I stepped forward circulating my magical energy in the sequence for lightning fall step two, Clorphan’s mouth was opened to deliver more mockery when I shot across the clearing instantly closing the space between us.

The shock on his face was understandable, from the information they had gathered about me when they came to witness Glander’s illegal coronation I was a fledgling mage who had just started his journey into the school of fire, I had used no advanced technique or mysterious weapons and every fight I had been in since then had been with general level opponents which had then been suppressed by the crown.

My left foot flashed upwards, slamming into his chin, the force alone enough to pick the older elf of the ground. As my foot descended I spun on my right leg gathering momentum and driving my right elbow into my opponent who was suspended in mid air.

As Clorphan’s airborne form shot away from I registered two things in my mind. The first was that he was a core formation stage expert who had condensed his first core, this was probably why Lord Twarwen of the house of Van Flotina and the boy’s father Fadneth Tur, had allowed him to beat up someone from the younger generation in public, it was a display of power to all present, a statement saying not only was the father strong but so was the son.

Achieving The first core in the core formation stage at his apparent age was slightly above average but my assessment and opinion was biased after all the monster that trained me in all things battle essence was my mother to whom my top twenty five percentile cultivation rate was just ‘so-so’ to.

The second thing was that he had not achieved the core forming stage through individual means. His battle aura was unstable and the essence produced by his core wasn’t steady, blocking my strike to his chin had required almost all his concentration and my subsequent elbow to his mid rift had caught him completely unawares. Most likely his cultivation path had been heavily assisted with various pills and potions.

I increased the rotation of my magical energies along my pathways taking up my speed to lightning fall step three and chased after my suspended opponent, with a leap I caught up to the airborne Clorphan and drove the heel of my foot into his chest smashing him into the ground.

My second foot rapidly descended to deliver my ten ton step strike, but Clorphan rolled away rapidly, maybe he finally realized that in a duel one had to try to hit back at his opponent.

A pregnant silence hung over the entire gathering. Kicks, punches and high speed movement, there was no part of this fight that said a mage was currently in battle. I calmly walked over to where Clorphan had dropped Glander’s named sword, shatter thorn, scabbard.

“young master of the Tur clan I advise you to take this duel seriously, cause I don’t intend to let you leave this event alive if you cannot best me” I lightly called out to Clorphan who was currently picking himself off of the ground. Adding fuel to the blazing mess that was this gathering was necessary as throughout the entire sequence of blows I had dealt to Clorphan his father had made no indication to move.

It was imperative that Fadneth Tur, my true target intervened in this duel, as the addition of a grand knight to the house of Van Flotina forces would apply pressure on our shared borders. They could even use that influence to force an alliance with the reclusive Van Fin, the third higher noble house in the new territories.

I scooped up the scabbard of shatter thorn and with a flick of my wrist sent it flying back in Hauser’s direction.

Clorphan’s chest heaved as an unsightly look crossed his face; I had embarrassed him in front of some important people, and most prominent to him was most likely his father. His battle essence flooded the surface of his skin congealing into a layer of protection.

“Consider those first strikes a gift to you Lord Tal, because for now on you would not be able to touch me again” the Clorphan called out to me in false bravado and with a savage yell leapt towards me.

Instead of retreating I stepped forward as if to embrace him, seeing this Clorphan viciously stabbed shatter thorn towards my chest. With a simple twist of my ankle I twirled round the point of the sword and slid along the side out of harm’s way before slamming the back of my right hand into his face.

As he staggered from the blow I thrust the heel of my palm into his nose then making a fist I smashed it against the side of his head. His layer of battle essence trembled vigorously but to my surprise still manages to remain intact, what sort of drugs did they feed this kid.

From the corner of my eye I saw one of the crimson lotus merchant houses esteemed elder leap to her feet and begin to draw in magical energy but Fadneth Tur clamped a hand down on her shoulder preventing her from intervening.

I let loose a snort of derision, if he wanted to see his son get beaten to badly he resembled a pig I would oblige him.

The next three minutes were painful to watch, at least for Clorphan and the crimson lotus merchant house. I shattered his collar bone and left arm, dislocated his shoulder and left knee, with the amount of blood he had spat out there was definitely some internal damage and counting the amount of times I slammed his head into the ground I am pretty certain he had a concussion.

