“I have to give it to that young upstart; his aura is strong,” King of the Pure Firmament thought as the third aura pulse of the powers-that-be marked the start of their clash. While they were both very, very fast as gold-rankers, their spirits became both their vanguards as the auras of the dueling pair met before even a finger could twitch in response.
Breath of Valor’s presence was much like his personality and essences would indicate; forceful and unstoppable. King knew of his path before his unconventional sojourn out into the wider world, and he wasn’t surprised that it had been found worthy of putting their family’s hopes and ambitions behind. With impressive levels of strength and speed, combined with the self-restoration of the juggernaut and the weight-manipulation from what King suspected was his iron essence, Breath of Valor was the very epitome of what a traditional Hua-Xian warrior should be; the individual strength to conquer every obstacle.
“Yet every path has its weak links to be sundered. Still, I should take his dedication to our traditions into account when I decide on his punishment,” King thought, the two having just begun to move as he sent mana to activate the very cornerstone of his path; the one that had let him seize his crown and country.
“Perfection of the Undeniable Adversary.”
Having sprung from his nemesis confluence, the power was simple at a glance yet endlessly complex in execution. For an ongoing mana cost, King would receive a number of special abilities that would let him better counter his foe. Back in the hazy memories of iron rank, it had been a single advantage; resistance to fire against a flaming rock hopper or increased resonating force damage dealt toward a heavily armored adversary. Then at bronze, the number of advantages rose to two, then three at silver and four at his current rank of gold. And with each rank, the advantages grew more potent and more complex along with the delay between activations becoming smaller and smaller. Said delay was still around five minutes, meaning that King would never - or at least not yet - adapt instantly to many differing opponents. But to one?
“Shredding strikes, enhanced speed, limiting damage from single, powerful blows and increased regeneration after each time I take damage,” King noted silently as he interpreted the abstract sensations the power gave him by way of feedback. “Almost disappointingly straightforward.”
Another nostalgic memory from iron rank popped up, with his much younger self struggling to make proper use of the instinctual knowledge. But the King of the present? He was an old hand at it, easily shifting his balance and compensating as his speed rose during the charge both men had begun; King’s gold-ranked spirit letting him think and process at astonishing speeds. Around them, the crowds felt like they had slowed to a standstill, most among them unable to follow what came next.
A staggered barrage of whirling iron blades shot from Valor’s armor even as he closed the distance with one of his signature charges. The trailing, wind-wreathed glaive snapped into his hands halfway, the shredding gale around it seeming to unfurl as its enchantments - because King knew that Valor possessed no wind powers of his own - used the man’s great momentum to further boost its shredding power.
Meanwhile, King’s Thousand Blades started manifesting around him; straight-edged, balanced blades with perfectly smooth, reflective surfaces. One was already in his hand while the rest started to create a shining array in the air above them. Even at gold rank, the creation gave the feeling of still being somewhat incomplete, its grand symbol not yet fully formed while still carrying such potential. The sword in King’s hand became a blur as it started intercepting some of the numerous incoming projectiles, the constant and increased resonating force damage added by Undeniable Adversary allowing him to easily carve through the sharp metal with abandon.
Over fifty of the things were shredded in the short instant it took for the two golds to meet, the crowd’s gasp not even fully having left most people’s mouths before battle was joined in earnest. Valor’s grand swing, looking to carry the weight of the world, suddenly sped up greatly as the man used another of his more signature powers as the weapon became light and swift in his hands while somehow becoming only more heavy and dense to the rest of the world. It was part of the more known powers of Valor’s iron essence, allowing him to make use of heavy weapons and armor with the same ease that others wore casual clothing. And while King’s powers would allow him to mostly bypass the latter, the younger man’s more powerful strikes were still something he would rather avoid.
“Fleeting Omen of Harmful Potential”
King couldn’t help but smile as he noticed a slight instant of hesitation in his foe - unnoticeable to all except the golds among the audience - as another of King’s famous powers were put on display. Illusions of potential actions started to spring from him in what he had been told was a most distracting and confusing mess. One King stabbed straight ahead while three others dodged in different directions as two others countered with different kinds of powers even as two more dodged to either side. It was a rather cheap power with only a short delay, excellent in both offense and defense as its flashing hints of what could be was most hard to get used to even if one knew to expect it.
