Chapter 725: I Want To Spar [II / Bonus - ]

Chapter 725: I Want To Spar [II / Bonus Chapter]

The cold brilliant light poured down and showed them the arena.

It was huge.

A fifty-meter field of interlocking gray tiles spread out in front of them, each slab three feet thick and stamped with hexagonal dampening channels that fed every shockwave straight into the bedrock.

A recessed channel of glowing blue runes ran around the whole perimeter.

Along the eastern wall, twelve feet up, a tiered mezzanine overlooked the floor from behind three layers of enchanted blast-glass built to stop siege artillery.

Solenne stood in the doorway with her mouth open.

"My Lord," she whispered while spreading her hands. "The floor is like three feet thick."

"...That’s good."

"Three feet of shock-absorbent tile... Do you know what that costs per square meter? I could build a whole golem line with the tile budget alone!"

"I see, that means it’s going to cost a lot, huh? Well nothing the Guild can’t pay for... Are you excited?"

"I am, my Lord... I’m going to count them."

’I meant about seeing me spar idiot.’ Silas thought and then he patted her head.

"Spectators up top," Silas said, nodding at the steel staircase. "Morwenna, you’ve got the stands... If the boundary runes start flashing amber, drag Solenne back from the rail."

"Aye, Captain." Morwenna’s gray eyes were already sweeping the perimeter wards like a naval gunner inspecting a fortress redoubt. "If the popinjay throws his wild gales around, I’ll keep the pup’s ears on her head so you keep your footing... A ship that takes water on the beam capsizes fast."

"I know, and I’ll make sure not to fall at all during the fight."

"...That’s my man." Morwenna muttered with her cheeks turning red as she punched his back and sighed. "Please win too, I want to see the

"Lord Silas, please be careful!" Solenne blurted, clutching her satchel to her chest, her ears drooping with anxious affection. "The floor’s very hard! And don’t let him cut your clothes!"

"He won’t touch the clothes, Solenne..." Silas brushed her ear with his knuckles as she scurried up the metal stairs.

Aeliana ascended with gliding grace with her emerald skirt whispering over the steel treads.

Rika followed her like a silent silver shadow, the sleeping phoenix tucked in her collar while Mia brought up the rear, practically skipping on her toes with her oversized cloak flapping behind her like a moth’s wings.

From the stairs, Aeliana called down.

"Lord Sy, I do not think the armor protects against very much when the attack is elemental..."

"That’s the idea, Aeli, It’s mostly there so we can feel brave. Everyone knows that..."

Aeliana’s hand slid out of her sleeve, holding a small leather-bound notebook.

’And from here, I’ll take notes... Who said smut novels can’t have a little fight scene in them?’

Out in the center of the field a section of tile slid apart as a heavy brass equipment rack rose from the floor and locked into place.

CHUNK!

Silas and Valerius walked over to it.

"First we have to pick our armor."

Silas picked up a sleeveless vest of mesh armor woven from dull iron links over cured monster leather, shrugged it on over his shirt and jacket, and cinched the straps until the rings settled against his ribs and left his arms free.

From the weapon trough he took a plain steel broadsword with a straight crossguard and a wire-wrapped grip.

It was three feet of unpolished iron as he rolled his wrist and snapped it through three whisper-soft horizontal cuts.

Whsh! Whsh! Whsh!

It was a very low quality weapon compared to the ones that Blessed Land produced, however the edge could shave a training dummy without complaint.

’So this is an average sword in my book at least.’

Across the rack Valerius was already buckling an identical vest over his azure tunic and drawing a lighter narrower arming sword.

He flicked it through a figure-eight, and the steel whistled clean through the air.

On the index finger of his left hand, a silver ring etched with blue runes caught the harsh light.

Zephyr’s Loop... A Tier 1 utility ring that Silas knew well since they got it from the secret realm, it was good for increasing his casting speed by one and a half times.

"Just like in the game, you’re just blatantly cheating..." Silas said.

"It’s equipment, I don’t think using equipment like that should be classified as cheating." said Valerius.

"...It’s cheating with a receipt, first you cheat in a game and now in real life too, you nobles really are all the same."

