Guy was the first to commit. The talkative brother surged forward with a roar that was half-challenge, boots hammering the packed earth as he closed the short distance and lunged with his spear, “Lancing Thrust!”
It was a good attack. Strong, committed. The Vitrian must have practiced it hundreds, if not thousands of times. But it was clear at a glance that he’d only ever practiced with it.
Alarion met him head-on, catching the system-empowered attack with a thrust from his mace. Their weapons locked, the spear point caught amidst Isha’s odd angles. Alarion gave ground for half a second, his feet sliding along the dirt until the skill expired and the difference in attributes reasserted itself. Then, Guy tried to withdraw, but Alarion was both faster and stronger, driving the combined weapons into the dirt with a flick of his wrist.
To his credit, Guy had the good sense to drop his spear as Alarion let go of Isha and charged him. Guy retreated in front of an upraised Echo, then yelped in surprise as a gash opened on his arm before the blow had even fallen. The weapon’s time-shifting effect really was a lot more effective when his opponents didn’t know about it.
Alarion felt a surge of satisfaction at the wounded warrior’s look of disbelief, but he wasn’t so green as to overextend over such a small win.
He pivoted back as a bolt of lightning snapped between him and his first opponent. It missed him cleanly, aimed at where the younger brother had assumed he’d be. The shot wasn’t a total loss since it opened space between the two melee combatants, but the first bout had clearly gone to Alarion.
And he’d barely even used his skills.
“Do you yield?” Alarion asked.
The battle was being conducted under Vitrian dueling rules. Developed over the course of centuries, the dueling code was, like most Vitrian codes, a complicated web of norms, precedent, and statute. Formed shortly after the fall of the system, it was widely adopted across the continent and in other parts of the developed world as a means of resolving disputes over honor and status—preferably without anyone dying.
In fact, the main aim of the standard rules was to stop most duels before they even began. In civilian life, there were strict limits on when it could be invoked, along with mandatory waiting periods and mediation between the parties. Even in the military, the offender had to be given three separate chances to withdraw the offending claim—or offer reasonable restitution for more serious offenses.
Even after the duel began, surrender was always an option. The brothers could fall on his mercy, withdraw their accusation, and accept their dismissal. Alarion could likewise claim to have found ‘satisfaction’ without their apology, either by beating them bloody or by implicitly conceding they were correct.
The distinction was important because only a surrender would give Alarion what he needed. Simply bludgeoning the snot-nosed twins would be gratifying, but it wouldn’t make him righteous in the eyes of his audience. Trial by combat had gone out of style with the Celesians; he needed one, or preferably both twins, to concede to his authority.
“Return.”
That certainly didn’t sound like a concession.
Alarion flickered twice in rapid succession, shifting wide to the right before returning to his original position. It was something he’d been practicing during his endurance training as a way of mitigating damage through [Dimensional Evasion] without having to leave an advantageous position. Normally, the teleports were so fast that it was hard to tell he’d even moved, but this time he’d staggered them just enough to let Guy’s spear pass harmlessly through empty air as it flew back to his hand.
“An interesting skill,” Alarion remarked, though it really wasn’t. Return abilities were dime-a-dozen for classes that utilized thrown weapons. His was actually on the lower end, an uncommon and boringly named skill called [Return].
It really didn’t feel fair to fight someone when you knew every skill in their arsenal. But then, the brothers had been the ones to pick this fight.
“Mine are on my weapons,” Alarion continued as Guy pointlessly flourished his spear and took up a deeper stance. “Echo is straightforward, but the hilt wrap takes more fitness.“
Short arcs of electricity crackled nearby; a helpful, if unintentional, warning from the otherwise silent younger brother. His [Muted Spellcasting] skill had seemed an odd choice on paper, given that lightning was not exactly a subtle element, but Alarion now had a feeling it was more of a requirement than a tactical choice.
He sent mana flowing toward Isha, causing his [Hilt Wrap of the Lost and Recovered] to go taut, dragging the weapon toward him a few inches at a time. The enchantment was useless for recovering his weapon quickly, but Alarion had been practicing with it as well.
A sharp jerk of his shoulder ripped Alarion’s mace from the ground and sent it sweeping toward the younger twin. Faced with a projectile larger than his upper body, the mage wisely abandoned his spell mid-cast in favor of a last-ditch mana shield that blunted but did not fully halt its progress. The mace hit him like a rampaging bull, sending him sprawling into the dirt as Alarion yanked again and began spinning the oversized weapon over his head.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Using the mace like that had been ZEKE’s idea, albeit one that Alarion was only to use sparingly. It was unorthodox and made for an excellent surprise attack, but it wasn’t meant for fighting peer opponents. Anyone on his level could dodge the weighty, predictable attacks, or worse yet, strike at the hand wrap itself to disarm him.
But these weren’t peer opponents. Neither brother knew how to confront the whirling mass of death, and it was clear from their expressions that they now understood just how far they had swum in over their heads.
With the twins willing to take the initiative, Alarion seized it.
He twisted his grip, took a step forward, and put the whole of his body into a pull that yanked the mace from the sky and slammed it down into the space where Guy had stood only an instant earlier. [Physical Evasion] was another of the older brother’s skills, a [Vitrian Guardsman] technique that drastically upped one’s defensive reflexes for a short period. Alarion hadn’t intended to bait it out so early, but he’d happily take it.
Especially since the brother seemed convinced that Alarion was the one out of position.
“Empowered Devour Fate,” Alarion chanted even as Guy came rushing toward him, spear in hand.