Valor proved no different, and his mighty strike was fouled as it chose to go for the densest cluster of his illusory foes in the hopes that one of them was the correct one. King had chosen to dodge, however, the rapid motion carrying him past the larger man while slashing him along one side. Even with his enhanced blade and a special attack adding further resonating force damage, King still had to up his respect for the man’s defenses a notch or three. With all that armor-piercing capability, he had hoped to part the enchanted steel like scissors through silk. Instead, the result was only a shallow rent drawing a bit of blood beneath; less than a trifle to a gold ranker.
“So death by a thousand cuts will not do just yet,” the monarch thought as he whirled around and leaped, vaulting out of the way of Valor’s swift and decisive counterattack. King had to accept some light damage from the sharp blade-like shrapnel which constantly kept bursting from the younger man’s armor, his now further improved regeneration fortunately keeping up for a time. “Then a thousand cuts will be struck as one.”
King remained on the defensive for half a dozen more exchanges made over the course of three heartbeats, stepping, whirling and deflecting as he tested the other man’s potent defenses. One particularly spectacular attack made by Breath of Valor - air screaming around the sudden force of the blitz that was his swing - forced King to shift and more forcefully block. His mirror-sword looked small and flimsy beneath such an onslaught, yet it somehow stopped the attack dead in its track.
Above them, one of the many swords making up King’s array shattered in a violent burst of force that was channeled harmlessly up into the air, even though this went largely unnoticed by the two combatants. Beneath the floating pattern of blades, the next exchange had already begun, Breath of Valor following it up with two waves of iron spikes that formed and launched themselves towards the monarch like fangs closing upon their prey while the other man once more split into several illusions showing multiple possibilities of his intentions. Both auras surged as they clashed again; once, twice, thrice. Then, discordant to the settling rhythm, there was a blinding flash of reflected light accompanied by the screaming of torn armor. And, a mere moment later, the sound of blood splattering the stone floor of the arena.
Even Kite’s silver-ranked mind had to truly work to process the furious battle that had begun beneath, and he didn’t envy all those of lower rank among the spectators as a set of blurring illusory images of the monarch of Hua-Xi suddenly converged, their previously differing trajectories and actions aligning in decisive offense. A bright light followed, glaring enough to activate the protective enchantments around the rim of the arena.
When it subsided, both combatants were already moving again, but Kite just had the time to notice something being odd with Breath of Valor’s left arm; the limb seeming to move more twitchy and stiffly than before. This did not stop the man from delivering a mighty downward strike that broke the stone floor of the arena in a wide cone of flying shrapnel in front of him, but the slight loss of motion was still noticeable.
“Wha– senior brother? Have pity on us young ones?” Little Crow asked, the assassin obviously having had trouble following as well, and therefore turned to someone who could.
“The King severed the left arm of Breath of Valor,” the red masked Crow murmured in answer, ostensibly still keeping his eyes on the continued dueling beneath. “It was only separated for a moment though, before Breath of Valor had the armor reattach itself with his powers. He’s probably using some kind of metal manipulation to move his left arm at the moment while waiting for the limb itself to regenerate enough.”
“Such a feat? At such speed?” Kite asked, awe creeping into his voice as he imagined the fine control needed for Breath of Valor to even make the attempt with barely a loss of momentum. “And the King just severed it like that?”
“He did,” the gold-ranked crow confirmed. “At a cost.”
A small nudge of the man’s head had Kite look closer at the odd array of mirror swords that had formed above the pair at the start of the battle, floating high above while seemingly unaffected by stray projectiles and the like. And upon closer look, saw that there were a few more swords missing from the grand pattern. Even so, Kite felt that the subsumed Sage seemed most impressed by the display.
“Ah, I see, I see,” Little Crow mused. “The King’s thousand reflections. Well, not a thousand per se, even though people speculate that he might reach the number should he ascend to diamond rank. The swords in the array sure are flexible in both offense and defense. I’ve only read about them, as they are one of his most publicly known powers.”
