Chapter 50: Honor Among Brothers

Back on the sand, Adonis stared at the gouges caused by the two ruined halves of his shot.

’Oh. That’s... not great.’

Scorcher was already diving for a second pass, so he leapt, and threw his weight back allowing the leg armor launch him high into the air.

Fire passed under his boots. For a second it felt like flying.

Then he saw Leander.

The Third Prince had crouched with coiled legs and eyes locked on Adonis in the sky like a dragon would stare at lesser creatures it shared the skies with.

There was no mercy in those eyes.

"Red Dragon Sword Style."

The sand exploded behind him.

"First Form: Dragon Rush."

The air tore as he moved like a red streak that crossed forty meters in the space of a blink, his sword rose for a clean horizontal cut that would ruthlessly claim the head from a man floating in the sky.

Adonis couldn’t change direction. He couldn’t accelerate. He was a rock thrown into the air, waiting to land.

’I should’ve thought things through...’

The Red Dragon Sword Style was built for one thing and only one thing: relentless offense. A battle is won as long as the blade of the swordsman never stops moving. That is the philosophy of the sword school.

Being so open, was basically Adonis begging to be cut down like a mad dog.

The crowd screamed.

Mariella’s hands flew to her mouth.

Prussia’s hand dropped to her sword.

Even the nobles stopped laughing.

’Ah. That’s it. I’m dead.’

The blade swung.

CLANG!!

A wall of gold slid in between them.

The sword hit a huge shield and rang like a bourdon bell.

Leander’s blade skidded off, sparks flying, and the Third Prince stumbled a half-step back with a stunned look.

Standing between boldly them, in golden armor gleaming under the sun, was Godfrey.

The armor looked like a dragon’s hide beaten into plate: heavy, scaled, majestic, the helmet crested with two swept horns. A white cape trailed from his broad shoulders, looking every bit like a Grand Holy Knight!

It’d been half a second since he’d stood at the east gate.

Adonis dropped to the sand, rolled, and came up on one knee.

"Godfrey?!" Leander roared. "What are you doing?!"

"Ending this madness."

"He’s the weakest link! We agreed!"

"I didn’t agree. I didn’t say anything. Three against one is an act of shamelessness, not a duel. You struck at a man who cannot turn in the air. That is not honorable."

"Honorable?! Ahahaha, don’t make me laugh! This is a battle royale! There are no rules!"

"Then I’ll make my own."

Godfrey readied his golden-and-white tower shield.

The nobles in the stands whispered. A few even clapped.

Adonis stared at the golden back in front of him.

’How ironic that the guy who gets beheaded in Volume Four is saving my head...’

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or thank him.

In the end he did neither, standing up and patting dust off his elegant armor.

"Big brother, this is the part where I say thank you, isn’t it? I’m going to hold onto that. For the right moment."

Godfrey smiled warmly at his little brother and all of a sudden it felt like they were kids again. Those were the only times they all loved each other and meant it; times he missed.

"I didn’t think you knew the word. Fight well, brother."

"That’s the plan."

Bradley sighed from the other side of the sand.

"Well. That’s unfortunate."

He raised a palm.

"Leander, take the womanizer. I’ll handle the saint."

Leander’s hungrily licked his lips as his prowling eyes shifted past Godfrey and settled on Adonis like a hungry animal.

"Gladly."

Godfrey didn’t wait to be attacked.

He slammed the tip of his sword into the sand, and light poured upward from the blade.

"Breaking Sword Davaniel."

The greatsword was beautiful, ornate gold with a long fuller and a hilt shaped like folded wings. It looked like it weighed a ton. It weighed nothing at all. Godfrey lifted it one-handed and sparks of gold rolled down the blade.

"Rise."

Five knights stepped out of the light.

They were pale gold and faintly translucent, each one in plate armor with a kite shield, their faces blank beneath their visors. They formed a line beside Godfrey without a word.

"Advance."

Five lesser knights charged.

Bradley wasn’t fazed in the slightest.

"Shocker. Ground. Rampart, wall."

The blue rodent hit the sand and ran. Lightning cracked off the golden marks along its spine and splintered across the ground in jagged arcs, and the first knight to touch the electricity locked up and shuddered. A shield rose just in time. The second knight leapt over the arc. Rampart, a crystal beetle the size of a pony, waddled forward and planted its feet.

CRACK!

