"You two, take him to the healer before he bleeds out. Now." He turned and said to the two younger boys watching from nearby. They only moved when he shouted the order at the end, clearly coming to their senses.

Scampering over, they each put an arm of the now unconscious boy across their shoulders, carrying Lysander away.

"I don't need you interfering in my business." Tantalus snarled at him as he turned.

"Looks like your business is using a weapon against an unarmed opponent. I'm sure your father and Cleon would be proud," He calmly replied as he stopped and faced the pair.

"How's it my fault if you peasants can't afford a decent weapon," Tantalus replied with a sneer as he lowered the sword to his side.

"Looks like you have one, though. Why don't you take it out and avenge your friend?"

Tantalus looked down at the black dagger tucked into his belt.

"If you want to fight, we can do it during the village training. Also, Lysander wasn't my friend, but he was hers." He replied, nodding at Rhea, who stood to the side, looking awkwardly at the ground.

At his words, she appeared to return to herself as he looked up at him, her face flushing with anger.

"Little baby, what do you know? Run on home to mummy and daddy." She shouted, pointing at him.

He didn't say anything, looking at each in turn before turning to the side and walking away to continue his walk.

This wasn't anything for him to deal with, and the village head could figure it out later.

"Did I say you could leave?" Tantalus barked

"Last I checked, it wasn't up to you." He called over his shoulder with a wave as he kept walking.

"Teach him a lesson. He's always this arrogant." Rhea said out loud, and he turned in time to see Tantalus send another of those frozen palm attacks his way.

Using his left foot, he pushed hard and flew to the side as the attack flashed by, causing the temperature in the surroundings to plummet.

"What are you doing?" He called back, looking at the youth with an exasperated sigh.

Is this guy a moron?

Not only had he badly injured Lysander, but he'd even sent a sneak attack at his back. The other villagers knew what he could do, but Tantalus had just arrived. To him, he must look like a child three or four years younger, but he attacked anyway.

This made his blood boil slightly before he calmed down.

"Sneak attacking a child many years younger, is that how a noble acts?" he called out, trying to defuse the situation, but it didn't help.

"I don't care who's here to see anyway? Plus, you'll be too scared to say anything when I'm finished with you." Tantalus called out as he ran forward, sending out another palm strike.

Fine.

Removing the dagger from his waist, he thought about how he wanted to play this fight. He didn't know how much the boy knew about what he could do, so he decided to test the waters.

Putting his hands together, he used his skill to form a strange-looking diamond-shaped mirror in front of him, with a handle to the rear as he held it aloft. The reflective front rippled as a large animal jumped out of it, and he forced the mirror to fade away, leaving the creature behind.

To Tantalus running forward, it looked like a rippling mirror had appeared out of thin air as a sizeable vicious wolf jumped out of it, landing on the ground.

He had created this trick by imitating some of the summoners in the village using his Many Form Mirage.

"Get him, boy." He called out and ran to meet the young noble in a pincer attack with his mirage wolf. Tantalus was close now.

"It's a trick," Rhea called out, causing him to smile inside.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Her calling out let him know Tantalus had no idea what he was capable of, and that meant all his older tried tricks were now new.

The mirage of the wolf was a step ahead when they met, so Tantalus swung his sword out at it, making it the primary target. That would be the correct way against most summoners, as even if you killed the caster, the summoned being would remain for a time, which was usually the more dangerous of the pair.

The only issue was he wasn't one.

The fancy sword cut through the wolf, causing the youth to fall slightly off balance. He recovered quickly and rotated in time to catch another mirage to the face.

Sending out a palm strike, he created another mirage as a large blanket flew forward, obscuring the vision of the youth as Thanos quickly moved to the left, using it as cover to mask his movements.

Tantalus lifted the sword and slashed out, splitting the mirage where he had been a moment ago, but it was too late as he had already moved.

He caught the arrogant noble with a left hook that sent the boy staggering backwards. His knuckles hurt from the punch, but he didn't have time to worry about that as he sent out another mirage.

A heavy wooden log flew side-on as it caught the already off-balance Tantalus in the lower body and knocked him backwards as it popped out of existence.

Holding out his free hand, he caused multiple large spiders to expand into existence as they skittered across the ground and jumped on Tantalus. The boy rolled around on the ground, trying to bat them off and nearly impaling himself with his sword.