He saw the flicker of fear on the young man’s face as a single pulse of white and black rippled off Alarion’s mace, engulfing both of them before they had time to react. Alarion couldn’t blame them; the spell had a very frightening name and a stunning visual effect, but it was both better and worse than it sounded.
Activating [Foresight], Alarion dodged Guy’s [Vital Strike] and his [Piercing Barrage]. He stepped over a [Punishing Sweep] and pushed the young Vitrian entirely off balance as he tried to follow up with yet another skill. In a display of pure, unadulterated dominance, he let his subordinate make thrust after thrust without lifting a hand against him. He even went so far as to use him as a human shield, constantly moving to keep Guy in his brother’s line of fire.
“What did you do?” The man screamed as he scampered back from the melee.
“You say that like I am only doing one thing,” Alarion observed. In reality, it was four. [Near and Far] had reached its pinnacle some time ago, heavily diminishing the boy’s attack power, while maximizing Alarion’s defense.
Meanwhile, [Fatebound Curse] had sent his luck plummeting so low that he probably had more negative luck than all his other attributes put together. In such an open field, there were only so many disasters the attribute could heap upon him, but it made everything worse. His hands slipped on his spear, sweat dripped in his eyes, and his feet were never quite where they needed to be for his next follow-up.
Those two alone would have made the fight trivial when combined with [Devour Fate], but Alarion didn’t just need to win. He needed to break their spirit.
And try out one of his newest spells in the process.
Devour Fate [Rank II]
Affinity: Reality/Enchantment
Type: Burst
Cost: 500 MP
Range: 15 yards
Duration: One Minute
Effects: This spell steals and consumes some of the echoes of possibility possessed by another living creature, providing fuel for your own. Creatures struck by this spell will have worse outcomes for all actions for a short period of time. Divination magic will be more effective against targets struck by this spell. User will gain up to a moderate increase in LUK depending on the effectiveness of this spell.
The spell had an annoyingly vague description, but for all its flowery language, Alarion felt he had a good grasp on it. For all practical purposes, the spell did two things.
First, by consuming the ‘echoes of possibility’ as the spell called them, Alarion temporarily reduced the possible futures of his target. When combined with [Foresight], this made strong opponents easier to read and weak opponents impossible not to. As far as [Foresight] was concerned, Guy Tenri had only a single possible future, one that shifted and altered according to Alarion’s whims rather than his own.
Second, it stole the target’s LUK, or something akin to it, and provided the benefit to him instead. How much it stole seemed to be based on their strength relative to Alarion’s, though he wasn’t sure whether it was measured by UCL or total attributes. In testing, he’d gained as much as a 15% increase in his LUK with an empowered cast. The increased LUK could even be spent through [Fated Strike], though sadly, it took from his base LUK first.
In short, it was a spell that helped deepen his tenuous understanding of the connection between fate and luck, while also being utterly ruinous within his current toolkit.
“I think we are just about done,” Alarion said as he swatted down a thrust from Guy’s spear with Echo and deflected yet another lightning bolt with Isha. The siblings had more in their arsenal, such as an electrical boosting skill Tai could throw onto his brother, but they weren’t suited for this sort of close-in fight. Tai was closer to an artillery mage than a primary caster, his magic too inaccurate and long-winded to be much of a threat, so someone so much stronger than him, while Guy had his hands full just keeping Alarion away from his brother.
Or trying to.
“Tai!” the elder twin shouted as he realized—too late—that Alarion’s latest attack had been a feint.
It was over in two strikes. One to shatter the desperate mana shield, the second a relative love tap from Isha that broke his arm in two places.
Guy screamed in incoherent rage, but as nice as it was to be on the Kali side of the equation for once, Alarion knew he had to stop toying with them before the crowd turned on him.
He flickered past a thrust and caught the haft of Guy’s spear in the crook of his elbow. Leaning back, Alarion lifted the shocked Vitrian from the ground with the same lack of effort he used while wielding his mace.
Then he slammed him into the ground just as hard.
“Someone put you up to this,” he told the stunned soldier. “I would like to know who.”
Guy shook his head once, perhaps hoping it would tell him which of the several men in front of him was the real Alarion. From there, he rolled onto his side and fumbled for his dropped spear, paying no mind to the question.
“I asked who put you up to this.”
“You-“
Guy’s head whipped to the side, blood spattering the ground from a mere slap. “No, I did not do it. Tell me who.”
“Just finish the duel, liar,” Guy spat.
“No, you do not get to leave that easy,” Alarion told him, stomping on his hand as it finally found his spear. But rather than strike him again, Alarion placed his hand atop the young man’s head and said, “Empowered Mend Other”.
Vitality and horror filled Guy’s blue eyes as they met Alarion’s violet. There was no mercy there, even if the violence made Alarion feel ill inside. He either made a point here and now or risked similar disobedience in the future when it might matter.
“Someone put you up to this-“
“I yield,” Guy said quickly.
“A coward and a fool. I expect you and your brother packed and gone by first light,” Alarion said, before sweeping his gaze across the crowd surrounding them. “Anyone else?”
wrecked by something at the tail end of the week, not sure if it was a cold or what, but I spent the last three days in bed listening to hbomb videos and praying for the sweet embrace of death. Sadly it never came but I instead healed up. For some defiition of 'healed' anyway. Bah.
now uploading all of my chapters that I wanted to do on sunday, so you're just getting mon/tues/wed all in one lump sum. Womp womp.