Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 113. Wavering Resolve.
“If I happen to kill you, it’s your own fault,” Raphael said half-jokingly, resolving himself to only attack with true intent to kill. It was still a bit hard for him to do, but it certainly became easier once he saw the smirk on Laien’s face which emerged in response to his words.
“Making sure to think, eh?” he murmured, at the same time feeling surprised that he was actually beginning to feel amused instead of being frustrated. “Since it’s still a warm-up for my sake, I’ve got it easier… yeah, let’s try and do that,” he decided and wrapped both Qi and spiritual energy around his black-gold spear, then attacked Laien without any further hesitation.
“Swing?” Laien raised an eyebrow and prepared to defend, though he no longer forced himself to stay in the roughly same spot. Since he was holding back, it would be hard to defend against swings of Raphael’s spear without moving out of the way while deflecting the attacks with his Water Flow Spear Art; he wanted to let Raphael get into a proper rhythm before starting the fight for real, but he didn’t want to turn into a punching bag in the meanwhile.
As he stepped back and to the side, he raised his spear to grab Raphael’s attack into the flow of water, all the while making sure to properly apply his new insights into the Profound Mystery of the Shifting Currents into his spear art. Objectively speaking, he would have gained an understanding of this Mystery fairly soon even without the aid of that advanced Ancient Magic tome; his spear arts had been evolving in this direction for quite a while, after all. Now that he had made a huge leap ahead thanks to that tome though, his spear arts evolved even further and their defensive and offensive prowess increased by a level or two.
Raphael’s control over his energy was spectacular and he was indeed strong… but the difference in their raw skill with the spear was just too big for it to be easily overcome.
Or, so it was that Laien thought when his instinct warned that him something dangerous was about to happen as he guarded against Raphael’s swing. And truly, the moment their weapons clashed, most of the light engulfing Raphael’s spear scattered into streaks of light which spread all around at a terrifying speed, then with no time delay at all, reflected themselves from various points in the air straight at him, attacking from all directions!
Even though Laien recognized what was going on early enough, it still was hard for him to react in time. Thankfully, Raphael had shifted from using the speed-oriented Positive Energy to the sturdy and relatively heavier Negative Energy, what brought him the precious split-seconds. By using a crude method of creating a layer of water all around himself, with the exception of the front, Laien defended from the scattered attack of Raphael’s. However, he wasn’t pleased with the results at all.
The second swing was already coming and like before, he defended against it and as expected, was met with the light scattering and assaulting him from behind and from the side once again. Those attacks didn’t perhaps carry as much strength, but that’s to Raphael’s skill and insights, they were still enough to wound a martial master of the first rank if he didn’t defend properly. Thus, Laien had no choice but to once again use a layer of water to defend while looking both annoyed and amused.
“His attacks are just like Jasmine’s. They don’t aim to directly break opponent’s defense, but instead, they make sure to tire him out. If we continue to exchange blows like that without any changes, then in a few hundred blows it will be me who runs out of strength first,” Laien recognized with a smile as he blocked the third swing of Raphael’s and defended from the scattered light afterwards. Compared to when Raphael had been attacking with those simple thrusts in the beginning, this situation was infinitely more favorable to him. Although Raphael couldn’t hope to overcome him in pure Spear Arts, he was mostly making up for it with his unusual attacks. Mostly, because that was only for as long as he only defended, didn’t counterattack, and didn’t make use of all his insights to fight, but it was still a huge improvement.
Just as Laien was praising Raphael in his thoughts, perhaps a bit arrogantly taking on a teacher-like attitude with him, he was met with a nasty surprise. At the fifth attack, the pattern changed suddenly and without any warning; the light that would scatter and then attack at random did something else. It actually converged back into one point after leaving Raphael’s spear and shot a concentrated ray of light, aiming straight at the middle of his back! Moreover, it somehow got even faster than it was before!