With a twist of my wrist I sent Clorphan spinning through the air before he smashed back into the ground. He lay motionless the only thing indicating he had not passed on to the great beyond was the heavy rising and falling of his chest.

“This is fun and all, but if he doesn’t yield soon he might die” I said with a smile in the direction of lord Twarwen and Fadneth Tur. On the surface it was me offering them an olive branch but the reality was quite different, them yielding was admitting all the grievances that had occurred to this point were their fault, I was certain lord Twarwen would rather have Clorphan die than admit his wrong doing especially to me but would Fadneth let his first son die.

I slightly increased the amount of killing aura I was unleashing and visibly hardened my face, as if I had just come to a difficult decision.

I moved beside Clorphan and plucked shatter thorn from his weakened grip, I raise the blade until its point hovered above the barely conscious elf’s head and thrust downward in a decisive manner, the reaction was instant.

A large amount of battle aura suddenly surged out of nowhere and shot towards me. With a tap of my foot I leapt into the air mid strike and floated backwards, putting ten feet between me and a furious Fadneth Tur who was standing protectively in front of his son.

“Fadneth Tur, you are interfering in a duel established between two royal houses and witnessed by all the people at this gathering, I hope you are ready to bear the consequences” I coldly stated internally dancing with joy as my main target had directly come out without sending anymore minions my way.

“I understand the consequences of my action and will take full responsibility for it, but I will not allow you to kill my son” the former army veteran nobly declared standing upright in the center of the stage. All that was left was rays of sunlight and a pop band playing in the background and I could turn the scene before me into an anime with several spin offs.

But as these random thoughts crossed my mind, I was also aware that though Fadneth had interfered with our duel, he had done so in such a way that removed any chance of backlash falling on his clan or the house of Van Flotina, this would not do.

With such a great favor been done for him, Lord Twarwen would be unable to annul the engagement between his daughter, Lamlen, and Fadnet’s youngest son, Aen Tur. With this attachments in place, the Van Flotina household would rather absorb the crimson lotus merchant house into their ranks swelling the amount of major clans bonded to them by blood or marriage a staggering seven to my miserly five.

With a simple flexion of my will I sent a pulse of magical energy through my body down into the ground to enact a spell that was extremely simple but in this situation extremely deadly.

An earthen spike shot out of the ground directly beneath Clorphan, the enchantment of the shinning chain-mail he wore beneath his celebratory robes struggled futilely for a brief instant but his weak and unstable battle essence was unable to sustain the runes that were currently protecting him, ultimately the defensive runes shattered and the earth spike pierced through Clorphan’s back and burst out through his chest lifting him up five feet above the ground and suspending him there for all in the gathering to see.

I let the silence endure so that the shock and horror could fully sink into all present, they had just witnessed the death of the young master of the crimson lotus merchant house and it had happened while he was under the protection of the head of the house, an individual who some could argue was the most powerful elf present.

“you were speaking as though if I decided to kill your son you could stop me, I wanted to see if your assumption was true…….it appears not” I calmly stated after letting an appropriate amount of time pass.

Fadneth Tur simply stared into the lifeless eyes of his son as he hung suspended in front of him, he did not react when his house guards drew their weapons to charge at me or when the blonde elf mage that he restrained from intervening let loose a screech of despair and flung herself at me, he only responded when his eyes turned towards me and I placed a smirk of disdain on my face.

Rushing towards me from the front was Fadneth Tur, a battle elf cultivator of the early pillar formation stage. To my left was a well endowed blonde female elf who I vaguely remembered seeing at Glander’s illegal coronation. A mini tornado was swirling around the elf as tears streamed down her face and her teeth bared in a ferocious snarl. And finally twelve guards bearing the symbol of the crimson lotus merchant house were sprinting towards me with their swords raised, their cultivation level ranging from early to mid stage core formation.

I finally let loose a sigh of relief, the crimson lotus merchant house for some reason had decided to vehemently oppose me from the very start. On the two major political confrontations I had met with they had been one of the major supporters of my opponent each time. It was time to remove them from the scene entirely and with the death of their patriarch and heir apparent their foundation would be shattered, hopefully never to recover again.