"Eh... You’re hating on me for being a noble with money? Come over here and say that to my face."

"I’m doing it right now."

Valerius kicked the rack release, and the mechanism sank back under the floor.

’He’s trying to get under my chest before the spar...’

The two of them walked out to the middle of the gray field and stopped exactly twenty paces apart.

HUUUUUUUUUM!

Along the perimeter the blue runes flared with blinding brilliance.

A shimmering three-story wall of translucent cyan light erupted from the floor and curved inward over the ceiling, sealing the fighters in a dome.

Silas’s ears popped from the sudden pressure change and outside the dome, the girls could see their mouths move and hear almost nothing.

Valerius spread his feet and dropped his center of gravity three inches.

His arming sword rested across his chest at forty-five degrees with his his left hand near the pommel and his whole body coiled like tempered steel.

’I need to put all I have into this...’

WHOOSH!

Without warning, a green gust tore out from the soles of his boots.

It tightened into a shrieking spiral that wrapped his calves and torso and spun with the fury of a miniature cyclone.

The air around him thinned in a heartbeat as his Vacuum Domain bit down, dragging the atmosphere inward toward his chest as the pressure around him dropped, and loose grit slid across the tiles and streamed toward his boots.

...There was no reaction from Silas but that didn’t matter.

"No holding back, Silas!" Valerius yelled across the twenty paces, over the shriek of the gale.

His golden eyes burned with competitive fire.

"Don’t you dare treat me like a fragile sparring partner! If you pull your cuts because we split a pitcher of cider an hour ago, I won’t learn a damn thing! I’m coming with everything my core’s got, and I expect the same back..."

Silas exhaled slowly and let the breath flow out in one long steady stream.

He didn’t reach for the deep golden ocean in his core as he kept it locked behind its seals, because he wasn’t about to flatten his best friend with all of that mana.

’I can just use a little...’

He drew on his regular mana pathways as his eyes glowed.

SHHHHHHHK!

The moisture hanging in the underground air answered.

Droplets peeled off the basalt walls and out of the condensation on the cooling flues and streaked across the floor like liquid silver needles.

They gathered around the blade of Silas’s broadsword and wound around the dull metal in a clear ribbon of living churning water that pulsed in a slow tide.

He lowered the sword, holding it loose in his right hand with the tip drooping toward the tiles at a casual inviting angle then his focus shifted.

His dark blue eyes lit with a sudden ring of incandescent gold... It was the sign that Silas Graves had locked his whole mind into combat.

He gave Valerius a single calm nod.

Valerius saw the gold ignite, and a savage delighted grin split his face despite the gale shrieking around his shoulders.

’You really are a great guy,’ he thought with his knuckles going white on the leather grip. ’No lectures and no pep talk either... Just a clean honest willingness to meet me on the line.’

"Ready?" Silas asked.

"Born ready... HERE I COME!"

BANG!

The tiles under Valerius’s boots cracked with a sharp concussive report.

He fired a Wind Burst and crossed the twenty paces in a fraction of seconds as a green blur with his sword flashing down in a diagonal cleave aimed for Silas’s right shoulder.

’Fast,’ Silas thought, as the green blur ate the distance. ’Faster than before... He’s been drilling.’

Silas didn’t retreat as he stepped straight into the gale with the water ribbon whipping behind his sword like a striking serpent.

CLANG!

Steel met steel and the center of the arena detonated like an artillery shell as green wind slammed into blue water at violent catastrophic pressure.

The compressed atmosphere in Valerius’s vacuum pocket collapsed in on itself and blasted outward in a thirty-foot ring of pressurized force.

BOOOOM!

The tiles groaned under the transfer.

Fifty yards off, the cyan barrier flared with ripples of violet light as the backdraft hammered the dome.

Up in the stands Solenne’s breath hitched.

Her hands clamped on the cold iron railing until her knuckles went pale with her ears flat against her skull and her tail turning as stiff as a poker while shivering against her skirt as the whole mezzanine buzzed under her boots.

"I-Is this really a practice spar?!" she stammered, golden eyes round as tea saucers. "It felt like a steam boiler ruptured... I didn’t know Lord Silas and Lord Valerius were this terrifying when they drew their swords!"

