Without missing a beat, the beast charged at Merovech, who moved the ball he was in to evade the devastating attack. Dust filled the air once again due to the beast's mighty footsteps shattering the very ground, making it difficult to see what was happening. In fact, he even hoped that the creature had accidentally killed its incompetent master during the attack.

That, however, proved to be a case of hopeful optimism because as the dust cleared, it revealed that the creature had stopped just in front of the assassin, and she was... caring for it? It was something truly bizarre to see after everything this person had done thus far.

"My precious little monster, did someone hurt you?" she cooed in a sweet voice while petting the being's arm.

After saying that, something dislodged itself from the thing's face and landed in front of the lady. Despite the obscene amount of blood and gore covering the object, Merovech could tell that it was a sword. He had no idea who did it, but the young duke thanked them anyway because it gave him something he desperately needed—a distraction.

Another ball of water formed at the tips of his fingers and shot straight through the sphere, hitting the female attacker through the head. She didn't even have time to blink before her lifeless body fell to the ground.

Unfortunately, doing this didn't make the beast disappear. It nudged its master's lifeless body with a finger before making a loud, heart-wrenching whimper and turning toward the only likely source of its owner's demise, which was him.

With a roar that made heaven itself tremble, the creature charged at Merovech. By again moving the water sphere sideways, the young duke managed to avoid being trampled to death. Unfortunately, he failed to avoid the fist that was about to strike him.

His water sphere shattered like a soap bubble, and the young duke went flying, which wasn't good. What was good however was that he was flying toward the river. The water extended from its bed and caught the young man almost tenderly. It then helped him get on his feet so that he could stand on its surface.

"Right, I think I've had enough of this," Merovech said after brushing the nonexistent dust off his clothes.

Aggressively, the young duke made a slicing motion, which was followed by a massive water blade heading for the creature. The stone wall behind it was sliced through, while the only lasting effect on the beast was that its chest looked slightly chipped.

Merovech figured that he'd probably be doing this for the better part of the day until he saw something that even made him freeze in disbelief. The other mage was getting up.

"You scoundrel!" she shouted and turned to him, revealing flesh knitting itself around the area that used to be her right eye. Very quickly, the eye had reformed, revealing that it was yellow and filled with understandable animosity toward his person.

"Kill him, grind him to pieces! Make it as slow as possible!" she shouted at her beast.

The creature looked very much obliged to do so, while Merovech felt that he was most definitely not thrilled about what was currently happening.

Giant beasts and assassins he could stomach. Annoyances coming back from the dead he could not. What was next? His old bastard father getting up and claiming that the attack was just a flesh wound. He needed to end this foolishness and fast.

With an order, the river stopped flowing and instead rose above them all. The assassin widened her eyes at the phenomenon and couldn't even react when all the water was dumped on her. The resulting sound was loud enough to leave whatever noise the monster had made to shame.

The very earth shook after the very blatant manipulation of its elements. The river water filled the courtyard and stood there for a few seconds before eventually returning to its basin and continuing its intended direction of flow. What remained after the water went away was a yard that was thoroughly decimated, and Merovech, who despite being wet as a dog, was unharmed.

After taking the damp mask off his face, thus revealing baby blue eyes and a delicate nose, the young duke surveyed the yard and noticed that his father's body was missing. Despite the small blessing which it was, the young duke found something that was most definitely less pleasing.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Instead of joining his beloved father as porpoise food, the creature lay there hunched in a ball. At first, Merovech thought that perhaps that thing was dead; however, as it moved, that hope quickly died. To make matters worse, once the beast un-balled itself, the young duke was met with the unfortunate sight of his would-be killer coughing up water. Frankly, he'd heard of peasant revolts that were easier to crush than her.

"You wouldn't be perhaps willing to throw this ugliness aside and join me for a nice cup of wine where we could do something more productive," Merovech suddenly offered, hoping that, like most nobles, she had grown bored of the squabble that was going nowhere.

"We could talk business. I, for example, am very interested in that creature and curious if you are willing to sell a couple of those."