"Arghhh," Tantalus screamed as a dozen spiders scurried over his body, doing their best to keep from being destroyed.

The spiders were harmless, but he didn't know that.

With another yell, the situation changed as hundreds of tiny ice needles shot out of the boy's pours and obliterated the mirages of the eight-legged critters.

Some needles had also caught him across his body, but they didn't stick in too deep. Thankfully, none had hit his eyes. The boy probably didn't have a great mastery of the skill yet, or it was too costly to use, leaving it weak.

Fuck, still hurts.

He cursed inwardly as he plucked the tiny projectiles out and dropped them to the ground, but he needn't have bothered as they were already melting.

"You're fucking dead!" Tantalus screamed, kneeling, sword in hand.

As he was pulling the needles out, he also got busy crafting more Mirages as a small swarm of giant wasps buzzed nearby.

When creating his mirages, he still hadn't found a way for them to generate noise, but that didn't matter in this situation. It was the wings here that caused the noise, not the insect.

A wasp created its distinctive buzzing noise as a symptom of flapping their wings, and as he'd created a copy based on memory, these did the same.

He sent them flying at the boy's face with a mental command as the youth stood up. The insects buzzed around his head, causing him to panic and swat at them.

I need to end this fight.

As he debated the best method of incapacitating his foe, he felt something sharp sink into his left calf, causing him to quickly look down.

Wrapping around his lower leg was a large white cat that sank its claws and teeth into him as it attacked.

Looking over at Rhea, he saw her standing nearby with a look of hatred in her eyes.

Trying to shake the girls summoned beast off, he didn't realise until it was too late that Tantalus had lunged towards him and chopped downwards with the sword, sending out an icy blue slash of energy towards him.

He tried to quickly dodge but couldn't manage it entirely as the cat clung to him like glue.

The sword attack caught him in the upper left arm, and he watched in horror as it cleaved through skin and bone, severing the arm completely that fell to the ground with a dull thud.

He couldn't help but look at the squirting bloody stump that was once his arm with a detached feeling. It looked like the cold from the attack had frozen a section of it into red ice that looked like blood-soaked rubies. In a way, it looked beautiful.

Then he screamed.

He wasn't sure how he'd ended up on the ground, but he rolled around clutching the bloody stump as a white-hot pain spread from his now absent arm.

"Tantalus, what have you done?" Rhea screamed from somewhere nearby.

He turned to see the boy nearby, still holding his sword.

"I... I didn't mean to." Tantalus weakly replied as he stood rooted on the spot, staring at the arm on the ground with a dazed expression.

"We need to get him to the healer. Quick, help me." Rhea called out as she came into view, walking towards him.

He felt like he was going into shock as all he could do was lay there on the ground, tightly holding where his arm had once been.

"No, wait. I'll get into trouble if we do. We can't take him back." Tantalus said, appearing to come back to himself.

"What are you on about? He'll die if we don't," Rhea snapped at him, stopping with her hands on her hips.

"They won't know it was us. Let's just leave him. We can say it was bandits or a beast attack. Yes, that's it. After dark, the nightlings will get him and clean everything up for us." Tantalus said as if coming to a decision.

"What are you talking about?" Rhea asked, confused as she looked at the boy and his mad ramblings.

"You want to leave this village and come live with me in the city, right? Do this for me, and I'll take you with me when I leave. You can be my woman." Tantalus persuaded as he walked towards the girl and rested his hand on her arm as he looked into her eyes.

"I don't know..." Rhea weakly said, looking worried and glancing at him as he lay on the ground.

"Think about it. I'm the local governor's son. Think of the life you can have. Don't you want to see the world?"

"Are you sure we won't get caught?" Rhea asked after some time, looking around like she was worried they would get caught at any moment.

"Not if we both keep quiet. Let's get out of here and make sure we're seen around the village so no one suspects us. It'll be okay," Tantalus whispered as he cupped the girl's face with his free hand.

"Okay," Rhea said after several moments, letting out a large breath that appeared to punctuate her decision.

"Help... me... please." He croaked out, body trembling as he held the injured area tightly in a panic.

"I'm sorry." She said as she looked over at him.

There was pity in her eyes for a moment, and then it was gone.

The pair turned their backs on him and walked away, leaning into each other, leaving him to his fate.

Neither of them looked back before they vanished into the trees.