Miel was the general of Goldblack's army.
It was a title that many would envy, a power that many would kill for. Thousands would do it for way less, after all. He boasted of riches and an army that he alone commanded, it was no exaggeration to say that perhaps one of the strongest and best-suited armies of the whole kingdom of Kulkus. The people adored him, his soldiers respected him. The trust that the duke had on Miel was probably higher than the one the man had for his son, but you couldn't blame him for it.
Miel Alleeba was, in essence, a perfect swordsman with a perfect record in several aspects. The title of general only added a magical something to his charismatic image, which gathered people around him like insects to a torch. He was, in the eye of the public, a general.
However, to him, he was a general second. The real importance of his prowess laid on his identity as one of the infamous Eight Blessed of the continent, those who possessed a dark gift— an ability granted by the gods at the time of their birth, which allowed them to stand higher than any other being.
He was the possessor of a blessing, the member of a group that had long since disbanded. He was the Greed, the one that would never stop searching to climb even higher.
However, the power-drunk Thom did not know this.
"Die!!"
With a cleave of his sword, the dirt from the ground was blown up to create a dark cloud of drizzling dust.
Miel dodged the blade and attacked, slicing at Thom's left arm. He noticed the skin wasn't pierced, and without taking longer, he kicked the earth and retreated. Thom ran toward him with the speed of a bolt, and swung his dark sword with a striking ability he clearly lacked before.
Strands of aura were shot to the skies with every swing. Their feet moved incessantly throughout the terrain, blasting away the remains of the barn, the farmhouse, and even the fences around.
"You all should probably get going." Chamgue said, with Suu's limp body hanging from his shoulder.
"But Chief..." The guards, trembling in their boots, looked at Chamgue.
"This senseless battle will be over soon. I will need to attend to the general when it happens. Take this ruffian to the cells, don't forget what I've told you."
Chamgue handed the unconscious girl over to the guards, who almost fell down as they didn't expect her to be so heavy. Her hands had already been tied and her feet too, a simple protocol for carrying people against their will.
At that same moment, Thom's attack was parried by Miel's uncanny dexterity, and a wave of red aura shot towards them with terrifying speed. Before it could hit the guards, Chamgue stood in the middle and stretched out his hand while forcing his own aura toward the space in front of him, breaking the slash into pieces with his fingers.
The guards did not waste any more time, and hurriedly ran away from the farm with their tail between their legs.
"How strange... General Miel hasn't stopped playing around with that man." Chamgue said, seeing how all of the strikes that the general landed never aimed for vital organs, as if he was trying to extend the fight as long as possible.
If Chamgue were to be honest, he had been greatly impressed by the sudden increase in power the youth had demonstrated. However, he also knew it wasn't nearly enough to be on par with Miel in that situation.
It was true that the black-haired swordsman showed moments of especial power. His downwards slashes, for example, were on a whole different level compared to his usual attacks, but since they were all aimless power-slashes, they never really hit the general. Other times the man had sudden increases in speed, or he would somehow multiply his aura to send a massive slash forward.
Chamgue didn't feel like he was watching a swordfight, but an acted, theater-controlled situation. In this scene Thom and Miel were the actors, so they purposely avoided hitting each other and dragged out the fight.
It seemed impossible to Chamgue that a real battle with swords could last more than a few seconds. Even more if the general was one of the people involved in said fight.
"What are you doing, general Miel?"
Sparks danced around in the dark of the young night, created by the clash of cold swords. One dark, relying on raw, unadulterated strength, and another two streaks of dim light with the grace of a dancer's thin hands. The laughter from Miel's mouth occasionally reached Thom's ears and irritated him greatly, making him use all his skills without taking care of his stamina.
They had been fighting for well over twenty minutes ever since Thom had been kicked out of the farmhouse, a drag that couldn't have been possible if Thom didn't possess [Troll's Endurance III], or if his skin weren't to be as hardy as it was.
Thom had been glad before that he could throw around powerful cleaves and masterfully fast slashes and stockades, and had done it in full display for the first several minutes of the fight.
However, now that he had been fighting for so long, he had to admit that it had been a really bad decision to start out so strong.
"What's wrong, Thom?" The general dodged his attack and took one step back, mockingly yelling at the young man. "Are you getting tired already? Is my pace too fast for you?!"
"Shut it!"
Thom impulsively responded to Miel's annoying taunts, launching himself to attack every time. Miel, different from Thom, who showed an extremely exhausted image, was pristine-looking, dodging every time faster, deflecting blows easier, and attacking more fiercely.
"Even with this much power you're still a newbie, I see!" He giggled.
"Argh!"
Miel jumped back several feet, expecting Thom to follow him closely.
However, the young man stayed in place, gathering his breath and cleaning the sweat from his forehead. His heavy shoulders moved up and down, his face pale and weary. The wounds that had healed so quickly before now began to take longer and longer to close, as if he was slowly becoming human again. Miel watched from afar with a dumbfounded smile, about to break into laughter.
