Inside the room, the wind was whirling with such force that it smashed the table behind Ren into tiny splinters, shredded the tablecloth, and sliced up the silverware alongside the food and drinks on them. It only took a few seconds for the air to be filled with water, as if a typhoon had just arrived from nowhere. Luckily for the onlookers, Ariana, Kitten, Sentios, and Rabout were prepared and warded off its area of effect so nobody else would be hurt by it.
"Not bad." Ren nodded, standing inside the storm, munching on the last cookie she could pick up before the rest disintegrated.
"Don't underestimate me!" Keina swung both of her arms in a vertical, slicing motion, sending two sharp and quick water blades toward Ren.
"Not sharp enough." she looked at it calmly, swiping her right hand diagonally, cutting the incoming attacks into two. "Try focusing your attacks on a sharp point. Water pressure works better that way. With enough force, you could easily cut through anything or puncture even the thickest defenses. My mother excels in that."
"Hmf!" Keina snorted, drawing a circle before her and creating a ring of water while she watched Ren's hand, which she used to deflect her attack. It was flickering with purple lightning. When the circle was completed, she just grabbed onto it, throwing it out with a shout. It whizzed past Ren, who tilted her head before it could slice into her. Still, the quickly spinning water chakram cut off a few strands of her hair.
Keina was not finished. As she stood still, she motioned with her hand, and her chakram-like weapon spun around, aiming at Ren's back. Ren was still in the middle of the movement to realign her head after dodging the first attack when the returning water weapon arrived. She simply raised her bare hand, grabbing it mid-air before it could land on her. She was watching Keina, not looking back at the chakram at all as she held it between her fingers, halting it completely, without any injury.
In response, Keina's hand sign changed, and the previously spinning, sharp weapon stopped struggling in Ren's grasp. She felt it changing, transforming in a blink of an eye. It was not a change just in shape as it flowed down, enveloping her hand, but it was also a change in its temperature. It only took a second to freeze over half of her arm, covering it in thick ice and disabling her from moving it.
"Oh my!" Ren exclaimed, surprised as she was honestly not expecting it. "You can manipulate the state of water? Can you produce all three versions of it?" She asked, and her excited, unflustered voice honestly shocked Keina. It was slowly starting to ring alarm bells inside her mind. "My mother can't do it! Neither can my disciple Yanda… True, he took a different route with his cultivation… So, anyway, you are good! Oh, this is awesome! We could develop some things together, you know!"
"You act like you know a lot about me and my abilities!" Keina looked on with a serious expression, focusing and holding Ren's arm in an icy prison, trying to further expand it and place her into an icy prison.
"I do." Ren nodded with a grin. "My mother has water affinity. My disciple has one. Also, I was born with twin affinities, so I do too. Of course, it is nothing compared to yours! I never developed it too much; I use it to control my blood flow for gaining an even better, explosive strength and create thundering storms for my dominant affinity." She snapped her free fingers on her other hand. Purple lightning bolts cracked forward, aiming at Keina, using the water in the air to split into multiple tiny threads and reach her from dozens of angels.
"You know nothing!" Keina cried out, stomping on the ground. A tall water curtain rose up, protecting her, diverting the incoming bolts into the ground. It was enveloping her in a bubble, shielding Keina from any damage. "Now I have a good feeling about you! You are at the same level as me!" She said with more confidence, feeling the power behind her previous attack. "I don't know why you are so confident! Is it a front? Trying to not scare your people here?" She asked, hiding inside her water bubble so no attacks of Ren's could reach her. By then, the ice had already spread forward, covering half of Ren's chest, crawling upwards on her neck and downwards on her thighs.
"Ahaha, sure, sure~" Ren chuckled in response, "I'm just enjoying the cold! It's a funny feeling when it gets between your legs!"
Her response made not just Keina's eyebrows tremble a little but many other spectators while Rabout stood beside Ariana, asking in a low voice.
"Was she always like this? Is it an inherited condition? Maybe our genes degraded that much throughout the centuries?"
"It's nothing like that. She was always like this." Ariana replied, shaking her head with an honest look. "Especially with Uncle Leinor…" She added with a sad and pained voice, "I think Master misses the playful fights with him… they always used to go back and forth like this when sparring…."
"Oh… I see." Rabout nodded with understanding.
"What else?" came the sudden question from between Ren's smiling lips, but Keina gave no answer, still trying to freeze her over. "This is it?" She tilted her head, watching Keina. She was fully concentrating on her spell to speed up the spreading of the ice on Ren's body. "Haahh… You made some great things by developing your affinity this way! I applaud your imagination and turning your water spells essentially into three kinds of affinity… but they are not too deep." She sighed, speaking like an old teacher. "This is only a surface-level achievement. Someone with a natural-born ice affinity would laugh at you! They wouldn't even feel its coldness! You are as far away from sub-zero temperatures as Rudrick was from being a caring and passionate husband!" Ren said, looking deep into Keina's eyes while speaking.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Shut up!" Keina screamed back at her, her eyes glowing like torches, trying to influence Ren's mind, invading it to seal her mouth shut. But just as she did, Ren's irises lit up, brighter than a lighthouse, essentially blinding Keina for a moment. "Aaaaah?!" She screamed, grabbing onto her own face with one hand as blood flowed from her eyes, making her vision extremely fuzzy.
