On another side of the battlefield, the fight between ‘The Prodigy Sword Saint’ and ‘The Unbeaten General’ raged on.
To most, it would appear as though Olivier was dominating, not giving Kaymin a chance to breathe, and to be fair, that was precisely what was happening.
Olivier’s speed made him a nightmare for other warriors. Unless your speed were up to par, you’d find yourself overwhelmed by flickering lights of golden battle-qi.
Even General Kaymin, a warrior at the peak of the ninth rank who was anything but slow, couldn’t find the time to counter, all he could do was block, parry, and dodge, preventing his opponent from landing a strike.
‘Hmph, and they said I’d need help to fight someone of this level…’ Olivier thought disdainfully as he continued his onslaught. ‘It’s only a matter of time before he makes a mistake, and I make him pay with his life!’
General Metria could practically read her fellow general’s mind just from seeing the arrogant smirk playing on his lips, and whilst she had to admit that Olivier’s ability as a warrior was truly incredible – to the point where if it were her, she would’ve already died – she was still clutching her sword and shield ready to react at any moment.
Olivier may not have clashed with Kaymin before, but she had, and she knew better than to think this was the limit of his strength. Just the tranquil expression on his face as he was ‘overwhelmed’ was enough to let her know that the monster in front of her hadn’t even started getting going yet.
Every time their swords met, a shock wave would ripple out from them at the epicentre. The contrast of the gold of Olivier’s battle-qi against the red of Kaymin’s made it look like a captivating fireworks display from afar, but each of those ‘captivating’ fireworks helped turn what was once a grassy plain into a devastated wasteland.
It was at that moment that Olivier’s relentless assault finally breached Kaymin’s defence. It was a shallow wound across his shoulder, but it was still a wound, and as far as Olivier was concerned, it was the start of the end for his foe.
Unfortunately, before he could take advantage of Kaymin’s injury to add to it, the unbeaten general swung his great sword across his body with unbridled ferocity, creating a scarlet, crescent-shaped sword light forcing Olivier to hurry out of the way.
“Looks like you really are the more powerful warrior out of the two of us…” Kaymin sighed as he slowly raised his hand, pointing at his brown-haired opponent.
A smug smile was just starting to form on Olivier’s face when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
“[Scorching Meteor Shower]!” Kaymin muttered softly.
Olivier’s eyes widened as he saw dozens of house-sized meteors form in the skies above him. As the fight between him and Kaymin raged on, he had forgotten that the real reason the unbeaten general was so frightening was that he was just as skilled a mage as he was a warrior.
Although, as far as warriors went, Olivier was undoubtedly the more powerful of the two, General Kaymin’s prowess as a warrior beat all of those he’d ever gone up against, including all of those from his own nation. As a result, Olivier subconsciously believed this had to be everything he had.
Still, as a highly experienced and exceptionally talented warrior, he instinctively suppressed the shock he was feeling to deal with the incoming attack.
Re-coating his body and sword in his golden battle-qi as he leapt up to meet the meteor shower head-on.
“[Light-Sword]”, Olivier roared as he slashed out as fast as he possibly could.
“He really is an extremely talented warrior,” Kaymin sighed as he watched the young man’s sword light multiply, going from one to two, to four, to eight.
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Eight enormous sword beams tore through the air, cutting one of the meteors into eight smaller pieces, giving him a path out of the meteor shower. Unfortunately for the young swordsman, Duke Kaymin had already seen through his intention.
“You can die now – [Dance of the Fire Serpent]!” Kaymin voiced coldly as a 100-meter-long crimson serpent of pure flaming mageforce appeared in the skies above Olivier diving down like a divine tribulation.
Olivier had been so focused on finding a path out of the meter encirclement that he didn’t notice the fiery snake in the sky until it was virtually on top of him.
Despite his lightspeed reactions, Olivier immediately understood he wouldn’t be able to block this one. All he could do was increase the battle-qi coating his body to its maximum output and brace for impact. Still, he knew that his escaping with severe injuries was already the best-case scenario.
But just as his body tensed, anticipating the pending explosion, he saw a shadow flicker past him to intercept the spell just before it hit its target, reminding him that he wasn’t alone in this battle.
The spell [Dance of the Fire Serpents] was a spell of the eighth rank that created seven ten-meter-long fire snakes, but Kaymin had long since altered the spell to make it a single target spell of the ninth rank, a feat that only went to show his impressive talent as a mage.
Luckily for Olivier, Metria, who had been waiting on the side-lines, had been ready to intervene the whole time. The moment she saw the enormous sky-covering serpent taking form, she leapt into action.
Coating her body in a purple battle qi of the lightning element, she tore through the air like a bolt of lightning, her battle-qi-coated shield in front of her to meet the spell and her sword slashing out from behind, creating a lightning sword beam.
The sword beam did little to weaken the fire spell, but it did slow the attack just enough for the only female general on the side of the O’Brien Empire to intercept.
As the giant burning serpent and General Metria’s shield made contact, it created a sky-shattering explosion that made all of the other battles happening pause to see what had happened.
The only person that didn’t wait to see what had happened was the main culprit of the explosion. General Kaymin left a trail of fire as he sped into the cloud of smoke.
The sounds of metal clashing could be heard throughout the battlefield as the smoke slowly dissipated, showing the shocking sight of General Kaymin fighting Generals Metria and Olivier to a standstill.
Despite the speeds he had been moving at before, during the whole of the first part of their battle, miraculously, Olivier didn’t have so much as a hair out of place or a single crease on his robe, but now…
Half of his robe was incinerated, and his body was covered in burns. His injuries weren’t enough to impact his strength, but as he wasn’t the one to bear the brunt of the attack, it only went to show the power of Kaymin’s spell.
Despite wearing expensive armour forged from some of the sturdiest ores on the continent, General Metria was in far worse condition than Olivier, with her armour being melted in several spots and her just as many burns so deep the bones became visible.
Still, as a warrior at the peak of the ninth rank, her vitality was nothing to scoff at. Despite her gruesome injuries, she was still able to fight at a level that would put the average ninth-rank warrior to shame. But her opponent was far from your average warrior of the ninth rank.
General Kaymin had managed to create a fighting style which perfectly fused the spells of a mage with the skills of a warrior, which allowed him to dominate the fight, forcing both his opponents into a position where they could only defend.
Now that Kaymin was going all out, Olivier finally realised how right everyone had been. Even if he wasn’t caught off guard by his last strike, as he was currently, Olivier wasn’t Kaymin’s match. It was only with Metria’s help that he was able to last so long.
‘If only I hadn’t been so arrogant and wilful,’ Olivier cursed mentally. ‘Maybe then we wouldn’t be in this position.’
He may not be affected too badly by his injuries, but the same couldn’t be said for his fellow General. Though not life-threatening, Metria could barely fight at 70% of her best. If she was at 100%, then between the two of them, they might actually be able to fight to win instead of fighting to survive.
As the other battles restarted, most soldiers on both sides made sure to divert some of their attention to General Kaymin’s battle.
Everyone already knew that that was the one that would prove to be the deciding battle, as whoever won would immediately turn the tide of the whole war.
With Kaymin now in such a dominant position, it had the Rohault soldiers fighting steadily, just biding their time, waiting for the moment they got to erupt and win this war once and for all. Whilst the remaining O’Brien generals began fighting with wild abandonment, understanding that if they were going to have any chance at victory, they had to defeat their Rohault counterparts and go to support Olivier and Metria before Kaymin found a way through their defences.
The only two not paying any attention to the battle between the three generals were Ace and his opponent – Colonel Lorne!