“Did he clad the light mixed with the Positive Energy in a layer of Negative Energy in order to make my Mist useless while maintaining most of the speed and penetrative power?” The thought crossed Laien’s mind as he concentrated spiritual energy and Qi on his back in order to defend. However, he simply didn’t have enough time to accumulate enough strength to defend fully; the ray of light broke through the hastily-created defensive barrier and struck his back, burning his shirt and leaving a ten-centimeters wide bloody mark on top of his spine. He managed to avoid a heavy injury, but his skin and muscles had still been almost entirely burned through!
“I really need to stop holding back like an idiot, I’m going to die,” Laien reprimanded himself, all the while using his water element to heal the wound on his back. Given his proficiency in self-healing, before the next attack from Raphael arrived, he had already regenerated the skin and muscles entirely. “Still, what’s this bad feeling I’m getting…?” he wondered, unable to quite grasp what was going on. There was something that wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what it was.
“Took me some time, but here we go,” Raphael smiled as he struck at Laien with a swing of his spear for the sixth time. He scattered his Qi and spiritual energy once again… but this time, he made use of what he had been preparing for since the very beginning of those six exchanges. “Cage of Light,” he mused, taking direct control over all the remnant light-element energy that was freely floating around him and Laien, all of which he had been releasing in his attacks.
Almost instantly, sixteen points where the light converged appeared in the air all around Laien, each and every one of them emanating auras of power far exceeding the strength of the streaks of light of the first Cage of Light Raphael had used. The sensation of danger caused Laien to shiver; this kind of an attack was enough to murder a decently strong martial master of the fourth rank!
“Silent Casting, I wonder if you ever heard of it?” Raphael smiled and released the fully-chanted magic, joined with the corresponding marital technique, Cage of Light. He jumped back as the sixteen rays of light shot straight at Laien, coming from all directions and moving at a speed that made it an impossible task to dodge for someone who wasn’t in the Realm of Heroes.
“What’s a chant, to begin with? It’s only a way to stir magic and mold it according to the process. As long as you understand how the process of the chant works, then with some effort, you can reproduce it without chanting at all,” Raphael thought contentedly, though if any spiritual practitioner heard him say those words aloud, he would have thought Raphael was crazy. Using own skill to reproduce the entire chain effect that a chant brought to magic? That kind of a skill wasn’t even in the realm of legends; it was unheard of! It was no wonder that even Laien had been caught entirely off-guard by it!
Still, to be completely honest, Raphael’s rate of success with Silent Casting was only around thirty percent. Seven out of ten times, the magic would fail to activate and he would waste a fairly big amount of energy. It was by no means a technique suitable to use in regular fights just yet… but Raphael judged that if he wanted to beat Laien, then he needed to bring out all the most powerful cards he had, and that was one of them! And this time around, the gamble certainly paid off spectacularly.
The sixteen rays of light moved so fast that if one blinked, he would miss the whole attack. They struck at Laien, bringing forth a huge explosion which pushed Raphael away by dozens of meters. Due to the impact, a great cloud of grey-black dust was thrown up into the air, quickly spreading over the distance of nearly three hundred meters in all directions before slowing down a little.
“Laien!” Arslan cried out. He couldn’t tell how strong exactly this attack by Raphael was, but he saw the destruction it caused. He knew that Laien wasn’t weak by any means, but he couldn’t help but feel extremely worried when something like that happened before his eyes.
It was the same for Mikaela, who however pursed his lips and kept looking anxiously without crying out. He had come to like Laien a lot, so he really hoped Raphael didn’t go overboard! Was it really worth fighting like that just for the sake of gaining some experience…? He couldn’t understand what Raphael and Laien were thinking.
“Fuck,” Jugal cursed quietly. He had half-expected it, but he didn’t think those two would be so crazy as to use lethal attacks in a mere spar. Laien was a water-element practitioner and so he could heal himself, but if he lost consciousness, then he could very well bleed to death from the wounds. He couldn’t allow one of those young masters to die in this manner, that was for sure!
