Sazu’s attacks had a furry and viciousness they had lacked before. If our fight hadn’t been personal before, it was now.
I blocked his strikes and ducked inside his guard headbutting him blood spurting down his face.
“I didn’t think you and Guinevere had that kind of relationship,” I said turning my head to keep his sword from going through my visor.
“She’s the closest thing I have to a daughter,” he snarled. “Which is why she should have had the sense to stay away from you. I don’t know what games you’ve played with her head….”
“You’ve got a lot in common with Prince Arthur,” I snapped cutting him off as I blocked his sword. “You make assumptions about who I am without every bother even trying to know me.”
“You’re a champion that tells me everything I need to know,” Sazu said sliding his sword free of my block and attacking again.
I blocked his attack by catching his sword and using the strength of Black Rage to throw him back.
“You don’t know me at all, and if you don’t trust Guinevere than you don’t know her either,” I said.
“And you do?” Sazu asked.
“Better than anyone,” I said. “I’ve seen the worst parts of her life and the best, and she’s seen mine.”
“And still she chose to train you,” Sazu said disbelievingly. “I thought I taught her better than that.”
“You did,” I said. “Did you know she had the option to become a champion but refused, I think your teachings had something to do with that.”
“But then she chose to train you,” Sazu said. “Why is that?”
“Because she loves me,” I said.
“No,” Sazu denied. “Her entire life she has been taught to hate people like you, you’re a chaos spawn, to her you’re not even human.”
“None of us are really human,” I said. “I’ve told you the truth you can believe me or not.”
I blocked a series of his sword strikes slamming Clarent into his stomach melting away a part of his armor there creating a hole in his breastplate the size of a pinky nail.
“You’re not lying,” Sazu said shaking his head. “Than I have to protect Guinevere from herself.”
I blocked his sword strike slashed Clarent across his stomach again. “Arthur said the exact same thing,” I said. “Funny how similar you are to your enemies.”
He slashed down at my unarmored section of my leg, but I had foreseen and predicted the move and blocked it. Janus stabbed through the gap in his breastplate as I rammed it through and flung Sazu to the ground. He slashed out at me, but I caught his sword with Thorn. Clarent slashed along his wrist burning through the tendons in his hand. I kicked away his sword raising Clarent to his throat.
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Sazu lay on the ground wheezing with pain and exhaustion and the magi around us quieted as I held their leader at my mercy. Clarent hung at his throat as Janus stuck in his gut pinning him to the ground. I pulled out my spear and retracted Clarent’s blade turning my back on him.
“What are you doing?” Sazu asked.
“Sparing your life,” I said with a shrug.
“Why? I am your enemy and enemy to your goddess,” Sazu reminded me.
I shrugged again. “She’s a big girl she can handle herself.”
“Why?” Sazu asked again.
“Call it thanks for everything you did for Guinevere,” I said. “She was the closest thing you’ve ever had to a daughter, but you were the only real father she’s ever had. You did good with her.”
“That’s it? Because I trained Guinevere?” Sazu asked.
“No,” I said. “Somone cares for you who means more to me than anything; that enough.”
“What about godhood?” Sazu challenged me. “Does she mean more to you than that?”
“Yes,” I said with no hesitation. “Go, take your people and leave. If you attack me again, I will kill you; Guinevere can’t be your shield against me forever.”
I turned around froze and ducked as a sword passed overhead, the attack had blindsided me my Foresight giving no warning of its approach. A brown robbed man slashed at me with a long thin blade. He was faster and quicker than Sazu, his hands blurred as he muttered too low for even my super hearing to pick up. Spikes shot out of the ground all around me piercing my body from all directions. The ground opened up around me dropping me into a pit of pure mana, it burned into my skin like an acid but my newly acquired resistance to that damage did nothing. The ground closed over me as pure mana began burning into my body and I felt it begin ravaging my spirit and soul as well.
---
Sazu and Pierce stood over the section of ground the Warlord had disappeared down.
“Is he still alive?” Sazu asked.
“Yes,” Pierce said distractedly. “He’s trying to push his way out; he’s got a strong ability but eventually he’ll crack.”
“Let him live,” Sazu said.
“What?” Pierce asked disbelievingly, his head turning to look at his best friend. “He is a champion! What reason could you have to spare him?”
“Call it gut instinct,” Silas said. “Today he might be our enemy but tomorrow… I could see him becoming our greatest ally.”
“He is a threat to us,” Errila said joining the two of them looking oddly distressed and frazzled a state the two men had never seen her in. “He has that cursed tome and I’ve never encountered or heard of anything like that energy before, not a spell or an ability. He could be our greatest ally or he could be our greatest enemy; we can’t take that chance.”
“Agreed,” Pierce said.
Silas let out a sigh. “I’m using my veto.”
“Your serious?” Pierce asked. “We each have only one those and your using it to save him?”
“I have no children,” Silas said. “That was denied me by the gods. Guinevere was just an assignment to let me steal back our spells from Merlin but in that time, she came became like the daughter I never had. She cares for this man, enough to look past years of indoctrination and train him as I trained her.”
“We can’t be basing all of this on one girl,” Pierce said. “She isn’t one of us.”
“You made me leave her behind,” Silas said glaring at Pierce who flinched for a moment before turning back to his best friend.
“You know why we had to do that, despite all your training she was still a tool of our enemy,” Pierce said.
“She refused to be the gods servant,” Silas said. “I could never formally or openly teach her our ways, but she still took the lessons I gave her to heart.
“What does this have to do with anything?” Errila said.
“I believe in Guinevere,” Silas said. “In time I think she will draw him to our cause.”
“We’re going to let this champion live just because your old student loves him?” Errila asked.
“Someone cares for him,” Silas said shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve used my veto so unless you plan on breaking our pact the matter is decided.”
“Fine,” Pierce said. “He probably won’t even survive the mana burn.”
“I think he will surprise us all,” Sazu said.
They opened a portal and stepped through disappearing from all across the battlefield.