where they couldn't work well together as a team."

"Hey, I feel like you said a little too much there. And something very mean to my face at that, too."

"I didn't, don't worry, don't worry."

Leyna didn't say anything new to me that I hadn’t noticed already in these last few strikes of his. Apparently, he was more of a dirty swordsman than I would have guessed. Also, with his speed and power, I have to completely drop a strategy away. I can't tire him out. At least, not that I can't tire him out, but his strikes are so powerful that even if I try to dodge them, I can't do it with all of them due to their speed and if I parry them, my arms will give in faster because of his bone shattering strength. As such, I had to rethink my standing in this fight after finding my situation worse than expected.

"Let's continue then, Father. I don't want to find you making excuses later that you gave me time to rest up."

"Don't talk big, kiddo. I'm coming!"

If I wanted to win this fight, I had to do it fast. Otherwise, he would’ve weakened me enough that I wouldn't have been able to hold my sword correctly and by that point, his win would have been obvious. And for that, I had to use my only advantage in this fight.

I ran left as my father zeroed in on me and we clashed again. His strikes were even fiercer than before, but with the higher speed came less power, which was exactly what I needed. It seemed that I could match his speed, so trying to outpace my movement was a bad decision on his part, but this was exactly what I needed to save time.

We danced around, entranced by the never-ending music as the loud clashes of wood on wood became rhythmic, then faster and faster. I felt like I was reaching my limits, yet my father didn't slow down. Instead, he gained even more speed, so I had to push ahead and get faster as well to match his pace. When finally, my chance arrived.

As he was preparing for his next downward slash, I used the opening I made to make my move. After we exchanged strikes back and forth, his body got used to me hitting back, as such even if he realized I wouldn't attack back this time, his body was a moment slower than it was needed to be, which was just enough for me. As he pulled down his sword, I lowered my sword close to the ground and made a quick roll to the right.

As soon as I could, I stood back up facing him and went for a downward slash as well. My father's reflex was fast, making a fast recovery and stepped strong into the ground with his left leg to get into a defensive position against my sword coming down on his right. And then his eyes widened, my advantage showing up on the stage. Terrain.

When he used the dirt on the ground against me in his first array of strikes, that made me remember something about this location. I trained here by myself. When I trained with my father, I always did in the village and after that, I came here to practice with the sword on my own. As such, my father wasn't necessarily used to this kind of terrain, even if he was in the a militia. The forest ground was moist, but otherwise overgrown with greenery. Which means he isn't used to fighting close to rivers for a while now.

His surprise was about two things. First, my downward slash was actually just a ploy to make him position himself as such, preparing to take my strike head on. The other was what came after that. Stepping so firmly onto the ground, his left leg sank into the ground and his balance broke. This was because of clay. Due to being so close to the river, the clay was naturally more watery and less firm, letting his leg get pulled into it. As my preparations were done, I started my actual attack.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I pulled the sword down from above to the right in a curve to gain speed and made my movement start from there. His balance was off and his stance was originally preparing to defend against a downward slash, as such, I had his left side wide open.

"Aaaaaahhh!!"

I picked up speed, being confident now that I got him. The victory was mine. Yet, my visions were shattered into little pieces in the next instant.

"RRAAAHHHH!!"

My father shouted up as well and I felt my senses crying out to me to defend myself. In the last moment, I pulled up my sword before me straight and it connected with something.

While I was doing this, my father stood even firmer onto his left leg, deep in the clay and used his entire body for centrifugal force to gain up speed fast and to do the same as me, making a wide arc slash from the right. Yet, even if I had the advantage in theory, even if I prepared everything so nicely to make my strike count, he destroyed all this with pure strength.

After our swords connected, I think I heard my sword making a small cracking sound, then my whole body felt the destructive force behind that attack. I was assailed by a sharp pain in my arms as if they were shouting at me to stop, then after that a strong gust of wind helped me get blown away, rolling and rolling until I hit a tree with my back. Air left my lungs as the crash pushed every little bit out of me and my whole world got shaken up.

I got up but stood on unsteady legs. Felt like the scenery was twisting and swirling around me. For a second, I didn't know where I was even. Yet this only lasted a few seconds. When my mind was at the right place again, ahead of me I only saw one thing. A beast.

My father had already taken half the distance that got created between us, getting to where I was with inhuman speed. My mind was clear, but that's exactly what made this situation a desperate one. My strategy failed.

I had the disadvantage in strength. I lost in speed. I'm tired out, yet he still had so many stamina left in him. I used the dirty tricks of mine as well, used faints against him, used my one and only advantage being beside this river. And yet, I couldn't win. The wall towering before me wasn't even my actual enemy. My enemy was the beast. The beast that pushed through that wall that I cracked open. And now it's on a rampage.

After clearing out, my mind became foggy again when it assessed the situation I was in. Stress was looming over me. It decided that this is the end of the line. I did everything I could, yet I couldn't do it. Suddenly when my mind was attacked by these ideas, a single sentence resonated deep inside me.

"Just do what you want and something will turn out of it."

That's right. I can't back out of this. I already decided I will leave this village today. I made a promise with Leyna. I said I will do as I want and make my own choices. And my choice here was to fight until the end. Because I had to win. Because this was my adventure.

