Chapter 198: Ulrich Against Valdris [1]

The blades met again.

The sound rang across the camp, sharper than the clash of the knights fighting around them. Ulrich’s crimson-covered sword struck Valdris’s black blade, and the red runes burst apart at once. Flecks of mana scattered through the air before vanishing above the stream.

Ulrich did not waste time watching them disappear.

He stepped inside Valdris’s reach.

Most swordsmen would have moved away after losing a spell at the point of contact. Valdris’s sword was made to break magic, and every mage who had fought him before likely learned that lesson quickly. They would retreat, create space, and try to cast a larger spell from a safer distance.

Ulrich did the opposite.

He drove his shoulder toward Valdris’s chest, forcing him to shift backward, and brought his sword upward from below. The strike aimed beneath Valdris’s guard, toward the space between the black blade and his ribs.

Valdris turned his wrist.

Black steel caught Ulrich’s sword before it could reach him.

Ulrich’s arm shook from the impact. His fingers numbed around the hilt. Valdris’s strength traveled through their locked blades with frightening force, and he used it to shove Ulrich back.

Ulrich allowed himself to move with the pressure rather than fighting it directly. His boots slid through the wet grass. He twisted his body, released the crossed position of their swords, and cut toward Valdris’s thigh as he regained his footing.

Valdris drew his leg back.

The edge passed close enough to slice the lower hem of his black coat.

He answered with a downward strike aimed at Ulrich’s collarbone.

Ulrich raised his sword.

Their weapons collided.

Clang!

The runes gathered over Ulrich’s blade shattered under the touch of Valdris’s weapon. The crimson light vanished. Yet Ulrich’s sword remained in place, and he guided the force of Valdris’s strike away from his body. He moved his hands with the blow, changing the angle at the last moment. The black blade slid across his steel and struck empty air beside him.

Valdris immediately attacked again.

He moved faster this time.

His sword came from the left, then the right, changing direction before Ulrich could fully settle his stance. The black blade cut through the night in clean, brutal lines. It carried no wasted motion. Each strike had a purpose: force Ulrich backward, narrow his choices, destroy his balance, and open his body for a final cut.

Ulrich retreated three steps.

Not because he was losing control.

Because Valdris wanted him to retreat four.

The fourth step would have brought Ulrich onto a patch of uneven ground near the stream, where loose stones lay beneath the grass. Valdris had noticed it, and Ulrich noticed that Valdris had noticed it.

Instead of moving back, Ulrich pivoted.

Valdris’s next strike passed where Ulrich’s neck had been a moment earlier.

Ulrich turned around the attack and stepped to the commander’s outside. His sword came toward Valdris’s back.

Valdris reacted instantly. He spun, catching the attack with the lower portion of his blade. Their swords scraped together, black against crimson, and Valdris used the collision to bring his elbow toward Ulrich’s face.

Ulrich leaned away.

The elbow passed before his nose.

He answered with a short kick to Valdris’s knee.

Valdris lifted his leg, avoiding the strike by a narrow margin, and the two men separated.

For a brief instant, they stood facing one another beside the stream.

The firelight reached them in broken orange flickers. Crimson sparks still drifted from the remains of Ulrich’s destroyed reinforcement spells. The water behind Valdris moved over pale stones, disturbed by the commander’s earlier landing. Around them, the camp had become a battlefield. Rubenhart knights fought desperately to keep the Valmorian soldiers away from the tent. The black-armored warriors pressed forward in a disciplined formation, their anti-magic weapons forcing Ulrich’s men into close combat.

Yet the fight between Ulrich and Valdris drew the eyes of everyone near enough to see it.

Hermione stood near the tent entrance with one hand clasped around Esther’s. Her fear had not disappeared. She could hear the cries of the wounded, see the blood on the grass, and feel the danger closing around them.

Still, she could not look away from Ulrich.

She had seen him train countless times at the Estate.

At the time, he had looked strong.

Now she understood that she had never truly seen him fight.

There was nothing ordinary in the way he moved before Valdris.