“Don’t,” Yin extended his hand to the side and stopped Jugal from moving. “Just keep watching,” he said with an ever so slight smile on his face. Everyone was worried, but he was fairly relaxed. Raphael was strong, true… but Laien’s power went beyond that. There was no way he would have been done in by an attack like that; even without the spiritual bond, he wouldn’t have worried about him.
“Go and check on him,” Richt said angrily, seeing how Jugal stepped back and seemed to intend to listen to Yin. What was he doing, trusting some kid on such an important matter? Elder Samuel would skin them alive if one of those kids ended up crippled or dead under their watch!
“You are all underestimating Laien far too much,” Yin said with a smile, watching how the cloud of dust was quickly being scattered by the strong mountain winds. “Laien is strong. He has no weaknesses either; magic, physical strength, long-range attacks, mid-range and close-range attacks, melee, his skill with the spear, his impregnable defense, his suppressive attacks, his ability to heal himself… he excels at absolutely everything,” he explained with a certain sense of pride in his voice and with a clear smile on his face. Laien was strong; he was absolutely strong and he was still growing at an astonishing rate! That much was an undeniable truth.
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As far as Arslan calmed down rather quickly and Mikaela came to trust that Laien wouldn’t be done in by one powerful attack, the four men weren’t convinced by Yin’s words, which in their minds were quite overexaggerated. How was it possible for a kid to excel at all those aspects? Being decently strong at everything was possible, but being at the level where almost no one could match up to you in anything? That wasn’t at the level of a genius anymore; that would be a total freak; a monster!
“Did I get him?” Raphael more or less shared the thoughts of those four guards as he waited for the remnants of the cloud of dust to be blown away by the wind. He had used his strongest single-target attack and joined it with Silent Casting to catch Laien by surprise. By all means, he expected to have wounded Laien quite heavily, to see his bloodied figure in just two or three more seconds. However, when the dust settled, be it him or those four men, none of them could believe their own eyes.
“Ridiculous! He’s unharmed?!” Richt exclaimed in shock. This attack which Raphael had unleashed was fully capable of killing an average martial master of the fourth rank who didn’t specialize in defense! And yet, a twelve years old dual practitioner of the eighth rank, still in the mortal realm, defended from it entirely? It made so little sense that he was beginning to wonder whether he wasn’t dreaming; he even pinched himself to make sure that he was awake!
“Hah, now that’s interesting,” Jugal said with a grin. He didn’t expect this fight to be so engaging, but he was growing convinced that those two would show him something worth remembering! Just looking at Laien’s current figure was sending shivers down his spine, what was something he didn’t experience for a very, very long time.
Laien’s clothes were tattered and torn into pieces, hanging loosely over his body, but there was not one drop of blood nor one scar on his bare, almost pure white skin. Laien’s black hair had somehow changed to become silvery with only a few strands of black mixed in, not to mention his unusually pale, almost jade-like skin. Those further away couldn’t see well enough, but Raphael recognized that even Laien’s eyes had changed, his pupils now shining with a starry-sky-like mixture or black, silver and white colors. This change in appearance… it wasn’t just a visual difference. Laien’s whole body was emanating a boundless aura of power, causing Raphael to involuntarily take half a step back.
“Scary, scary,” Laien said with a laugh, standing in the field of rubble that was left all around him after Raphael’s magic hit. It was barely noticeable, but little bits of icy mist he had used to shave off the power of the sixteen rays of light were still lingering in the air around him. “If I didn’t have this Ice Body, then I would have received quite some damage despite defending with all I had,” he mused with an excited smile on his face. This attack from Raphael was quite something! Especially the way it was pulled off in complete secret until the last second was exceptional. Raphael certainly lived up to his reputation as the strongest young practitioner of the Ruishi Federation!
