Chapter 57: The Man Of Gold Wins

Ever since he came to this world?

"What are you talking about?"

Leander couldn’t understand half of what he was saying, all he was interested in, was how a wastrel prince suddenly become so talented? Was it the investments of their father finally paying off or some sort of bloodline awakening as well?

The Zelgius wielder’s mind trembled.

Rather than answer, Adonis charged, and Godfrey charged behind him, and the sand parted in two.

Halfway to Leander, Adonis lowered his left arm and opened his palm.

His gauntlet was linked to Mergen’s grip. Mana flowed from the sword through the guard, through his wrist and into the plates of black metal, where the runes he’d carved into the gauntlet during his time at the Artisans’ Guild were waiting.

They glowed gold, one by one.

A circle of light blossomed around his palm.

The imprint went out through it as a thrust of pure force, as if he’d thrown the sword with his bare hand.

FWOOOOOSH! A lance of white fire, a second burning dragon blast, flew across the arena.

But it missed? It passed over Leander’s shoulder by half a body’s width and slammed into the base of the seven gigantic knight statues that ringed the coliseum.

"Ha!" Leander laughed. "Is that all? Your aim is garbage!"

"I wasn’t aiming for you."

"...Mu!"

Behind him, with a long groan of stone, one of the colossal knights began to lean. It’s been cut clean through at the ankle. Platinum fire doesn’t leave rubble. It leaves a seam, and the seam was already sliding.

The statue fell.

Leander jumped back on instinct. A shadow the size of a castle swallowed the place where he’d been standing.

BOOOOM! The whole coliseum shook like a quake. A cloud of dust rolled up from the impact, swallowing the arena, the sand and the people in it.

’This is my chance.’

Leander saw it clearly in the dust. The enemy had thrown away his own cover. All that remained was one more blast and the two of them would be burned out of the world.

He tightened his grip on Zelgius and let the dragon aura burst outward.

An imperceivable mistake, perhaps.

The moment he spent gathering power to drive the last nail into the coffin was the same moment that gave Adonis the cover he needed. The dust swallowed the white glow and bent it as the roar of his dragon’s aura swallowed every sound.

Leander turned, searching, in every direction.

Where were they? Why couldn’t he sense them?

All six of his senses had been honed to a razor’s edge by the threat of his own impending defeat. Finding two men in a cloud of dust should have been easy.

But the only thing in front of him was fog and silence, and the faint smell of dust and iron.

Then the fog parted.

A greater threat than any Leander had known since the day he opened his eyes as an infant prowled. A golden-haired prince with the face of a hunter.

"Found you." Adonis grinned.

They clashed, and what Leander expected was a scream of fire against fire.

Instead, the result is silence.

Mergen touched Zelgius and the white flame on both blades went out without so much as a burst or an explosion. It’s swallowed and pulled into the blue core like water down a drain, or a black hole eating a star.

The pillar of dragon aura around Leander drowned out.

"Wha...?"

He stared at his sword, it had nothing to offer now. Just a sword that’s big and imposing.

"What did you...?"

"This was the plan from the start."

Adonis lowered Mergen with a wicked grin.

"A fragment isn’t enough on its own. It’s half a picture, a corner, a color. But I got six of them, then seven, then more than I could count, and every one of them showed me a different side of your flames. What they are. Where they start. How they spread. What makes them burn."

He raised the blade.

"And once you have enough pieces of a puzzle, you can see the shape of the missing ones."

The flames came from Zelgius’s mana flow, a pattern that repeated itself over and over, with its own frequency, and Mergen had analyzed it all.

"So I made the opposite. A counter-frequency. Your fire against my silence. It doesn’t matter how strong it is, as long as it’s yours, it’ll cancel out. Your flames. Your aura. All of it."

"No..."

Leander shook his head.

"No, no, no, this can’t be happening!"

His voice cracked with tearful desperation.

"I’m the chosen one! I’m the one meant to win! This is my story! I was born to be the hero! I was born to..."

"Leander."

The voice came from behind the dust.

A golden figure was walking out of the settling cloud.

Godfrey had gone around.

He’d climbed onto the fallen statue, where it lay on the sand like a mountain of stone. He slammed Davaniel down on the statue’s back with everything he had left.

The blade hit the stone and the stone gained its weight.

Davaniel struck at twice the weight of what it hit.

And what it hit... was a colossal knight.

"RAAAAAAGHHH!"

