The wind began to pick up to the point that it swept through the estate with such force that he found it slightly difficult to maintain his footing, though this was quickly waylaid by the activation of the basic stability spell.
Horizontal slash. Horizontal slash. Basic lunge. Basic sidestep. Vertical slash.
Thanks to the subconscious implementation of his meditations, he maintained a clear state of mind amidst his exertions. While he did so, he instinctually cast the night cat’s eyes spell, which increased his visibility by a decent degree despite the ever-thickening walls of rain that battered the grounds around him. With the stability and ocular spells in place, he had no choice but to lessen the intensity of his swordsman’s aura in order to then cast his basic detection spell, which left him soaked with lukewarm water in a matter of seconds.
Vertical slash. Basic sidestep. Basic lunge. Upward vertical slash.
There it was again, the same waning life signal that he had detected in countless instances over the past several weeks, though this time it was closer than it had ever been.
Fighting his instincts, he kept his gaze directed straight ahead of him while relying on his peripheral vision to inspect the area where he had just sensed the signal, which had promptly disappeared a few moments after he had perceived it.
Something about the way that the rain was falling in that particular place sent a sudden jolt through Alistar’s heart. Someone was there, he was sure of it. Magic, he realized with rising adrenaline. Someone was hiding their presence with an unknown spell. He was aware that everyone within Caedmon’s household was fully accounted for, meaning that whoever he’d just noticed had entered the property uninvited.
Whiplashed by increasing winds, Alistar was forced to squint his eyes in order to block out the endless barrage of fat water droplets that were currently pelting into him, which were falling at a diagonal angle. As soon as this began to worsen, he tactfully went through another series of basic sword strikes, using the practiced movements to reposition himself with his back to the whistling winds.
If he hadn’t pinpointed the general location of the unknown intruder, he wouldn’t have been able to catch on to the subtle discrepancies in the growing puddles of water that began to flood the area of the lawn where he had chosen to practice.
They’re coming closer.
He used all of his mental fortitude to preserve a calm, nonchalant expression, the words of his master ringing throughout his mind as he realized that the unknown person was now only a few paces away from him.
No matter the nature of a fight, being underestimated will always be your greatest advantage.
Based on the soundless, measured steps that were mostly masked by the downpour, Alistar was able to determine that the nearby person was a trained swordsman. Not only that, but the fact that they could pull off such an effective invisibility spell meant that they were no pushover when it came to arcane matters.
They might be relying on a high-quality talisman, he thought, though he quickly dismissed such suspicions from his mind. Assuming this to be the case could lead to a fatal mistake in the coming confrontation, for it might result in him being the one to underestimate his opponent.
Whoever it was that was steadily creeping closer to him, the distance between the two had become far too short for him to entertain the idea of running for help. The last thing Alistar wanted to do was lead such a volatile variable into the manor house and endanger any of his loved ones. Enough people had died because of him, and if he couldn’t even defend himself when it counted after all of his gruelling efforts, then what point was there in entertaining the notion that he might one day be able to save Kaila from one of the most well-guarded mines on the continent?
That there might be a tremendous gap in their capabilities was a harrowing thought, but Alistar could only invest all of his technique and knowhow into what he was about to do.
If they practice the Crown Style, they’ll likely dash toward me once they’re four paces away.
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The image of Janine’s shrivelled corpse helped to keep his limbs steady, his movements methodical as he continued to fake his practice. The moment that the telltale splashes increased in visibility—indicating that a significant amount of force had been put behind the most recent step—he dashed sideways just in time to see a thin line traced out in the rain where his neck had just been. Mindful of the irregular splashes around him, he invested all of his currently-limited energy into a basic earth-shifting spell that twisted the sodden soil beneath the other person’s feet and sucked them downward into the resultant mire of mud. As soon as he did so, he willed an extremely fine layer of swordsman’s aura to cloak his wooden sword, sharpening its edge so that it was comparable to a real, well-maintained blade.