Mia leaned her small elbows on the rail and rested her chin in her hands with a smug knowing grin tugging at the tips of her ears.

Her eyes tracked the blades with effortless precision.

"Heh... It seems my student has gotten better at using water," she observed, with a quiet appreciative chuckle. "In the Secret Realm he handled it like a bucket thrown down a dry well but now the flow moves with his spine... Very clean."

Beside her, Morwenna’s jaw tightened until her teeth ground.

’Your student?’ the woman raged in silence with her stormy eyes narrowing to two dangerous slits. ’I taught him the tides, you pint-sized pest! I taught him to feel the undertow in his wrists! If anyone gets the credit for those transitions, it’s the sea and the captain who sailed it!’

Her lips stayed sealed, though.

Her gaze never left the gray field, tracking every shift of Silas’s balance and every inch of his blade work with the unblinking attention of a veteran commander.

Aeliana had folded her hands on the rail without a flicker of expression.

Only her ears, twitching in sharp little jerks, gave her away as Rika stood beside her, stroking the phoenix, and watched the field with a bit of interest.

"Master is winning..." Rika said.

"It is too early to determine that," said Aeliana. "You haven’t even seen what Lord Valerius has in stor—"

"Master is winning." Rika said again, in the tone of a goddess stating the weather, and Aeliana found she had no counterargument.

Down on the floor, the clash hadn’t slowed by one microscopic beat. Their blades were locked with their faces a foot apart with wind and water howling in each other’s teeth.

"You’re good at this!" Valerius yelled, over the roar.

"...You’re very loud... Aren’t you supposed to be focused?"

"I’m motivated!"

SKRRRRRRRRRR!

The steel edges shrieked against each other, throwing hot orange sparks over their mesh armor.

Valerius leaned his whole weight into the bind and his Purple Core roared with the pull of his Vacuum Domain dragging at Silas’s balance by half an inch.

A point-blank burst from his left boot was already loading.

’He’s putting everything on the forward axis,’ Silas thought in the gap between two heartbeats. ’He thinks the bind gives him leverage... He wants me to shove back so he can slip the line.’

He engaged the Base Flow that he had seen Morwenna use many times before.

Instead of meeting the grinding pressure with equal force, he let his right wrist go completely loose.

’H-huh?’

Silas didn’t fight the downward push, he angled the broadsword out by three degrees and tilted the flat of the blade to receive the gale then he pulled.

One smooth circular turn of his forearm absorbed the violence of the strike, caught the momentum of Valerius’s sword and drew it along his own steel with a harsh sliding shriek...

SCREEEECH!

....and walked Valerius’s whole attack harmlessly past his right hip into the empty air behind his back!

’What the hell—?!’ Valerius’s thoughts screamed as his sword cut through nothing where an iron wall should have been. ’He didn’t resist at all! He just opened the door and let me fall through!’

Valerius’s center of gravity pitched forward three crucial inches, and the green spiral around his shoulders stuttered.

’Don’t let him reset...’ Silas thought with his eyes burning gold.

"Is that all you’ve got?!" He called while grinning.

Silas’s wrist was already coiled from the redirect.

He snapped the broadsword back in a tight vicious diagonal riposte at Valerius’s exposed left flank.

SHING!

"Not on your life!" Valerius roared, even as the edge sliced a line of sparks off his mesh vest and made him hiss through his teeth.

BANG!

A pop of compressed wind detonated under the sole of his left boot.

Air Hopping jerked his tumble to a halt and shoved his torso sideways through the air like a skipping stone, and his boots slammed down four paces away in a shower of friction dust.

’Too close!’ The thought streaked through his head and he laughed, sounding high and breathless. ’That’s it! That’s the feeling! Again!’

His left hand flashed.

Zephyr’s Loop flared emerald and shaved the casting lag to almost nothing...

He planted his rear foot, twisted his hips, and swung the arming sword around in a horizontal slash that ripped the air in half.

"Severing Gale!"

WHISTLE-CRACK!

A razor-thin green crescent of compressed vacuum tore off the edge of his blade and screamed across the chamber, stretching into a six-foot arc that sliced through the air like hot wire through fat, whistling straight for Silas’s throat.