Arcadia's Ignoble Knight: The Sorceress' Knights Tournament

Chapter 26

Caspian was tired. As he lay on the grass, staring up at the blue sky, Caspian could think of nothing except how exhausted he was, of how his muscles ached in places that he hadn't known could ache. Everything hurt. His back, his arms, his chest, his legs. It felt like someone had bludgeoned his chest with a warhammer. His shirt lay discarded on the ground beside him, and Caspian was positive that, were he to look down, he would see his chest covered in ugly bruises.

I lost...

In hindsight, Caspian knew that he would lose to Derek. The older man had far more experience than him. Even if he was weak, Derek would certainly have the advantage in tactics and adaptability. Of course, Erica's Knight was far from weak, as he'd quickly discovered. Despite all that, losing to Derek, to anybody, was a blow to Caspian's pride.

Sitting beside him was Derek. The man, his red armor as immaculate as it had been before the battle, didn't say a word as he rested on the grass. This gave Caspian plenty of time to think, and he had a lot to think about.

What was that attack that he used? It was almost like he launched a blast of compressed air from his sword, but that shouldn't be possible, should it? The amount of force one would need to generate to accomplish such a feat should not be humanly possible.

And yet, even though it shouldn't have been possible, that was clearly what had happened. Multiple times. Derek had swung his sword, and a powerful force of gale wind had been launched from it, smacking Caspian in the chest and sending him sprawling to the ground, depriving his lungs of oxygen. This had happened numerous times before Caspian had decided to call it quits.

"You were quite impressive," Derek said at last. "I can see why you're ranked second in the academy."

"Don't patronize me," Caspian mumbled. "I didn't land a single blow on you."

"That is to be expected. You are a talented young man, but you do not have the decades of experience that I do. If you did, then our spar could have gone either way."

Caspian knew that Derek was being polite. He hadn't landed a single blow on Derek in all of their spars. It was a real blow to his pride as someone striving to become a sorceress's knight.

"That attack you used against me," Caspian started, "the one that hit me from a range. What was that?"

"That was a technique that I created several years ago. I created it one day after fighting against someone who used a gun. The idea behind the technique is that I use the weight of my claymore and the strength in my arms to displace the air in front of me. By swinging fast enough, I can create a either a wind blade or an intense gale that extends my reach. It has it's drawbacks, of course, the biggest one being that it only gives me five extra meters of range, but against an opponent who uses a sword, I have a clear advantage."

Caspian understood the basic mechanics behind Derek's technique. By combining the weight of his blade with his own raw physical strength and the effects of gravity, Derek could swing his blade so quickly that it created a compressed blast of wind. It also explained why Derek wielded something as large and unwieldy as a claymore.

But it also comes with its own set of disadvantages. Derek can only create a wind blade by swinging his sword down. He can't generate enough power swinging it any other direction. This also means that if someone can predict when he'll launch an attack, they can easily dodge. However, he seems to have that covered by attacking only when he knows he's going to land a hit.

Throughout their spar, Derek had predicted Caspian's every move. No matter how unpredictable he tried to be, the red-clad knight was never surprised and always reacted more swiftly than what Caspian believed should have been possible, especially when he took the heavy red armor that Derek wore into consideration.