Chapter 410 - Amidst the Valencian Wind III

A cylindrical, roofless shield formed around the arena as Durham and Virillius each took their places fifteen paces from the center. The men raised their weapons as they reached the standard positions, and by assuming their stances, beckoned silence from the training grounds’ observers. Every maid, butler, foreigner, and soldier dropped what they were doing to focus on the spar.

It wasn’t because it was a rare event. In fact, duels between Virillius and Durham were common in spite of the former duke’s propensity to train by his lonesome. There was one a month on average, and it drew a crowd each time. Some of the observers used the high-level fights to further their own prowess, making note of actions and reactions as sources of inspiration. But for most, it was simply a source of entertainment.

The people loved to speculate on the pair’s relative strength and the direction it trended, even with a paltry understanding of the various techniques and their implications. In their defence, the battles were almost impossible for the layman to interpret. They couldn’t be blamed for being unable to follow Durham’s movements when he kicked off the ground with enough force to leave a crater.

For most of the audience, he may as well have disappeared. The only evidence of his dash was the deafening crack that followed. The impact could hardly be interpreted as the sound of wood on wood. It was far too loud, ringing closer to the destruction of a castle’s gate than a clash of non-lethal weapons.

And yet, Virillius stood his ground. He simply lifted his spear to catch Durham’s attack before returning a swift counter that claimed the horse-man’s shoulder.

The strike was true. Though unpowered by anything but brute strength, it glided through Durham’s flesh and bone with little to no resistance. Still, the centaurian warrior continued his assault. He lowered his stance and immediately transitioned into a horizontal swipe of the spear. It was backed by all the power that his torso could muster and further sped up with a twist of the hips.

For all his efforts, he received a kick to the gut. Virillius’ foot was driven through his stomach and into his ribcage before his spear even came close to proving itself a threat.

Durham tumbled through the air. His organs spilled all over the battlegrounds as he spiraled out of control, but completely unconcerned, he grew them back, flapped his wings, and bore down on his master like a rabid dog. He became a blur of blades, throwing out a series of strikes each wilder and more bestial than the last.

Virillius, on the other hand, stayed calm as ever as he denied the assault that flew his way. The overhead swing was countered with a kick to the shins, the sideways swing with a prod to the chest, and the spin kick with an overhead smash. Every attack dug deep into Durham’s flesh, more ripping and tearing than cutting.

It was Durham’s own erratic movements that wrought the extra damage.

But to the centaur, it was all irrelevant. His flesh regrew as quickly as Virillius spirited it away.

The exchange lasted for a full fifteen strikes before Durham finally saw an opening. Slamming his foot into the ground, he obliterated his master’s footing. Virillius was forced to deploy his wings to maintain his balance. It was a brief moment, but the window between the ground’s destruction and the king’s first flap allowed him to land a blow on target.

His spearhead crossed Virillius’ chest and left a bright red gash.

It was a clear mark of success.

But so too did it crown his failure.

Virillius’ own spear raked its way across Durham’s neck and nearly lopped his head clean off his body. It wasn’t fatal—the cut was clean enough to have healed by the time the blade passed all the way through—but it was a cold bucket to the face. A reminder that getting too cocky could easily spell his end.

A sane man would have backed away to reconsider his approach, but Durham knew not the meaning of fear. Even with the threat to his life, he only stepped forward, allowing Virillius’ follow-up to rip through his ribs and shred his guts.

He grabbed the weapon before it could leave his body, and with his spear in a reverse grip, traded the king’s blow for one of his own. Blood poured from both their chests. And yet, they remained unflinching.

Another brutal exchange followed right after. A leg for a stomach. An arm for a lung. An antler for a liver. They went back and forth, laying down heavy strikes one after another as they left their surroundings deformed.

Durham thrived in the moment. He laughed at every trade, converting his pain to pure joy. But eventually, he had no choice but to back away. It wasn’t just because Virillius had punched him so hard that his lower body had ceased to exist, but because he was the only one at risk.

In such close quarters, he was no match for his king and master. Each of Virillius’ strikes, be they with his fists, his legs, his antlers, or his spear, had whispered death straight into his ears. But Durham could speak no such threat.

When given a chance to disengage, he took it without complaint. Putting a stop to his body mid-dodge, he allowed himself to be made a projectile so he could reconstruct his bottom half midflight. With man and horse as one again, he took to the air and stretched his wings.

His feathers started to come alight as he reached his full, fifteen meter wingspan. One by one, ten by ten, they started to glow with the radiant red light that had so often guided him to victory. It was closer to an enhancement than an attack. The raw arcane power flooded his muscles and seeped into his organs. Had he been anyone else, he surely would have found himself hampered by the ridiculous technique.

