“Hand over the antidote and I’ll consider giving you the chance to surrender.” Azurael taunted the man.

The man stepped forward, the air weighed heavy. “I’ll trade,” he rasped, “for your heart or brain, not many get a choice.”

“How kind.” Azurael quipped, slipping on his soft knuckles.

Without a word, the man raised his hand skyward, as if beckoning to the stars. The heavens responded. Light shimmered and condensed into a thin, silvery edge, its form ethereal yet sharp, a blade no thicker than the stars from which it was born.

“Well then.” In that instant, that second, Azurael closed the gap between them, a hundred meters to a thousandth of one, as his fist flew with measured force into the man’s face.

The man was thrown backwards, his sword failing to aid his recovery as it effortlessly divided all it touched.

“Coward.” The man spat, steadying himself. “Use your specialty.”

“Won’t help you.” Azurael looked at him, pity in his eyes. “Who are you?”

“A scale.” He grinned, blood gushing from his busted eye.

Azurael’s mind raced as he recounted a meeting with the headmaster.

“A friend?”

“Yes, it’s a mark of status, you see, to be a scale. Bronze, Silver, Gold. Ebony, Dragon Bone, Fang. The material really matters and all their equipment is made from it. He gave this to me before he graduated. As you are, you’d probably earn a dragon bone weapon if you joined.”

“How do you earn status?”

“I don’t think I ever asked, but it can’t be that hard if he managed to get a silver around your age. Oh to be fourteen again.”

“What do they do?”

“These days? Don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me. I know… they were the group used to dispose of dragons, at least a hundred years before Hopman. Back then they were called the–”

The Greatest Good? Too many unknowns. Azurael's thoughts raced. Focus. He wants to kill me, I don’t care why. He might not have the antidote. I don’t know if he has a specialty.

The man whispered an incantation and a ball of fire manifested before him. It trembled terribly as the rain dared to touch its wick. “You’ll beg for death.” The man croaked, slicing at the fireball.

The hit splintered the furious orb, Azurael’s eyes struggled to track the dozens of lights camouflaging themselves among the stars.

I’ll just hurt him a little. He cleared the distance once more and swung but there was no connection. His fist drove through the man’s torso, which erupted into cold flames, and came out the other side singed. His flesh dripped and sagged, immediately reforming as it melted together. All feeling lost.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Mage. Azurael hissed.

The rain stopped and fog fell upon the land, the air thickened as flames erupted above. For the briefest moment he caught a glimpse of a starry shimmer. The flames danced above.

His enchantment isn’t offensive? A spell most likely. A sigil is possible. My arm is useless for now, so he’s recovering. His breathing was becoming heavy. His palm was bloody, with each stinging pulse blood gushed from the miniscule cut.

“Your blade, is it an heirloom– not meant to spill blood?”

“It’s to butcher the arrogant.” The man swung downward from the fiery sky cloaked in flame. Azurael rolled to his side, then took aim, heaving his body and bloody palm into the man.

“Vis.” His palm short of making contact, but the man was torn asunder. His body dispersed in a brilliant explosion of light. The sword rose to the heavens.

He didn’t try to evade. That fire reforges flesh. His body is made of the flames. He split the fire with the sword. The sword transmutes the wielder, it must.

Azurael held firm as the flames above danced.

It’s a lockzone! The realization came to him the moment four terrible pillars of flame surrounded him, walls of scorching air screamed between them. From a pillar rose the black-clad man.

“You’ve felt the flame. Spare yourself the agony. Give me your heart.” The man stuck out his wispy hand, sword held inches off the ground.

Azurael’s gaze narrowed, his breathing steady despite the oppressive heat. “You’re a royal,” he said, his stance softening—not in surrender, but in recognition.

The blood streamed from his hand, the miniscule, unceasing flow pooled at his feet.

“I’ll try to get you out of this alive. But I won’t make any promises.” He smirked, his head feeling heavy.

An unceasing wound. A weapon of absolute sharpness. A flame that binds. He intended to torture me from the start. A hit with that sword would have been fatal. It could have been… it’ll need to be fast.

He reformed his stance, facing the black-clad man squarely. A bleeding left hand. A mangled right. His advantage—the man’s busted eye.

“You know the good thing about being trained with the headmaster?” Azurael asked. The man winced. “You learn to take a hit.”

You learn to use your weakness to your advantage.

In an instant he sidestepped the man, his great strides crushing the ground beneath him as he bolted to a nearby pillar, scooped up a handful of dirt and swallowed it.

“Veni.” He smiled. His opened arms wide, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. At the instant man’s body combusted and reformed from a pillar behind Azurael. In a single stride he closed the gap, the sword formed quickly, and swung forth as a ray of light.

Azurael swayed for the briefest moment, shifting his body to the left. The blade did not acknowledge contact as it phased through his mangled arm.

Blood flowed ceaselessly as the man turned mid swing to catch Azurael. With a single step, his direction changed and he sliced across Azurael’s abdomen.

A striking pain shot up his arm as a thud came from the ground, his arm lay severed, still gripping the hilt of the fine blade. The realization came swiftly, and so did Azurael’s retaliation. As he took that moment to twist his body and slam his remaining fist into the man’s rib cage, crushing his heart. The lockzone dissipated but not before Azurael heaved his body into the flames, bleeding stump forward, and felt it lick his wound.

In an instant his wound was sealed.

Lost that much? Kari… Azurael spun, his breathing shallow, looking into the distance for a sign of the group.

A glint in the distance caught his eye. And the world fell apart beneath him, the ground cracked and fractured. The crumbling earth dared to swallow him whole as it was blasted into the sky.