Chapter 53: Bradley Vs Adonis

The coliseum had gone quiet in the strangest way.

Not the quiet of fear. The quiet of fifty thousand people trying to decide what they had just watched.

In the Soron box, Duke Soron hadn’t blinked in a full minute.

"..."

A veteran count seated beside him leaned over and whispered to his wife.

"Look at the Duke. Have you ever seen him like that?"

"Never. Not once. I once watched a man call him a coward to his face, and he only asked which weapon the man preferred."

"Soron is not easily impressed. His own daughter’s inventions can blow up a wall and he only asks how much the wall cost."

"Then that spear..."

"Yes. That spear."

The Duke gripped the armrest of his chair. In his life, he had seen royal treasures and swords that cut mountains in half. But he had never once seen a spear that leaked this much magic power into the air.

’A disowned prince made that.’

He turned his head slowly.

"Mariella."

"Yes, Father?"

"This man. You are truly engaged to him?"

Mariella looked at him. Then she smiled, wide, smug, and very slowly, like a cat sitting down in a patch of sunlight.

"Oh? So you suddenly like Adonis, hm?"

"I didn’t say that."

"You said ’this man.’ You’ve never called him a man before. It was always ’that boy.’ Or ’that miscreant.’ yunno."

"Hmph." The Duke cleared his throat and sat up straight, putting on his best dignified face. "I... acknowledge what he has to offer. His craftsmanship is, ah, passable. Above average."

"Passable."

"Above average."

"Father, you almost dropped your teeth."

"Enough!"

The Duke cleared his throat.

"Even so. In my eyes, he’s still a miscreant. A talented one, yes, but a miscreant who took my daughter’s— her purity. Could you not have waited? Even a year? Even until the wedding?"

"FATHER!!"

"A-, Ahem, I’m simply asking."

"In public?!"

A small, dry sound came from the corner.

"Heh."

Lidas hadn’t moved from his slouch, chin rested on one fist as his silver hair fell over his purple eyes.

"If Adonis keeps this up, Father won’t need to wait for the wedding. He’ll be too busy burying him."

Mariella grimaced. "What did you just say?! Lidas, you little brat, you have no right! Do you know how many nights Adonis and me spent making that spear? He’s a genius!"

"More than me?"

"I don’t even rate you!"

"Tch."

She jabbed a finger at his face over their father’s lap.

"Respect my fiancée, after all you’re so scared of yours!"

"..."

While she screamed at him across the Duke, Lidas looked away. He wasn’t going to dignify her with a response. He glanced past her shoulder instead, into the other box, to find something less annoying to look at.

A girl was seated there, one leg crossed over the other, her black twintails resting on her shoulders. She was resting her cheek on her palm, her purple eyes half-lidded at the arena like she wasn’t impressed in the slightest.

A disinterested sigh left her lips.

Lidas’s heart felt different.

His cheeks turned faintly pink. Without a word, he hopped out of his seat, slipped around his father’s chair, and tugged at his sister’s sleeve.

"Mariella."

"What?"

"Who is that fair maiden?"

Mariella followed his gaze and her face brightened.

"Oh, you mean Prussia?"

"No." He shook his head firmly. "The other one. In black."

"...Alpis?"

"Alpis."

He said the name the way someone tastes wine.

"She’s majestic. Like a goddess who descended to a world she’s already tired of. Do you see those eyes? Boredom. She’s seen everything and found it lacking. I have the same eyes."

"You really don’t."

Mariella stopped listening and focused on the arena.

Only two people were still standing on the sand.

The wreckage of the earlier fight lay scattered around them.

The Third Prince lay twitching in a crater.

The First Prince was buried in rubble somewhere.

Adonis and Bradley were left.

From her seat in the royal box, Minerva narrowed her eyes.

’Hmm... these two.’

She had a feeling, a mother’s feeling, that she wouldn’t say out loud. But her fan stopped moving.

Down on the sand, Adonis adjusted Indra in his hands and gave Bradley his warmest smile.

"Hey, son. Since it’s just us now, how about we—"

KRAKA-BOOM!

A bolt of yellow lightning tore across the arena. Adonis didn’t think. He swung Indra up, the prongs flared purple, and he fired the spear’s breath back.

BOOOOOOM!

