Chapter 294
“That’s a bit problematic. The duel with the Sword King was arranged in the name of His Majesty the Holy Emperor. It wouldn’t do to be bickering right before the match.”
“So you’re trying to back out?”
“No, no. Here’s what I propose. Since the duel with the Sword King is strictly a pure swordsmanship contest—no mana allowed—”
Chris waved his hand.
“But with you, we can have a ‘wagered duel’ where we compete using mana.”
“!!”
A murmur rippled through the hall.
Testing whose energy was stronger by pressing their hands together—that was actually a far more dangerous kind of duel.
“Are you serious?”
William’s eyes shifted.
Unlike the duels among the Union, which rarely escalated to extremes because they avoided lethal blows and maintained certain boundaries, mana duels were different.
One wrong move could damage the core, or worse, leave you a cripple.
“If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I won’t lose.”
“!!”
“Oh, but if you’re just scared and want to avoid it, I understand. I’ll let it slide.”
William’s face hardened instantly.
“Don’t regret this.”
“Come on, dueling without stakes is boring. How about a wager?”
“…What?”
“If you lose, you have to obey one thing I say. If I lose… well, that won’t happen.”
“You bastard!!”
They pressed their hands together.
A fierce surge of energy erupted.
William drew his power up, living up to his nickname, ‘The Shield’—a strong, steadfast force.
‘Huh?’
Chris smirked.
‘He’s holding back while dueling with mana?’
William wasn’t even using his full strength—maybe half at most.
He must have underestimated Chris.
‘How does he expect to be a shield with that attitude?’
Chris unleashed his own energy.
“!!”
William’s face stiffened as he was hit by the radiant, swirling mana.
The power far exceeded his expectations.
“Ugh!”
He groaned, and Chris sneered.
“Is that all? I expected more from the Tiger House. You’re just as much hot air as your grand family’s name suggests.”
“You bastard…!!”
William’s face flushed red.
“I was holding back to avoid crippling you, but now prepare yourself!!”
At last, William unleashed his full power.
‘That’s some serious energy.’
Chris nodded, watching William’s force crash toward him like a tidal wave.
‘He’s always been one of the strongest in the Union.’
William was a knight raised by the once-powerful Jeonwang family, a relatively minor house at the Round Table.
They’d poured all their resources into him—rare elixirs, everything—so William had amassed tremendous energy.
That was why he earned the title ‘The Shield.’
But—
‘What good is raw power if you don’t know how to use it?’
Chris dismissed him bluntly.
A brute with strength but no skill.
That was William as Chris saw him now.
‘It was the same back in the Age of Ruin.’
William had achieved many feats, but was he truly that skilled? No.
He only began to grow into a worthy hero after meeting Chris and fixing his chronic flaws.
‘He was stubborn as hell back then, too.’
—“How dare you talk to me like that?”
Chris remembered William’s angry outburst when he first gave him advice.
Of course, William’s attitude soon changed.
—“You’re my savior. I owe my life to you.”
Chris chuckled recalling that 180-degree turnaround.
Thanks to Chris’s advice, William had awakened; otherwise, he would have died fighting the demons that followed.
Though proud, William never forgot a favor and treated Chris with great respect afterward.
Now it was Chris’s turn to return the favor.
‘Though this time, I’ll be a bit rougher.’
Whoosh.
Chris gathered his energy.
In fact, Chris was virtually invincible in these energy duels. His dark magic had a dominating nature.
If he subtly mixed dark magic into his radiant mana, William wouldn’t stand a chance.
But Chris deliberately avoided that trick.
Instead, he played it ‘by the book.’
Bang!
Their energies collided at the center.
In sheer volume, William’s energy was overwhelmingly superior.
Chris’s own energy was comparatively lacking, since he stored mana and dark magic separately.
‘If you combine both, I wouldn’t be so weak, but right now, I can only use mana.’
So Chris’s mana alone was embarrassingly inferior to William’s—at least twice, maybe three times less.
“It’s not too late. Admit your disrespect and apologize, and I won’t hurt you.”
William’s eyes darkened.
But—
“Sorry, but I can’t hear a word from a dumb bear like you.”
“You bastard…!”
Then, suddenly—
A strange shift.
Whoosh.
Chris’s energy began slicing through William’s like a sharp blade cutting stone.
“!!”
Chris smirked.
“What’s the matter? Surprised? I focused my mana into a pinpoint edge. Can’t you do that?”
William’s face twisted in disbelief.
Sharpening the mana inside your body into a blade? Impossible.
“You don’t seriously think mana dueling is just brute force, do you? Is this the level of the Jeonwang family?”
“Shut up!!”
Veins bulged on William’s forehead.
He was out of breath and couldn’t respond.
But he was helplessly pushed back.
Despite having three times the energy, William’s force kept retreating.