Airam stood in front of Esther, her body held tense as she watched the duel. She had always considered swordsmanship a practical skill. A weapon was meant to protect, kill, or survive. Nothing more.

But Ulrich’s movements held a strange grace.

He did not fight like the Valmorian knights, who advanced in strict lines and struck with military precision. He did not fight like the Skargardian knights either.

Ulrich’s swordsmanship was alive.

He moved with the bumpy ground beneath him. He turned each step into a new position. He used the stream, the grass, the firelight, and the space between himself and Valdris. He bent beneath an attack without losing balance. He spun away from another and came back with his sword already cutting upward.

There was beauty in it.

A dangerous kind of beauty that made Airam’s breath catch despite herself.

Esther watched from behind her.

She clung to Airam’s back with both hands, her face pressed against the loose cloth of Airam’s nightgown whenever Valdris struck too close. Tears had filled her eyes, though she tried hard not to cry aloud.

She remembered Ulrich training in the mornings.

From the windows of the Estate or behind a pillar, Esther had often watched him swing his sword alone. Sometimes he trained beneath the rain. Sometimes frost covered the grass, and his breath came out white in the cold air. Sometimes he looked tired before he began, but he always kept going.

There had never been anyone trying to kill him then.

There had never been a black sword flashing toward his throat.

There had never been blood nearby.

Esther peeked around Airam’s side again.

"Please be careful," she whispered weakly and with a trembling voice.

Her voice was nearly lost beneath the fighting.

Ulrich and Valdris moved once more.

Valdris attacked first.

He lunged forward with a thrust meant for Ulrich’s chest.

Ulrich swept the blade aside and stepped close enough that the black sword could not fully extend. Valdris responded by striking with the hilt of his weapon. Ulrich blocked the blow with his forearm, pain shooting through the bone, and struck back with the pommel of his own sword.

Valdris turned his head.

The pommel caught his cheek instead of his nose.

He moved back with a hard expression.

Ulrich followed.

He swung once toward Valdris’s shoulder and Valdris blocked.

Ulrich’s second strike came lower toward the ribs and Valdris blocked again.

The third was a feint. Ulrich shifted his hands at the last instant and sent the blade toward Valdris’s wrist.

Valdris barely pulled his hand away in time.

The edge cut through the sleeve of his black coat. A narrow line of blood appeared across his wrist.

Valdris looked down at it.

Then he looked back at Ulrich.

"You are better than I expected," he said.

Ulrich said nothing.

Valdris’s expression changed again. This time, there was no mockery in it.

"It is a shame," he said. "A great shame."

Ulrich lifted his sword.

"What is?"

"That a man with your skill has wasted himself here." Valdris rolled his injured wrist once before tightening his grip around his sword. "You have the instincts of a true warrior. You understand distance. You understand timing. Your body reacts without waiting for thought to slow it down."

He took another step toward Ulrich.

"Within Valmoris, you would have risen far higher than Count Rubenhart. With proper training, proper resources, and the right instructors, you might have stood among the Empire’s greatest swordsmen."

Ulrich did not answer.

His eyes remained on Valdris’s shoulders, hands, hips, and feet. He watched every part of the commander that could reveal the next movement.

Valdris sighed.

"You do not even have the courtesy to accept praise."

Ulrich moved.

He rushed in with a diagonal strike from high right to low left.

Valdris met it.

The impact traveled through Ulrich’s arms.

His sword nearly slipped from his hand.

Valdris had put more force into the attack than before.

Ulrich recovered and cut again.

Valdris blocked with a single heavy movement, driving Ulrich’s blade wide. He followed with a strike strong enough to break a normal guard. Ulrich received it with both hands, but the impact sent pain into his wrist and numbed his fingers again.

Valdris pressed forward.

His attacks grew heavier.

Ulrich could not allow himself to block them head-on. Valdris’ sword would eventually crush through his defense, even without cutting him. And his sword was already showing signs of getting used.

Valdris swung down.

Ulrich shifted his blade sideways, letting the black sword slide down its length. He stepped away from the point of impact and pulled his own weapon free before Valdris could trap it.

