*WHAM!*
Sorin slumped after slamming into the wall sending his swords falling from his hands to the floor.
It had been years since he had been worked over this hard by someone, but it was what he was after. He looked back up as his body rapidly regenerated allowing him to regain his ability to move again.
He wiped the blood from his lips on his torn shirt then picked up his blades to begin again. The trainers flashed in different directions to converge on Sorin with their weapons. Sorin sensing their approach through disruption of the aether was reacting automatically. He had been working to train his body to react on instinct and have his techniques become habit. He moved fluidly blocking each of the strikes and retaliating seeing the techniques they used to smash him last time coming and evading them.
He had gotten extremely rusty in his martial techniques due to inability to train properly and his use of aether to destroy his enemies. He was paying for it now.
"Halt! "Rotate!" Came the commands from the Aegis weapons master Reeger who was closely monitoring the sparing taking place. Sorin had been going for hours woth the different trainers slowly getting stronger and stronger. He was up against around Tier 13 or 14 now. Instead of the three from before, two men started walking toward the ring when another voice stopped then.
"Stop. Everyone but Sorin and weapon master Reeger leave." A large man with dark hair and blue eyes wearing extremely ornate training clothes stepped out with a sword and shield of his own. The man in question was Duke Phorcys.
- Phorcys -
As soon as the door shut, he spoke.
"We are going to have a conversation Sorin Ekart. You have proved beneficial to my house as well as a pain in the ass. Prepare yourself."
The duke attacked as Sorin, brought up his defenses hard knowing the duke was a few tiers above him. It wasnt enough as he found himself rocketing across the arena and slamming again into the wall.
"Then there's this guy...." He heard the man mutter getting up as his body once more regenerated quickly. He looked up at the duke who was just standing there.
Sorin moved using the full strength of his tier 16 body. The duke casually raised his shield and paried the strike and deflected the second sword with his own before planting his foot in the center of Sorin's chest and pushing with the force of bullet train. Sorin let out a whoosh of air and he was launched skipping across the ground before hitting the same spot on the wall he had earlier.
"I'm disappointed. My daughter speaks so highly of your skill and power that I expected so much more from you. Belloraphon gave me pause with his physcial strength, but it seems tricks are all you have you have." Phorcys said slowly advancing to the recovering Sorin.
Sorin was reeling from how quickly things had changed.
"Your daughter and I have an arrangement. I helped her and she helps me get home." Sorin rasped getting back to his feet.
"Ha! Do you really think we are beholden to a slave? You are far too arrogant. You were condemned to slavery by Prince Amaru himself and no amount of orders from us could do anything about it. So here is what is going to happen..." the duke said as he vanished appearing in front of Sorin again slamming his sword into his stomach.
"Nothing to say?" The duke said looking down at the pitiful little man.
Sorin looked up and with the most sinister smile Duke Phorcys had ever seen on anyone he spoke.
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"My turn." Sorin said as aether erupted from him. Air slashed out causing the duke to shield himself with an aether barrier, but was still blasted back pulling his sword from Sorin's stomach.
Sorin rose to his feet as if completely unharmed and refreshed. His liquid armor pooled over his body and his blades melted where they had fallen and flowed back into him.
"I am not beholden to you Phorcys. I have no agreement with you and in this world....might makes right so let's see how strong you really are."
Warning!
You are in the presence of a Sovereign. Any user under their Tier will have their path suppressed. All aether effects will be diminished.
Duke Phorcys' eyes went wide as pieces of metal floated off Sorin and formed into thousands of small needles, only to be joined by tiny purple motes of fire.
Before he could even react, the temperature in the chamber began to plummet. Phorcys made to take a step to crush Sorin, but immediately was stopped as his feet were locked in place by the earth which shouldn't be possible for his tier.
He looked back at Sorin who now was pulling water from the center pond for water aether users and formed it into a chakram like disc that swirled around him. It was moving so fast it stopped rippling.
Sorin moved this time. He took a half step then leapt toward Duke Phorcys. Which his significantly higher tier he saw the whole move and was rather impressed. Sorin swung his blades at the duke who brought up his shield, only for the man's armor to fire spikes from itself which he also blocked. Then to make matters worse, Sorin fired the thousands of needles at the duke. He was able to dodge and block them....or he thought. As soon as they began hitting his shield and armor they melted together into bigger spikes that he barely paid attention to as he darted toward Sorin.
This time Duke Phorcys fired a black and green fire at Sorin who smirked as he sank into the ground. Phorcys didn't hesitate, he stomped down causing a massive shockwave that radiated out in all directions only to slow slightly in one direction as he figured was the effect of the sovereign status.
Sorin shot out of the ground, bloody and certainly in massive amounts of pain, but still focused. His entire body flashed and a massive crack sounded in the arena as a huge continuous bolt of lightning shot out. The duke, confident in his high speed and mental agility, went to dodge. To his suprise, the lightning arched to the large spikes of metal still on him.
The effect was instant. Phorcys couldn't breath, his heart stuttered, muscles locked up, he could smell burning, his armor, began to melt as the energy raged through him and his armor causing even more burning and to his shock, the lightning didn't stop it was a continuous arch or power coming from the man that he was beginning to grow concerned about.
Then when that was bad enough they orbs of purple fire that he had given no thought to struck.
It wasn't the burning that worried him, but the explosions as they got in close proximity. Each ball hit and tried to take a chunk out of him. His armor was blasted apart and his flesh began to show signs of damage which had not happened in more than a hundred years. Phorcys launched himself forward grabbing the annoying pest by the throat and at the same time he felt a searing pain as a frozen charged blade was slammed into his gut and began pulling massive amounts of aether out of him. He activated another skill, Gorgonian perseverance. His body unlocked and all effects let go of him including pain. His core and channels threatening to collapse from the damage, but they held and he got what he needed.
As a reaction, he threw the man into the wall using much of his strength, but the damage was done. He glanced inward looking at his core and channels seeing they had taken on a dark and appearance that was spreading to all his aether channels trying to mitigate the damage. In the short time that he did look at his system, Sorin Ekart struck again, but the duke was done.
With another flex of his he used a skill, watching closely what his system was doing, Weight of your transgressions. Sorin was the only one to injur him and did so fairly badly so the effect was focused on him and amplified. Sorin was slammed into the ground as if gravity had been amplified many times over. As he was on the ground struggling to get to his feet, the duke snapped his fingers causing Reeger to come forward with a collar and snapped it around Sorin's neck.
"Take him to the cells. I'll deal with the rest of this later." He commanded as his skill was released allowing the pain and damage to flood back to the forefront of his mind.
The Duke looked back at Sorin in disbelief at the damage done by someone so much lower in tier than himself and got an extremely bad feeling for some reason as he saw the man smiled at him. Fury burning in his eyes as he spoke.
"I hope you have picked your heir Phorcys."