As I sank into a squat my two hands smashed together quickly forming hand seals and a swarm of over thirty fireballs formed behind me before shooting towards the twelve house guards racing towards me. As my squatting motion completed I slammed my now free hands into the ground, channeling magical energy into it and weaving a spell and instantly the ground in front of a rapidly advancing Fadneth Tur rose up in the shape of a wolf head which then proceeded to open its maws and swallow him whole and finally I spun on the balls of my feet and launched myself at the approaching blonde elf mage.

Two spells to incapacitate two groups while I took out their mage, this was a tried and trusted method that had proven effective against general level opponents. as I sprinted towards the charging female mage a minor explosion rang out behind me and shrieks of pain could be heard, the barrage of fireballs most have done their job scattering the ranks of the enemy guards and as for Fadneth Tur, I could no longer feel his battle essence meaning my earth beast entrapment spell had been effective.

As I closed in on the blonde elf her eyes firmed in resolution as she raised her hand into the air and all the wind magical energy that had gathered around her flowed upwards, then with a cutting motion she brought her hand sharply down and a blue blade of wind erupted forward, slicing the ground as it raced towards me.

I let loose a smirk and immediately mimed the motion slashing downwards and sending my own tier seven wind school spell, wind sword, in her direction. The very air trembled as the two attacks met each other and an explosion shook the entire garden where the gathering was being held.

I inhaled deeply then dashed through the area the spells had just collided while holding my breath. Half the energy in that area belonged to her wind spell; it was not advisable to let mages energy enter your body that was a rookie mistake.

I emerged on the other side of the settling dust and the instant she set eyes on me she spun her wrist in a weird way and a whip began to unfurl. The universally acknowledged weakness of mages was their fragile bodies in comparison to warriors. The path of cultivation for a mage was mostly cultivation to fill up and expand their manna wells so a mage would spend almost half of every day of their life sitting down, this left very little time to train the body.

All mages are aware of this and most had taken steps to rectify the issue, the most common solution chosen was to pick a weapon that would be able to keep your opponent at bay while you increased the space between them and yourself. Her weapon of choice was apparently a whip.

The long silver weapon curled through the air as it slashed towards me and I moved to evade it. First it swung low and I dove into a front flip, vaulting over the attack, with a metallic twang it changed direction mid sweep and began to rise attempting to strike my shoulder but with a twist of my hip I moved into a cartwheel and let the whip pass behind me all the while rapidly closing the distance between myself and the female mage.

Seeing that all her techniques had failed to stall me, the female elf gritted her teeth and started to accumulate magical energy within her. I narrowed my eyes at the unexpected change in scenario; she was trying to blow herself up.

She would stall me as long as she could then when she had circulated enough magical essence she would simply let it go wild without co ordination, killing her and anyone nearby. The only school of magic that could not pull this off was the water school of magic.

I gathered pure magical essence within my left hand as I acrobatically tumbled and twirled after the retreating blonde mage before landing in a horse stance and thrusting my left hand forward in a punching motion.

The magical essence launched itself from my fist swiftly crossing the area between myself and the suicidal elf before embedding within her body instantly throwing a wrench in her plans, the circulating magical energy was suddenly thrown into chaos and in an almost comical manner the flesh on her back suddenly ballooned out hideously before exploding in a shower of flesh and blood.

As my stunned opponent sank to the ground in shock and pain, my flame covered right hand shot towards her defenseless neck but once again I was forced to retreat as the battle essence of Fadneth Tur who had been missing till now began to emit from the ground beneath my feet.

I once again sprang backwards in the middle of my strike as a blade suddenly shot out of the ground where I stood moments ago. Upon realizing the ambush had not worked a battle essence cloaked hand emerged from the ground beneath and soon after the rest of Fadneth Tur emerged as well.

Having managed to escape the earth beast entrapment that had dragged him underground, he must have decided to ambush me from below instead of emerging from the earth, what I found more impressive was the fact that he could pinpoint my location from beneath the ground as battle essence practitioners were notoriously famous for their lack of sensing ability.

I alighted gently a distance away from the killing aura clouted Fadneth Tur, a slight tinge of regret resonating within me as healers from the retinue of the crimson flame mercenaries rushed towards the downed elf mage.