“I hope that wasn’t all you have,” Laien called out and swirled his spear playfully before assuming his usual, defensively-oriented stance. “I’m going to go at it for real now. If you feel like giving up, just say so at any time,” he declared with a smile and roused the full power of his insights, then used it to create streams of flowing water and ice around his spear and to infuse Qi and spiritual energy into the air in his vicinity. He closed his eyes once again and spread his aura; from this point onwards, each and every one of his moves would be made with the ultimate goal of killing Raphael.
So far, there had been only two duels in which he had gone all-out like that. The first time was against Anatis, and as it proved, their strength at the time was pretty much evenly matched. The second time was against Yin during the Grand Tournament. With some luck, he had managed to push Yin quite far, but in the end, he had lost. And right now was the third and perhaps the most extreme time; he was going all-out per Raphael’s request… but the difference in strength between them was apparent and the possibility of him actually killing Raphael was, by Laien’s estimation, around fifty percent!
And that was only because he assured Raphael that he would stop the moment he admitted defeat and because he wouldn’t follow-up with lethal attacks once he gained the sure advantage, like for example after piercing Raphael’s body with his spear. Had this been a ‘true’ life-or-death battle, then the probability of Raphael dying would be much closer to one hundred percent. Still… he wouldn’t hold back until he won, so he hoped that Raphael wouldn’t betray his expectations and wouldn’t allow himself to lose his life in this duel!
The sudden change in the air about Laien made Raphael swallow nervously. During the warm-up, it had only been a vague feeling which he couldn’t quite discern. It was as if he was looking at a sleeping beast, but wasn’t quite aware if that creature was truly dangerous. Now, however, he felt it clearly; fear! Laien’s killing intent was so powerful and filled with so much bloodlust that he couldn’t help but fear for his life. The flimsy ‘killing intent’ of those twin guards of Elder Sophie’s who they had faced in the morning wasn’t comparable at all! The difference was akin to facing a cutely-barking puppy and a fully-grown and well-trained guard dog; in simple words, it was an enormous difference.
“So that’s what it feels like to be scared of death,” Raphael forced out a smile and tightened the grip on his black-gold spear. Laien was right; without that warm-up, if he was faced with his killing intent from the very beginning, he would have lost his cool and failed to make good use of his abilities. Yet now, even though he was fearful and nervous, his mind was clear and as contradictory as it was, he felt calm. It was such a weird state of mind he was in that he almost failed to notice that the Tranquility within him experienced a change, evolving further as the second half of its foundation was completed thanks to his mental growth during this stand-off.
“Wow,” Raphael murmured happily, all the while making sure not to take his eyes off Laien. “It’s true that real experiences are priceless. With that, my control has improved once again… I wonder, will I be able to pull it off properly? I have a feeling that I will be overwhelmed by him in an instant if I don’t exceed my old limits,” he mused quietly. To make a comparison, the current him was at best comparable to a decently strong martial master of the fourth rank, while he had a feeling that Laien was fully capable of killing a person at that level in the matter of a few attacks.
As unpleasant as it was to accept, even though their talents weren’t far apart at all, to the point of making it hard to discern who had more innate potential, their experiences were far too different. At this moment, Laien was definitely way stronger than he was… however, that only served to reinforce Raphael’s resolve. He needed to face Laien in earnest today and fight him to the best of his ability, he needed to use this duel to draw out all the potential that laid dormant within him! That was the only way for him to avoid the fate of always remaining a step or two behind Laien and chasing his back for the rest of his life. He had made his resolve and wouldn’t shrink away from the danger in order to achieve his goal of becoming the strongest practitioner alive!
“Here I come,” Laien said with a confident laugh, though without any playfulness present in his expression. He kicked the ground and quickly closed the distance between himself and Raphael, who didn’t seem to want to keep distance either way. Melee it was then! “Rising Tide!” Laien called out within his mind and attacked with his spear, aiming for a prolonged exchange of blows with Raphael.
