Chapter 52: Storm King Spear Indra

’Wow. They really love me.’

Those were the only thoughts Adonis could come up as he was hounded by nobles and commoners alike. The looks on their faces were full of hate and disgust.

He wiped sweat from his chin and almost laughed.

That was fine. That was perfect.

Charged by their hateful words, Leander dashed in, sword high, and for an instant Adonis actually felt his breath leave his body when he saw the blade came down like a falling sun.

He kicked backward.

The sword missed his throat by a finger’s width.

’Dragon Enchantment would fix this in a second. One layer on the cloak and I’d leave him behind.’

He clicked his tongue.

’Fine. I’ll use my plan prematurely.’

There was only one move left.

He leapt back, spun in midair, and aimed.

"You want to see it that badly? Here."

Tiamat’s claws spun faster than they ever had. The core flared bright. That was the flaw Alpis noticed back in the courtyard, the extra heat leaking out of it because it was trying to make another element and failing.

Rather than fight it this time, he pushed it into the water.

BOOOM!

The bullet left the spear glowing red and Leander slashed it in half like always, the two halves burst.

FSSSHHHHHHHHH!!

A cloud of white steam exploded outward from the impact. It swallowed Leander, swallowed the sand, swallowed half the arena in a thick, rolling wall. The crowd gasped. The sound of the fight vanished in the hiss.

Leander lowered his sword and blinked.

"Are you getting desperate?"

He couldn’t see more than three steps. But Leander wasn’t normal. His wild sense, the instincts of a dragon-blooded swordsman, and through the steam he could feel a heartbeat.

"There."

Twenty meters away and moving.

"Hah! Is that it?! Is that the great Fifth Prince?! You hide behind a cloud like a little girl! You’re weak, Adonis! Weak! Other than your looks what more do you have to offer?! You were born weak and you’ll die weak! A weakling who steals other men’s women!"

He walked forward as flames smoked off his blade.

"I feel so alive. Do you know what Mariella will say when she sees your head on a pole?!"

He cut straight through the steam.

The cloud parted like a curtain.

And there, far across the arena, stood Adonis, holding his spear and ready to fire again.

"Hah!"

Leander saw it and his smile grew. One sword form would claim his brother’s head. That was the way of the Red Dragon. Ten meters from the end of his reach, and not even a second left.

"Red Dragon Sword Style."

He darted like a missile.

"Second Form: Dragon’s Roar."

The sword exploded into a pillar of flame. The ground cracked behind him. The world flashed and the distance between them dropped from forty meters to thirty to twenty, closing on the Fifth Prince like a wolf on a rabbit.

That was when he saw it.

A lapse in judgement, an error of arrogance? Leander didn’t know how he didn’t realize it earlier.

’That’s not the same spear.’

His froze mid-air, but perhaps it was too late.

The beastly thing in Adonis’s hands wasn’t the claw-headed weapon from before.

That one had been a clever tool. This was something else.

The shaft was the color of storm clouds, veined with violet light that crawled along the metal like lightning trapped in glass. The head was a crown of curved prongs, each one humming with a low, deep thunder, wreathed in a halo of purple that hurt the eyes to look at.

It didn’t look like something a man had forged.

It looked like a decree of the gods. Like the heavenly storms of the skies had been plucked from the clouds and hammered into the shape of a cruel spear.

Leander’s blood ran cold.

He was too deep. He was in the air with his sword raised and his chest wide open, with the fire still trailing behind him, and he couldn’t stop. The Red Dragon Way... a swordsman who commits to a strike can’t take it back.

He’d made a grave mistake.

No, no... not a mistake.

’It was a trap.’

Every slash since the start. Every dodge. Every smug word and every shout. The way Adonis had run like a rabbit, how he’d died a little each time, and how he’d let Leander chase him until Leander couldn’t think of anything else.

No... even before that.

From the moment they clashed at the gala.

The Fifth Prince tilted his head and smiled calmly.

"Oh, about Mariella and Prussia, shut up. How dare you covet something you cannot protect."

"No—"

The spearhead lit

[Divine-Class Weapon]

[Current Output: 40%]

[Special Ability: Breath of the Storm King]

KRAKA-BOOOOOOOM!!

A breath of lightning tore out of the prongs. It was purple, and it was wide, and it was so bright the entire coliseum turned white for a heartbeat. The roar boomed through the stone and shook dust from the upper tiers. The beam hit Leander head-on and carried him backward through the air like a ragdoll.

He hit the ground forty meters away.

He bounced twice and went flat.

Then the screaming started.

The right arm that held his sword was gone.

Not gone, torn. From the elbow up it was a ruin of black, burned meat and splintered bone, a little more than half of the arm ripped open and hanging by a ribbon of skin.

The Dragon Sword Gram lay several meters away, the hand still wrapped around the hilt.

Leander lay on his back. His body twitched in small, awful jerks as lightning crawled over the burnt skin of his neck.

His mouth moved, but only a wet breath came out.

His eyes had rolled back, pure white.

In the royal box, Esmarie slapped a hand over her mouth.