"You are talented, Keina, but your thoughts are distracted by unnecessary things." Ren continued, flexing her frozen arm. Everyone could hear the ice shattering as it exploded into millions of little pieces, sparkling like diamonds as the air was filled with purple electricity coming from Ren's body.
"...!" Keina could only gasp and then bite into her own lips until blood flowed, trying to regain control, but it was too late. Just as she raised her hand again, Ren was already before her 'bubble' popping her water shield like a balloon. What was even more shocking for Keina was that Ren only did this with her index finger extended forward, pointing directly at her as she fell to her knees, gasping for air. She felt her head split open, throbbing like crazy. Blood was still streaming down her face, from her eyes, as her brain swelled up inside her skull from the backlash of trying to influence Ren's mind.
"I'm ready anytime to spar with you. I can instruct you through those matches. Come and challenge me whenever you see fit; I won't say no." Ren said with a calm voice, lowering her pointing hand as the raging storm inside the room slowly subsided.
In the end, everyone could see and hear blood slowly dripping onto the damaged floor tiles from between Keina's fingers, which were holding her own head. Keina's body was shaking now, not because of anger or frustration but because of embarrassment; she felt like it wanted to burst out from inside. When Ren destroyed her defenses, she felt something unbelievable at the last moment. The aura that hit her like a blast of wind was frightening. Something that she did not feel before, way stronger than anything Rudrick ever could produce. She could not tell her concrete strength, but one thing was sure; now, she really believed that she had killed him by herself.
"It is… my loss…" Keina said in the end, quietly and with a weak voice, lowering her hand that covered her face. She was blinking out the bloody droplets from her eyes, trying to see through Ren.
"My Liege!" Nuray shouted, rushing forward, holding onto her body to help her up. Even though she said nothing to Ren, her eyes alone could swallow her.
"She is fine, don't worry." Ren chuckled, holding her hand behind her back.
"We are leaving," Keina murmured in the end, looking into Ren's eyes one last time before finally turning around and walking towards the door. At first, she was a bit wobbly, but she quickly found her footing with Nuray's help. No matter how hard her guard captain wanted to say something, seeing her Lord being defeated in front of so many pairs of eyes and those same pupils watching them now leave like beaten dogs, made her tremble from anger. Without any chance to let it out, which made it even worse.
"Ariana!" Ren called out, and her disciple immediately stepped forward, knowing what she wanted.
"I'll escort you out." she hurried past Keina, opening the door for her, and she just glanced at her. Keina was watching the maid outfit she wore, thinking how many hidden experts Ren may have at her side. Now she was sure she would have difficulty fighting against one of her maids, losing all of her previous confidence in just one fight. All of her positive feelings were now replaced with doubts and questions.
When they were finally back in their carriage, heading back to their Spire, Keina was silent the whole way, only talking to Nuray after they stepped through their courtyard's gate.
"Do not go and provoke them," she said with a weak, powerless voice, walking past her guard captain after she got off the carriage. "I wouldn't be able to save you in time."
"My liege…" Nuray gasped, watching her back but could not say anything or even follow her, feeling lost and confused at what had just happened in those few hours since sunset.
…
….
…..
"What is it?" echoed a cold voice between metallic walls, bouncing off them loudly. The room itself was like that of a butcher's, splattered with blood stains or who knows what else, while long chains were hanging down from the ceiling, holding pieces of human bodies. They were different sexes, and from every age group, all carved up differently. They were gutted like pigs or "just" skinned and dismembered. One man was standing in the middle, in front of a giant table where a white-haired man's corpse was laid out. It was already skinned, and parts of his organs were picked out, sorted, and put into labeled jars. They were sitting at the side while the owner of the voice was inspecting a plucked-out, violet eyeball with its intact nerve endings. He was holding it, covered by his aura. His fingers were bloody, and he wore a bloodstained, white outfit. His silver hair was long but tied up behind the back of his head and his purple eyes were focused on the eyeball he was holding towards the light.
"Your Lordship… The Spire of Rudrick has activated tonight. It means someone came and took control of it." a male voice explained, filled with deep respect, standing further away with a bowed head, only watching the legs of his Lord, not daring to raise his head further up.
"Hmm… So there are living descendants left of him? Probably some mutts. All of the pure ones are dead. If the one who inherited his Spire is a half-breed, this is a complete disgrace!" He sighed, placing the eyeball into a see-through container filled with some kind of liquid, preserving it in a perfect condition. "Go, send out our men and find out everything for me by tomorrow! We can't let the bloodline be muddled up anymore by some degenerate gene sequences wriggling their way into it!"
"Yes, Your Lordship!" he bowed even deeper, backing out, not daring to turn his back on him until he left the room.
"Mhmm… there are too many defects nowadays!" he stretched, shaking off the blood from her hand with a smile. "It is time to make some changes in the family structure. We veered off the right path!" he sighed, watching the crest on the opposite wall drawn upon it by blood. It depicted an eye stabbed through a sword vertically. "Don't worry, Ancestor. I'll drive us back onto the correct path!" he laughed, clearly in an excellent mood.