Chapter 53: Chapter 52
I sprinted along the tundra, explosions erupting in my wake, magical attacks launched at obscene speeds, and I was barely managing to dodge.
"Slow!" A shout was heard behind me, I narrowly ducked to avoid a bloodthirsty spear from impaling me from behind.
My back foot pivoted, turning around I retaliated, sword lashing out towards the woman aiming for my life.
Her feral grin almost made me waver, but I forced all my strength into my blow, locking against the shaft of her spear.
"Lightning Cloak." My weapon crackled with power.
Scathach looked surprised, jumping back, staring at me as she clutched her hand a few times. "Cute." She narrowed her eyes, taking a few steps round me.
I smirked, mimicking her movements in the other direction as we circled each other. My grip on Mirage tightened, and I moved. "10 Birds."
My blade flashed out, blades of magical energy flew out towards the Immortal Witch.
I saw her adjust her grip on her spear, hand down near the tip, using it almost like a sword. With a full body motion, she swung her spear at the incoming barrage, her own version of sword phantoms collided with my attack, the air crackling with magical effects at the epicenter.
Neither of us were deterred, our eyes stay focused solely on each other. We moved at the same time, leaping through the air, spear meeting sword at our highest point. An explosion pulsed out, blowing away all debris and snow on the ground.
"Better." Scathach loudly declared, thrusting her spear several times in a blink of an eye. "Do not stay flat footed! Weave each movement into your follow up attack, or use your footwork to retreat without opening yourself up!"
Her spear slipped past my guard, cutting into my shoulder, but she did not relent. It continued to pour onto me, the smallest opening was another wound on my body, and my clothes were already torn at this point, and I was bleeding from several places.
"I SAID DON'T STAY FLAT FOOTED" She shouted, increasing her speed several notches and sweeping my legs out from under me, I didn't even have time to hit the ground before she pivoted and lashed out with her foot, sending me spiraling into the distance.
The world around me spun, my body skipping across the ground before I could regain my footing, she wouldn't give me the chance to get back up. My danger sense was already telling me a lethal attack was heading for me again.
I raised my sword up overhead, her spear slamming down like a club, the ground cracking under me from the blow. I think one of my ribs was broken, a sharp pain permeated my body from my chest.
"Did anyone every tell you that men don't like abrasive women." I grit out, blood seeping from my mouth.
"What does a virgin boy like you know about women?" She retorted, knee slamming into my chest, the exact spot I was hurting. She let go of her spear, grabbing my arm, pushing her shoulder into me, and flipping me over onto the ground.
I rolled to the side, just barely dodging a spear form skewering a very important part of my lower body. "Low blow!" I shouted, getting up as quickly as I could to gain some distance.
Scary fucking bitch.
"It's not like you would ever need it." She laughed. Already on my ass, spear lashing out.
It took everything I had to deflect her incoming barrage, not even having a moment to retaliate. I stomped on the ground, erecting dozens of earthen walls between us, merely only good for buying the briefest of moments.
I quickly took a handful of Talismans out of my ring.
I didn't sit idle before this spar, I prepared several things beforehand.
"Metal Enriches Water!" I threw my first Talisman up into the air. I saw the look on my teacher's face, she didn't recognize what I was doing, I guess she didn't' read through that book when she had my stuff.
"Fuck." I spat out, dodging another spear strike. Was she keeping me from completing the creation cycle? She probably didn't know what it did, but for the intentions of training, she probably wasn't going to allow me to cast it without effort.
My sword swept towards her haphazardly, almost like I had regressed a step.
I saw her frown, about to tongue lash me, one of the few times she would pause in her assault.
"Water Nurtures Wood" I threw the second out into the sky, allowing the partial spell to further enhance.
She narrowed her eyes at me, realizing I had tricked her. I smirked, lunging at her with a thrust, she stepped in, knocking my sword away with the shaft of her spear, flicking the butt of it at my head. It was practically instinct at this point to duck out of the way, but her knee caught my chin, knocking me off me feet.
I felt the world spin around me, briefly dazed as my back hit the cold ground. I felt my hand empty, sword fallen down somewhere, I didn't have time to search for it, so I reached out and pulled Dawnbreaker from my ring.
She came at me with a basic thrust, but her whole body was behind it, punishing me for staying flat footed again. I had no choice but to meet her head on.
I grabbed Dawnbreaker with both hands, and with all my strength I swung down at the tip of her spear, knocking it into the dirt on her charge.
This didn't stop her at all, she followed the movement, putting her own strength into the new direction her spear went and used it to pole-vault up into the air, redirecting her spear with a spin, she twirled it up and swung down on me overhead.
I didn't have time to bring up Dawnbreaker, I abandoned it in favor of summoning the Boosted Gear to use as a shield.
My legs shuddered under the weight of the blow, she clearly put more into it than normal.
I grit my teeth in annoyance, I didn't want to use the Boosted Gear in this spar. I planned on training with it later, but for now I just wanted to keeping improving myself.
"Wood Feeds Fire" The words were forcibly pushed out, my Talisman thrown to the side as it flew up into the air along with the others. Slowly actualizing the spell, way up in the air, piece by piece.
