As I stand on the flat surface of Fugashi mountain created by the impact of the indestructible meteor Indrus, I rethink my life. What has brought me here? To this point in my life where I must face off against my brother Aldrin the first son of my father, Magnus. I guess it was because of my inability to become a true magic swordsman. But that does not matter anymore; I think to myself as I stare down my bother directly across from me.
I've never had a talent for magic. Magical talent is either something you are born with or you aren't born with. There is no way around it, and I just happened to be the first magical swordsman in my family who could barely use magic; I was a disgrace.
"Why did it have to come to this Leo? Why do you feel the need to fight me for our household and clan." Aldrin asks
"Honestly... I dont know, brother. I guess this is just fate."
After my father grew old, he handed the main household and the entire clan to my older brother aldrin since Aldrin was both an excellent swordsman and magician.
"Fate, huh. Fate... Brother, remember those words when you die here today. You could've lived as the greatest swordsman of your time, my right-hand man; a legend, people could've written stories of the great swordsman who couldn't use magic. But now, instead, because of your betrayal, they will write the story about Leo, the fool who betrayed the Volgen clan because of his ambitions."
"I won't let you kill me that easily, Aldrin." I look up at the sky. There is currently a thunderstorm going on. "I will finally get to see which of us two is the greatest swordsman."
"Leo, you should know better than anyone. A regular swordsman stands no chance against a magical swordsman."
What Aldrin says has some truth to it long ago; there were only magicians or swordsmen, never both. Until recently, a couple of clans realized that talented individuals could dedicate their time to swordsmanship and abuse their magical talents to create essentially monstrous beings who could cast magic in one hand while handling a sword in another. While magicians could keep up with these magical swordsmen, regular swordsmen weren't able to and have recently been considered essentially obsolete or fodder. Why risk your magic-user when you can use your regular swordsmen as bait. After all, anyone can be a swordsman with enough hard work. But I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe God was so cruel as to create an unsurpassable gap between a swordsman and a magic-user.
"I won't accept it!"
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"Magic may be powerful, but I've honed my swordsmanship and aura all my life. I'll prove it to you today. We regular swordsmen can easily surpass you."
I held nothing against my brother. You could even say I cared about him. All of us siblings got together well. But that didn't stop me from growing jealous of them. While they would use magic to improve their abilities and become stronger in seconds, I had to shed blood, sweat, and tears. Today I will prove those weren't in vain I will prove everyone wrong for writing me off as a failure or a weakling.
I took out my great sword that I had named Hope and held it in one hand, my right hand as most magic swordsmen did. I may not be a real magic swordsman, but some habits die hard. I then point the sword at Aldrin
"I guess we are really doing this, Leo," Aldrin says as he takes out his blade from his sheath with his right hand.
Aldrin and I would probably both be considered 6-star warriors. The star system was a way of ranking all types of warriors and abominations. Although some might say Aldrin is a high-tier 6-star warrior, my point still stands. Understanding the star system it was a way of ranking someone's or something's physical ability.
10-stars - the power to end the world
9-stars - the power to decimate a continent
8-stars - the power to decimate a country
7-stars - the power to decimate a province/state
6-stars - the power to decimate a city
5-stars - the power to decimate a town
4-stars - the power to decimate a village
3-stars - the power to overwhelm 100 regular humans
2-stars - the power to overwhelm 10 regular humans
1-star - the power to defeat a "weak" abomination
0-star - a regular human
>10-stars - the power to challenge Gods
Although these are all essentially superficial numbers given to people through tests and their accomplishments, they are usually pretty accurate if you are renowned. And you can also estimate someone's star level by receiving their blow.
Knowing all this, I rush Aldrin with hope in my hand, and with all my might, I clash my blade with his then we are face to face, and I can see Aldrin visibly struggling to push me back.
"Having a hards time, brother?" I ask.
"Aghh, Strength boost!" Aldrin yells at the top of his lungs, and a magic circle appears in his left hand.