But thanks to his unique constitution, Durham was perfectly fine, completely unbothered and without any damage to his name. After all, though he wasn’t a mage, though he held only a juvenile understanding of the mystic arts, his flesh was made of nothing but circuits.

He was a mana vein, a living magic circuit in the shape of a half-human horse.

The next time he charged, it was as a bolt of lightning. He zigged and zagged through the air, leaving a bright red streak in his wake as land and sky were made as one.

The attack that followed relied as much on his brute strength as it did his careful technique.

His swing was backed by enough force to shake the castle. The building rumbled and groaned, completely disrupted in spite of the barriers meant to part the battle from its audience. It almost looked like a flaw in the shield’s design, but it simply couldn’t be helped. Durham had displaced the shield and crashed it into the ground beneath it.

All because he missed his target.

Virillius sidestepped the attack and delivered a counter, just as he had before Durham had ramped up his speed. Though he hadn’t cast any spells or activated any skills, he had no trouble keeping up. The power behind his blow increased proportionally. It was a simple strike to the side of Durham’s body, but it was delivered with such force that it blew his body apart. His front right leg came out the back left half of his frame along with a fountain of lifeblood. The vital essence sprayed so far that it looked like it hit the clouds. Without the barrier around the practice grounds, the whole building would surely have been covered in red splatter.

Just like before, Durham grabbed the king’s spear in hopes of trading blows, but the trick was denied by the increase in Virillius’ power. He tore the weapon from the horse’s body with his arm still attached, literally twisting the flesh out from its socket before linking the motion into another attack.

Durham caught it with the butt of his spear just in the nick of time. He immediately twisted his freshly recovered body into a spinning blow to catch the resulting opening, but Virillius’ technique was far superior. With a light spin of the fingers and a flick of the wrist, the moose twisted his spear back into position and blocked the attack with ease.

Their weapons were not durable enough to withstand the clash. The metallic cores within the otherwise wooden blades shook with such force that they burst apart. Shrapnel flew in all directions. Superheated bits of metal and wood dug through their respective pelts. Still, they remained unflinching.

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His body glowing even brighter, Durham threw a wave of punches that shook the air. A booming roar followed each blow, whether it was caught or parried. The flurry culminated in an uppercut accompanied by an arcane blast, but a twist of the head made the blow go wide. The crimson mana emitted from his fist shot into the heavens and blew the clouds apart.

All of a sudden, the precipitation came to an end. The black carpet above the castle was replaced with a perfect view of a clear blue sky.

Its title as the flashiest projectile, however, lasted for only a moment. Durham claimed it for himself as he ate a counter, a punch to the chest that sent him crashing into the barrier around the practice grounds again. His ribs exploded all over, leaving another bright red stain across the magical shield.

Virillius couldn't be bothered to pursue. He took a moment to adjust his bloodied shirt instead, pulling back the sleeves and undoing the buttons closest to his neck.

It was a clear taunt, even more obvious than the cold gaze he fired in his opponent’s direction. And for good reason.

He was playing his usual game, refusing to put in any more effort than his opponent could draw out.

But as far as Durham was concerned, it served as permission to give it his all. Even if they were in front of their soon-to-be opponents, his master was beckoning him to show his hand and put on a show that was worth his title.

So he grew his glow.

He channeled enough energy to fuel a thousand megatons worth of artillery.

Piercing light radiated from his form, practically blinding all who dared to look upon it.

The practice grounds themselves groaned to life in response to the swirling mana; three extra barriers were placed around them, with a fourth taking shape as his charge reached completion.

The sheer amount of energy was enough to distort the world around him, to twist it out of shape and manifest a few glimpses of the mountainous realm that was his inner mindscape.

And it was all unleashed at once as he propelled himself across the arena.

There was almost no time between his kick off and the moment of impact. For a moment, even Virillius struggled to follow his movements exactly.

He was faster than sound, faster than lightning, faster than even the sun herself as she swam her way through the sea of stars.

Still, the movement was perfectly controlled. He ran a full circle around the ring and grabbed a spare spear off the shelf before approaching his master head-on. There was no point exploiting a blind spot. He knew that Virillius could perfectly predict his motion, regardless of how he tried to vary his final angle of attack.

The accompanying strike was sweet and simple, but technically sound. He slammed his foot into the ground and twisted all of the power that had accompanied his speed into a passing strike that his body could hardly withstand.

His shoulders were dislocated mid-swing. His flesh was torn and rebuilt as he became more weapon than man. His body was nothing but a vessel for the most powerful attack that his body could manage.

A vessel that was thoroughly destroyed by the resulting counter.

His blade never reached Virillius.

A whip made of blood appeared out of thin air as soon as he locked his trajectory. It was maybe a tenth of his speed. But he was unable to avoid it. He was too fast. His momentum made it impossible to dodge. He could only watch as it moved in slow motion and left a line that cut from his shoulder to his waist.