Purple lightning devoured yellow lightning and kept going. It overpowered Shocker’s blast like a river swallowing a stream, then lanced straight at Bradley’s chest.

"Noir."

The shadow cat on Bradley’s shoulder mewed, and the world morphed. Bradley was simply not there anymore. The beam hit empty air and carved a trench in the far wall, and dust rained down from the stands.

Adonis lowered the spear and slowly turned in a circle.

’Gone. Of course he’s gone.’

His eyes searched everywhere.

Noir’s teleport was a problem. It could place Bradley anywhere within sight, instantly, and it had no windup.

’Okay. Think.’

One: charge a wide blast and sweep the whole arena.

No. Indra was at its limit in this mode, and a wide blast would drain him dry. And if Bradley was already behind him, he’d waste it for nothing.

Two: stand still and wait for him to show up.

Also no. That was what Bradley wanted. His whole fighting style was a trap that lit itself.

Three: drop a mist screen like earlier and hide.

That one died fastest. Rampart, the crystal beetle, could throw light around like a mirror hall. A mist only helped the man who could see through it, and Bradley’s beasts could see through a lot of things.

Four: attack first. Fire at the nearest beast.

But they were all on Bradley, and Bradley wasn’t on the field. Shocker and Noir had vanished with him.

’Meaning he’s coming from somewhere I’m not looking.’

He felt a shadow behind him.

Adonis’s skin crawled.

He turned his head.

Bradley appeared behind him, three paces away.

’Shit.’

Adonis lifted the spear to attack but the black cat latched onto him and the world vanished.

He felt the wind first.

It was loud and cold and it came from every direction at once. The coliseum was a tiny stone ring far below him and fifty thousand people looked like specks.

He was hanging a hundred meters in the air.

Across from him, wings spread wide, hovered a hawk wreathed in flames, [Scorcher]. Its beak was parted, and deep in its throat something red-gold was churning.

’The most firepower of all his beasts. And I’m in its sky.’

Adonis’s mouth dried up His Magic Saint Armor could let him glide, short bursts, nothing more.

’If I don’t kill this attack, I’m cooked.’

Fine. He knew his weapon.

Storm King Spear Indra had three modes.

The first was Storm Mode, the mode he was in now. It fired concentrated lightning.

The second was Torrent Mode. In it, the core changed elements and fired hyper-compressed water jets, the same kind Tiamat once did. Except where Tiamat’s core trembled and burned itself out, Indra’s didn’t.

Scorcher screamed. FWOOOOSH! A wave of fire exploded from its beak like a vast sea of billowing flames that swallowed the sky between them.

Adonis didn’t bother dodging. There wasn’t space.

"Torrent Mode!"

Switching to Torrent Mode, the prongs changed color from violet to deep ocean blue.

Adonis twisted his whole body in the air, using the thrusters in the armor’s back to spin. One rotation, two, three. Each turn wound the spear back a little more until his arms felt ready to snap.

He aimed down the center of the fire.

Tidal Lance! BOOOOOOOM!

A single, massive spear of compressed water as thick as a tower left the head of Indra explosively.

The Tidal Lance hit the wave of flame and kept going.

It tore through it.

It split the fire in two, hit the hawk’s beak, and detonated.

KA-BOOOOOOOOM!

Steam. A blast of white, scalding steam shot across the sky in every direction, and with it came a shockwave that rippled the clouds and rattled the stone of the coliseum.

"AAAAH!"

"It’s burning me! My skin—!"

"Shields! Someone raise shields!"

Nobles scrambled back from the railings, clutching their faces and their sleeves. Commoners in the upper rows tripped over each other to get away from the steam.

On the balcony, King Aldrius grabbed the railing and leaned forward. ℴ

"What... I did not know. Bradley? Adonis? When did these two grow strong enough to do THIS?"

"Because you never looked, Your Majesty..." elegantly said Minerva, not even turning her head.

"What?"

"You don’t look at them. You never have. Godfrey, Cassius, Leander, Bradley, Adonis... when it was the first son, you paid attention to the second. When it was the second, you paid attention to the third. You see only the one standing in front of the throne, and you forget the rest. I’m quite sure that whichever of these two loses, you will say you never believed in him. And whichever wins, you will say you always did."

Aldrius’s face darkened.

"Be silent, woman. Have you forgotten who owns you?"

"..."

Minerva clicked her tongue softly and looked away.