Chapter 258

As the distance between the two men narrowed, the noisy training ground suddenly fell silent.

She realized that everyone was holding their breath at the incongruous sight of Varkas. With his tall, lean body sculpted to precise perfection without a trace of excess and his smooth, gleaming white skin, he looked like a being from another world.

Wrapping bandages tightly around his hands, Varkas jerked his chin.

“Begin.”

“......Then I won't hold back.”

The man swept an assessing gaze over Varkas before kicking off the ground and launching himself forward the next instant. Talia swallowed the scream threatening to burst from her throat.

A powerful leg came crashing down toward Varkas's head like a thunderbolt. Varkas leisurely sidestepped the attack and immediately drove his knee toward the man's face. The man hastily crossed both arms and barely managed to block the counterattack, but his heavy, muscular body staggered violently and was forced backward.

“Your movement isn't bad, but your lower body can't support the strength of your upper body.”

Varkas bit down on the end of the bandage wrapped around his hand and pulled it taut with his molars as he delivered his assessment. The man immediately regained his stance and glared at him indignantly.

“Please reserve your judgment of me until after the bout. The test has only just begun, hasn't it?”

“Then stop talking and come at me.”

The moment those words left his mouth, the man kicked off the ground and charged.

Seeing a fist as hard as iron hurtling toward Varkas's face, Talia squeezed her eyes shut. But neither a scream nor the beat of the drum signaling the end of the match followed.

Tentatively opening her eyes again, she saw the man throwing punch after punch like an enraged bull while Varkas effortlessly deflected every attack.

Talia finally let her tightly hunched shoulders relax. Even to her untrained eyes, the difference between the two men was obvious. The man's breathing was growing progressively rougher, while Varkas had yet to shed a single drop of sweat.

He caught the forearm that narrowly grazed past the side of his face and spun halfway around at a speed almost impossible to believe even while watching it happen. Then, bracing the massive upper body of a man a full head taller than himself across his shoulder, he effortlessly slammed him into the ground.

The overwhelming display sent ecstatic cheers erupting from everyone gathered around the training ground. Apparently, the match had been decided.

Talia had barely released a small sigh of relief when her face stiffened at the sight of him immediately proceeding to the next bout.

She had already witnessed with her own eyes on several occasions that Varkas was a warrior of unrivaled skill, but that did not mean her concern disappeared entirely.

She irritably tugged at Tiuran's clothes as the healer watched the sparring ground with a composed expression.

“Why in the world is Varkas exchanging punches with knights?”

“His Grace is the commander of the strongest cavalry force in the East. Selecting those eligible for promotion into the elite Wolfram unit is one of his principal duties.”

“What kind of ridiculous duty is that! He could just make his subordinates handle something so dangerous. A Grand Duke, behaving with no dignity......!”

At that moment, a scream of agony rang out.

Talia turned back toward the training ground and recoiled at the sight of a challenger kneeling on the ground, blood pouring from his mouth. Clutching his dark-red, swollen face in both hands, the man cried out haltingly,

“I surrender! I surrender!”

Varkas jerked his chin, signaling for him to leave. The man staggered to his feet and climbed over the fence with the soldiers' assistance.

While a priest waiting near the sparring ground cast healing magic on him, Varkas replaced his filthy bandages with fresh ones and said impassively,

“Next.”

The crowd, which had been buzzing with excitement over the astonishing martial prowess displayed by the young Grand Duke, fell abruptly silent. Varkas swept his gaze around the Eastern warriors and spoke as though deliberately provoking them.

“This is your chance to land a blow on your lord without worrying about losing your head. Are you going to let it pass?”

“You certainly talk big for someone who has no intention of letting anyone land a blow.”

At the sudden low voice, everyone's gaze turned in one direction. Talia turned as well and widened her eyes when she spotted Lucas strolling leisurely across the training ground.

Since taking command of the outer castle guard, Lucas had spent most of his time outside the castle, so it had been quite a while since she had last seen his face.

As she stared unfamiliarity at her brother-in-law, who had grown considerably over the past few months, Lucas roughly tore open the buttons of his shirt as he approached the fence.

“But a chance to hit you, Brother....... There's no way I can just let that pass.”

Varkas's ice-like eyes flicked toward him.

“It seems you've accumulated quite a few grievances.”

“Not exactly a few.”

Lucas grinned, pulled off his shirt, and carelessly flung it onto the ground. Then, with the nimble movements of a cat, he vaulted into the sparring ring.

Talia furrowed her brow as she looked at Lucas's broad shoulders and wide, deeply tanned back. When she had first met him, he had been a slight boy only a little taller than she was. Seeing him transformed into a man of imposing build stirred a strange sense of aversion in her.

“If you find this unpleasant to watch, shall we go back inside?”

Tiuran asked worriedly as she studied Talia's complexion.

Talia shook her head. She had no interest in watching men mindlessly pit their strength against each other, but if she turned around and left now, she knew perfectly well she would only spend the entire time worrying that Varkas might get hurt.

She deliberately gave a derisive snort.

“Forget it. No matter which one of them gets beaten senseless, it'll only make me feel better.”

No sooner had she finished speaking than the drum signaling the start of the bout thundered across the training ground. Talia hugged Khan tightly and stared down at the ring.

Lucas rolled his neck from side to side, loosening his muscles, then sprang toward Varkas as though launched from a bowstring. His speed was startling.

Moving with the fluidity of a wild beast, Lucas threw himself forward, planted both hands on the ground, and swung his leg in a wide arc toward Varkas's temple.

Varkas immediately leaned backward to evade the attack, but even he could not prevent the tip of Lucas's foot from narrowly grazing the back of his neck. Lucas landed at once and slid away to widen the distance between them, grinning as he immediately followed with another attack.

Talia pressed herself against the railing, her face tense at his unexpected skill. Lucas kicked off the ground as though performing an acrobatic feat and brought his heel crashing down toward Varkas's shoulder.

Varkas crossed both arms to block the strike, seized Lucas's leg, and slammed him straight into the ground. He threw him down so mercilessly that a thick cloud of dust erupted and swallowed Lucas from view.

The referee, believing the match decided, was just about to strike the drum when Lucas burst from the dusty haze and charged at Varkas once again.

His fist shot forward with ferocious momentum and grazed the side of Varkas's face. Varkas snapped his head back quickly enough to avoid taking the full force of the blow, but his lip split and a bead of blood appeared.

Varkas frowned as though displeased by it, then lunged at Lucas with lightning speed.

His fist struck Lucas squarely in the face.

Lucas's triumphant expression twisted horribly. Sent hurtling all the way to the edge of the ring in an instant, he braced himself against the fence and spat out the blood pooled in his mouth.

“Don't you think that's a bit much just because I barely clipped your face?”

“If you're going to whine over this much, you shouldn't have challenged me in the first place.”

“Ah, shit. Seriously.”

Lucas staggered upright, wiped the corner of his mouth with his fist, and assumed an attacking stance again. But Varkas apparently had no intention of allowing him another opportunity to attack.

He instantly closed the distance, swept Lucas's leg out from under him, then mounted his back and twisted one arm behind him.

Lucas immediately tried to roll over and escape, but Varkas had already pinned him in place by driving a knee into his shoulder.

After struggling beneath him for a while, Lucas finally surrendered.

“I lost. Now please get off me.”