TBATE | PROVIDENCE

Chapter 09 - A Warrior Maiden's Resolve

CAERA DENOIR

My opponent stood tall in front of me clad in black armor, his purple cloak bellowing behind him. A thick black fog swirled around his outstretched hand, manifesting into a pitch black greatsword, nearly twice the size of my own scarlet blade. Taking a slow, steadying breath, I readjusted the grip on my longsword, augmenting it with soulfire.

“Lady Caera, I hope you're ready.” The retainer dipped his head and assumed a combative stance. I tensely nodded while keeping my gaze firmly fixed on him.

“Begin!” Scythe Seris's voice rang through the eerie forest.

Cylrit's figure vanished and reappeared at arms length in front of me. I hurled myself towards him. My rear foot rotated as I spun my hips, using the large momentum I generated to propel my sword into an upward sweep. The retainer, unable to manoeuvre his heavy sword in such a close, tight space, turned his face to the side, so my longsword whizzed harmlessly by his ear.

“Excellent dodge,” I eulogized, retracting my blade in preparation for my next attack.

He quickly took a step back, maintaining his defensive stance. Not giving him another chance to reposition himself, I lunged forward, bringing my sword back to produce a powerful slash aimed at his sternum.

Cylrit leaned back just moments before my sword could reach him as he parried my blade with his greatsword. As our blades clashed with each other, I felt a familiar sensation of the weight pulling my own sword, attracting it closer to the retainer.

I dodged the next hit and tried to gain some distance from him, but he stuck closely to me. It was an odd feeling as my sword was unwillingly forced in a direction different from where I willed it.

'Tch, what a troublesome ability.' I clicked my tongue in annoyance, inspecting the pitch-black sword.

Scythe Seris had once mentioned to me this peculiar behemoth of a sword. The black greatsword used by her retainer was actually a gift he had received from their Dominion's Sovereign for his meritorious deeds during the war between Vechor and Sehz-Clar. She refrained from telling me about the sword's abilities, but judging by our recent spar, I could somewhat tell it had an ability related to attracting mana.

Testing my own theory, I widened my stance and thrust the sword forward, releasing a ferocious jet of flame towards him. Once again, I sensed the subtle fluctuations of mana around the retainer as he swung his sword to block my mana-fueled spell, casting a blazing black light in the entire vicinity.

As expected, the black sword was gradually absorbing the soulfire spell before entirely devouring it.

I dashed forward, taking advantage of the blinding flash of light, shooting multiple projectiles at once. Each exact blow I delivered burned away our very surroundings as I whirled, parried, and weaved. Cylrit's body had several gashes and cuts, yet they all closed up swiftly, leaving his marble grey skin smooth and flawless.

As we were exchanging powerful blows, I wondered what Arthur would have done in this type of situation. Scythe Seris did tell me about his fight with Cylrit during the war, but that would've probably happened way before he started using Aether, indicating that he was a regular augmenter at the white-core stage by Dicathian standards. Was he really capable of defeating him back then? But then I also heard that Lance Arthur Leywin was a gifted quadra-elemental mage, so it might be possible for him to overwhelm the retainer with spells of various attributes.

“I must admit, I'm rather disappointed, Lady Caera. I expected you to still have a few tricks up your sleeve.” Cylrit teased, finally landing a solid punch to my jaw, snapping me out of my daze.