Episode 102
Leaving behind the biting cold and darkness, Dale spoke up.
“Stand down.”
Even the shadow creatures and the Death Knight under his command were not exempt. A swirling vortex of dark energy surged at his feet, causing his shadowy cloak to flutter.
Dale adjusted his grip on his sword. The mediator of peace. The absurdity of it all made Michael swallow hard.
A dark sorcerer dismissing his own creations, facing off with nothing but a sword?
“That’s incredibly reckless.”
Just as the Saxons would, the Lancasters couldn’t easily raise a sword against Saxon blood. That was the weight of the bloodline shared by those present.
“Are you afraid to kill me?”
”…”
Dale asked again.
“Are you afraid of the repercussions of killing me here, turning my father and the entire North against you?”
Michael shook his head.
“I simply don’t wish to kill you, my lord.”
“The knight whose head was severed by your sword would be wailing in the afterlife.”
Dale sneered as if it were someone else’s problem.
“We all understand that this world isn’t fair, don’t we?”
Michael Lancaster replied calmly, as the heir of the empire’s foremost ducal house.
“I’m glad you think so.”
Dale adjusted his grip on the hilt and continued.
“In this unfair and absurd world, nothing is surprising.”
Nothing is surprising. At that moment, Dale’s fourth circle began to accelerate. Not with dark energy, but with a chilling cold. The temperature around them plummeted rapidly, and frost began to form.
An absolute zero, descending into sub-zero temperatures.
“Shub.”
Dale spoke, and the “Mother of Ancient Darkness” smiled silently. A slender tendril snaked through Dale’s ear, reaching his auditory nerves and penetrating his brain.
The world shifted.
A world of a winter night filled with biting cold and darkness unfolded before them.
But it was not a world of thought. It was merely an illusion overlaid by Shub on the fight club, manipulating Dale’s brain.
And that was enough.
A sorcerer’s power lies in how vividly they can construct an image, even if it’s a ridiculous fantasy.
Dale lifted his head.
Now, Dale was lost in a world of self-hypnosis.
Shub’s power carried the risk of causing irreversible damage to Dale’s brain.
The hero from another world, the empire’s ruthless hound…
He adjusted his grip on his sword.
A chill ran down his spine.
It wasn’t just the frost forming around the fight club.
The “Dale of Saxon” standing before him seemed to exude a terrifying aura, as if he were a different person.
It was incomprehensible.
A dark sorcerer dismissing his Death Knight, not using his shadow creatures or cloak.
Just holding a sword, accelerating four circles as a substitute for aura, and looking this way. Logically, it was the worst possible move, a fight with no chance of victory. It should have been.
But Michael Lancaster’s instincts as a swordsman whispered to him.
“Danger.”
What? The twelve-year-old child before him? A sorcerer who couldn’t even use aura, holding just a sword? It was unfathomable. Incomprehensible.
Emotion vanished from Dale’s expression. His blue pupils stared into the void without focus.
Simultaneously, Dale launched himself forward. The sword, wrapped in chilling cold, swung, and Michael’s blood-red sword coiled like a whip around it.
Or at least, it tried to.
But before their swords could clash, Michael stepped back, overwhelmed by an inexplicable fear.
Unconsciously, the emblem of the Saxon Duke’s house on Dale’s attire caught his eye.
The Night Raven. The harbinger of death.
Only then did Michael understand the emotion he was feeling.
The fear of death.
He widened the distance, and Michael began to unleash invisible sword energy. In the storm of sword energy, the blood-red sword’s whip lashed out.
Clang!
Dale swung his sword as well, deflecting Michael’s blood-red sword and charging forward. Once again, the intangible blade traced unpredictable paths, but it made no difference.
He deflected them all.
A mere sorcerer who couldn’t use aura, against a knight considered the closest to becoming one of the continent’s Seven Swords.
Without a hint of hesitation or disturbance, so calmly.
Clang!
The blood-red flower that should have bloomed fell, and a flower of cold blossomed.
It was then.
Clang!
Dale’s strike slipped past, and the tip of the invisible sword finally aimed for Dale’s opening.
Simultaneously, Dale reached out.
To seize Michael Lancaster’s aura-infused sword.
The future where the Saxon Duke’s heir would be torn apart by his sword unfolded. Along with the political fallout between the two ducal houses that would follow.
That imagination momentarily shook Michael’s movements, but Dale, without a hint of hesitation, grabbed the sword’s whip.
An act akin to thrusting one’s hand into a blender’s blades.
Stop.
Michael’s movement halted.
Dale’s arm, which should have been shredded by the sword, was gripping it firmly, without a scratch.
The “Enforced Peace.”
An invincible barrier that nullifies all attacks, under the condition that the attack is consciously perceived. And in his extreme self-hypnosis, Dale’s heightened senses detected Michael’s sword.
He could see without seeing, know without knowing, feel without feeling.
As long as Dale was consciously aware of the intangible sword, breaking the “peace” within it was impossible.
A sword couldn’t tear flesh, and flames couldn’t burn a person.
If blue magic is considered a sorcerer’s nemesis, the Peacemaker could be seen as the nemesis of any knight, nullifying all physical attacks.
“How… how is this possible?”
Michael was shocked, unaware of this fact, and Dale moved. Gripping Michael’s sword, the Peacemaker swung.
Like the scythe of a grim reaper, the fear of death wrapped around Michael’s spine.
An inescapable fear of death.