“Well, out with it. What do they do? Empower his strikes?” Dragonfly asked distractedly, her eyes practically aglow as she watched the fight with rapt attention.
“That, or his defense, or most other things that involve his sword. His majesty can sacrifice a number of them for various purposes. So far he hasn’t fought in a single official duel where the array was completely emptied, or at least as far as the official stories go. Still, no rumors contradict it either.”
As the battle beneath continued, each exchange, powerful step or special attack missing its mark caused an ever-growing web of cracks to start spreading along the stone floor. For a time, it seemed like both combatants were inexhaustible and evenly matched in a seemingly unending array of moves, feints, sidesteps and all-out attacks that were sometimes hard to follow, Kite’s mind mostly registering the aftermath.
Breath of Valor lived up to his confluence’s name, seemingly having unending stamina to draw on as he kept up his steady stream of powerful attacks while shrugging off or ignoring most grazing hits of his adversary. Meanwhile, the King was more of an oddity, constantly bursting into his many illusory selves to attack and dodge while somehow also employing more subtle powers to stop or reflect certain attacks while he too seemed untiring.
Slowly though, as the minutes of utter destruction ran their course, Kite started to feel a slight shift in the dynamic. It was a subtle thing, not easily gleaned in the moments of the combatant beneath.
“You have noticed.”
“Excuse me, honored senior?” Kite asked in return, giving a seated bow to the gold-ranked Crow whose words had interrupted his attempted analysis. The man still hadn’t turned toward them, but a shift in his aura made Kite absolutely certain that the man’s attention was on him.
“I felt the realization in your aura. You have noticed the change,” the gold-ranker repeated, his statement clear.
“What? What?” Little Crow asked, looking most curious. “The battle? It still looks like a stalemate to me.”
His questions were met with silence by the gold-ranker, and eventually Kite felt a slight nudge to his aura, the message clear.
“While I am not certain, I believe that the shift is twofold,” he ventured tentatively, continuing after another similar nudge to his spirit. “The first is that the rate of swords shattering in the King’s array seems to have slowed noticeably. That could imply that he finds less and less need for them as the fight progresses.”
“Hmm, you might just be right,” Little Crow replied, giving the array of swords a more thorough look.
“And the other part is the balance of their auras. It feels like the King is winning out on that front, even though all the fluctuation and the sheer power of it makes it a bit hard to tell. I’m not sure if it’s connected though, or if that is just my imagination. Not having an aura power in a duel would sure be a disadvantage, but it is usually less noticeable without allies for it to affect.”
Little Crow did nod thoughtfully at that, and both he and Dragonfly seemed to join Kite in tentatively questing out with their spiritual senses, even though the dueling gold-rankers beneath contributed their fair share of distractions. Eventually, all three of them found themselves looking to the gold-ranker nearby for answers.
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“It is correct,” the older Crow stated softly. “It has long been part of his majesty’s path, even though only known by the players of the city that are powerful enough to keep such a secret. Our clan is one, but I would still advise the utmost caution and consideration should you decide to spread the information. But yes, the King’s own aura power will, among other things, increase the effects of other powers within his nemesis confluence upon those whose aura he has suppressed.”
The three silvers all nodded along, processing the information with expressions differing from thoughtful to slightly in awe. But their attention was drawn back to the arena soon enough, where it looked like things were heating up even further.
“Valor does not retreat, it advances. Valor does not fear, it shows only defiance. Valor does not fall, it will always keep ascending. Valor-”
The family’s long-kept mantra kept its steady rhythm through Breath of Valor’s mind, the combat meditation keeping him calm and centered in what might be the most important fight of his life so far. And its calm was needed at that moment, helping him ward off the creeping sensation of being picked apart at an ever rising pace.
