Another day passed during Logan's stint of peacetime, interrupted by his own need to train and prepare for the future. Placing a piece of parchment over the door that led to their training hall at the back of the guild house, Logan teleported quickly between Ahren’s apothecary and the hall.
Ahren had changed vastly from the day before. The wrinkly 77-year-old Irishman had taut skin flush with colour. His thinning hair was lustrous and thicker which contrasted with his amber eyes, which boasted the youthful nature of their wielder. If Logan didn’t know any better, he would have said Ahren was closer to 30 than 80.
With a crack of his back and knuckles, Ahren spoke, “The wife was jealous seeing me leave the house today. She’s expecting the same treatment when I get home.”
“Thanks. I know how much this takes out of you” Logan replied.
“No problem here. Always nice to feel half my age again. Keeps my powers active and scraping off any rust I accrued.”
“As you said, you’re easily going to hit double your age.”
“And probably much further to boot!” Ahren laughed.
Logan placed a pure-white sphere of stone into a slot on the walls that protected the stands that peered into the training hall. The walls then started to glow all over with various lines and glyphs, reaching over the seats and into the ceiling. “This will protect the place from our attacks, but we only got a half hour”
“More than enough”, Ahren laughed again.
“Let’s go over the rules again. No Spellforce Blast, that will ruin this place, and if an attack would hit the arena try and direct it to the floor where possible. Oh, and no killing if possible.”
“I can accept all of those. I trust you’ll bring me back if I happen to falter. We both have regeneration, so we don’t need to worry about losing digits here.”
“Anything else you want to put forward?”
Ahren thought for a moment as he took off his coat to reveal martial artist garbs underneath, all of grey and brown hues, his belt sparkling platinum. “Anything else will just be common sense, lad.”
Logan drew out two blades and got into a fighting stance, Ahren did the same with one flat hand forward and his other in a fist near his stomach.
“Start!” Logan shouted.
The Spellthief was the first to move, twisting his feet on the floor he darted towards his foe. “Haste Sustained”, he spoke, his speed heightening to speeds hard to spectate for normal people.
Ahren replied with his own movements, rotating his hands around he made a circle in the air in front of him as if trying to counter Logan’s first attack.
Logan lunged forwards, not close enough to his foe to land a hit though, instead, he let go of both blades and had them shoot forwards via Telekineses. Cutting through the air, the daggers sang towards Ahren, the Meridiancer merely jabbed his index and middle fingers into the hilts of the weapons, their magic completely disrupted and falling to the floor, inert.
Logan dug the stone floor underfoot as he slid to a halt and kicked away from Ahren. Fluttering his cape, Logan let loose a cache of thirty daggers on the floor. Extending his fingers, Logan animated the armaments, which aimed their pointy ends towards the elder.
“You’ve progressed far into demonhood, mucker!”
Ahren’s fingers started to glow blue, as did the aura around him. Sweeping his feet around, or skipping entirely, Ahren poked each dagger as they came hailing down at him. Each tap of the hilt had the would-be-weapon become a mere decoration of the battleground as they clinked onto the floor.
Ahren twirled on the floor, his blue aura forming into a denser mass within his arm. With a massive upward strike, Ahren let fly the energy, forming a toothy maw towards Logan. Logan looked to the side and used Dimensional Jaunt to avoid the ranged attack.
As Logan looked back at his foe, he noticed the same spell used against him, Ahren apparating in front of the Spellthief with primed fingers. Logan dipped, ducked, and dodged around Ahren’s attempts at landing a snake-like strike at the younger rival.
With a break in the attacks, Logan thrust two open palms at Ahren, “Force”, sending two grey waves of energy at Ahren. The Irishman retaliated with a backhand downward strike, breaking the micks apart with bare hands.
Continuing the momentum, Ahren rotated his arms around, brought them close, and attempted a double jab at Logan.
“Aqua Shot”, Logan chanted, meeting the attack with two orbs of water.
