Chapter 56: Duel II

Chapter 56: Chapter 56: Duel II

"Time for round two, you arrogant bastard."

Eric didn’t give his opponent even half a second to nurse his bruised jaw or reestablish his defensive footing.

*Shadow Steps!*

Channeling a concentrated stream of mana directly through the conduits of his calves, Eric’s boots ignited in a muted burst of dark mist. His silhouette blurred violently across the dew-slicked forest grass, closing the intervening ten paces like a bolt loosed from a heavy siege crossbow.

"Damn fucker!" the youth snarled, spitting out a mouthful of crimson saliva into the moss.

Despite the deep, bleeding laceration raking across his shoulder from Coal’s vicious ambush, the boy’s combat conditioning remained sharp. He dropped into a balanced crouch, sweeping up his fallen trench daggers as emerald ribbons of wind-aspected mana coiled furiously around the serrated steel. He lunged forward to meet the charge, his twin blades singing through the freezing air in a lethal cross-slash aimed straight for Eric’s throat.

*CLANG!*

A cascade of bright sparks showered the dark timber as the pale-blue ivory edge of Wavecaller slammed hard against the crossing daggers.

This time, Eric refused to allow the youth to manipulate the pacing or step inside the dead zone of his guard. Having tasted the opponent’s close-quarters infighting once before, Eric adjusted his footwork on the fly.

Relying on the instinctive muscle memory of Advanced Swordsmanship, Eric smoothly pivoted on his rear heel, transforming the head-on clash into an outward deflecting parry. The sweeping circular momentum guided both daggers harmlessly away from his centerline, breaking the boy’s forward drive.

Meanwhile, the moonlit clearing exploded into a chaotic secondary duel.

"Wendy, tear that bird from the sky!" the youth barked through gritted teeth.

*YIP!*

The Windrunner Fox let out a high-pitched hunting shriek, its twin azure tails whipping in a violent, synchronized circle. Three crescent-shaped, razor-thin blades of emerald gale-force mana tore through the undergrowth, shearing trenches into the loam as they hissed toward Coal’s flight path.

*SKRRRAAAK!*

Coal answered with an ear-splitting war cry of his own.

*Skystride!*

Refusing to be pinned down in a linear trajectory, Coal detonated off an invisible pocket of compressed air, executing a breathtaking ninety-degree barrel roll that caused the windblades to slice through empty air and sever a nearby pine trunk. Banking sharply into a steep dive, Coal flared his broad wings.

*Shadow Clone!*

Five pitch-black phantom duplicates peeled away from his wake, splitting into a coordinated pincer formation. The clones darted toward the fox from alternating angles, snapping their phantom beaks to harass its blind spots. The azure vulpine leaped and snapped frantically, forced into a defensive perimeter as Coal’s relentless aerial hit-and-run tactics kept the beast completely isolated from its contractor.

With the fox bogged down, the human duel reached its climax.

Left without his beast’s supportive wind slipstreams, the youth’s movements grew erratic under the burning pain throbbing in his mangled shoulder. Eric pressed the offensive without an ounce of mercy.

*SHING! CLANG! SHLICK!*

Wavecaller moved like a flowing serpent of ivory and bone. Eric feinted an overhead downward cleave, baiting the youth into raising both daggers in an X-shaped high block to protect his skull.

The instant the daggers rose, Eric aborted the downward swing mid-trajectory.

*Shadow Steps!*

Melting sideways in a ghostlike flutter, Eric slid directly past the boy’s right flank. His empty left hand snapped out, locking onto the youth’s injured right wrist in an ironclad vice grip, squeezing his thumb directly into the torn muscle bed.

"ARGH!" the youth screamed, his fingers spasming involuntarily in agony.

The right trench dagger slipped from his nerveless grasp, tumbling into the mud.

Before the boy could sweep his remaining left dagger across to disembowel him, Eric stepped deep into his guard, delivering a vicious, point-blank shoulder ram straight into the boy’s sternum, followed instantly by an upward sweep of his sword’s pommel.