At that moment, Dale’s brain reached its limit, and he regained consciousness. To make matters worse, the “Enforced Peace” of the Peacemaker dissipated, and in other words…
Slash!
The worst imaginable scenario unfolded.
──Dale’s hand, gripping the sword, was shredded like it was caught in a blender.
From his five fingers to his elbow, flesh, blood, and bone scattered.
Yet, there was no scream of pain.
Without a flinch, ignoring the agony of his arm being shredded, the sword in his other hand was firmly aimed at Michael’s throat.
As if he had known it would end this way from the start.
“Why didn’t you strike my neck immediately?”
Dale asked. Even with one arm shredded, he maintained his composure, pressing the sharp blade against the throat of the future Seven Swords of the continent.
“If you had cut my arm and then struck my neck without hesitation.”
Dale spoke.
“I would surely be a dead man.”
But he couldn’t do it. Crushed by the “weight of blood” flowing within Dale of Saxon.
“Did you calculate that I would hesitate from the start?”
“At the very least, I calculated that this world isn’t fair.”
Dale replied.
”…”
Michael remained silent. If he had truly tried to kill Dale with all his might, the fight would have ended in Michael’s victory.
After shredding his opponent’s arm, delivering the next blow would have been easy. But Michael Lancaster lacked that level of resolve.
A moment’s hesitation. That difference in resolve decided the outcome.
It was no different from losing a psychological battle.
It was a paper-thin difference, but in the world of duels, hypothetical scenarios held no meaning. There were only winners and losers. That was all. It was no different now.
An absurd difference in caliber.
Michael Lancaster, unscathed, and Dale, on the verge of collapsing from blood loss. Yet, the scales of victory were clearly tipped.
A victory stained in black.
“I, Michael of Lancaster.”
After a moment of silence, Michael spoke.
“Standing here against Dale of Saxon.”
Releasing a burst of invisible aura, shattering his beloved sword into pieces.
”…!”
“I concede my undeniable defeat.”
The knight shattered his own sword, a self-imposed disgrace before the champion of the fight club, a humiliation befitting the second son of a duke.
”…I accept your defeat.”
Dale responded, standing amidst the chaos of flesh, blood, bone, and metal debris, without a hint of disturbance.
“A victory won at the cost of an arm and a straw in my brain.”
That night, Dale, who had suddenly lost an arm, sat on his bed, muttering as if it were someone else’s problem. It was a glory that brought nothing but wounds. Yet, there was no trace of despair on Dale’s face, despite having lost a limb forever.
His expression was so calm, it was almost serene.
“A prize coveted by the Duke of Saxon.”
It had to be something worth sacrificing flesh and bone for. If the rumors from Guild City were mere bluster, there would be no need to involve the Black Duke.
Dale reached out with his remaining arm, the other reduced to a mangled, useless stump.
At the same time, his shadowy cloak fluttered, and darkness began to fill the void where his arm once was.
In a way, it was not an exaggeration to call it a part of his body, and it was no mere metaphor.
The darkness took form, mimicking the shape of a limb. He tested the shadowy prosthetic, moving it experimentally.
“Remarkably well-crafted.”
The shadow fused with his nerves, forming an arm made of pure malice.
“I’ll have to manage with this until I return to the duchy.”
Contrary to what most people think, losing a limb or two is not a big deal, at least by the standards of the Black Tower. Restoring or replacing body parts is trivial with their technology.
Especially for the son of the continent’s greatest dark sorcerer, the Black Duke.
This very mindset is why the Saxon family and the Black Tower are often labeled as the “Clan of Darkness.”
Yet, even the White Tower dresses up such healing as “miracles of the goddess,” raking in tithes by the handful.
With such insurance against the risks of losing flesh and bone, Dale could afford to gamble.
A mindset incomprehensible to knights, and even more so to the Lancaster family, who have no ties to magic.
Contrary to Mikhail’s belief, Dale had the upper hand from the start. Even the great Dale wouldn’t recklessly wager his limbs without a plan.
That doesn’t mean the pain of losing them disappears. Dale gritted his teeth against the agony.
“I have no choice but to endure this.”
No matter how much he tried to maintain a facade of calm, Dale was still human.
As Dale succumbed to sleep amidst his pain, an assassin emerged from the shadows.
Lady Shadow.
Watching Dale writhe in his dreams, Aurelia reached out to the “Black Prince,” the very man who had driven her homeland to ruin as the Empire’s champion.
Her slender, pale fingers gently caressed Dale’s cheek, tender and merciful like a saint’s touch.
Why was it?
The one she should loathe and despise felt so small and endearing.
Every time she watched him bear his darkness and pain from within his shadow… he seemed so precious and lovable, she couldn’t contain her emotions.
“Oh, my lord…”
Abandoning her role as a puppet of the heavens, she began to understand her emotions, like a child discovering joy and the ecstasy of slaughter. Aurelia gently kissed Dale’s cheek, embracing the desire and pleasure that enveloped her heart.
“Please, bind me with the strings of a puppet.”
She vowed to remain the “assassin’s blade” wielded from his shadow for life.
Dale’s labored breathing eased slightly in his sleep.
Some time later, the fight club concluded, and the black market finally opened its doors.
A secret bazaar accessible only to the continent’s nobility and wealthy elite, where the vilest desires of the Empire swirled, indifferent to whether they dealt in objects or lives.
A masquerade of beasts.
Dale was among them, one of the beasts, holding the privilege of claiming a prize “on the spot” as the fight club’s champion.