A wall of clear crystal burst out of the sand and wrapped around Shocker like a glass fortress. The knights’ swords hit it with a ring and cracked it, but the wall held.

"Scorcher. Air."

The hawk spiraled up above the clash and breathed.

FWOOOOOSH!

A great breath of fire washed over the field. Two knights vanished in it, melting into golden mist with silent screams. The last three kept going, and Godfrey was already stepping past them with his shield raised.

The huge gem at the center of the shield began to glow.

"Burn."

BOOOOM!

A beam of burning holy light tore across the arena. Scorcher barely twisted away before the beam caught a wing. From out of nowhere, a shadow flickered across the hawk, a swirl of black mist spiraled around it, and Scorcher vanished.

It reappeared above Bradley’s head, safe and ruffled, with a small black cat perched on the same spot a moment before.

A shadow cat with a white-tipped tail.

Noir, Bradley’s fourth beast.

Rampart tilted its crystal shell.

The holy beam hit the wall and bent. Light poured off it in a blinding white flash, straight into Godfrey’s visor.

"Gh—!"

Godfrey staggered.

The knights covered him, raising their shields, and Shocker’s lightning crawled up the field again. Godfrey cursed beneath his helmet. He lowered his shield, blinking away white spots, and went at the problem with the only thing he had: the sword.

Davaniel crashed into the crystal wall.

For a sword that was weightless in his hand, it struck like a mountain falling. The wall was a ton of dense crystal, so Davaniel hit it with the weight of two tons. It shattered in one swing.

Godfrey grinned like a battle-hardened general.

"The sword gains double the weight of whatever it hits. Hide behind something heavy, and it will crush you."

Bradley didn’t look afraid.

"That’s why my beasts are small."

Rampart wobbled out from behind the ruined wall and threw up another one anyway. Shocker darted away. Davaniel swept through crystal, sent chunks the size of boulders across the sand, and every time it tried to reach the rodent it hit nothing but empty air.

A small target. Fast legs. Light bones.

The sword would hit it like a stick.

It was a very good counter.

Godfrey pushed forward anyway. His knights flanked him with their shields up.

Scorcher dove, breathed ferociously, and another knight went up in a column of flame.

Four became three. Three became two.

’I don’t have enough knights to form [Fortress].’

[Fortress] needed them alive. It needed the defense points they’d gathered over a hundred battles, merged into a barrier with the shield and sword. Without the knights, it was only armor and a pair of arms.

He realized it a moment too late.

The Fourth Prince had been burning them on purpose.

Godfrey gritted his teeth and pushed through the electric haze as lightning rattled his armor and boiling fire licked his shoulder. He swung and blocked and swung again, trying to reach the figure standing in the middle of all that chaos.

Bradley stood behind it all with his arms folded.

The calm, bored look in his eyes.

A level of talent Godfrey relentlessly prayed for.

’If I can reach him—’

One hit of Davaniel, doubled by Bradley’s weight...

If his sword landed, it would strike with the weight of a hundred and forty kilos. One blow would end it.

Rampart’s wall wobbled while Shocker’s lightning stuttered out of nowhere. A gap in their focus, maybe?

Scorcher veered off to chase the last of the knights, and for one short second, there was a clear lane through the sand, straight to Bradley’s chest.

An opening of sorts.

Godfrey lowered his shoulder as the white cape roared out a gust of wind that launched him like a missile.

This was his only chance!

"BRADLEY—"

"... Heh, got you."

Bradley smiled with sickening arrogance.

"How foolish are you... you walked exactly where I wanted for the last three minutes, brother."

Godfrey’s eyes widened.

The opening wasn’t an opening. It was a door. Every flash of crystal, every blast of lightning, every burned knight had been a building block of brilliance and the tower was complete.

Something moved behind him.

A small shape curled out of his own shadow and landed on his back. Claws sank into the golden plate. Noir had been sitting in his shadow since Rampart’s light blinded him, waiting in the dark while he swung and cursed.

The cat’s eyes glowed.

A swirl of black mist wrapped around the armor.

"Noir. Now."

The world flipped. Godfrey felt his stomach drop, and when his vision cleared he was hanging in the air, six meters up, at a point where Shocker’s lightning crackled on his left and Scorcher’s wings spread blazing on his right.

The exact middle of the triangle.

"Formation Delta!"

Shocker’s fur stood on end as Scorcher flew high into the skies and inhaled like a great dragon.

"SPARK FLASH!"