She had let emotions shroud her judgment and decided that even though I was obviously more proficient in wielding magical energy than her she would attempt to kill me in a kamikaze like fashion. Pros; if it succeeded she would have managed to kill a highly skilled enemy of her clan at the same time with her death any backlash would be reduced as the culprit of the killings would be dead as well. Cons; she had to live herself open to outside influences while she had gathered the necessary magical energy to carry out the attack.

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Because of the backlash, her magical cultivation would be stalled for at least six months and if there weren’t any skilled healers present the damage could extend to as far as one year from now. Her death would have been the preferable outcome.

Fadneth Tur radiated rage from his very core as his blood shot eyes shot daggers at me, the reasonable calculating elf that had once lead thousand of elves in battle was gone and what stood before me was a distraught father.

But even as he stared at me with hate another emotion was beginning to creep in. as the patriarch of such a large clan as the crimson lotus merchant house he did not have the luxury of indulging in revenge against someone with the title of lord of a major noble house, as it stood at the very least for interfering in a duel between two noble houses was already grounds for a grievance to be brought before the council.

Even as the hate continued to emit from him I could see reason and logic begin to flow back into his eyes, as it stood his life was already forfeit.

“Let us both take a step back lord Tal, it is obvious I am in the wrong here, I will take full responsibility before the council of elders” the patriarch of the clan of Tur said suddenly, closing his eyes as he physically tried to restrain himself. Instantly my respect for the retired veteran soared and I felt deep regret that I had chosen to destroy him.

“my house emblem seized, my cousin assaulted, even though I was invited to this event insults have not ceased to be thrown my way since my arrival and you want to simply let by gone be by gone. What exactly do you take the house of Van Rost for?”

The simple statement sent a chill through the crowd as the slower elves among those gathered began to realize I had never intended to depart from this gathering without a significant amount of bloodshed.

I slid into my ready stance, my feet planted shoulder width apart and hips lowered, my two arms came up, the left one curved forward in front of me while my right arm curved downwards, left palm facing him right palm facing the ground.

With a thought I rose to lightning fall step six and instantly appeared beside Fadneth Tur, his eyes dilated in shock as I swung my flame covered hand at his face smashing him to the side. As he shot away from me, spinning through the air to stabilize himself I inhaled deeply preparing my assault.

Of all the opponents I had faced so far, Fadneth Tur was the most suitable for me to practice my martial arts on, he posed a significant enough threat to receive my full attention but was weak enough that all I had to do was exert some effort and I could end him.

Once again I flashed forward but this time Fadneth Tur was ready for me, with a spin his sword sliced through the air towards my head. Channeling magical energy into my left palm I brought it against the side of the approaching sword and simply diverted it from its original direction.

Fadneth fist thrust forward as soon as his attack was foiled at the same time he raised a foot and sent it towards my knee intending to destroy my stance and forcibly reveal an opening. I slid my foot four inches to the side effectively shifting my knee out of harm’s way, I shaped my hand into a claw shape and wrapped it round the wrist of Fadnet’s approaching fist and with a flick of the wrist I sent him sailing through the air with a one armed judo throw.

He spun through the air landing on his feet and with a yell sprung back towards me, his battle essence flared out from him flowing to his right hand and along the sword clasped in his left.

The trade mark of a pillar creation stage expert was their ability to extend their battle essence not only as armor to cover their bodies but to enhance their weapons as well. This was when the might of battle essence began to catch up with the might of magical energy.

I frowned and began to gently sway from the left to the right, my body began to blur as I implemented the marshal movement skill fairy flight. I began to glide across the floor of the stage heading towards Fadneth Tur in our final clash.

Fadneth Tur’s blade descended in a vicious cut but halfway through the motion it changed direction from its vertical descent to a horizontal swipe as I had already darted to the left to evade the blow.

With his battle essence coating the blade and my gauntlets working at only ten percent efficiency engaging his blade directly was not a wise idea. I sank into a squat bringing my entire body beneath the blade and as I rose once more my left elbow led the charge aiming directly for my opponents chin.