Like a ragtag militia losing to elite troops.
Chris didn’t just sharpen his energy.
He displayed dazzling techniques.
“I’m kindly teaching you, so feel it yourself. This is how you handle mana.”
He demonstrated the Jing method—sending shockwaves.
The He method—flowing with the opponent’s energy.
The Rou method—softly enveloping and neutralizing the enemy’s force.
Like a master playing with his prey, Chris unleashed a dazzling array of mana tricks.
William’s mana couldn’t mount a proper defense and kept being pushed back until—
“Guh!!”
“Sir William!!!”
He coughed up blood and dropped to his knees.
His core was damaged.
Shock spread through the hall.
‘No way.’
‘To lose to Sir William in a mana duel?’
Chris dusted off his hands and addressed the kneeling William.
“I believe I’m the victor.”
“…You.”
“Since you lost, you have to do as I say, right?”
William never agreed to that wager, but Chris didn’t care.
“Get to training.”
“W-what? What?”
Chris wore a look of utter disdain.
“Your mana control was so boring it made me yawn. You need to improve.”
“!!”
“I gave you a demonstration today. You can do it, right?”
“You bastard!! Guh!!”
William exploded in anger, then coughed up more blood and collapsed unconscious.
The hall fell silent.
Chris shrugged.
‘Well, that should motivate him. He gets stronger when he has a goal.’
Though he’d injured William’s core, it wasn’t serious.
‘Not a fatal wound. Recovering the core is the best way to learn proper mana control from the ground up.’
In other words, Chris’s harshness wasn’t out of malice—it was all for William’s sake.
Truly. Honestly.
They carried William away, and everyone stared at Chris in stunned silence.
Chris shrugged again and met the eyes of a few people.
The first was Aslan, the Radiant Sword of the Karn Empire, whom Chris had met before.
‘He must be here to recruit me to the Crown Prince’s side.’
Aslan caught Chris’s gaze and saluted with his sword.
Aslan had been a loyal retainer who protected Chris when he was emperor of Karn.
Chris felt a warm sense of reunion.
‘I’ll have to talk with him later. After wrapping up the Triangular Alliance, I’ll head to Karn anyway.’
Another figure was watching him.
‘A High Elf. Mirror Ice Palace, maybe?’
A white-haired elf girl, looking about fifteen by human standards.
A gem embedded in her forehead, glowing with elemental energy, marked her as a High Elf.
‘That must be Yvonne, the Mistress of the Small Palace.’
Since the former Fairy King of Blue Stream fell to darkness, the High Elves had declined, and few remained.
‘It’s rare for a High Elf, especially a palace mistress, to come personally—even with the hero’s arrival.’
Chris wondered if she had business with him like Aslan, but she only cast a searching glance.
‘No, it’s more than just looking.’
Chris frowned.
‘Hostile?’
Had he misread it?
No.
The elf girl’s doll-like face twisted into a strange smile aimed at Chris, sending a chilling unease through him.
His heightened instincts sounded an alarm.
That elf girl was hostile toward him.
‘She’s no ordinary person.’
Chris felt a surge of caution.
‘And that look in her eyes—it’s not just simple hostility.’
What was it?
It was as if a predator was eyeing its prey.
Of course, there was nothing obvious on the surface.
The elf girl simply smiled sweetly, her pretty, charming face betraying nothing.
But Chris felt a chill, similar to the time he locked eyes with the madman killer Sherard.
‘What is this?’
Before he could react, the elf princess suddenly spun around and disappeared.
‘…What was that?’
The uneasy feeling lingered, but he couldn’t give chase.
Kyaaaaaaah!!
A horrifying, ear-piercing scream echoed from afar.
Everyone’s faces stiffened.
It was the arrival of the Demon Sword Maga.
A deathly silence fell over the hall.
The Demon Sword Maga warriors bore tattoos on their faces, shaped like demons.
Coupled with the eerie dark magic radiating from their bodies, they looked like devils descended to the mortal realm.
The most striking figure was the Maga riding in the palanquin at the center.
An old man cradled a single sword in his arms.
He wasn’t large in stature.
His forehead was deeply lined with wrinkles, the marks of time clearly visible. His gaunt frame looked too frail even to swing the sword he held.
But that was just appearances.
The aura emanating from the old man was like a towering mountain.
It overwhelmed everyone present without effort.
This old man was the Demon Sword King.
‘He really is something.’
Chris lifted the corner of his mouth in a faint smile.
It was almost the same feeling he’d had when he first saw the Nordians.
The imposing presence befitting one of the heads of the twelve great magical houses.
At last, the palanquin came to a halt, and the Demon Sword King’s eyes flashed open.
Ignoring the sacred atmosphere, he fixed his gaze directly on Christian.
“Are you the hero?”