Her face went green and she doubled over, almost vomiting into her sleeve.

Even her son lying in the rubble was a small matter.

King Aldrius had stopped moving. His mouth hung open. His crown tilted a little on his head, and for a long moment he didn’t seem to know what he was looking at.

"My son..."

Queen Lucelia stood up so fast her chair toppled.

"LEANDER!"

She tried to run for the stairs. Royal guards grabbed her arms from both sides, and she thrashed against them.

"Let me go! Let me go! That’s my son! My son!"

"Your Majesty, the healers cannot—"

"I SAID LET ME GO!"

She was sobbing now, her face ruined with tears. Then her eyes swung down to the sand and found the Fifth Prince, and the grief became something much uglier.

"You monster! You bastard! I’ll kill you!"

She choked on her tears.

"I’ll kill you with my own hands!"

Down in the arena, Adonis stood holding the spear.

His hands were shaking.

There was blood across his cheek from Leander’s arm.

[Congrats! Host has defeated the protagonist ’Leander Falsbane’ in single combat!]

[Protagonist Status: SEVERELY DAMAGED]

[Plot Card Fragment Acquired: 1/3]

[The story has been irrevocably altered.]

He stared at the lightning still sparking in the prongs and at his ruined brother in the sand.

’I did that.’

It was never about Leander.

He was too strong for a straight fight. Without planning there was no way Adonis could beat a monster like that. Not with twenty shots from a prototype, or with the Magic Saint Armor, or even with a month to prepare.

Leander was the figurehead.

And now, a grateful result of his successful plan.

When Adonis baited him at the gala, he hadn’t been aiming at Leander at all.

His targets were sitting in the royal box.

Queen Lucelia, a mother with a magic eye, would look at Tiamat and see what it was. She’d see a platinum-class spear and fear for her son like any mother would.

And Old Hershant.

Of everyone in the capital, Hershant was the only man Adonis trusted completely. Not as a friend. As an enemy. The old chamberlain would do anything to make sure Adonis didn’t win, and he’d do it thoroughly and without mercy.

Merely showing Tiamat at the gala and bragging about it wouldn’t have worked. Leaving it lying around where Lucelia would find it wouldn’t have worked either.

Hershant wasn’t a fool. Too obvious, and he’d smell a trap.

It had to come from a place Hershant trusted.

In the royal box, Old Hershant stood behind the King with his hands clenched behind his back, he was boiling with a familiar kind of anger.

The same kind the King always felt.

... How aggravating, so this is what it feels like to be made a fool by The Fifth Prince.

’The boy knew.’

He’d known Lucelia would break at the thought of losing her son or the throne. That she’d do anything.

That was why Adonis kept the staff in Clara’s hands.

Maid Clara, Minerva’s most trusted maid, who’d been taking silver from the Third Queen for weeks.

The boy didn’t know, but he certainly suspected Clara and was killing two birds with one stone.

And it worked, she carried Tiamat straight to Lucelia when she saw the chance. Hershant and the Queen studied it all night, and by morning they had a gold-class anti-water rune carved into Leander’s sword and armor.

Adonis grinned, ear to ear, devilishly.

Hershant had even warned the boy.

"Don’t lower your guard. This might not be all he has."

He’d said it with his own mouth, Leander had nodded and sworn he understood.

But Adonis had seen that coming too.

That pitiful display... running, dodging, struggling all led Leander to believe water bullets were all he had.

That made him complacent, the cheers from the crowd was just an added bonus from Adonis’s Oscar-worthy acting.

Then the steam, to buy a little space and swap spears.

Hershant’s whole body trembled behind the King. His fingers dug into his own palms, and unimaginable fury poured out of every wrinkled pore. Every cell in his body screamed.

To be made this stupid.

By the trash of the royal family.

Down on the sand, the Fifth Prince lowered the spear.

The last piece of his plan had been the simplest.

The evening before, after the sun had begun to set, he’d taken Tiamat to Mariella.

"This is for you."

"Eh?"

"A gift. It’s yours. But I’d like to borrow it back for tomorrow, if that’s okay."

She’d looked at it like it was made of glass, then at him, and her face had gone as red as her ribbon.

"You... you idiot. Of course it’s okay."

That was the trigger.

[Ding! Investment detected.]

[Item Gifted: Water Cannon Spear Tiamat → Mariella Soron]

[Analysis: Tiamat is a prototype, powerful but unstable. Just a month couldn’t make it perfect. Mariella is a leading researcher in Soron. High probability she will study it, improve it, and possibly mass-produce a lesser version.]

[Analysis: The item strengthens the bond between the Soron Duchy and the Host. The recipient views the gift as a symbol of their love.]

[Result: High-value investment confirmed.]

[Item: Storm King Spear Indra]

[Grade: Rainbow]

[Description: A spear that commands the storm. Fires a breath of purple lightning.]

One of the strongest weapons in the world.

A world treasure!

The Fifth Prince grinned and gave the spear a lazy spin.

"Thanks for the gift, Mariella."