With a flick of his wrist, Fadneth Tur spun his blade bringing the flat side forward to intercept my blow at the same time his left knee explosively raced to smash into my sides. I pivoted away from the strike on my right foot twirling around and gathering momentum as I sent my left foot smashing into his side at the same time activating ten ton step.

Fadneth Tur’s eyes opened wide in shock as the kick he had planned to receive in exchange for given me an even more grievous injury lifted him bodily of the ground and sent him back through the air before landing and sliding backwards for several meters.

My strikes were not effective against his battle essence armor, I thought to myself. With the three general level opponents I had faced previously I had time to set up effective measures to counter their high defenses and during the fight itself was too busy trying to escape to evaluate how effective my strike were, however against t Fadneth Tur I could observe every detail of the fight and eliminate unnecessary movements.

With a thought I ignited the fire spell flame serpents and instantly two eight meter long snakes made of blue fire burst into existence, before flinging themselves at Fadneth Tur. The military veteran hopped backwards three times before letting loose a determined grunt as he gathered all his battle essence back into himself before releasing it all into his battle essence armor.

The translucent armor instantly became more defined as the two flame serpents raced towards it, they instantly wrapped themselves round Fadneth Tur before unceremoniously exploding.

The second the bright light from the explosion washed across the entire gathering my hands combined together to form complex symbols before I firmly gripped the elbow of my right hand with my left as lightning sparks raced around from the tip of my fingers to the point at which my left hand gripped my right forearm.

My fourth school of elemental magic the lightning school. This unruly and difficultly mastered school of magic was not my first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth choice, but due to my mother’s frightening control of the element and the plans we had put in place for our future, circumstances had forced me to pick this up. Along with the fire school of magic it was the branch of magic I was least efficient in but unlike fire which I took every opportunity to use it so I could advance my proficiency I mainly ignored it only cultivating the magical well responsible for it.

I shot forward into the smoke and flames resulting from the kamikaze attack of my two flame serpent spells, every step I took releasing a pulse of magical energy into the ground synchronizing with the earth beneath my feet to pinpoint the location of Fadneth Tur.

As I closed in on my opponent’s position in zero visibility, a gust of wind suddenly picked up rapidly dispersing the smoke and flames, but it was already too late.

As soon as I confirmed the location of Fadneth Tur one last time I circulated the magical energy in my body along the magical pathway in my legs for lightning fall step six, instantly appearing besides a highly cautious Fadneth Tur.

I increased the magical energy I was feeding to the lightning spell and instantly all the bolts of lightning that had been racing up and down my right forearm coalesced in the palm of the same hand, forming a glowing ball of light and with a simple thrust I sent it towards Fadneth Tur.

Without my magical energy to restrain the bolt of lightning, it shot towards its target like a vengeful dragon. The moment the lightning spell came in contact with Fadneth Tur’s battle essence armor it shattered with an explosion that dwarfed the one generated by the two flame serpent spells.

Undeterred by the new explosion the lightning bolt smashed into Fadneth Tur’s left side disintegrating skin, flesh, muscle and organs before exiting out his right side, leaving a hole one could see through.

It was at this point that the wind conjured by the mages of the crimson lotus merchant house finally cleared away the smoke and flames that were obstructing the duel from the view of those present and Fadneth Tur was seen staring in confusion at the hole that ran through his body.

Somebody in the crowd gasped, another threw up as the organs that had not been disintegrated had begun to fall out of the cavity in my opponent’s body. His battle essence struggled furiously to heal his body and maybe given enough time, and in the hands of a skilled healer with high grade herbs he would have eventually recovered but I needed him dead.

With a wave of my hand a blade of wind erupted from me and shot through Fadneth Tur separating his head from his severely damaged body.

A high pitched scream echoed through the air as Fadneth Tur’s head fell to the floor with a thump. The once great head of the crimson lotus merchant house was no more and he had been killed by an elf that had not seen his second decade yet, pandemonium ensued.

The guards of the crimson lotus merchant house let loose a vicious bellow and charged forward once more with their swords unsheathed but this time they had the guards of the Van Flotina household with them equally enraged at my impudence. The guest scrambled to get as far away from the stage as my house guards rushed to get closer; as all this events occurred simultaneously I simply cast the last spell I would require to cast today.