Valdris cut toward his side.

Ulrich lowered his sword, caught the strike at an angle, and guided it outward. The movement twisted his shoulders, hips, and wrists together. Instead of absorbing the full strength, he sent the force away from his body and into empty space.

Valdris’s blade missed Ulrich’s ribs by inches.

Ulrich stepped around him and struck toward the back of his knee.

Valdris jumped aside.

His next attack came from above.

Ulrich moved beneath it.

He leaned backward so far that his body nearly became parallel with the ground, his left hand brushing the grass to keep himself balanced. Valdris’s blade passed over his chest. Before he could recover, Ulrich pushed from the ground, turned through the motion, and kicked upward toward Valdris’s jaw.

Valdris twisted his head.

Ulrich’s heel struck his cheek.

A thin line opened beneath Valdris’s left eye.

Valdris landed several steps away, one hand rising to the cut. Blood touched his fingers.

Ulrich stood upright again.

The wound was not deep.

But it had reached him.

Valdris stared at the blood on his glove.

For the first time that night, uncertainty entered his thoughts.

Could Ulrich actually be the better swordsman?

The idea was absurd.

Valdris Nedomian had trained since childhood beneath masters chosen by the Empire. He had fought in military campaigns. He had dueled war-mages, rebel commanders, foreign mercenaries, and men who had dedicated their entire lives to the blade. He had defeated knights larger than himself, mages more powerful than himself, and nobles who believed their titles made them untouchable.

Ulrich was a provincial Count with a crippled mana core.

He could not be better.

Valdris shook the thought away.

Impossible.

His grip tightened around the anti-magic sword.

He rushed forward again.

This time, he no longer tried to test Ulrich.

He tried to crush him.

The black blade came down with terrifying force.

Ulrich raised his sword.

Crimson runes formed over the steel.

Valdris laughed at the asburdity.

"You still rely on magic again?"

He swung.

The anti-magic blade met Ulrich’s reinforcement spell.

Crimson mana broke apart.

Yet Valdris’s smile disappeared.

His sword had struck the spell.

It had shattered it.

But the impact did not feel the same.

Before, Ulrich’s runes had collapsed the moment black steel touched them. The anti-magic sword had passed through the spell as if cutting through mist. This time, the sword had met resistance.

A small amount.

Barely enough to slow the swing.

But it was there.

Valdris’s eyes narrowed.

Ulrich had already stepped back. Crimson mana gathered around his sword once more. Fresh runes appeared on the blade, interlocking around the existing enchantment.

Valdris attacked.

Black steel struck crimson light.

The spell shattered.

Again, resistance pushed against Valdris’s blade.

"What the...!"

It lasted less than a second.

Yet it forced more power from his arms than it should have.

Ulrich moved away from the collision and rebuilt the spell a third time instantly.

Valdris stared at the runes.

They were not the same reinforcement formation Ulrich had used at the beginning of their fight.

The outer runes looked familiar. They strengthened the edge, reinforced the structure of the blade, and bound mana around the metal.

But beneath them were additional lines.

Thicker connections.

Multiple runes fixed together with dense threads of mana. Ulrich was assembling them in layers, joining one formation to another, creating a structure that would not collapse from a single disruption.

Valdris’s expression darkened.

Ulrich had understood how the anti-magic sword worked.

The weapon did not erase magic by its mere presence. It cut through spell formations. It separated the runes from the mana holding them together. It broke the connections until the magic lost its shape.

Ulrich was strengthening those connections.

He was thickening the mana lines between every rune. He was making the formation harder to dismantle. He was forcing Valdris’s weapon to spend more force breaking through each layer.

Each spell would still shatter.

But it would not shatter easily.

Each collision would drain more of Valdris’s advantage.

Ulrich was not trying to defeat the anti-magic blade with magic.

He was forcing the blade to work harder until their weapons could meet on equal ground.

Valdris looked at the crimson runes gathering around Ulrich’s sword again.

His face became still.

Inwardly, however, he was speechless.

’What in the hell?’