As the circle dissipated, I noticed Aldrins drastically increased strength that had increased. At this point, Aldrin and I were about equal in strength. No, I thought as I jumped out of our clash. He is stronger, I thought to myself. But he wasn't the only one who could use magic, I thought to myself. Even if my magic was useless and I was born with the lowest amount of magic potential possible, I needed to close the gap, even if it Was just a bit.
I yell at the top of my lungs, "strength bo--"
"Speed boost," Aldrin yells in a split second Aldrin is right next to me, and I barely manage to block him
"Boost" I yell finish my last spell giving me just enough power to push Aldrin back
"Speed boost," I then yell, but as I finish my spell Aldrin sends three icicles my way, but thanks to my increased speed, I manage to destroy them all.
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"No more games Aldrin. You will now see the Aura of a true swordsman." I say as I grab my blade with both hands and point it to the sky. As I do, I surround it in my light blue sword aura, and I also make sure to cover the rest of my body in some for protection.
"I see it's come to this," Aldrin says as he covers his sword in Aura but not his body, as usually, that is a technique that can only be comprehended by pure swordsmen. After all, aura wasn't simple. Instead, aldrin yells, "reinforce!" To make both himself and his sword more durable. Sadly this simple magic was too complicated for me.
"Aldrin," I say as I barrage my brother in attacks, and he uses both protective magic and his sword to defend while also using offensive damage to be as effective as possible.
At this point, I could tell Aldrin was getting nervous. I could proudly say that when I came to pure swordsmanship and close-range combat, not many could outclass me.
It seems that aldrin was having trouble keeping up with my attacks predicting my swords. This almost cost him his precious left arm as I slashed his chest downwards on the left side of his body.
"Impressive Leo, your aura must be highly pure to be able to cut through my magic reinforced flesh like nothing. But it seems like I have to end this fight soon." Aldrin states as I see his body catch fire and his wounds quickly regenerate, and icicles appear from the sky.
I decided I should rush Aldrin before he could release that barrage of icicles onto me, and he fully heals. As I do, Aldrin fights me defensively again, blocking me with his blade, which at this point was in bad shape from taking too many hard hits
"How are you healing so quickly? Is your mana infinite or something?" I ask Aldrin out of honest curiosity
"Haha, no, little brother, in exchange for using up some of my stamina, I am allowed this passive healing.
As aldrin says this, I am finally able to break past his defense that involved a mix of magic and swordsmanship, and this time, I stabbed him in the chest. But as I do, I feel it. Four icicles pierced and hit me from behind. I hadn't been paying attention to the icicles, but never did I think Aldrin would move them like that.
Aldrin then pulls his body off my swords, and his wound speedily regenerates.
"It was a good fight, brother. I was surprised by your strength." Aldrin says but with a look of sorrow
"No..."
"No, what?" Aldrin ask
"It isn't over... Not yet... I can fight."
"Brother, it is over; you have lost too much blood to continue fighting. Goodbye." Aldrin says in a solemn voice.
My mind became clouded as I faded away.
In my life, the only thing that ever made me special I gained through years of training and practice. I had almost complete mastery of aura.
I had no intention to die such a miserable death, only managing to land one blow on my brother. Knowing this, I drown my sword in a violent blue aura to the point my sword can't even be seen anymore, and then I flooded my whole body with aura. I felt invigorated. I took pride in knowing that in the world, I was the only one alive who possed such vast knowledge of swordsmanship and aura.
"You think sword aura and some new trick you've learned can defeat me."
"Trick? Haha. You better prepare for your death."
In an instant, I appear in front of my brother as magic circles appear in his hands. I might not be able to perform magic well, but I have become somewhat of an expert at identifying magic by looking at the circles being formed. The spell he was trying to use was the higher tier version of the defense magic named barrier, but I was too fast; in a split second, I cut of Aldrin's right hand and destroyed his sword with a diagonal slash resulting in the splitting of the sky.
In response, Aldrin grabs his right hand in shock.
"You! How? How is this possible? With just aura?"
"You magicians can keep your secrets as we swordsman will begin to keep ours too."
Aldrin then looked up at the sky in shock.