At first, the unstoppable momentum of his path had been able to let him mostly keep the offensive going, even through those confounding illusions and sudden, abrupt attacks that would always threaten more grievous damage. The powers of his juggernaut confluence still helped keep Valor intact, greatly speeding up his regeneration to close wounds and reattach limbs while his armor kept him together. Combined with his constant great recovery, he had thought that anything which he could not push through, he could at least outlast. But as another set of ominous illusions heralded the next shift in the offensive without the King ever pausing or seeming to tire, that too was an assumption about to be thoroughly put to the test.
“Not this time!” Valor thought as he saw the illusions suddenly shift from their varied responses and all go on the offensive shifting the weight of his armor in a fluid series of changes to help him effortlessly transition his mighty overhead strike into a circular one, glaive trailing shearing wind in a mighty circular slash angled to intercept each and every copy of the monarch. Unstoppable Force was a power widely spread and known, but knowing that the metaphorical rockslide crashing down toward you was heavy and powerful did little to actually save you; you either got out of the way or were utterly buried.
The weapon cleaved through them all in an instant, Valor following up the circle of devastation with a burst of metal spikes from his armor in every direction that punched small holes in the rising dust kicked up by the vortex around his glaive.
“And now to-”
His thought and attempted follow-up were almost immediately interrupted, as the King was suddenly in front of him. As if the world around suddenly moved at a crawl, his hemisphere of iron spikes still only having traveled a few meters out, Valor saw the other man’s sword flash; a brilliant, mirrored arc moving like lightning in his otherwise sluggish perception. Pain followed soon after as Valor’s right arm was once again severed.
“Cursed heavens,” he inwardly swore even while his armor once more closed itself up in an instant. These strikes were landing with increasing frequency. He couldn’t hold on. Even his regeneration was nearing its limits. And that look in the King’s eyes - the gleam of assured victory on his otherwise somber face - was what made Valor make the decision. He had hoped to persevere under his own power alone, believing in his path. But the man before him was a monster of the dueling arena; cold and calculating in his power as he kept sinking his fangs through the cracks in Valor’s defenses and capabilities. And he who fights with monsters? He must be willing to do anything to put them down.
Decision made, Valor did not hesitate. A series of enchantments lit up along his glaive as he let the weapon dance to its own wind. The vortex of wind along the blade instantly elongated and grew, forming into a huge whirling hand that wielded the weapon in a furious series of attacks against the monarch. And while the King did not bat an eye at the development, sacrificing another in his accursed array blades to deflect the first blow and create some space to back up a few steps.
The effect was the most potent one of its numerous enchantments and would be unavailable for the rest of the day; a hidden advantage that had helped Valor close out more than one fight teetering on the edge during his time abroad. But now, that mighty ace up his sleeve was reduced to a mere distraction, buying the split second of distraction and space needed for him to reach down to a seemingly unremarkable dagger at his hip.
“Heavens preserve me,” Valor thought as touching the weapon instantly sent rampaging, icy pain up his arm. The thing wanted - no demanded - a prize from him, and while Valor had known that paying that prize would mean agony, he had so far never felt anything akin to the true pain of his soul being assaulted. It was somehow made even worse that his gold-ranked body was usually able to reduce agony to a faint sensation to be noted rather than something truly affecting him, the long absence making the sudden, soul-deep agony all the more acute.
Still, Valor paid its price, his life’s essence starting to flow into the dagger which all but flew from its sheath as he drew, the illusions hiding its true nature ripped asunder by the gathering forces. What had previously looked like a fine but unremarkable weapon - at least as far as any gold-ranked armament could be called as such - was instead revealed to be quite an oddity. It was still dagger-like in shape, but was perhaps closer to a spike than actual blade, and was made out of some kind of mostly opaque, shimmering resin. The shape of the thing looked rather raw and unworked, but a network of runes and magical symbols across its surface belied its crafted nature. And to anyone with any modicum of magical perception and knowledge, the ‘dagger’ somehow emitted a sense of deep wrongness.
Valor’s foe seemed to realize that as well, and the younger man had time to feel some satisfaction at the slight widening of the King’s eyes before the power inside the spike in his hand was unleashed.
