Friday, July 22, 4 S.E.

  Leonidas exploded toward Valerian at full speed, his [Archon’s Psiblade] coruscating with the power of his [Psionic Swordforce] as he met the Dagger-Master’s charge in an echoing boom of blade-impact.

  The swordforce around his weapon did not shear through Valerian’s longsword when the blades met, likely due to the magical runes burning along its length as the Haelfar met him in a deadlock.

  Shit. He’s strong.

  Leonidas danced backward as Valerian broke the lock and swept the Alteran blade forward, accelerating its motion with an unknown skill that sparked along the black surface of the [Archon’s Warplate], screaming along the soulbonded armor in a shower of sparks and aetheric discharge.

  Thunder stormed overhead as Leonidas amped his [Cataclysm Core] and tapped into his [Psionic Force], snapping out his left hand and attempting to grip Valerian within its hold. The power manifested around the other man as normal, snapping together in an attempt to lock him in place—but that was all.

  Valerian’s eyes widened for a moment, and then he growled and let out a snarl of effort, wielding his superior physical power to shatter the field of telekinetic force after only a moment’s resistance.

  Leonidas grunted at the Psi backlash and tasted copper in his mouth from the suddenness of it, ducking forward past a probing stab from Valerian and executing a quick [Coup de Force: Premier] to force the Dawnguard Officer back.

  His eyes danced toward his resource meters for a second and then back to Valerian when the Haelfar recovered his footing after parrying the triple-speed slash. Leonidas’ Stamina costs might have been reduced, but the expenditure was still not one he could afford to make without care.

  Valerian came at him again, and Leonidas met him in kind, weaving his [Psionic Force] into an armor-layered shield to hold in case of need, with a low output to avoid draining his Psi. His [Archon’s Psiblade] crashed together with Valerian’s Alteran longsword, and they fell into a quick, rapid exchange of blows.

  Leonidas parried a downward slash and swept his blade in a horizontal counter-stroke, which Valerian pivoted around and met with an upward diagonal slash at Leonidas’ left hip. The Archon parried that in turn and moved with the force of the blow, grunting at the strength of the impact and snapping out his left hand while conjuring a [Psikinetic Blade] and ‘firing’ it at the Haelfar Warrior.

  Valerian grunted when the weapon slammed into his golden-plated right pectoral and punched through shallowly, granting first blood to Leonidas.

  The Haelfar paused at the wound and glanced down when the dagger dissipated, eyeing the puncture and then turning back to Leonidas with a begrudging nod.

  Leonidas nodded back, despite everything, in adherence to Haelfenn martial codes.

  First blood, no matter the enmity between a duelling pair, was always acknowledged.

  A roar went up from the crowd, but both men ignored it, focused on one another without distraction. Leonidas felt his [Cataclysm Core] singing to him, and let it do so—cycling his mana more aggressively as he felt his heart thunder to the rhythm of the power inside of him. It was like a martial drumbeat, aiding his focus as he fully embraced his Battle Meditation.

  Slipping into it was second nature by that point.

  “Proceed?” Leonidas asked, his own voice cold and imperious to his own ears.

  “Proceed,” Valerian confirmed flatly, adhering to the second part of the First Blood code.

  Valerian lifted his sword and, after a fractional nod to indicate his readiness, engaged once more. Leonidas found some of the rules around Alteran-Haelfenn culture downright idiotic, but Ceruviel had impressed upon him their importance, so he adhered to them. Begrudgingly, but without open complaint.

  Legitimacy mattered for what he wanted to achieve.

  Leonidas met Valerian’s charge with a grunt of exertion, and the pair devolved into another flurry of frenetic clashes, Valerian’s first blow screeching off Leonidas’ pauldron as the counter-stroke from the Archon took off the top of the Dagger-Master’s helmet plume. A return blow from Valerian drove Leonidas back with a snarl as the Haelfar’s booted heel connected with his abdomen, and the Terran responded in turn with a pivot and triad of hurled [Psikinetic Blade]s.