Ahren poked apart the wet attack and almost landed his fingertips into Logan’s palms as the Spellthief crunched up his hands to avoid them, continuing to backstep.
Taking more steps back, Logan dragged both arms up and chanted, “Fire Blast 2nd”, filling the area in front of him with loud explosions. If he were a miner, Logan would make a killing with his blasting charges.
The spell moved forward without impediment, causing Logan to preemptively teleport far to the side as Ahren had done the same, but behind his location. Ahren hit the air as he turned to find Logan in the distance.
Waving two arms, Logan chanted again, “Avalanche 2nd”, causing two swirls of clouds to form overhead and rain hail down onto Ahren. The wider area of attack made it hard to dodge, but Ahren was seemingly hiding many of his trinkets, just like Logan. Ahren appeared behind Logan yet again.
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Logan peered into the reflection of his fallen blades and teleported behind Ahren. The Irishman did it too, and then Logan copied. It was a mess of teleportations to get the upper hand that ended in a wide, twisting, downward swipe from Ahren.
Logan dodged to the side as a wave of air erupted from Ahren’s fists, his power far above the measly defences of the atmosphere. The energy collided with the wall, causing green hexagons to appear over the wood.
With a quick swish, Logan pulled a dagger from his inventory in the air and dove it towards Ahren’s chest. Ahren quickly riposted with his other hand, Logan retreating his arm upwards to avoid contact with Ahren’s fingers.
Twisting around Ahren, Logan aimed another forming dagger into the opponent’s back. But Ahren spun with him, attempting another devastating poke into Logan’s wrist. Logan instead dropped his blade and retreated his hand, as the dagger fell he brought up a foot to kick the blade towards Ahren. The Irishman easily tilted his head to dodge the attack.
Logan jumped back several times to catch his breath and readjust. “I can’t let a single finger hit me”, he reconfirmed in his head.
It was as good a caution he could hold, Ahren’s unique abilities had already been shown to Logan before, but in more beneficial means. With the talks they had in the past, Logan was all too aware of the effects Ahren could cause.
Ahren kept up with Logan, fast fists and open palms reaching out and avoiding the stinging touch of daggers. Logan kept safe, trying to slice at Ahren’s arms or body, dropping his daggers when it was too dangerous or readjusting to instead avoid his opponent entirely.
The fight was strange. Both combatants did wonders at avoiding one another, creating feints, and half-riposting the other. Logan was learning a lot about how Ahren fought with this conflict, but he didn’t want to just learn, he wanted to adapt and win.
With two hands open, Logan primed himself to make grasping attacks at Ahren. Ahren retaliated as usual with two finger strikes, but they were halted in front of Logan’s palms as the Spellthief Silentcast Barrier in both hands, Ahren’s fingers crunching against blue hexagons.
Taking advantage of the proper blocking, Logan stepped into Ahren’s guard and apprehended both of his foe’s wrists. Lightning zapped across Ahren’s body, pinpricking him all over and singeing his clean skin black.
Ahren made a quick hop but didn’t get far from Logan’s grasp, but he hadn’t planned to, instead, he landed two solid kicks into Logan’s stomach that sent the man flying back, Ahren flipping backwards to his feet.
Logan let out an Air Blast from his hands to rotate in the air and slide across the stone floor. As he reared his head up, Logan activated his vaskt eyes to get more information from the battleground and his opponent.
Ahren returned this move by doing the same, the opponent was an apothecary so it wasn’t surprising he had gained this skill too.
“Invisibility Sustained”, Logan chanted, his body disappearing.
Ahren smirked as he pulled out a vial from his own inventory, downed it, and had all four eyes take on a green aura. Staring down at Logan, the man could see his prey, and Logan tutted in his unseen, now seen, visage.
Logan waved both hands and unleashed a barrage of colours and elements. Flames, water, shadows, and rocks all hurtled toward Ahren who ran toward Logan, sidestepping some spells and slapping away others.
