Azura decided to come out of the gate swinging. As soon as they agreed to start the fight he shot several arcs of water at Lux with enough force to cut through steel. Of course the man's shield was much tougher than steel, and that was before it was enhanced by the knight's mana. The high pressure water arcs broke against the shield like wives hitting a cliff. That was fine no matter how strong the rock it would eventually get worn down by the waves.
Lux surprised him by going on the offensive, rushing at him after drawing the sword at his hip. Thankfully he had improved significantly since their last fight, and he could see Lux’s movements this time. Till even so he was barely able to get his own sword up in time to parry the powerful strike. He formed a sword of ice slightly behind him and shot it at the knight with extreme force. Lux retreated from their blade lock to dodge the blade of ice, and it embedded itself hilt deep into the ground.
“That’s a new trick.” New to Lux maybe. One of the biggest reasons he chose water and ice as his elements of focus rather than lightning is that he could shape them much easier given their nature as tangible elements. As such he could form enchanted objects with them. They were easier to mold than rock or metal too, so he could even do it mid combat with ease.
As much as he wanted to brag about his current abilities, now wasn’t the time. He unlocked his sword's solid state and whipped the fragmented blade at Lux from above. He expected Lux to dodge again, but was surprised when Lux chose to deflect the fragmented blade with his shield. So the knight blocked the water and his blade, but felt a need to dodge the ice blade? Or perhaps it was just based on positioning? He retracted his vambrace blade and instead lifted the ice sword. He raced towards lux and swung the ice blade at his foe. Lux sidestepped the swing and swung his left arm to bash him with his shield. He abandoned his offense to lean back just enough for the shield to go past his face without making contact.
Lux attempted to rush forward while he was off balance, but decided to dodge the upward slash from the ice blade once again. He was certain of it now, Lux was wary of the ice, but why? The enchantments just made it a powerful weapon, but not even to the same extent as his vambrace blade, much less the yggdrasil sword, but Lux hadn’t been wary of the former here, and the knight hadn’t seemed concerned about the latter whan he used it in the matches against multiple top knights.
He jumped back and launched one of the blade fragments from his vamprace at Lux hoping that the unusually wasteful move of his might catch the knight off guard. His hopes were dashed when Lux casually allowed the blade to bounce off his armor without so much as a scratch. He growled, the knight was barely even using magic so far. He formed more ice swords in a dome above Lux. And fired them all with slightly different timings so that he couldn’t just block them all with 1 move unless he wasted mana to hold it for longer.
Lux decided to show him that he wasn’t the only one getting stronger by creating a spinning barrier of light that knocked all the blades away, knocking many of the blades into each other and successfully deflecting some of them towards him. He clicked his tongue in frustration as the blades melted into water and curled around him before launching back at the knight as spinning ice javelins. Unfortunately he wasn’t to the point where controlling water far from his body was something he could do in mid combat, but controlling water he had made from his mana that was within 10 ft of him was certainly doable.
Lux made a much smaller light barrier to deflect the javelins to the ground. Well for whatever reason Lux didn’t seem to like his ice attacks very much, so he had the perfect magic item for this fight. He summoned 6 daggers held between his fingers like claws. He rushed towards Lux and swung with the claws, and heat fled from everything in front of them creating a wave of frost and sudden freezing temperatures. Lux’s eyes widened in surprise, and he swiftly jumped to the side to avoid the wave of frost.
That was fine though he dropped one of the daggers in his left hand and threw another at lux’s new position. Frost trailed behind the dagger like the tail of a comet. Lux, having realized he couldn’t keep running swiftly charged at him after sidestepping the dagger that had been thrown at him. Unfortunately Lux was far from a slow learner and had covered his sword in a barrier of light, which apparently made the man far less wary of the ice. They clashed blades a few times, but these daggers weren’t designed for direct combat. He did an angled flip to dodge Lux’s next swing and used the opportunity to throw the rest of the daggers before forming a new ice blade to block the knight's next swing.
Lifting his feet off the ground he used the force of the collision to gain space. As soon as he got out of the circle created by the 6 daggers he slammed his hands together and activated their primary function. The daggers shattered and formed a giant magic circle that had Lux at its center. The blue light emitting from the circle drained away all the warmth in the area as frost started to cover everything inside the circle, and even began spreading beyond it.