"It seems that even monsters need their fair share of energy to play, huh?" He raised his eyebrow with a smile. "What is it? Do you need me to give you a break?"
"Ha... Ha..." Thom panted and stuck to his position, trying to fight his heavy eyelids and his massive need to fall asleep.
"With how many attacks you were throwing around at such speeds and how you regenerated your wounds over and over, I thought you had an infinite source of energy powering through you!" Miel chuckled. "I see that's not the case!"
Thom had never used so much of his skills in a row. He had always paid close attention to the warnings about fatigue and exhaustion that Skill Master gave him, but the sudden increase in his vitality had made him feel nearly invincible.
He was sure that Miel could not overpower him when it came to raw power. His speed, strength, endurance and regeneration were all superior, and as such, he had blown all of his energy into trying to end the fight quickly. So why? Why was it happening again, the same thing that happened back at Seashore? Why was he loosing to someone that was physically weaker and had worse weapons? Were all of his efforts up until now not enough?
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"Tell me, Thom."
"Hm?"
Miel placed one of his swords on his back, smiling with contempt as he looked at the black-haired young man. He looked around shortly to see that the only other person present was Chamgue, before pointing at Thom with his sword.
"Why are we fighting?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Thom frowned and gritted his teeth. "Merry and Marz are enough of a reason, but you, you had the balls to torture me! Again! I won't be happy unless your head rolls on the ground, you— wait."
Thom moved his eyes left and right, but the only people he saw beside himself were Chamgue and Miel. Had he not come with Suu to the farm?
"Bastard!" He yelled. "Where the hell is Suu?!"
"Fucking hell, it took you long to notice." Miel sighed as if extremely disappointed. "See? What kind of person would not notice their sister is missing? I don't think a monster like you could miss someone else, leave alone some farmers he only tricked for his own benefit."
"Shut up! Shut the hell up!"
"Oh, my gods, how many times are you gonna tell me the same thing over and over?" Miel bent his knees and laughed with a weary look. "Just stop already! I get it, you hate me!"
Thom wanted to run and slice the man's neck, but he was already too tired. His legs had become stationary, not even one of his muscles would move. He had badly abused his body without knowing it's capacities, and now it had started to take a deep toll on him.
"Hey, let me ask you something." Miel said. "Would you escape if I let you go right now?"
"Hah?" Thom seemed like he wanted to spit on Miel's face— and indeed, he wanted to. "Why don't you kill yourself already?"
"Do I take that as a no?"
"Of course it's a no, you dumbass!"
Thom swung his weapon, and a massive aura slash broke from blade. Miel, however, didn't even bother to stop it. He simply ducked and let it grace his head, leaving the slash to lose itself in the horizon the
"I have a few things to tell you, Thom." He said, burying one of the swords on the ground.
"Haa... Ha..." Thom didn't have the intention to stop him.
"First, you seem like a decent guy using a sword. If you had managed to hit me, you could have probably done some really big damage. But then again, you didn't. And, it's really really strange. Because it seems like you know how to use the sword, but you don't really know anything about combat, do you?"
Thom felt like someone had opened his skull and had taken a peek at his brain. He feigned ignorance with his expression, but inside he knew that he had been once more analyzed by that man.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He said.
"Come on. There's no need to play silly, because, well, I don't actually understand what the hell's wrong with you." Miel smiled. "A man with your skill should have participated in a numerous amount of close-to-death battles. I'd say that if there was a comparison point, then you could very well have the same amount of ability with the sword as a younger version of myself." He pointed at his chest without trying to hide his arrogance one bit.
Thom didn't want to hear his chatter, but he had no option. He had to wait, wait, and hope that his energy would magically come back to him after a short rest. He had not paid enough attention to his own body's condition, and now he had started to regret it.
I hope Suu's okay at the very least... I don't know how long can I keep fighting this bastard. There is no doubt that this is a controlled situation, which makes me even more nervous. The people waiting for us at the byre, the extremely visible column of smoke, all of that was made to lure me in here so Miel could get rid of me— or, wait, he said something about losing value as a hostage if my face was damaged, didn't he?
"Don't be so quiet, gods." Miel clicked his tongue. "What a hard person to talk to. As I was saying, it's not a matter of having the skill or not, but the fact that you don't look like someone who has gone through battle after battle!"
"What are you implying?" Thom asked.
"Isn't it clear?" Miel stood up and brandished his swords. "You are a person who has been greatly blessed by the god of war, Thom Arburson! But you lack the experience to go with your power! That is completely unforgivable, the fact that you have not polished your skills to the max is a sin of the highest order!"
"Tch, don't start with the church-talk, you sick shit." Thom took one step forward, feeling the muscles in his body turn to jelly with every movement. "If I have the talent or not, that is not your problem! You ain't gonna tell me you did all this because of envy, are you?!"