*CRACK!*

The heavy alloy pommel slammed against the inside of the boy’s left forearm, numbing the nerve cluster and sending the second dagger spinning away into the ferns.

Disarmed, breathless, and completely off balance, the youth stumbled backward and tripped over a protruding ironwood root, collapsing heavily against the base of a granite boulder.

*SHING.*

The icy, humming tip of the sword came to an abrupt, motionless halt a fraction of an inch from the boy’s Adam’s apple.

The clearing fell dead silent, save for the ragged gasps of both fighters and the whistling of the cold nocturnal wind through the branches.

A few yards away, the Windrunner Fox halted its snarls, freezing in place as Coal hovered directly above its head, extended *Shadow Talons* humming with lethal intent.

The boy stared up along the pale-blue serpent-bone edge, feeling the chilling sharpness grazing his skin. The sneering arrogance in his eyes was entirely gone, replaced by bitter, humiliated dread.

"Fine... fine! You win," the youth hissed, lifting his trembling, bruised hands in total surrender. "Take the damn points."

Eric kept his blade dead still, extending his left wrist. "Sync the transfer. Now."

The boy gritted his teeth, tapped his trial smartband, and synchronized their arrays.

*BZZZZ-CHIME.*

A crisp digital chime resonated through the clearing. A vibrant holographic notification popped up, updating his tally as fifty percent of the youth’s accumulated score was siphoned across the frequency.

Eric’s score surged violently: from *70 Points* all the way to *120 Points*.

Eric whistled low, an appreciative eyebrow raised beneath his dark hood.

"A fifty-point siphon... which means you were sitting on a clean hundred points before this," Eric smirked, slowly lowering his sword and stepping back out of striking range. "You’ve been quite the busy little plunderer yourself, haven’t you? Leave now. Before I change my mind about taking a few souvenirs."

The youth scrambled to his feet without uttering a single word, clutching his bleeding shoulder. Whistling sharply to his Windrunner Fox, the two vanished into the thick undergrowth like startled ghosts, disappearing into the dark forest within seconds.

"Whew..."

The moment they were out of sight, Eric lowered his shoulders, exhaling a long, ragged plume of white steam into the night air.

He didn’t linger in the clearing for a second longer. A high-intensity clash of that scale, complete with screaming windblades, clashing metal, and shattered timber was practically a beacon for every predatory examinee and prowling monster within a half-mile radius.

Eric sheathed his blade, whistled for Coal to follow, and retreated deep into the shadows.

Slipping several hundred meters away from the skirmish site, Eric climbed high into the dense, interlocking boughs of a massive weeping cedar, settling into the crook of a thick, mossy branch.

"Sigh..." Eric leaned his back against the trunk, checking the dull aches radiating through his forearms and ribs. "We barely squeaked through that one, buddy. If you hadn’t torn open his shoulder and kept that fox tied down, his daggers flow would’ve ground us down."

*Caw.*

Coal landed on Eric’s knee, letting out a soft, weary chirp as he preened a bent wing feather with his heavy beak.

"Yeah. No more picking fights with stronger examinees," Eric decided firmly, shaking his head. "Taking on candidates above our level is way too exhausting, and the risk-to-reward ratio is a complete gamble. One slip against a Level 4 or 5 and our protective barrier triggers, ending our trial run on the spot. It’s not worth the gamble."

Eric closed his eyes, crossing his legs on the sturdy limb. He regulated his breathing and began circulating his liquid mana pool, letting the cool energy steadily repair his bruised muscles and replenish his spent reserves.

Nearly an hour of undisturbed meditation passed before Eric felt his mana pool stabilize around the fifty percent mark.

He opened his eyes, feeling the mental fog clear once more.

"Let’s move, buddy," Eric patted Coal’s obsidian chest, a calm, disciplined glint returning to his dark gaze. "We’re sitting pretty at 120 points. We’ll stick to hunting isolated low-tier demonic beasts from the shadows, keep our heads down, and let the timer run out."