Lux grunted and light covered his whole body. Lux shook off the ice trying to envelop him and once more rushed at Azura. They struck at each other over and over furiously exchanging blows. The low temperature in the room would be enough to kill most creatures on contact, but both of them had different means of dealing with it. He had taken to summoning his scales, and covering them in frost to enhance their defense even further. Unfortunately Lux’s light barrier was proving to be more than up to the task of regulating the knight's temperature.
It seemed Lux was avoiding the cold to avoid his equipment becoming brittle, and had been trying to avoid covering it with a light barrier. Probably trying to conserve his mana. He briefly considered trying to drag this out until Lux ran low enough on mana, but he doubted the knight would let him get away with such a half hearted approach. He met swords with Lux again, the clash sending a wave of force all around them tearing up a large patch of frost. He used the frost to form several ice blades and fire them towards Lux, but the knight didn’t even acknowledge them, charging through them as if they weren’t even there.
He swiftly blocked Lux’s overhead swing, but his blade of ice had taken too much punishment and shattered from the impact. Thankfully the force of it shattering sent him backwards enough to avoid the slash that broke it. He summoned the yggdrasil blade and blocked the knight's next swing with its gleaming white blade. Unfortunately his stance wasn’t as set as he would have liked and Lux was able to easily overpower him. Thankfully after his blade arm was knocked aside he was able to get his shield active and in position fast enough to block the brunt of the front kick his opponent had thrown at his sternum. Still even after he blocked it the impact was immense and he was sent flying.
A quick spell had him blink so he was flying up towards the ceiling instead of violently slamming into the wall. His momentum slowed so he barely cracked the ceiling upon landing there with his feet. Coiled like a spring and limited on time he pushed forward with all the strength in his legs and shot off towards Lux with unbelievable speed. He filled his blade with ice magic, and a blue tail of frost followed him as he slammed the glowing blade into Lux’s shield with all his might.
A wave of frost trailed around the shield creating a path of ice that split around Lux’s shield. The light barrier cracked and shattered, but the shield easily bared what little force remained after piercing the barrier. He jumped back as Lux’s sword swung through the space his neck used to occupy. Lux quickly applied a new barrier to his shield, but some damage was already done. Not to say he’d so much as scratched the shield, but he had drained some of its warmth. If he could get it cold enough it would become brittle and shatter. That was his only option as far as breaking it went.
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He summoned several spherical gems from his storage space, and tossed them at the knight. Shards could work as bombs fairly well, but it took time and control to fill them to the brim like that, these gems on the other hand were designed specifically for that task. The gems exploded on Lux’s shield releasing a powerful glowing blue energy that drained even more heat from the area around Lux. The knight began freezing over his barrier, Ice trying to weigh him down even with his barrier protecting him from the brunt of it.
He dashed in sword glowing with cold magic as he finally activated his body’s enchantments. He swung with far more force than he had up until now. Lux met his swing with equal force. An explosion of pressure rang out shattering much of the ice and frost that had taken over the training room, only for it all to immediately refreeze in the extreme cold. Neither of them stopped there, trading blows and shield bashes without giving a single step of ground to their opponent. In terms of magic neither of them were likely to run out, but he knew his stamina would give out first between him and Lux, which normally meant he should retreat from this furious exchange of blows.
Finally the barrier around Lux’s sword broke under the fierce power of their collisions. He amped up the cold trying to chill it as much as possible in the brief moment before Lux reapplied the barrier. Once the barrier was reapplied he retreated creating some space between him and his foe. It would be a long battle, but Lux’s barrier only prevented the shield from losing heat, it didn’t generate any, so he could afford to take his time and cool the armaments bit by bit. His father may have been able to break the barrier and the shield in one blow, but even if it took him a bit longer he could achieve the same feat. That at least gave him hope that he’d be able to win the little game his father had forced him into.
***
Katy had heard from the princess that Lux and Azura were having a sparring match, and was rushing to the training room they would likely be in. She couldn’t believe Azura hadn’t told her! This was an amazing opportunity to see what those 2 could really do when they weren’t holding back. It was obvious that Azura would lose, that much anyone could see, but she doubted Lux would come off scott free.
After sprinting for a few seconds enhanced to her max she was able to reach the training room, and in her excitement she opened it without considering what may be happening in the surely epic fight. As such she was not expecting the wave of bone deep cold that rushed through her the second she opened the door. She shivered and closed the door reflexively. She furiously rubbed her arms to generate some warmth. She took several steps back so she was back in the normal warmth. Even with that it took a few seconds for her to warm back up to normal temperatures.