From an artificial lake about twenty feet away from the once joyous event, two thick tentacles of water shot out towards the honored guest who still sat in shock from the death of such an important dignitary and before they could react engulfed two elves in massive balls of water which then proceeded to float over to me.

“HOLD!”

“HOLD!”

The moment the balls of water came to a stop on each side of me two voices rang out causing the charging guards to freeze were they stood while Hauser and the rest of my personal guards surrounded me facing outwards in a protective circle.

My last school of elemental magic was of course the school of water, seen in Arethama as a generally weak school of magic because of its limited number of offensive spells, the school of water attracted me because in my personal opinion it was the most malleable element, bending and conforming to my every thought and command, besides I believe I was close to gaining enlightenment into the forgotten side of the school of water, ice manipulation.

“Release them this instant” Twarwen Van Flotina snarled at me his voice one of the two who had ordered the charging guards to stand down the other was the badly injured but still buxom blonde elf beauty, the elder from the Tur clan.

I turned to the water bubble on my left and sighed in understanding as I gazed as the last son of the now deceased Fadneth Tur floated in suspension his face scrounged in concentration as he struggled to hold his breath.

The desperation of the Tur clan was understandable, their patriarch and heir apparent had just been murdered and the young lord who was the only thing they could use to gain aid from the Van Flotina clan in the turbulent future approaching them was now at the mercy of the person who had killed them both.

I turned my head to my right and in that bubble floated Lamlen Van Flotina. With a dual casted tier seven water entrapment spell, I had seized the two people who were the purpose for the very gathering we were at, but the tone of concern in Twarwen Van Flotina’s voice had indicated a level of compassion that I did not think The Lord of the Van Flotina household bore for his daughter.

It was at this point that I decided not to kill Lamlen, she would be effective more ass a weak point I could use to strike at Twarwen Van Flotina later on than a martyr the Van Flotina house could use as a rally point for revenge later down the road.

“Glander, retrieve the house emblem” my voice echoed through the gathering which currently stood silent as a heavy feeling of dread permeated the air. To the nobles present that had been raised like a flower in a greenhouse, they had never seen such a gruesome sight, as at the first sign of trouble they are usually whisked away to some safe corner where they are protected till the situation has been resolved.

A brief look of shock crossed Glander’s face at this opportunity to recover some of the respect he had beaten out of him today. He quickly gathered himself then strode with his head held high towards the sullied emblem.

Twarwen Van Flotina and the buxom elder of the Tur clan stood helplessly as Glander picked up the banner and returned to the circle of protection

“the moment I reach the exits of town Flotina I will release one bubble when we reach the main path that will lead to the exit of the Flotina territory I will release the second one” I replied gesturing to the bubbles containing The youngest master of the Tur clan and Lamlen respectively.

“But it will take you three hours to reach the main road out of the Van Flotina territory” Twarwen pleaded with me.

“she is already at the path formation stage of her essence cultivation, that would not be a problem for her” I replied the lord seeing through his ruse immediately, she had tried to resist the water bubble’s capture by rotating her battle essence exposing the level of her cultivation. “The more you delay my departure the less time they have”.

My last sentence had multiplied the pressure on my two adversaries, all they had to do was delay me a bit and all the soldiers of town Flotina could gather and join the house guards to overwhelm my guards and no matter how strong I was as a mage a decapitated head was not something I could brush off. However the longer they kept me here the longer my two captives would suffer.

As soon as I saw the look of defeated rage cross Twarwen’s face I spun with a toss of my sleeve and began my exit after casting two runes under the two floating bubbles, with the level of magical skill the buxom elder had displayed today I was sure she would correctly deduce the trap I had rigged to explode if any external force tampered with the water spells.

“This is not over young Tal” Twarwen called to me as I exited the garden that was now a crime scene. The parting sentence was a silent declaration of war for the embarrassment I had caused today.

I paused at the top of the steps I was currently ascending that would lead out of the garden. The sun rays shone down on me as two majestic black iron trees grew on either side of me, even without a climatic musical sound track to identify the moment I could still identify a punch line delivery scene.

“That would be Lord Tal to you” I replied before resuming my exit with a smile on my face and in my imagination a group of homeboys shouting ‘oh snap’.

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author: the mistake Tal will regret for the rest of his long life was made in this chapter