"I never thought you would actually push me to this," Aldrin says as four magic circles appear in his hand. They were all circles I'd never seen.
"What are you doing?" I asked in genuine fear.
"Mobeal family magic, the four unstoppable elements!"
This must be some type of magic only allowed to the heir or head patriarch of the family. That would explain how this magic was new to me. I had to stop Aldrin, but I couldn't do it. Mana leaked out of Aldrin, and tremendous pressure came from the amount of mana, making it difficult to push forward to attack Aldrin. At this point, all Aldrin's mana was focused on his left palm. After a second, Aldrin's palm was pointed at me.
"Good luck," Aldrin said to me as a massive tornado of fire formed and headed towards me, but I believed in my abilities. I gathered all my aura and incorporated it into my body and once again engulfed my sword in already more aura then covered it, and then I concentrated. The tornado was spinning counterclockwise, so I grabbed my blade with two hands for the first time in this battle, and I dashed towards the tornado and struck the tornado with a swing that went from left to right.
After the tornado was hit with a tremendous amount of force, moving the opposite direction, it dissipated.
"Is that all you got!?" I ask Aldrin.
Next, water began to come out of one of the magic circles on Aldrin's hand. In a split second, a massive spinning torrent of water came my way. In response, I concentrate on reinforcing and moving my aura towards my left hand. Once it was appropriately covered, I waited for the torrent to get closer to me; once it was close enough, I concentrated on my fist and launched it into the torrent.
What a second ago a deadly attack was no more than some rainfall now.
It was now that I realized I had a chance to defeat Aldrin since he had just started activating his 3rd spell, so I rushed in at full speed and prepared my blade to cut off aldrin's hand. I had no intention of killing my brother in a split second; only a couple inches separated me and my brother; as I go to cut his hand, a spike made from the indistinguishable meteorite Indrus effortlessly pierces through my aura stabs me in the back. If I was at full power, I could dodge it, but I had lost too much blood from my prior major injury.
"You... Bastard." I say, and most would probably say the same. In this world, one of the most cowardly things you could do was stab a man in the back, especially if you were considered powerful.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know... What to do." His voice was full of sorrow and regret. I knew that Aldrin didny want the battle to end this way as much as I did. I guess the saying is true you really should never drive a man to desperation, for even a cornered rat is dangerous.
"Whatever," I say as I remove myself from the spike and walk up to Indrus.
"I have yet to leave a legacy in this world, brother. So I will leave one now. Indrus the indestructible meteor, huh... Brother, will you stand witness to my legacy?"
Aldrin doesn't say anything, but he cries and nods his head.
I point my greatsword towards the heavens, and with two hands, I release all of my sword aura. I knew this would result in my certain death as sword aura is increased through knowledge of the sword, and you can withstand specific amounts of aura depending on your understanding of the sword. By understanding and gaining knowledge of the sword, you can purify your aura. But in short, while my understanding of the sword was high, my body isn't strong enough to handle all the knowledge I've amassed, so releasing it all is essentially like having a death wish.
It was terrific the colossal tower of aura coming out from my sword could probably be seen for miles and probably could be felt by people on different continents. Even my brother was having trouble not getting pushed back from the aura I'd released.
In a split second, I point my blade towards the meteorite and attempt to plunge it in. While doing this. I understood why they called this meteor indestructible I felt like I would never break through. Still, I felt the tip of my sword go in, and I realized it was possible thats when I mustered all my body strength and pushed the sword deeper and deeper till about two-thirds of the oversized greatsword were in the bolder. After I realized my job was done, I fell onto my knees.
"Brother, you did it. You immortalized yourself and hope we can go home now, right?" Aldrin says with tears. It was pretty funny, considering we were supposedly ready to kill each other earlier.
"No, Aldrin, I am sorry your little brother is so ambitious. Please find a way to forgive me for what I caused here. But it seems like it's time for me to meet our other siblings. Goodbye, Aldrin; I am sure once you get healed up with magic, you will be a great Mobeal family patriarch."
The world became black, but then it turned white once again.