  Even with his enhanced Agility and Dexterity from his [Duelist] Aspect, he was quickly realizing the truth of Synthra’s words.

  In just a few short blows, he’d already seen it: Valerian was stronger, and he was faster.

  Leonidas, however, was the more skilled swordsman.

  For all the good that would do him.

  Valerian dodged two of the daggers as they flew and parried the third, lifting his blade and bellowing to the sky as a bleed of blue Aether suffused his body a moment later.

  Leonidas’ [Psionic Focus] warned him of the danger a second too late.

  Valerian impacted him in an eyeblink, punching his longsword through Leonidas’ [Psionic Force] shield, into his right side in a detonation of inertial impact and a scream of sundered metal. The Archon bit down on his cheek to avoid crying out and pressed his palm to Valerian’s breastplate, funnelling a mix of Cataclysm Mana and Psi reflexively into a singular Intent with every iota of his Willpower: away.

  Psionic power and cataclysm energy exploded from the contact point in a violet-and-scarlet detonation. Both men were blown away; Leonidas slamming into the dirt and rolling thrice before slamming his [Archon’s Psiblade] into the ground to brace himself, while Valerian used a Skill to stabilize his position—skidding backward on his feet and slamming his armored fingers into the earth in turn to arrest his momentum.

  Leonidas spared a glance for his health bar as he pushed himself to his feet, noting it had dropped by a tenth and was flashing with the warning that he was still losing points. A ‘tsk’ of annoyance left his lips, and he glanced down to his right side, examining the wound. It wasn’t fatal, it probably wasn’t even crippling—but the blood loss would work against him long-term, and that would make him slower.

  It was also a point of vulnerability moving forward.

  Adept rank is no joke, huh? Good thing I didn’t try to fight cocky.

  Almost fifteen meters distant, Valerian was already standing as well, examining his breastplate, where Leonidas’ casting had warped the metal. His [Cataclysm Core] revved in mirroring pleasure as he took note of that fact, and Leonidas rolled his armored shoulders.

  Stronger, faster, both were true—Valerian lived up to his rank martially, if nothing else. It even earned him some respect, from a purely combative standpoint.

  No time to be daydreaming, Ace. Start planning. He wants a victory, give him one—the last one he’ll ever get.

  Leonidas smiled under his helmet as the plan came together, and his eyes flicked down to the warped abdominal plate on Valerian’s torso again. That would be the opening, but first, he needed to create it before using the key.

  A wash of mana erupted around him, and he cycled his [Cataclysm Core] more aggressively, stimulating a rumbling tempest of power that incurred another snarl of thunder in the sky above. Valerian watched him from a distance, and the Haelfar’s attention narrowed in. There was no stupidity in Valerian when it came to combat, Leonidas could admit that. He wouldn’t lose because he underestimated his foe—he’d already made that mistake on Elatra.

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  Valerian lifted his blade in a Haelfenn salute, and Leonidas did the same.

  Tradition.

  The pair of them exploded into motion a second later, Leonidas with the aid of his [Chivalric Charge] and its linear acceleration; Valerian by use of his higher Tier and a skill Leonidas could not discern. They crashed together in a frenzy of blows, Valerian’s blade singing as it arced toward his wounded ribs and split armor, while Leonidas worked to parry it away and stay light on his feet. In a sensible world, the [Archon’s Warplate] would have impeded him or slowed him down—but the Soulbonding made that moot.

  It was as light and flexible as a second skin.

  Leonidas darted back from another eviscerating cut launched by Valerian, and grunted when the blade screamed off his armor again, left-to-right, its force blunted by the bubble of [Psionic Force] protecting his body. He moved with the blow and rode the force of it, pivoting off his right foot and slamming his elbow into Valerian’s helmet.

  The Haelfar grunted in pain, and Leonidas followed the motion through with his left hand—slamming his plated fist into the weakened abdominal armor and injecting another surge of Cataclysm Mana into the warped metal. The resultant corrosion failed to harm the Dagger-Master, but that hadn’t been the goal.

