A Lone Man's Path: Powerful Enough to Fall

Chapter 6: Contradictions

The worst possible thing happened, Urie started off with magic, why didn't she think about it.

'Arcanslec ', a mid-sized fire spread around her as if encapsulating her.

The fire, although was not very large but was very fast, and she expected Urie to attack if the magic was somehow dispelled. She least expected this kind of strategy, she thought that his warrior's pride would compel him not to use magic and fight fair. But at the moment, Urie wanted to win, so he would use everything in his arsenal.

The fire was already very close and she couldn't counter it with magic as he had suggested. The only thing she could do was to slash it down with her sword, although very hard but not impossible. Humans had trained themselves to be able to fight against magic... but she had not completed her training.

Reflexively, she swung her sword and slashed at the fire. She was expecting this sword to melt, but for her surprise it cut down the spell into two. And then blocked the incoming strike from Urie, everything with a single slash.

'Impossible.', Urie legs shifted, still sword-locked with Leika.

'We are on the same page here.', she pushed him back and looked for damage, but the sword was still intact and cold.

She looked around and every one was astonished as well. But the weirdest thing was, that guy was also wearing an astonished look as if he did not know this would happen. That scared her.

Then she remembered what he had said earlier "depends on the wielder", there it was. The sword was responding to her, but the fight had just begun. She still had a lot of challenges.

After deflecting another few spells of the same type with ease, she started to understand the grasp of the power the sword provided. It could handle mid performance spells, but due to less experience with the sword she could not handle powerful spells. She guessed, Urie too was analyzing the sword by only attacking with fireballs and occasional strikes.

But she should not depend on the sword too much, if she mis-predicted something she could die. Urie also realized the same thing and started to go on the offense.

From then on it was pure swordplay. Slashes from the left and top and stabs from the middle. Draftel Urie was an experienced soldier, on par with the commander, if this continued, she would run out of stamina. She did not have magic to turn things over, she could only hope that Urie would start to use magic and she could do something then.

Powerful spells required time to perform and extreme concentration. Right then she made a mistake. Leika anticipated a slash from the left but it came from the right and she barely blocked it, her right arm started to gush out blood.

'Leika!', from somewhere, writhing in pain, she heard her father's voice.

She had to stand up, she could not afford to give time to Urie to activate some weird magic. She could not get up, the pain was intense, it was beyond overwhelming. Being in the castle every day, pain was least of her worries. She just trained to protect herself.

As she was moaning and writhing in pain. Urie had backed off and started to chant the most powerful spell he knew; it would completely drain him but he would finish her in one hit and win.

'Desparacto', he shouted and the built-up spell shot, repelling himself backwards.

Leika somehow stood up to watch her impending doom. Her mind couldn't process the spell shot towards her. It was violet and cold. It smelled of death, Leika could tell, she had just encountered death when she jumped down the void.

'Magic, use it.', she heard someone shout and all her senses came back. Without a second thought she prepared for the spell she had seen earlier so many times, but even if she could manage it there was no guarantee she could repel the bigger spell.

She had read about Blood Destruction magic "Desparacto" The moment it hits, every drop of blood in the body bursts instantly killing the person.

It cannot be evaded, nor can be cut by the sword, her only choice is to heed his advice.

'Arcanslec ', she shouted closing her eyes, she felt nothing, she never hoped for anything now she would just die. At the end she didn't change anything...

While she was thinking this, she heard someone adjust their throat. She flung opened her eyes and saw something unbelievable. She gasped.

The Blood Destruction spell was colliding with a bigger Heat spell. Whose was it? Gerocs wouldn't assist her, the Humans did not know magic and the only other possibility was him, but even he couldn't interfere.

Was that hers? Leika's mind asked her consciousness. First thing, she couldn't use magic, second, Heat spell of her level was a normal bursting spell, it can't cancel out Blood Destruction, third... no freakinggggg way!