Wrought King of Iron

Chapter 13: Guardian Angel

- Shirou Emiya vs Verner Caesarmund - continued -

'Here I come!'

Verner lit his blade alight, and transformed it into a spear, about 7 feet in length. Battling against spears would be much more troublesome than swordplay, however, nothing I couldn't handle. Without advancing too close to me, he thrust his spear with monumental force and speed, that I was barely capable of evading. In his storm of blows, I expended some mana on physical enhancement to dodge his spear thrusts, but nonetheless, because my reaction speed was slower than the speed of his thrusts, I would gain small cuts across my whole body each time his spear was thrown forward.

I was quite knowledgeable with the style of long weapons, relying on range and forward motions in order to stab at vital points and incapacitate the opponent. Watching Archer face against Lancer on top of the church ground using Kaleidoscope, I had familiarised myself with the conduct of the spear, and so dealing with Verner's spear should have been doable. After all, I had beaten Archer in battle, and he could hold his own with one of the greatest spearmen in history, but alas, it wasn't so simple as that. 

Facing off against Verner who embodies many fighting techniques of many opponents Archer defeated, made me realise that my victory against Archer didn't mean I had surpassed him physically. Triumph in battle against my twisted self was not a physical battle, so much as two individuals asserting their truth over the other. I conquered Archer's soul, rather than his physical body.

At the rate the battle was going, Verner would only need to utilise his spear for the rest of the fight and it would be a test of how long my body would hold up against his mana reserves. There was only one thing I could do to tip the scales.

'Trace on!' I had to copy his weapon and attack using the exact same fighting style. 'Possession experience, assimilation complete!'

Using projection magic, I reproduced faithfully his spear, having analysed its construction as well as technique. The tide of the battle should have changed.

We traded blows back and forth, from a good distance, blocking each others attacks consistently and without fail. Utilising a spear was as if having an extension of oneself attached to the arm. This was my first time fighting with this long of a range, but my tracing magecraft allowed me to copy the fighting technique of Verner seamlessly, to the extent that it felt so natural. 

For a minute, the fight continued to be that of lunging with our spears, until Verner decided to change his weapon. He produced an incredibly long, curved blade. He truly looked like a reaper of souls, wielding that scythe, but I wasn't too fond of losing mine to someone like him. 

I traced and copied his scythe and our clash continued for a few blows using these odd weapons. He swung his blade at my torso, hoping to cleave me in half, however I blocked it with the shaft of mine, and swung in a vertical, overhead arc, forcing him to leap backwards.

Verner was an incredibly talented man, I admit, as he quickly caught on that the best way to beat me was to make me run out of mana. Because he had a larger pool than I did, he would last much longer in a continuous match of expending mana, and so he continued to cycle through a variety of weapons from then on.

Axes, sickles, short swords, longswords, broadswords, katanas, knifes, whips, kunai and chain, clubs, and even going so far to have a brawl using knuckle dusters. Verner attacked with a single weapon only a few times, and immediately throwing it away to replace it with another weapon. The goal was to make me run out of stamina and mana as soon as possible. We had about the same stamina levels, so we were both slowing down to a degree that left us equal in speed, however my mana was running dry. I had kept on copying his weapons in order to survive his attacks with minimal injury, however I had no intention of keeping up this losing battle. However, Verner kept it very difficult for me to gain an opportunity to step back and prepare a more fatal attack.