What kind of fight involved keeping the whole training room that ridiculously cold? Azura used to hate the cold, but she was fairly confident he was the one that would do something like that. What advantage it gave him she had no idea. His ice magic would stick around a little more she guessed. Unfortunately whatever advantage the cold gave him it also made it so she could not casually enter the room to watch the fight. She liked to think she was fairly resilient, but even with magic, regulating her body temperature in a place that cold wasn’t within her abilities. She really wanted to watch though. She pondered her dilemma. At least she’d have some time to figure something out, she had a feeling this would be a fairly long fight.
***
It annoyed Azura to no end that even with the field advantage he was still clearly the one on the back foot. He had gone through a lot of his disposable items, even using some that helped him create antimagic barriers quicker, but Lux’s physical abilities were astounding and the knight knew better than to stay in a place where his magic options were limited. At best the fields had cooled down Lux’s armaments significantly, and that meant they were probably starting to near the breaking point. Of course while breaking them would be a personal victory it wouldn’t actually help him win since Lux could just pull out another set.
He had been hoping to avoid using his copies, mostly because he knew Lux had a fairly solid countermeasure for them. Not to mention he was essentially using spiritual form copies in order to react to multiple things at the same time, so while his offense would increase significantly it would come with a solid drop to his defense. At this point he was starting to lean towards that being the better option given that they were currently at a very slow moving standstill. With his decision made he created a fake opening by overextending himself in a counter strike.
Lux's shield bashed him as he’d hoped, and he was sent flying away, but not before 2 copies were summoned beside him. The copies attacked with their blades forcing Lux to put up a barrier between him and the copies. Meanwhile he used the space to switch to his bow and begin charging up cold mana for a powerful shot. He filled it with far more mana than he would typically use. This put the epsilon canon his copy had used when out of control to shame. Even Lux wouldn’t be able to shrug off an attack like this. Or at least he hoped not.
He released the shot and several magic circles appeared to enhance the already powerful shot several times. His copies continued clashing with Lux, not allowing him to dodge the attack. Unable to dodge, the knight decided to place several powerful barriers instead. The beam of cold magic burst through the extra barriers quickly, but it lost significant power, and by the time it hit Lux’s shield it’s power was barely enough to scratch it. Still even from this distance he could see it clear as day. A small crack in Lux’s shield. Just a little more, the formerly impregnable shield had a weakness now.
He knew letting up now would be a mistake so he turned his body into lightning to rush at his foe, changing back when he was close enough he changed his gravity to make him far heavier and swung down with the force of his combined weight and momentum. Lux hadn’t been expecting the 2nd attack and had just lowered his shield after blocking the first. It was a testament to his reflexes that Lux managed to put his shield back up and create a barrier over it in the brief instant before the blow landed. His most powerful magic attack, and melee attack used back to back, and Lux’s shield still refused to break. The crack had expanded creating a web of cracks on the shields surface, but it still refused to actually break.
He changed the direction of his field of gravity allowing him to fall backwards to avoid the return slash of Lux. His copies also backed off to put Lux at the center of a triangle. He synchronized with his copies to freeze everything in the triangle creating a pillar of ice all the way to the ceiling. He was panting now. His circuits were starting to heat up from extreme use, but he was still well away from using them to the point of damage, but his physical stamina was reaching its end. Unfortunately reforming his body did not in fact restore his energy. He could heal wounds that way, and restore torn muscles, but the feeling of being exhausted wouldn’t clear until he properly rested.
Unfortunately it would seem Lux had easily figured out this spell was his attempt to buy time to rest and a glowing crescent blade blasted through the ice before spinning around it. Lux must have made a bigger barrier before being frozen in order to have room for proper sword skills. However Lux soon realized that cutting a line through the ice wouldn’t do much as the ice was still held in place by its attachment to the floor and the ceiling. Azura almost wanted to laugh as the blade pierced the ice again and this time carved a small circle lux would be able to fit through.
“Couldn’t you have just waited in there a bit? Surely you’re starting to get tired too.” Although maybe Lux really was that much stronger than him. After all, the knight didn’t even look winded. He supposed it made sense for the knight who focused so much on defense to have incredible stamina.
Lux smiled in response, but didn’t say a word before swinging his hand down at Azura, a giant crescent blade following in its wake. He wondered if Lux had always had that offensive use for his barriers, or if the man had just figured that out by mistake in this fight. Either way it posed a significant enough threat that he chose to dodge rather than defend. He blinked to one of his copies on Lux’s other side. He sighed. This was going to be a long fight it would seem.