Valor knew that the object in his hand was illegal in quite a few of the major countries, kingdoms and city states across the world, and the less said about the people he had worked for in order to procure the item, the better. In some ways, literally paying with years - or more probably, decades - of his life to use the artifact felt like a way to alleviate some of the guilt that still plagued him.
“And once I reach diamond, achieving immortality, there are further amends I can make,” Valor thought as the power of the spike shot forth as a chaotically undulating beam of multiple colors, every nuance somehow off the natural spectrum. “For now… Valor does not fear, it shows only defiance.”
Ametrine Dreams Wreathed in Silk felt herself go numb as the illusions fell away from the supposed dagger which Breath of Valor had drawn, chaotic energies unleashed towards her king. Or perhaps discordant was a better word to describe them, because Ametrine did not fail to note the ever so faint hint of her god’s divine concepts within, even if they somewhat felt a bit… antiquated. Like an ancient painting depicting something intimately familiar.
“What-”
Her thoughts did not have the time to finish the inquiry before the attack reached her king, who fortunately did not hesitate for long. He ignored an attack from the vortex-wielded glaive, letting it shear through part of his armor and bite into his side, instead making a simple slash through the air, and Ametrine felt like she could almost hear the name of that particular power of his path, intimately familiar with each and every one.
“Aegis of the Mirror Guard!”
Just as the discordant beam struck, a mirror-image of the monarch - taking the word mirror most literally as it was impossibly both reflective and translucent at the same time - copied his sweeping slash perfectly in time for its blade to intercept the incoming chaos. Screams erupted among the crowd as the resulting colliding powers resulted in enough force and light to partially overload the defensive array, enough leaking through to leave people clutching their eyes or staggering backwards. Even Ametrine had to close her eyes, the sound of hundreds of mirror-like blades shattering in a single cascade reaching her a moment later.
However, when she opened her eyes, only a cloud of dust greeted her, but her relief was still palpable as she felt the king’s aura emanate from within. Its instability was of more than slight concern, but as the aura of Breath of Valor felt even more out of balance, said concern was only slight.
“So he made it, even if he had to show off his Mirror Guard,” she thought, noting the other change that was soon obvious as the dust began to settle. “And his whole array was spent. Even in victory, this will definitely be a blow to his image. We will have to spend quite some time rebuilding it.”
The last thought was not without its fair share of bitterness, even as the questions once more came to the forefront of her mind. “But what in the grand garden was that thing? And how did something carrying the touch of Discord make its way into the Valors’ hands?” Ametrine was no artificer, but even she knew that the spike had to be something heavily restricted in polite society. Maybe outright illegal in most.
“An old creation, my gardener. A remnant from a time of war and strife.”
Her god’s voice in her mind had Ametrine mentally school herself, sitting just a bit straighter at her floating cloud of smoke. “My God?”
“Our followers have made many things in centuries past. That artifact is even based on a part my purview shared with one of the powers I personally have gifted you, even if its scope - and cost - is on a different scale.”
“I… see,” Ametrine thought, mind already working on multiple hypotheses at once as she tried to deduce how the item just happened to be revealed here and now in the hands of one of their rivals. It might just be happenstance, but Ametrine’s work was much too important for her to leave this to chance. “Then, Ever-present One, do you know where it came from? Who placed such an artifact in the hands of the Valors?”
“I know much, gardener, but some actions of mortals are not for me to disclose,” her deity answered, Discord almost seeming amused. “Still, its use pleases me. Because no matter the outcome, my garden grows stronger.”
And with that, the divine presence disappeared, leaving Ametrine with plentiful questions just as the dust settled enough to reveal the combatants beneath. Breath of Valor lay on his back, missing his right arm and leg. Still, there was no blood, as where flesh should have been there was instead a chaotic mess of jagged, glass-like protrusions melding into both armor and tissue. Close to his still intact left hand, only a pile of slag-like droplets remained of the artifact that had been the source of the rather messy turn of events.
In front of the prone man, the king still stood, but not unmarred. He too had lost his whole left arm from the shoulder and down, in addition to the lower left part of his face. But his mirrored sword did not waver where it rested at the chest of his opponent.
