Katy had been right about the length of the fight. It had taken her several minutes, and many confused faces to find an ensemble warm enough to enter the room where the spar was taking place. Thankfully it was midwinter, so there were things available for people who would be leaving the warmth of the city. So she was properly decked out with a thick jacket, and pants, both being lined with fur. To finish it off she had a scarf wrapped around her mouth and nose, and a thermal wrap around the top of her head to keep both sets of ears warm. One of the rare times she was jealous of Azura’s ability to un-manifest his spirit trait.
She took a deep breath. This was as good as it was going to get, but if she had to bet it would still be quite cold in there. Well nothing to do but deal with it, no way was she going to miss the entire fight. She shakily opened the door, and was once more assaulted by a powerful chill. It was bearable this time thanks to being all bundled up, but she still felt it in her eyes, and it was only thanks to her magic being focused there that the water in her eyes didn’t instantly freeze.
Somehow it was even colder than before, and this was just at the entrance. She steeled her resolve and stepped inside the training room, though it was impossible to tell it was a training room at this point. It looked like an arctic wasteland that had been used as the primary battle ground for a war. Not that she could see the whole thing with snow and hail pelting her from all angles. Azura was really going all in on the cold theme. She didn’t understand it herself, but she was sure he had a reason for it.
She was shaken from her thoughts by a sudden boom, and her eyes were immediately drawn to the scene. Azura’s vambrace blade had managed to pierce Lux’s shield somehow, but the real surprise, and the source of the sound, was that it proceeded to explode violently. Lux’s shield broke to pieces, and the knight barely managed to spread his barrier to his face fast enough to avoid being pelted by the shrapnel. Her eyebrows rose in surprise. That was an unusually wasteful move. Azura never used 1 use effects in spars. Or at least she had never seen him do so, and yet she saw broken weapons lying all over the arctic wasteland. Though she would be willing to bet at least a couple of the destroyed weapons belonged to Lux.
Just what was the agreement that Azura was going through resources like this. She also noticed the huge pillar of ice that took up a good 10 ft of the room. The hole in the side revealed that the ice was solid almost all the way through, and she was willing to bet any space inside was due to a quick barrier. She was pulled from her thoughts as Azura’s yggdrasil blade met a pristine shield that Lux had equipped while she was looking at the ice pillar. A violent wind picked up from their clash, which normally wouldn’t have bothered her, but with how cold it was in this room the wind chilled her bones, even as bundled up as she was.
The fight was different than she had expected, but certainly not less intense. It was obvious that Azura was struggling to keep pace while Lux looked completely fine in terms of energy. Still Azura was managing to match Lux blow for blow even as his energy was reaching empty. The fight itself wasn’t beyond her level per se, but she certainly wouldn’t have been able to break anything of Lux’s, honestly she’d be lucky if her new move could even break past his barrier.
Azura disengaged first, throwing a giant wave of ice at Lux to distract the knight as he retreated. She wondered what kind of nonsense her friend would use now. Gaining space like that was almost always so he could implement a new strategy. Still she never expected him to pull out his grimoire. He had told them about it, but they had still never seen it in action. His copies stood in front of him playing guard in case Lux tried to rush him. She smiled, at least she hadn’t missed the best part.
***
Azura was reaching his limit. He had intended to back down gracefully once he was satisfied with the result, but despite managing to break so much of Lux’s top grade equipment he still wasn’t satisfied with his performance. Perhaps it was because Lux instantly equipped a new one, and didn’t even bat an eye. He could deal with the armor, or the barriers, but dealing with both was quite difficult. Still he wanted to leave more than just shattered equipment, just 1 scratch, he wanted to wound his opponent. After all if he couldn’t even wound Lux was there any guarantee his attacks would be able to wound his father. When it came to physical toughness and the strength of their defensive spells Lux might be able to edge out his father, but in every other factor his father was by far the superior mage.
Still that meant if he could leave an injury on Lux then it was at least technically possible for him to win that challenge. So he prepared to pull out all the stops. The wintry winds he had summoned swirled violently around him as his grimoire drew in the natural mana. He didn’t think he was strong enough to make commands directly to lux, but there were ways around that. Lux realized something was up and charged at him, but it was too late, his copies didn’t even bother to intercept. “Freeze.” Unlike a normal spell where he had to mold the mana inside him and then send it out to inflict his will, the grimoire used the natural man already present and simply reshaped it. In other words the effect was instantaneous.