Godfrey swung the flat of the blade against Leander.

The Third Prince barely screamed as he was thrown across the arena like a ball, hit the far wall with a boom, and slid down it, leaving a long bloody red stain.

His body twitched once then went still.

"The Third Prince is down!"

"The Fifth Prince won!"

"No, the First Prince! No, both of them!"

In the middle of the arena, Adonis and Godfrey stood a few paces apart, panting, holding their ribs.

"Seems you’re the one... the one who’ll compete with Cassius for the throne. I’m fine with that."

That’s the best he could say with a half-burned face.

Godfrey’s knees gave out and he collapsed.

"GODFREY!"

In the royal box, Esmarie jumped out of her seat, crying with a voice that cracked like a mother, not a queen.

"Godfrey! My son! Get up, please, get up!"

He couldn’t. Adonis could see that from where he stood. He was barely on his own feet. Every part of his body ached. His cloak hung in shreds, his armor was cracked down to the lining, and his mana was close to empty.

’I’m sorry, Godfrey.’

He looked at the golden figure lying in the sand.

’I lied to you. Not about the plan, but about why the plan was shaped like this. I wanted you to take the hits and burn out your armor, shield and strength until nothing was left. Because I knew we’d beat Leander, and when we did, you’d be too hurt to continue.’

Which left him as the last man standing.

’It was necessary. I know it was necessary. But...’

His vision blurred at the edges.

’I need a break.’

He let his knees bend and sat down on the sand. His eyes began to close, and the dark crept in.

In the stands, Mariella was already smiling through tears.

"He won! He really won."

"Ahem, I’m not surprised at all." Prussia huffed.

Duke Soron cleared his throat, and forced the words out as though they tasted bad.

"It seems... the boy is more impressive than I thought."

Mariella turned to her father and smiled with her whole face.

"Of course. My husband is the best."

In everyone’s eyes, the fight was over.

Except one pair.

In the royal box, an old man with a thin white beard watched the two fallen princes without a trace of worry. Old Hershant’s eyes were narrow and bright. His lips curled up into what felt like a smile but wasn’t.

"The perfect script..."

Adonis was halfway into the dark when the light came.

It came from Godfrey, a golden glow bursting from a holy artifact fused to the First Prince’s right palm, so bright the whole coliseum went white.

Armor, helmet, everything damaged on the First Prince’s body fixed itself like time was rewound.

Godfrey, the one who’d been out cold, sat up.

"Huh?"

He looked down at his hands. He flexed his fingers.

"Why am I... how am I still..."

"A MIRACLE!"

Old Hershant jumped to the front of the balcony with his arms spread wide and a glowing face.

"This is it! The [Grand Holy Knight] class awakening in its true form! The First Prince was always meant to win this duel! The gods themselves have chosen him!"

The crowd roared.

These were cheers of relief, as if every person in the stands had been waiting for exactly this and was grateful someone had finally handed it to them.

On the sand, Adonis dug his fingers into the ground.

’Bullshit.’

The sand was hot and rough under his nails. Blood ran down between his knuckles.

’This is bullshit.’

He tried to push himself up but his body didn’t move.

’Get up. Get up, you waste of space. Damn it. You worked for this. You bled for this. Cheating doesn’t mean you can just lie there and take it. Why won’t you get up—?!’

Why can’t anything in this world just go according to plan? He had loved this story. He’d read it a hundred times, knew every line of it, and it had never done anything but betray him.

His fist hit the sand.

When he finally looked up, there was a golden figure standing over him.

Godfrey held Davaniel in one hand, with the point lowered to the sand. He wasn’t aiming it at Adonis. It was a sign of respect, between one fighter and another, and somehow that made it worse. What an insult...

"Brother. Yield. Please. Before it..."

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Adonis turned his face away.

It didn’t matter. Even if he never said the word, King Aldrius’s decision was already made. From the highest seat of the royal box, the king lifted a hand and ordered the herald to announce the winner.

"The winner of the duel... is the Prince Godfrey!"

The coliseum went mad.

Mariella was on her feet, both hands tightened into fists.

"It’s not fair! That’s not fair! He lost! He’s down! My husband deserves to win, he... he..."

She sniffled, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, and her shoulders started to shake.

Beside her, Prussia hadn’t said a word.

What exactly do you say to a man who fought with everything he had, only to be forced to drink defeat?

She didn’t know.

So she just watched him, as the people cheered over the Fifth Prince’s defeat.