There was mostly silence from the audience at this point, but then a gold-ranked aura from one of the viewing boxes flared, followed by the rest as the gathered powers of Hua-Xi unitedly declared the clash to be over.
“Breath of Valor. I thank you for this opportunity of tempering,” the king said, ritual words slightly garbled by the stiff growths of glass keeping his left jaw from moving properly. “But your path has yet to reach the heights of your ambitions, and for that a price must be paid, as is tradition. I will expect you at the palace at sunset, one week from now. Then you will receive the task which you are to perform for this kingdom in order for our karma to be severed. Fail to show, and it will be your whole family and line that pays the price.”
With that, the monarch of Hua-Xi turned to leave the arena, choosing to levitate through his aura. While it sure looked impressive to the masses, Ametrine suspected that he had chosen to do so more due to the risk of walking unsteadily due to some still healing injuries rather than a need to show off.
She too rose and strode from her viewing box, ignoring the whispers and glances from the other members of the king’s harem. Ametrine knew that her king would request her presence after this turn of events, and she too was already making mental preparations and notes to where she would send her little wisps of smoke to start investigating. Because Ametrine’s instincts were all screaming that the Valors were mere pawns in this mess. And that if this wasn’t some scheming from her peers rearing its head, she would eat her whole jewelry box, piece by piece.
When the flecks of light had finally cleared from Kite’s eyes, the clash for the throne had been concluded. He did not know exactly how both the king and the challenging young master had ended up in their current states, but he suspected that whatever artifact that Breath of Valor had used was to blame. And while he shared the crowd's collective excitement at the most dramatic turn of events, part of Kite was also quite concerned.
“Honored senior brother?”
Addressing a gold-ranker, especially one that he had barely interacted with outside of a handful of occasions, still caused Kite quite some trepidation. But in this case, he hoped that a polite question would at worst receive a polite dismissal.
A nudge of a powerful aura was his response, sending its tacit approval for him to continue.
“Was what we witnessed just now something… normal? For gold rank?”
At his question, the gold-ranked Crow’s red mask turned slightly toward him, the man looking over his shoulder to regard Kite as he answered.
“No. It was not. From what I could sense of his aura upon activation, I expect that young master Valor paid a heavy price for its use too. Given the particular group you are part of within the adventure society, the concept of restricted magic surely isn’t new?”
“Ah…” Kite responded, thinking of his contracts with Gauntlet. “I can’t properly judge for gold and above. Do you know what it was?”
“I do not. Such things are beyond my expertise. But given the look of our esteemed branch director, I would not be surprised if the clan will soon receive a contract to investigate the matter. I suggest that you seek her out, should you wish to be part of things.”
The man’s last words carried a distinct note of him being done taking questions for the moment, and Kite was instead left with his own musings next to where Dragonfly and Little Crow were animatedly discussing the finale of the clash.
“Concerned, little Kite?” auntie Crow asked him, not having taken part in the discussions of the others.
“In some ways, yes,” Kite freely admitted, auntie Crow ever having been the one of his adopted mothers with whom he had broached musings, concerns and reflections. “While I am unsure whatever that was -,” he continued, gesturing down to the now empty arena below, “- it surely isn’t something unique, at least not in power or devastation in the wrong hands. I’m sure that plenty of things, items, rituals and other magics like that hide beneath the surface of both our kingdom and the rest of the world. And given my path, both with Gauntlet and the guild, I… I suppose I just hope that the others and I are up to the task of surviving them like the King did.”
“Oh believe me, little Kite, that is a constant worry for Dove and I as well. But such will ever be the curse of the parent, I suppose,” auntie Crow mused, nodding for Kite to continue.
“Well, and beyond that it might just be the normal feeling of inadequacy,” Kite ventured, looking down over the ravaged stone floor of the arena below, remembered glimpses of the earlier battle replaying before his mind’s eye. “The heady feeling of reaching silver, in some ways the very top of the people in the sparser magic up north, had already started losing its luster. And after what we witnessed here today, along with what I have seen of the wider world? I’m starting to feel that the pond in which I am swimming was only the smallest of puddles compared to the heights of power I have yet to glimpse.”