Durham didn’t bother defending.

There was no point. His master’s blades could cut through any mortal material; no matter the enhancements applied, his spear would serve no different than a sheet of paper.

And that was why he had put every bit of his focus into ensuring a trade of blows. He carefully arced his blade so it would continue along its way even after his flesh was parted. He spun it just enough that it would tear through his master’s flesh and leave a messy wound. He pushed down as hard as he could, so that its trajectory would stay true. But again, the whip put all of his preparation to waste. His upper half, in the meanwhile, was granted the downwards momentum that he had so desperately desired.

His weapon skimmed right past a lifted front leg, drawing only the faintest trickle of blood as it buried itself in what became a fresh crater.

It was then that his technique took hold.

His body exploded. All of the magic he stored was released in the blink of an eye, flooding his surroundings with a purifying light that wiped every bit of his flesh off the face of the earth. The sky turned red. A pillar of raw energy extended ten kilometers beneath the surface and another hundred into the sky.

Everything shook and rattled.

And yet, his master was unflinching.

Virillius simply stood where he was with his spear held in one of the standard stances.

It was not because he was immune. Far from it.

Durham’s magical infusion was no ars magna. Its effects would not be voided by the moose’s ultimate ability. After all, it was a release of pure energy that relied almost entirely on the resulting expansion and dispersal of his super concentrated magic, a special technique that he had crafted for the sole purpose of killing the rulebender known as Virillius Augustus.

But while it sufficed in theory, especially in a space so perfectly confined, Virillius emerged missing only his clothing.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been struck. The attack scorched his fur and ate his skin, but the rest of his flesh was largely unharmed. It simply didn’t do enough damage to outpace his natural healing.

Durham quickly put himself back together from just a few surviving scraps of brain. He regrew his body and pushed himself off the ground, but he felt a blade against the back of his neck before his limbs recovered.

The duel was over.

Just as usual, he had been played like a child.

“I expect most of our fighters to reach Durham’s level by the time of the tournament.” Though stark naked, Virillius turned to the audience with his expression unchanged. There wasn’t a lick of sweat on his body; his breath was steady, and his heart was calm. It didn’t look like he had exerted even the slightest bit of effort. “Your challenge has lit a great fire in this nation’s heart. I hope you will meet our expectations.”

“We shall endeavour,” said Arciel.

“Good,” said Virillius. “Now if you will excuse me, I must arrange for a change of clothes.”

The king walked through the parting crowd. It was only in that act that the Cadrian forces remained organised, for they had already descended into a bout of madness. Some sang the king a whole song’s worth of praise, while others did the same for his defeated opponent. They threw their arms around Durham’s shoulders and smacked him on the back. It was almost difficult to believe that he hadn’t emerged victorious.

Allegra gathered up the Vel’khanese in the meantime and led them indoors. She created a soundproof barrier several layers thick once they were in the hall, before crossing her arms and beginning to speak.

“Do you see now? This is what I meant when I said that besting Cadria will prove next to impossible. I admit, Durham is a cut above most of the others, but it’s not as if they’re all that much weaker.”

“I cannot imagine myself besting Durham, regardless of the extent of my growth,” said Arciel.

“He’s strong,” agreed Lana.

“It’ll be fine,” said Claire. “Probably.”

“I would rather you refrained from voicing your uncertainties. They serve little purpose but to exacerbate my own,” said Arciel.

“Agreed,” said Lana.

“You can still back out,” said Allegra. “But this will likely be your last chance. It’ll be much harder for us to come up with a good enough excuse if you wait for any longer.”

“You arranged for the show,” said Claire.

“I felt like I needed to prove my point,” said Allegra.

Arciel nodded. “I understand. But I shan’t submit. I have already chosen my path, and I shall see it through to the end.”

“I guess I’ll have to help you then,” said Allegra, with a smile. “I’ll put together a training regimen that’s much more sane than whatever Claire has in mind.”

“My regimen was perfectly sane,” said Claire. “And probably less strict.”

“We are in no position to refuse, and I am willing to press forward with any necessary preparations,” said Arciel.

“Me too,” said Lana.

“Naturally,” said Claire. “But I won’t be doing what Allegra says.”

The squid smiled wryly. “And Chloe?”

“H-huh?” The maid blinked. “S-sorry, what were you saying? I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“I cannot fault you. It was an intimidating display,” said Arciel.

“It’s not that.”

“What is it then?”

Chloe laughed a bit as she cast her eyes in Claire’s direction.

“What?”

“I think I want your dad to rail me.”

A loud bang resounded through the building.

It was only much later in the day, when the maids passed through the hall, that they would discover an inexplicable, helmet-shaped hole marring one of the beautiful stone walls.