  Valerian darted backward with the use of an unknown Skill a second later, and Leonidas found himself suddenly on the defensive again when the Haelfar seemed to warp back toward him; rubberbanding on some current of Aether and crashing against his defenses with brutal intensity.

  The blows they exchanged were rapid thereafter, and Leonidas couldn’t find an opening. He was a blademaster; he instinctively knew he was more skilled, but Valerian was just a little faster, a little stronger, and had the benefit of a second Tier Mind Tempering.

  He seemed to react to Leonidas’ traps and tricks just one eyeblink before they landed, relying on his superior Dexterity and Agility to intercept them on time, and utilizing his higher Strength to force them aside.

  Shouts, exultations, and jeers from the crowd flowed across them both in equal measure, and Leonidas ignored them as readily as Valerian did—focusing entirely on the frenetic, rapidly evolving clash of blades. An overhand blow turned into a slashing riposte, an angled counter-stroke from Valerian became a quick-minded deflection-and-thrust from Leonidas, and the Haelfar’s hilt-strike was met by a solid shield of [Psionic Force] activating in a surge of Psi—blunting the strike to Leonidas’ helmet.

  Valerian bared his teeth under his own winged helm, and they clashed again.

  The frenzy of the fight was not without its cost: Leonidas could feel himself healing, slowly, from the wound—but not nearly fast enough. Each exertion, each movement, each chaotic clash of steel and Skill agitated the wound in his side. His health had dropped again, already down to 75%, and he knew he was losing the attrition-based contest.

  He needed to change things, and quickly, to overcome.

  Whatever else Valerian was, he was a proper Cultivator.

  His bark did have bite to back it up.

  The crowd was cheering, screaming, roaring, baying for more. They were incensed, intoxicated, enraptured. They were watching a duel such as none of them had ever seen, and somehow the energy in the air was poised—like the world was holding its breath for the crescendo.

  Leonidas chose his moment carefully when he made his move.

  He had already recognized Valerian’s weakness; he was using sword forms in exactitude, not with flow, as Miranda had taught Leonidas through those terrible, traumatic years of war. The Haelfar’s movements were rapid as they fought, blades clashing with aetheric sparks and screams of steel, and they were pristine—but they were textbook. There was no finesse, no personality, no sense of adaptation: he fought like he’d been taught to fight, by an instructor, not by war itself.

  Perhaps Elatra had given Leonidas a gift, in the end, after all.

  Valerian’s moment of exposure came off the back of another attempt to draw blood, one which Leonidas had been waiting for—hoping for. He’d been flagging a little more than he really was, slowing his counters and subtly weakening his guard. Not so much that Valerian would see what he was doing, but enough to make the other man believe it was happening unwillingly.

  Leonidas intentionally started favoring his left, leaning into the appearance that his right side was tender, and Valerian did what any swordsman with a brain cell would do: he pressed the advantage.

  Blue Aether saturated his body again, and Leonidas tensed, shifting his body just enough to the left that when the devastating strike came, it punched through his kidney instead of his spine. Pain was distant within his Battle Meditation, but he still allowed it to issue forth: crying out in a way that felt pathetic to his mind, but achieved his objective.

  His health flashed to 55%.

  Valerian smelled victory.

  The roar from the crowd became frenetic and terrified.

  The Haelfar tore his sword out backwards—he wasn’t stupid enough to try to cut through an [Archon’s Warplate] on the outswing, sadly—and flourished the weapon with textbook movement economy, riding the momentum to bring it back in for another stab, suffusing his body in blue Aether once more.

  At the last moment, Leonidas angled himself just slightly to the left, the half-second before Valerian stabbed, and presented his right side more toward the Haelfar. The sword punched through Leonidas’ left side once again, this time barely missing his heart, and he smiled around bloodied teeth under his helmet as someone in the crowd screamed.