Lux was once again in a giant frozen structure, but this time the knight hadn’t had time to form a barrier, and thus had no space to work with, which would make breaking out significantly more challenging. “Gather.” Of course more difficult didn’t mean impossible, and the ice began cracking as blades of light pierced through it from multiple points. Still it fulfilled its purpose and stalled Lux as he commanded the mana to gather for one final attack.
After almost a minute of weakening the ice Lux finally managed to break free, shattering the ice around him. He had hoped for more time, but expected less. Either way it was enough to gather a significant amount of both natural mana and his own. “Obliterate” A beam of magic energy stronger than any he had ever produced shot towards Lux. Several barriers were summoned along with a much bigger shield that Lux ducked behind. A loud explosion rang through the room when the unstoppable force met the immovable object, and he was flung back into the wall from the sheer pressure.
The barriers were shattered in an instant, barely depleting the force of the attack, and Lux was forced to hold his ground as the beam tried to pierce his shield. Normally Lux would have simply deflected this attack, but with it being as strong as it was the knight couldn’t measure how much damage would be done to the castle. Even magic resistant materials would surely shatter from its force, as Lux’s shield proved by breaking under the strain. The knight was forced to put his arms in front of his chest to stop the attack.
Pieces of Lux’s armor were fragmenting and dissolving under the strain. However Lux’s strongest armor was his own body, trained to be tougher than any materials he could possibly get an armor made out of. So the unstoppable force was finally stopped as it petered out against the nearly indestructible body that was the reason for Lux’s number 1 rank. He panted, having given it everything he had. The grimoire slipped from his hands as he fell to his knees, a smile adorning his face.
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He had known from the start he wouldn’t win, but he had achieved his goal, blood ran down both of Lux’s arms. The knight's armor had been peeled away, and even his skin had been pierced by the attack. It had taken everything he had, to do it, including lots of 1 use items he’d have to remake, but he had scratched someone whose defense was superior to his father’s. An attack like that would never work on his father of course, but that meant it was possible. He had a chance, and that was enough for him to bet his life on.
Lux lowered his arms with a look of shock on his face. “I didn’t think you’d have that kind of destructive force already. I can’t say it was quite on par with your fathers attack from back then, but it was close, and for you to be able to produce something like that at your age is miraculous.” Hah a direct comparison wasn’t really a fair measure unfortunately. That was an attack he could only do once every few days if he focused on recovery. His father could use attacks on that level consecutively. Still it was a start, and that was enough for him.
***
Katy stared in shock. A part of her knew that Azura was stronger than he would show against them. No point wasting resources for training obviously, but she hadn’t thought it would make that much of a difference. Honestly even more than that, she hadn’t really understood why Azura respected Lux’s strength so much. Azura had been able to break his arm back then after all. She was beginning to realize the true depth of the knight's strength. That last attack would have wiped her out for sure, not that she would have lasted long enough in that arctic zone to force Azura to use it. Even with all the gear she had on she was shaking like a leaf from the cold. Thankfully Azura wasn’t actively maintaining the cold anymore, and it was slowly but surely warming up.
Still she couldn’t help but worry about all the resources he’d used. Was now really the time to use up a bunch of that stuff. It wasn’t going to be long till they were fighting against Genesis, and they definitely didn’t want a weakened arsenal for that. Then again Azura was the master strategist, so she was sure he had done so for a purpose. Besides that the fight against Genesis would take place in areas that Azura had gotten to set up beforehand,and that meant that they would have a huge home field advantage, so maybe Azura had deemed most of those tools unnecessary.
“Can you stand? Not that I’d blame you if you couldn’t after a performance like that.” She had to hand it to Lux; he definitely wasn’t an idiot. Azura had yet to say he surrendered, and a surprise attack at the end was definitely something her friend would do. As such Lux hadn’t dropped his guard yet, even with his armor in pieces and his arms bleeding slightly from a few gashes.
