Fighting seems unavoidable. Damian had to act real careful here, the royalty of Faerunia was in front of him.
“Come on, you little squirt ! Accept it !”
Of course the angry little thing with sword in hand jumping up and down did not seem much of a prince to Damian but unfortunately he was. The knight was staring at him too, he wouldn’t be able leave without showing them a bit of his abilities.
Damian gripped his sword and turned the blade twice to get a better handle on it and resigned to his fate,
“Fine. Your challenge is accepted.”
The prince smiled an evil smile while his uncle and the odd princess nodded sagely in approval. Damian could not show his scrolls or his drawing of a spell, and yet if he didn’t defend good enough he might get seriously hurt here. The prince’s eyes did not say he would go easy on him at all.
The royals had the best resources and the best teachers in the whole kingdom, maintaining their strength was a real necessity for them. They were trained from the young age and were far better than the average nobles.
With just his swordsman-ship and slow as hell chanting it would be a real struggle, but that was fine. Damian did not want to win, he just had to not get hurt and lose after acting like he did his best. Surely they will ignore him, if they thought he was just average run of the mil boy.
Both boys stood facing each other, the handsome knight looked at both boys one by one and finally gestured to start the fight. In a second like a bullet free from a gun, the young prince charged at Damian with sword aiming directly at his head.
Damian shifted two steps behind and let his hands and legs a bit relaxed and welcomed the strike, then using the momentum he stepped side ways and and threw the attack back at the young prince who was still half in the air.
With a well timed backflip the young prince created a bit of a distanced between them and gritted his teeth in frustration. Mindless head on charges were no big threat to Damian but the power behind the sword slash and his jump charge was far greater than Damian had experienced against all those first rank bandits and soldiers.
The boy indeed had stats to brag for, or he was just that far in the level from Damian.
Using the chance he was given, Damian started chanting the intermediate spell with the smallest chanting length – [Air tornado] and released it towards the young prince who was charging towards him once again.
The young prince with barely some weight on him got serious resistance from the fast rotating wind, before the wind could fly him away though the young prince raised his sword up to his head and pierced it into the land below and held onto it till the tornado passed. However the tornado had done it’s job and given Damian enough time to create [Water Shield] & [Water Blade] hovering around him.
The young prince once again growled in frustration and instead of charging this time he remained standing on his position glaring at Damian.
“Do all the little tricks that you can boy, but you will only taste dust after hurting my beautiful sister !”
“She was the one hurting me…”
“Ahh ! How dare you accuse my genius sister of mistreating you. You bastard, you have lived enough…”
‘What’s with this guy..? Is he siscon or something..? Why do I always get the weird ones..?’
This time instead of charging, the young prince started a chanting of his own. Damian did not recognize the spell but he could see the blue circle forming behind the pommel of the sword.
Damian had never seen a magic circle appearing behind a weapon before, it was not that big but still the various sections in the blue magic circle were filled with runes as if someone made them forcefully smaller and fit them all together. The spell was finally finished and a blue ethereal light covered the young prince’s sword as if the sword was on blue fire.
Changing his footwork to more solid stance and breathing once, the young prince yelled and swung the sword from his right shoulder to left hip, making a big horizontal slash that flew towards Damian at such a speed that it almost looked like a blur.
Damian immediately raised his solid [Water Shield] and tried to hide behind it but the slash had just too much force, the shield broke into pieces and turned back to water.
Damian had already raised his sword and the flying [Water blades] to receive the attack but even though slowed down, the spell had so much power to it that it sent him flying while nicking him at the shoulder where he had failed to defend against the big slash with both his sword and the blades.
Blood started dripping from his shoulder but it was just a minor cut, fortunately he had managed to parry the attack till it dissipated and lost the energy.
That was some serious spell. Despite being so small it packed such a powerful punch.
“That will teach you to stay away from my beautiful sister, you numbnuts…”
This guy did not talk like nobility that was for sure. Damian got up with the help of his sword, his clothes were all dirty but he did not care. Damian tried his best to remember all the details from the little spell and ingrain it in his mind. The fight was lost just as he planned, a bit miserable but whatever he wasn’t here to fight anyway.
However that was what Damian had just assumed, the young prince on the other hand revealed an evil grin and slashed the air in front of him with two cross slashes his sword still coated in the blue aura. Once again two incredibly powerful and fast blue arcs flew towards Damian and even worse he only noticed them after hearing the ear splitting sound and someone screaming.
“Look out !”
“Alex No !!”
Two same powerful slashes were coming at him and this time he neither had water shield or blades. Cursing under his breath Damian threw caution to the wind and started drawing with both his hands throwing the sword, with twice the speed the runic magic circle finished just seconds before the slashes came on him.
Damian activated the [Invisible box] spell and sighed in relief when both blue slashes crashed against it and stopped in their path. They pushed till the energy in them lasted making a little crack on the invisible wall that Damian only heard because of his fist hand experience on this wall breaking otherwise it was unnoticeable.
The box remained standing still and protected him till the end. Sighing loudly Damian stopped the supply of mana to the spell and the walls disappeared, not that it was visible to anyone to begin with but the black runic circle disappeared from Damian’s view.
Removing sweat from his little forehead Damian glared at the young prince who had his mouth wide open as if he could not believe what had happened. In few seconds of glaring Damian noticed a figure coming up behind the young prince and smacking the hell out of his little head. It was his sister and his supposed ‘teacher’.
“What the hell were you thinking..? Using a hidden sword art against a common boy ? Are you insane..? What would have happened if the spell didn’t fail, do you even realize that..?”
“But.. but… He… he….”
The young prince finally realized the gravity of his situation and begged for his sister not to pull his ears. Damian just counted his lucky star and slowly tried to walk away since everyone was busy.
“That was some spell there, young man.”
“Ahh !!”
Damian had his soul jumped to his throat, with the spooky surprise behind him. It was the handsome knight with his sword out.
‘When did this guy moved from his position..?’
“You scared me !!”
“Uhm, sorry about that. My presence was unnecessary here I guess.”
‘Was he planning to save me from the unexpected spell?’
“You did good kid. Here, show this to any mage academy in Faerunia and you will easily get the admission..”
He gave Damian a gold coin bigger that usual which had Faerunian king’s head on one side and the symbol of some sort on the other with two swords crossed on a shield. Damian did not know what it was but it certainly was something valuable.
“However you have to promise me that you will return here after your education to participate in the ‘Monarch’s trial’ to become a Faerunian knight.”
Damian played with the coin for a while and then tossed it back to the handsome knight.
“I do not fight for people’s entertainment, sir. Knighthood won’t suit me.”