  Got you.

  Leonidas activated [Unyielding Pride], and power returned to his limbs in a tidal wave.

  The [Archon’s Psiblade] fell from his grasp, and Leonidas snaked his unburdened right arm around Valerian’s left, activating his [Psionic Force] with almost all of his remaining Psi, and using his renewed physical strength to lock his opponent in place as a timer appeared in his HUD. The Dawnguard Officer froze, immobilized, for several precious heartbeats. At the same time, Leonidas’ left hand snaked forth, past the Haelfar’s locked and extended right arm, to deliver an already-forming [Psikinetic Blade] straight through the weakened abdominal armor and deep into Valerian’s gut.

  Right into his dantian.

  Valerian’s eyes met Leonidas’ eye-lenses in realization.

  “Too late,” he said with bloodied lips, and surged the power of his [Cataclysm Core] into the Dagger-Master’s Core in a tidal wave of destructive annihilation, threading it into the heart of his Cultivation with all the corrosive, focused, destabilizing power it granted.

  It worked like a vortex of erasure, chewing into the material body of the System Energy that comprised the Haelfar’s Core and ruining its bonds, destabilizing it on an atomic level and sundering it, like cracks in a crystal ball. The effect was muted, silent, but felt: a whomp of subtle force that detonated outward as a Thrice-evolved Core was killed by unstoppable calamity.

  Valerian’s body spasmed as Leonidas’ [Psionic Force] pressure-bubble burst at a lack of Psi to sustain it, and his [Psikinetic Dagger] dissipated inside the Haelfar.

  It was enough. It was more than enough.

  Leonidas released Valerian a moment later and staggered backward, gripping his left hand instinctively around the blade of the sword impaled below his heart, and trying not to think about how low his Health was. [Unyielding Pride] sustained him still, but he’d need medical attention before that timer hit zero, or he’d be in a very, very bad state.

  The crowd was silent as Leonidas reached up and ripped off his helmet, turning to cough out thick wads of blood with a grimace.

  Ahead of him, Valerian was frozen on his feet, hands cupped around his stomach without touching it, while his eyes stared downward. A moment passed, in which the crowd seemed to be holding its breath, and Valerian looked up at him.

  “How…?” he croaked.

  Leonidas met his gaze evenly. He had fought with honor, despite it all.

  “You were focused on the victory, Valerian,” he said wearily, voice strained by his wounds. “I was focused on defeating you. There’s a difference in that.”

  Leonidas lifted his hand after a moment, and his [Archon’s Psiblade] disappeared in a crackle of energy, reappearing in his right hand with a bolt of violet-scarlet lightning.

  Valerian stared at him for a long moment and then collapsed to his knees.

  The System’s chime erupted across the field, and all eyes turned to Ilsan Matrovar, standing apart from both the duel and the crowd, in the space between both. The Lance-Master looked first at Valerian, broken in the grass, and then to Leonidas. Her eyes narrowed faintly on him, and she subtly inclined her head before looking around and raising her voice.

  “The duel is concluded,” she pronounced clearly. “The Archon has won.”

  The sound of Aylar and Synthra’s joint cheers broke the tense silence of the area like a cut ribbon.

  The crowd erupted into a roar, and Terrans howled his name like a blessing, a declaration, a demand for recognition.

  “ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!”

  The Dawnguard and Royal Army shouted for calm.

  “ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!”

  Haelfenn and Nyrfenn both observed the result in varying degrees of reaction, some calculated, some concerned, some thoughtful. This was not their moment, but it had ramifications they could not ignore.

  “ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!”

  Leonidas smiled to himself and leaned his weight on his sword as his friends, alone permitted past the cordon, rushed out toward him across the field, whooping at his victory and sweeping a laughing Parnym with them—as much for companionship as healing, no doubt.

  Now then, he said while turning his haggard face toward the wall, and the golden-armored titan of a man standing beside the silver-armored woman who alone was his equal. What will you do, Uriel?

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