"Aaaaahhhh!!"

I steeled myself and pushed forward recklessly. Our swords clashed yet again. And again. And again. His power was immense, it wanted to push me back with every hit, yet I stood firm and parried every single time. My arms started to feel numb, yet I pushed forward again and again. My mind was clouded with a single thought. Win. Win by all costs.

His next attack hit my sword up. I couldn't feel my arms anymore, one of them even let go of the sword and hanged lifelessly on my side. At this moment, a weird feeling got over me. My arm was numb, yet I felt something in it. Something moving. Flowing through.

"Stop!"

In the next moment, when I realized it, I already did a weak downward slash with my sword. It actually hit the shoulder of my father. And my father was on his knees as well. I couldn't really process what happened, I felt like my mind cut out for a moment and yet, my sword connected and it was a hit.

"This ends here." said Leyna. She had a very sharp and serious expression on her face, then it softened up. "The winner is Konda."

For a second, I couldn't believe what I heard. My legs finally gave in and I fell to my knees as well, the fatigue catching up with me.

"Are you okay, Boro?" Leyna rushed to us and looked over Boro for any wound he might have got. My slash was pretty weak by the end, it was more of a pat than an actual attack, so I was sure he got off without any problem.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just a little surprised," said my father. "Well, you did it in the end, right, kid? Took some time though."

He patted my head. After that, he stood up and went away for a bit without saying a word. I somehow got up by myself after feeling the blood running back into my limbs and turned towards Leyna with a small smile on my face. I wanted to open my mouth to talk, but I stopped before it could open. For some reason, she had a stern expression on her face and looked directly at me, I didn't understand why, so instead I said nothing and just waited. When Father came back, he had something big in his hands, rolled up in a cloth.

"I had a feeling you might win this time, so I prepared this behind the trees in advance. This is my farewell gift to you, hopefully you can make better use of it than I did."

He rolled out the cloth and under it was a two handed greatsword on the smaller side. The sheath was pitch black, it was so dark it felt like I was looking directly into a void from a small slit that opened in the air. He pulled out the blade, which was also dark. It wasn't exactly black, instead more of a darker grey that had a tint of misticity to it. It looked nearly transparent to my eyes, and at the same time I couldn't really see anything behind it for some reason. Just like the sheath, it was a mystery to me and tricked my senses.

"This sword was one of many that I used under my years of adventuring. I also had many before them. All of them were great swords that any swordsman would envy," he said. "Yet, only this remains from those days. This was the only one that didn't break by my way of using the blade."

He held out the sword before him, looking closely at the double-edged blade of it. The blade looked pristine, not even a single scratch could be seen on it.

"This sword is my life achievement," he said. "The thing that defines and shows proof that I reached and did something in this world. It was made by a half-elf who is now one of the Sages. Despite being an elf, he was fascinated by smithing, most likely his dwarven blood acted up on that."

My father chuckled a little, seemingly remembering fond memories of the past.

"He might have been young back then, yet he was and most likely still is an excellent craftsman, the kind you only get once in every few centuries. When I got to him, he readily accepted my request for a weapon, but not without requirements. As a relatively young smith, he wanted a challenge to prove himself in the craft to others. He wanted to put his own skills to the test. As such, he asked me to go with him and take down a dragon, known as one of the strongest beings of this world."

"You should have seen it. He was so dumbfounded after that request. He just turned back and looked at me with teary eyes as if he will cry in any moment," cracked up Leyna.

"I don't deny that one. I had my fair share of adventures, but I was still in my mid-twenties. When someone asks you to take down those kinds of beasts, you hesitate for a moment and more because you know what that means."

He put the sword back into its sheath then walked closer to me.

"It wasn’t easy, at all, but we did it. He used the hide to make the sheaths. The horn to make the handle. The ribcage to smelt the blade itself. The wings as a coating, so the blade will be capable of channeling magic. He used that dragon in all kinds of ways, just to be able to make this sword. For me." He slowly pushed the sword against my chest. "And for you. From now on, it's yours and I hope you will make more use of it than your brute father did. I know you will."

I held the sword with two hands and despite expecting something heavy, it actually felt quite light. Not weightless, but still, this was a greatsword, so saying that it was light is quite high of a praise for it. I thought maybe that Sage was just this highly skilled, knowing how much praise father just said about him.

"I still don't understand why you made him make a magic sword for you, despite not being able to use magic well. Or at all," said Leyna.

"I was still young, I thought I might be able later." My father scratched his head, trying to hide his embarrassment. "Either way, I think we are done here, so let's go back. I would be okay without farewells as well, but your mother will murder me if I let you go without bringing you back to eat."

"I wanted to say my goodbyes anyway. If not you, then I will be the one that gets beaten up next time I see her."

"I see you two got used to Lute's iron grip."

With that, we started walking back into the forest. For one last time, I looked back to the riverbed that was holding so many memories, years' worth of my rigorous training. I don’t exactly know how I had won, maybe it was dumb luck, but I always believed luck is also a factor in any fight. I also didn’t want to question Leyna’s decision on the winner. It was a bit of a bumpy road, but finally, I felt like I left the starting line.