“He has to use MP to keep this form up, he has to run out eventually”, Logan calculated in his head.
Logan raised both hands high and slammed the floor, the whole arena shaking from the attack. It was more of a display than an actual attack, however, as the tremors caused dust, water, and his old daggers to fly upward. Making two claws, Logan threw them forward and chanted, “Lightning Cascade 2nd”, creating a maze of azure arcs that treated all as its foes. Rebounding off of blades they pricked into Ahren countless times.
Wriggling his fingers, Logan failed to use Telekinesis on his daggers though, Ahren’s strange abilities cutting them off completely from spellforce.
Thinking of Ahren’s abilities, the Irishman had made his way to Logan in record-breaking time. Logan attempted to teleport away again, the range being his ally in this fight, however, Ahren grabbed at the air around Logan, visible purple lines forming in his hands that surrounded Logan.
Dragging down, Ahren pulled at the once-invisible threads and severed them. Logan’s eyes went wide as a window appeared.
“Your ability to teleport has been removed. You cannot use any spells of this school.”
“He destroyed my spells?” Logan screamed in his head as he reared back from his foe.
Ahren had another burst of speed, however, as the Meridiancer landed a solid jab into Logan’s inner elbow before the Brit could get away.
A wave of goosebumps rolled over Logan’s arm, a numbness and throbbing pain shooting across it as Logan lost the use of one of his limbs, at least below the elbow.
“Damnit”, Logan cursed in his head as he continued to backstep to recentre himself.
Ahren wasn’t going to let up, his assault now in full force to show Logan just how difficult a PC fight could be with the variety of abilities. But there was also the option of artefacts.
Logan coated his skin in ice and fire, filling the area around him with mist, he then tossed a ball of fire up from his hand and met it as it fell back to him with a ball of water between to erupt further mist.
Next, Logan gripped the invisible mask across his face and activated its secondary effect. Logan’s body morphed and shifted, changing his looks and dropping a whole foot and a half in height, the change in stature meant to throw off Ahren who was more than likely more used to fighting the taller people of this world.
While Ahren could see through the mist easier, due to sharing the vaskt eyes skill, it was still a bit blurry. The Meridiancer was also unaware of the mask, as it was invisible. The change in height could have been seen as an illusion made up from the fog, it would be a toss-up of trusting your eyes or distrusting the spells.
Ahren made a wide swing overhead that led to a spinning kick in the air. Logan easily dodged the jab, knelt, and grappled onto Ahren’s leg. With a massive slam, Logan planted Ahren into the stone floor, cracking the protected arena a little.
Logan flourished his coat again, commanding another ten daggers to hail onto the prone opponent alongside a salvo of icicles.
A massive wave of energy and wind erupted from the final attack, removing most of the mist and debris from the battlefield. The two combatants were revealed, Ahren impaled with several daggers and ice, Logan hunched over on Ahren’s fist that landed solidly into the Spellthief’s stomach.
Ahren smirked, “You win”, before collapsing his arms onto the floor, panting heavily.
Chapter 193 - Ahren XP [https://i.postimg.cc/8kwGmRkx/Chapter-193-Ahren-XP.png]
Logan fell with the arm, his lower body’s control cut off from the top. “You all out of gas?” Logan asked, panting the same.
Ahren turned a wrinkly face to Logan, “Yeah, I was only able to cut off half your meridians with that attack, and it was the wrong half. Damn your mist”, he replied before realising how short Logan had become, “You did change height!”
Logan weakly touched his mask, returning his size to normal, “That I did. A secret I’ve been keeping close.”
“That was dirty. Grand, lad.”
“I suppose I coulda blasted you again with my spells, if you’re out of juice this was my win. But, if you had allies, I was toast.”
“Yes and no. I was dead if you didn’t hold back”, Ahren laughed.
“It was a war and a half trying to avoid you.”
“The same war was fought trying to get to ya!”
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