Cloaking his legs with enough swordsman’s aura to lend him a momentary burst of strength, he made to dash in and release a rapid slash at his assailant’s midsection—or at least, the area where he believed this to be—but instinctually fell back with a series of sure-footed jumps. The earth that he had altered had almost immediately corrected itself into a fine patch of compact dirt, revealing that his opponent had, at the very least, a talent for earth magics.
His fourth and final backward jump saw him land ten paces away from the flattened patch of ground, though he was nearly bisected at the waist as a crescent of golden energy abruptly shot toward him at an unprecedented speed. Barely avoiding the attack by throwing himself down onto the mud, it sailed over the space where he had just been standing and crashed into a window of the manor’s wall face, shattering glass and crushing wood and brick alike with a loud sound of impact that surely alarmed those inside as to what was happening.
As he’d feared, the invisible person was the superior swordsman, at the very least a lower practitioner of the warrior stratum. He had no time to focus on this fact, for the moment he hit the earth, he was forced to roll out of the reach of an advanced earth-shifting spell that parted the ground in opposing directions exactly where he had landed. The spell had opened up a coffin-shaped impression in the earth which, he realized with fright, would surely have been filled in within seconds had he actually fallen into it.
Releasing his weapon as he rolled away from a second such spell, he tore as many limiters from his fingers as he could in the scant seconds allotted to him, a total of seven rings. The moment he did this, he sensed a buildup of magic beneath him and immediately sent a surge of energy into the earth that cancelled out the oncoming spell, preventing himself from being swallowed up by the ground and buried within a grave-like impression. The moment he took control of his opponent's magics, a muffled grunt barely reached his ears from two paces ahead.
Summersaulting backwards and then leaping four more paces away, he threw an arm up and seized control of all rain within a radius of thirty metres, conjuring thousands of needles similar to the ones that Corrie was so proud of and freezing them as he leapt beyond the range of another crescent of solidified swordsman’s aura. A second crash was stifled by a sudden peel of thunder, though he didn’t turn his head to see the resultant damage to the manor house’s southern wall, for such a distraction would surely cost him his life.
It had only been a second since he’d taken control of the great mass of raindrops, which he didn’t have time to reinforce as he sent them firing downward all around him. He instinctually leapt backward yet again as these needles peppered the earth with a collective patter, at which point a man suddenly materialized out of the din, his expression shocked as he was pushed back for the first time in the fight. Although he was dressed fully in hard, black leathers, Alistar was able to keep track of him now that the invisibility spell had been disturbed, the night cat’s eyes much easier to maintain after taking off so many limiters. On top of this, his opponent seemed affected by the excess energies that were flooding into the area as a result of his unbound aura.
He’s unarmed?
As the thousands of needles that had been embedded into the muddy earth were quickly whittled away by constant rainfall, the man said something that went unheard in the din, his words carried off by the whiplashing wind. Alistar was quite adept at reading lips, however, and was able infer after the utterance.
“What the hell?”
While many of the needles had managed to draw blood, they only created superficial wounds on the extremely limited areas where the man’s skin was unprotected.
Alistar was also reluctantly impressed with his opponent, whose devastating attacks had been unleashed with nothing but the swordsman’s aura that he’d been able to gather around one of his hands. This made sense, for even invisibility spells on the high magic spectrum could only, at best, mask one’s clothing from sight, with a range limited to about a finger’s length away from one’s skin. Due to this limitation, using a weapon would have given away the man’s presence at the onset of his approach.
I can win.
Narrowing his eyes, Alistar removed two more limiters and began to walk toward the man with newfound confidence, knowing full well that the ordinary servants within the manor house would already be feeling a frightful sickness now that he had unleashed so much of his latent energies. As he readied himself for another exchange, he could clearly sense several life signals hurrying toward his current location from various points within the manor house, Anice’s among them. If he was going to see things through, he had to do so before she arrived.