Several more Talismans enter my hand, different than the elemental ones used to forge the spell, I held them between my fingers and thrust towards Scathach.
She seemed to sense the danger, removing one hand from her spear, she snaked her hand around my own, pushing my attack out of the way. It was the opening I needed to her own spear out from on top of me.
I held my Gauntlet up like a shield, and my other hand up to act as a sword. In fact, that's exactly what these Talisman were doing, they became enhanced to a supernatural degree, sharper than most steel. Usually meant to be thrown, but I needed a makeshift weapon or the moment, and Ascalon was one of my final trump cards, I didn't want to reveal it just yet, even if she knew the blade itself existed.
She prodded me, a quick thrust towards my head, I deflected with my gauntlet, following up with a swipe of my other hand.
Teacher only took a half step back, allowing them to pass by her less than an inch, she spun on her heel, swinging her spear in a large arc towards the side opposite my gauntlet. It was no surprise how quickly she noticed my openings.
I decided to do something stupid, I thrust towards her body, opting to allow her blow to land. She looked at me with no small amount of surprise on her face, slowing turning into a smile.
I felt something in my arm 'crack' as my talismans were halted a breath away from her chest, a single Rune blocking them as they started to tear and fall to the ground.
No doubt my arm was at the very least, fractured.
"Nice try." She smirked, swinging her leg up towards my head.
I clutched my hand, forcing another earth wall to erupt from the ground, hitting the bottom of her leg, disbalancing her.
"Fire dries Earth" I threw another talisman, as the last entered my hand. "And finally, Earth Refines Metal" The last of the Talismans shot into the air, finalizing the spell sequence, a visual phenomenon appears in the sky.
Scathach paused easily recovering from my disruption of her rhythm, curiously looking up, then back down to me. Confusion written all over her face. "...Did you cast it correctly?"
With a last smile, I summoned all the Runes around my hand, thrusting my arm to the sky. I think I finally got a serious reaction out of her, for the first time I could tell she felt a foreboding sense of danger. She didn't attack me, all I saw her do was flick her hand and summon her own Runes.
No time to dwell on it.
The two spells harmonized, the Talismans representing the eastern creation cycle, bolstering my runic spell to an obscene degree. There was a resonance, similar concepts intertwined between the creation cycle and the application of my Nine Realms. Both the basis of their cosmetology, the origins of life form where they originated.
The first time I was casting this spell in combat.
"Light of Alfheim."
The clouds parted, a massive pillar of light slammed down into the area, completely enveloping me and everything in the visible distance.
I was fine, it was a spell that target all those I deemed as enemies.
"Take that, you old hag." I finally laughed, as the last vestiges of my spell finally faded, and the realm return to eternal twilight.
My laughing abruptly stopped as I saw Scathach, standing there completely unharmed, a shield surrounding her.
Primordial Runes.
She fending off my attack by utilizing Primordial Runes....I suppose I should take that as a compliment.
She didn't answer, the clear dissatisfaction of my comment written on her face. Her spell faded and she gripped her spear, reeling her arm back, she threw it with all her might right at me.
The ground shattered at the force of the spear sailing through the air, leaving a track of magical energy and bloodlust in its wake.
It wasn't hard to dodge, but I fell on my butt out of instinct, letting it sail harmlessly past me.
"An old hag, am I?" She took a step forward. "Curious as to why you have been staring at this 'old hags' rear all this time then."
She moved, extremely fast, I had no time to even stand up, her foot was planted firmly on my chest, pushing me further into the ground. "Those paper-spells need work, they are too slow, but they have potential."
Yeah, I need to practice them a bit more, weave them into my combat style.
"Any last words?" She eyed me, putting just a bit more pressure on my chest, my ribs shuddering.
I couldn't stop myself from wheezing. "I think.....you're awakening something in me."
"You have chosen poorly." She deadpanned.
"Wait!" I shouted. She paused for a moment, looking down at me. "For the record, I was staring at your legs." I smiled innocently.
"Death it is then." She held up her hand, and her demonic spear jutted out from where it had been thrown, crisscrossing through the air and returned to her hand.
What the hell?
"How did you do that?"
She released me, stepping to the side. "Do what?" She didn't seem to understand.
"Summon your spear back like that, to control it so well through telekinesis." I cast a healing spell, holding it over my chest.
"It was not telekinesis, though I suppose it has similarities. It is an aspect of weapon refinement." She started, twirling her spear before stabbing it into the ground. "Is this an avenue that interests you?" She asked, clearly in teacher mode again, as opposed to 'kick my ass' mode.
"Well yes, but I was talking specifically about how you could control it like that. Can you do more than that, say move it with your will in the air?"
"If I exert much effort, I can move it about, but for a combat technique, it is lacking." She furrowed her brow, unsure of where I was going with this.
"Please teach me this, I think this is exactly what I've been looking for."
This is not how I expected this sparing session to end, fighting almost nonstop for almost two days. But this may be exactly what I was looking for to help bridge my martial and magical abilities, to allow them to coexist in the same combat style.
***
Almost didn't get this out today, was rather busy, but hey it's 7 minutes before midnight so it counts!
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