Thanks to his experiences in the past two and a half months, he had fully developed his own style, one that no longer based so heavily on what Master Shire had taught him. Forceful attacks, powerful blows, moving unpredictably just like a gust of wind? It was amazing in its own right, but it wasn’t for him. The Water Flow Spear Art; it was a set of defensively-oriented spear arts which aimed to entangle the opponent, break his tempo, expose a weakness and only then strike at it! Although there was no aspect of battle in which he could be called weak or lacking, if there was one thing he could be said to specialize in, then it was absolute defense!
His Water Flow Spear Art was incredibly hard to break through unless one had ridiculous offensive power like Yin. His magic provided potent omnidirectional defense, his Ice Body added yet another layer of powerful protection and to top it all off, he could even heal his own wounds in an instant! To defeat him without first exhausting all his Qi and spiritual energy would be impossible as long as no unbridgeable difference in strength existed between him and his opponent.
In other words, looking at it from a wider perspective, Laien’s skillset was the absolute worst matchup for anyone whose overall strength was below his! Against an offensive-oriented expert, there always existed a chance of winning by a stroke of good fortune; thanks to a lucky chance or a moment of carelessness on such an expert’s part. However, in Laien’s case, such outcome was infinitely less likely to occur.
And as a proof of that, just seconds after Laien’s assault began, Raphael was already pushed to the brink. He could tell that he was steadily losing ground in the exchange of blows with their spears, but the more pressing matter was Laien’s ice magic! Luckily, he had made major improvements in his Principle of Energy and his light was also very suitable to carrying heat, so he was barely able to ward off the ice mist which surrounded him the moment Laien approached. However, since his other insights were an entire class, or maybe even two classes lower than Laien’s, his energy consumption was alarmingly high. If he didn’t find a way to turn the tables, then be it by Laien’s spear or by exhaustion, he would soon be defeated without being able to lift a finger in resistance!
“I can’t even use magic, my spiritual energy is thoroughly suppressed,” he thought in alarm. He knew that he needed to ‘break through his limits’ if he wanted to have a chance to fight with Laien on equal grounds, and he indeed had made great improvements today, but it wasn’t nearly enough. “If I gamble and try, then I will leave myself open to an attack in case I fail. Knowing that, do I have the courage to attempt this technique regardless?” he asked himself anxiously. Even if he didn’t succeed today, he still had a bright future ahead of him; were his conviction and desire to grow strong powerful enough to make him take this risk, or would he give up and concede this duel?
“Careful,” Laien advised in his thoughts but didn’t go through the hassle of speaking the warning out loud. This duel was supposed to be as close to a real battle, after all. He wasn’t quite strong enough to straight-out break Raphael’s defense and freeze his body, but he had a great advantage of which he was planning to make a full use. Thus, since he was the one in control of their surroundings, he began freezing the ground by Raphael’s feet and obstructing his movements.
The results showed themselves instantly as Raphael staggered and failed to properly defend against one fluid push of his white spear. Forced to attempt to jump back, Raphael allowed a bloody scar to be ripped from his hip to the middle of his stomach. Overcome with the unnaturally strong sensation of pain, Raphael almost lost concentration. A mere cut shouldn’t have hurt that much, but the skin and muscles all around the wound had also turned black and died due to Laien’s freezing energy momentarily invading his body. Still, he was a light-element practitioner; he quickly began healing the wound so it wouldn’t obstruct him further on. Alas… he still was unable to choose whether he was planning to stake his life on one crazy attempt or if he was going to give up.
Truth to be told, he didn’t want to choose either of those two options. He was scared that a desperate attempt he could make would not only seriously endanger his life, but also fail due to being driven by fear and desperation instead of strength and resolution. As for conceding, he knew that he would feel terrible with himself if he gave up like that; he would also be unable to look Mikaela in the eye with pride, he would be unable to live like he used to. He was between a rock and a hard place… and both of those obstacles were pushing towards him mercilessly.