Azura was panting heavily, and slowly managed to rise to his feet. He was still a little wobbly, but it didn’t look like he would fall. “No need to be so tense, I’m done. If it was life or death I might be able to push out a little more, but I’d be more inclined to just teleport away at that point.” She chuckled, that was classic Azura. Ever the pragmatist. The laugh quickly died as she remembered the portion of the fight she had gotten to see. He had told them his grimoire was powerful, but that was insane. Would Elismera even be able to survive an attack like that? She was sure that none of their other friends could. She also understood why there was no point in him making another. It took a lot for Azura to admit defeat, and to do so after his own attack without having taken any real damage showed just how taxing that grimoire really was.
She walked over to her friend that was struggling to stand and lent him her shoulder. Azura leaned on her gratefully, slowly getting to his feat. “I honestly can’t believe an attack on that scale barely even scratched what the heck is your body made of?” She couldn’t help but question the mostly unharmed knight. Lux was technically more damaged than Azura, but there was no question who the winner would be if the fight continued. Especially if the amount of weight Azura was putting on her was anything to go by.
Lux laughed awkwardly, while scratching his cheek. “Same as yours, just trained to be as tough as magically possible, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that just training my defense isn’t going to get me much stronger than I already am. I was hoping a spar with someone as crafty as Azura might give me some new ideas on how to improve, and thankfully it certainly accomplished that.” Well it was obvious when you started to reach the peak of a skill that training it would offer diminishing returns, and she couldn’t imagine anyone being much physically tougher than the knight who tanked an attack like that.
“Those barrier blades were new then? I was wondering about that, they will certainly be a good new skill for you.” Azura spoke calmly as if he wasn’t relying heavily on her to stand so much as stand. She rolled her eyes. He really was always overdoing things. “Speaking of, I tallied together all of my magic items that were broken in this fight, and taking into account the materials, and the level of enchantments I think 300 platinum should cover it.” She did a spit take. 300 platinum! She had never even seen 300 Gold in her whole life, and he was saying he had basically spent 100 times that in a single fight?! She looked at Lux expecting him to pale or panic, but the knight looked calm as well as if that number was completely normal.
“It will probably take me a couple weeks to liquidate that amount, but I should be able to cover it. Of course you're welcome to all of the materials left from my equipment you shattered, I imagine those raw materials would cover a decent chunk of that value. Of course I’d also pay you more if you were willing to make some equipment for me that matches certain specifications.” Did being a royal knight really pay that much?! No more than that since when was Azura able to make things with that kind of value? Why didn’t he sell more stuff if he could get that kind of money out of it. Especially when he could use that money to make way more stuff.
“That’s true your equipment was all top quality, I’d probably knock off 30 platinum for all the remains. As for making you some new equipment I’d be happy to alk with you about those specifications.” She looked at all the scattered pieces around the field. This must have been the most expensive fight of all time. She couldn’t help but think of all the stuff they could do with that kind of money. Still she supposed she understood it a little. If Lux wasn’t spending the money much anyway, then it was worth using to get stronger, and Azura could afford to use as much as he wanted since he was being reimbursed at the end.
Azura finally recovered enough to carry his own and walked towards the knight with his hand out. Lux shook it with a respectful nod. It was almost comical how unbothered they were by the complete and utter mess that they had left behind. A frozen graveyard of metal remains. With several craters and slices running through it. Frankly she was worried the damage would actually be worse once the ice started melting, the ice was probably playing a not insignificant part in preventing the room from collapsing from the damage. Honestly the most incredible part to her is that there were people far stronger than either of them. Lux may be in the top 10 of the world if you were strictly counting defensive power, but otherwise he wasn’t even close.
She ignored the duo's conversation about Lux’s request, and focused more on trying to piece together what happened in that fight before she got there. It looked like most of the early fight was just Azura preparing the field to his advantage, so she probably hadn’t missed too much, but it was clear that neither side really had the offense to properly deal with their opponent. In other words the knights offense wasn’t much better than hers, and that explained why the man had felt the need to have this spar. If his offense was that weak, then his defense wouldn’t do him any good. She supposed everyone was trying to get stronger in their own way, and this was the way forward the knight had found.
She couldn’t say she knew Lux very well, but she respected his dedication, and was glad that both of them had benefited from this spar, even if the price tag on the fight was unbelievably exorbitant. Perhaps she would challenge Lux to a spar after he and Azura got everything sorted out. Her biggest weakness was dealing with super tanky opponents after all.