Alacryan Arthur

Chapter 14

Arthur Leywin POV

A huge fireball flew toward me. I cursed. As fast as I could, I created a wall of water to extinguish it. The fireball sizzled and disappeared. Good. I realized too late that my vision was blocked by my own wall of water, as Cadell jumped through the wall. Instead of evading his strike, I had to lean into it, to minimize the damage I would receive. His fist hit me right in the ribs. I was catapulted backwards, but managed to land back on my feet.

Now it was my turn to go on the offensive. I augmented my hand and let the electricity flow throughout my body. This way, my reaction time would be shortened, while my movement was faster. In addition to the internal lighting technique, I used wind to boost my speed, as I burst towards Cadell. I cast an ice sword in my right hand, while I used my left hand to conjure some earth mana to create a dust cloud to worsen his sight.

He reacted by jumping backwards out of the cloud and created his own sword and moved it in order to block my strike. As I continued dashing, I hid my left hand behind my back.

As I jumped to come to his height, I also spun my body for extra momentum. Just as my sword was about to hit his sword, I let my icesword shatter. Because our swords did not collide Cadell's balance was off. I was waiting for this opportunity. Using the rotation I had gotten from the jump, I did a 270 in the air and attacked him with the ice sword I had cast in reverse grip in my left hand. He tried to react in time, to bring his sword up, but it wasnt there in time and my sword connected with his torso.

Of course it didn't do any damage, as it was dulled and Cadell had augmented his body in time, so the sword had shattered. As I started to land, I created an earthen ramp to help me gain balance back faster. I then cast another sword. Cadell had also refound his balance and had a grin on his face.

"Well, since it seems I was going to easy on you, let's make it a bit more difficult." On that I huffed. This meaningless hit was the only hit I managed to land on him for the last hour and that only worked since I surprised him with a risky move. Cadell of course knew that, but he wanted to push me to my limit. This is why we were doing this.

He released his killing intent. It was enough so I couldn't move as fast as before, but I noticed that I was still able to move. Compared to the intents I had faced, this was manageable.

"That should be enough," he said. Dammit, that means he isn't using all of it. "Since you're pretty exhausted after all that training, why don't you go all out for the end?" he asked.

"I have been going all out from the start" I responded. Did he think that I wasn't using my full force against him? This training would be useless if I did, and he was so much stronger than me, that I didn't have to worry about accidentally hurting him. In fact this whole spar was against a Cadell who limited himself a lot in terms of speed, strength and mana usage.

"I mean your will. Agrona told me it was safe, but using it exhausted you a lot. Why don't you use it at the end? Would be good if you also learn to use it in combat."

That was a good idea. I probed my core and let mana flow into the will. I could feel the tingling of my skin, as it turned pale. I could feel the warmth of the runes around my eyes as mana flowed through them. My vision changed and I was able to see the particles that surrounded Cadell and me.

But then I saw something weird. In Cadells core were red, brown and silver mana particles, but also black mana particles. I tried to remember if Agrona also had these black particles, but remembered that I could even look at him, so I had no way of knowing.

"What is your fourth mana affinity?" I asked him. He looked a bit surprised, but then answered: "Agrona had said, that you can see mana particles, but you can see that too? The fourth one you see is the special mana art of the Vritra." He raised his earthen sword and I could see how the black particles left his core and traveled into the sword.