Unfortunately, his proposal was interrupted when the lady extended her hand, and a fleshy spike formed in front of it, which was launched in his direction. Remembering what that thing did to his father, Merovech conjured a whip out of water and swatted it aside.

"I see, that's your answer," he remarked. "So be it."

Despite the brave declaration, Merovech was far from a position where he could continue this fight. Even with this being his home territory, meaning that he could regenerate his power quicker than her, he wasn't still the de facto leader in this land due to his father only recently passing away. Due to this, Merovech couldn't use all of the power that this land could offer and thus needed time to recover after doing something as strenuous as lifting the river. Time that the young duke doubted he had.

Also, the longer he waited, the quicker his enemies' meager reserves could refill. As annoying and demeaning as it was, he couldn't beat these two alone. In hindsight, maybe he shouldn't have let his father die.

As if answering a prayer, or maybe just out of some sick sense of amusement from his father's spirit, help did come. In the form of a peasant that arrived from the same direction that the beast came and wore armor that looked so bad that Merovech wouldn't even equip his useless guards with it. And that was saying much because the young duke had nothing but the greatest hatred for those useless louts his father kept in service.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, since useless help was still better than no help, he used the opportunity while the beast was still getting up to conjure a platform made out of water under his feet and quickly slip past the two towards the peasant.

The new arrival looked startled by seeing him and even raised his sword; however, Merovech allowed it to slide. He had better things to do.

"You there," the duke started only to freeze once he noticed how unnaturally dark the man's face was. Brushing it off as a result of the simpleton playing with mud, he returned to his train of thought.

"Were you going after this beast?" he asked.

"Yes," the man replied, "in fact, I have a way to stop it."

"Yes, yes, I believe that would be quite lovely," Merovech said, interrupting him. He really didn't have the time to deal with whatever plan this harebrained idiot had thought up and unironically believed would work.

"Here's the deal," Merovech said and pointed at the woman. "That's the creature's master. I need you to handle her while I handle the beast. Go now!"

The peasant looked surprised and somewhat insulted before he blinked and made a neutral expression before facing their foes.

At this point, both of them had gotten up. The creature looked ready to charge, while the woman stood behind it. Everything was perfect.

"Stay next to me!" the duke ordered, seeing that his help wished to run away.

The monster started to trample everything in its wake, at which point Merovech conjured a river water tendril from the lake. It tied around the beast's front hand, stopping its charge and also tripping it as a bonus. The creature fell on its stomach, after which Merovech pinned the captured hand to the ground.

"Now!" he ordered.

The peasant began to run in her direction while Merovech kept the creature in a somewhat prone state. He doubted that his helper would be able to defeat her. At best, he'll be able to distract her for a few seconds. However, once he gets past the beast, the young duke will release the creature, and... why was he running towards the beast?

Instead of going toward the intended target, this mud-cowered man was running for the Goliath.

"I said its master, you imbecile!" The duke yelled, however, the other man either couldn't hear him or just didn't listen to him, which was much worse.

Merovech swore that the bastard better hope that either the monster or the assassin finish him off first because if the Duke of Rinaz gets his hands on him, this moron will himself on a bloody pike!

Meanwhile, the man ran up to the beast and, using its prone state, pulled and impaled the creature in its eye with a sword, which, now that the young duke thought about it, looked eerily familiar to the one the guard captain possessed.

The sword was completely inside its head, and after jerking its body a bit, the monster stopped moving, indicating that it was either dead or at least suffered enough head trauma that it didn't need to be an issue.

"Well, I'll be," Merovech mumbled after seeing what had just happened. Apparently, this peasant was more competent than the rest. After this little pondering, he faced the assassin, who looked to be as dumbfounded as he had been.

"Well then," the duke declared, "it seems that you are out of tricks."

As a response, the gem in the crown started to glow in a darkened light as the lady started to scream.

Instinctively, Merovech formed his water barrier while the peasant hid behind the beast. Both of them expected some kind of counterattack. Instead, her body was absorbed into some kind of small black hole that itself disappeared.

A few minutes passed of nothing happening after which both men looked at each other in confusion while not being able to figure out what just occurred.