"Envy?" Miel's eyes sparkled for a second, a small chuckle escaping his mouth. "No, no. Nothing as vulgar as that, not in the slightest. If you want to call it something, you can call it..."
Miel dropped the sword on his left hand, and extended it forward as if to grab Thom's head with his fingers.
"You can call it... Greed."
Before the young man could ask with his anger-filled voice what he was doing, he felt a pull in the very center of his stomach. He opened his mouth as if trying to say something, but he was cut short as a violent current of shivers was sent down his spine. He felt that something was pulling from the very core of his heart, that the world had frozen.
He saw Miel slowly clutching his hand and retiring it back, grabbing the grip of his sword, pushing his feet on the ground. The wings of a fly seemed to batter around slowly in front of his eyes, but Miel was dashing at the speed of an arrow toward him.
Splurt!
When he caught his breath once again, less than a second had passed. He was now flying up high, the cold wind of the autumn night chilling his skin. The temperature was the first thing he felt, before noticing the river of blood that began to pour from the wound on his sides.
His body turned before falling, and he saw Miel's ecstatic face, throwing away a pulverized sword that had broken after contact with his skin.
"So this is your power, Thom Arburson!!" The general bellowed.
Boom!!
Miel pressed his feet hard down on the ground, propelling himself several meters above. He twisted the grip of his sword and sent a powerful stockade that broke through the air like lightning, his aura pushing forward together with the blade at a speed that by no means he could have achieved in any other instance of the fight, piercing Thom's stomach and the bag that he always held close to himself.
He tore away at the bag, making a ripping sound that sent goosebumps all over Thom's body. The bag emitted a raging purple glow for a second that looked as if a whirlwind had suddenly broken loose, and an arcane explosion that painted the sky a deep violet followed.
The bag disintegrated in the sky without leaving a trace other than a shower of deep purple dust, paralyzing Thom from the sheer weight of the shock he was feeling.
"Bullseye!" The general cried.
Miel let go of the sword's broken grip, leaving the pieces inside of Thom's wound as he pulled from his shoulders.
Thom wanted to curse, but before he could, he felt his body accelerate at an inhuman velocity. The world around him became streaks of light as he crashed against the ground in an explosion of dirt.
Miel followed down with a powerful kick to Thon's skull, which finished to bury him down on the ground. Miel picked him up by his skull, and mercilessly started to bang him against the blood-drenched mud. The amount of strength he displayed was not human— something that went even beyond of Thom's [Golem's Strength II].
The ramming of his head against the ground felt as if his spine was going to break with every second, especially scary since the wounds in his body had already stopped healing a long while ago.
To any onlooker, although there were none, this violent display of power would be no different to an apex predator playing with his prey before eating it, cruelty beyond necessity or any justification.
"I'm sorry for going hard on you, Thom!" Miel said, taking Thom's head behind his shoulder, flailing his body around like a puppet's. "I have no time to keep playing with you anymore!"
He shot Thom's body towards the remains of the barn, making it finally crumble away. A mountain of sawdust arose from the collision, but Miel didn't pay it any mind as he walked inside the debris with a smile on his face, already preparing a spell before Thom could even think of standing up.
"Cough... Cough..."
Between the piled-up pieces of wood and the scattered appendixes of the calcined corpses, the young black-haired man laid with his hands at his sides. The color had drained from his face and a myriad of scratches adorned the new sheet-color body of his. He tried to stand up or do anything, but now the little energy he was already missing was drained by his attempt to heal the wound on his abdomen.
A hand parted the red dust away, showing Miel's horrible smile. An expression of despair dawned on Thom's face, he had finally figured out Miel had been playing him around.
This is not fair... Not fair at all! After doing all I did, after fighting so much, is this what I get? How could I lose? How could I lose?!
"What a pitiful look." Miel scoffed. "But we only have twenty-two seconds more, so please don't move." Miel gathered the magic energy on his palm, which slowly began to take the shape of blue flickering specks.
Thom's half-open eyes could not distinguish what happened, he couldn't make shapes any longer between the countless blurs that covered his sight. The only thoughts clouding his mind were of pure deep hatred, and taking a nap. He felt the blood dripping from his hanging jaw, a few regrets painting his head a deep red before fading away.
The words that resonated in his head seemed more like a memory than a thought, a chorus that called for what he, unknowingly, most feared.
"I know, my people, that above all the things that cause fear, death is the one that inspires the most dreadful thoughts! But worry not, for we have failed and have fallen this time, but the legacy you have created will go on for eternity! Don't raise up your arms and don't wage war in vain, this is the last time we've lost, and we've been defeated. But for the greatness of who we all are, and who we've become, we cannot find ourselves buried alive by our enemies! Give yourselves into the premise of everlasting love, the one that I will collect from your hands and your hearts, I will gather with mine, and I'll seal for eternity so the Forest will never see the light it's been robbed of again!"
Before he could search in his memories for an answer, he heard a chant coming from Miel's lips, and the world turned pitch black.