Chapter 28: [Duchy of Inferna] [19] Bloody Festival [4]
The moment Aron’s artifact sword and the assassin leader’s curved blades, shimmering with a venomous gleam, met, time itself seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.
That brief silence was the ominous calm before a storm.
Then, as if the very heavens had split asunder, a deafening, metallic shriek echoed across the entire festival ground.
This was no simple clash of swords.
It was a pure detonation of energy, born from the collision of two colossal powers.
Pure steel against cursed metal.
Noble flame against insidious poison.
An invisible shockwave radiated from the epicenter of the clash, spiderwebbing deep fissures across the marble floor. It shredded the hanging silk banners to tatters like old rags and, for a moment, even drowned out the din of the battle below.
As people lost their footing and collapsed, a single truth dawned on everyone: this was not a battle of mortals, but of legends.
The smell of ozone, mingled with the acrid scent of burning metal, stung the back of the throat.
The Leader of the Assassins was thrown back a step, pivoting on his heels from the sheer force of the impact.
Aron had not moved an inch.
Years of experience and an iron will held him as steady as a mountain.
The Leader recovered instantly from this unexpected resistance. His body contorted with impossible flexibility, and he began to circle Aron like a wisp of black smoke.
His two curved swords, moving like the limbs of a deadly dancer, struck from every conceivable angle.
His speed was inhuman.
The afterimages he left in his wake created the illusion that Aron was fighting multiple enemies at once.
Yet, in the heart of this storm of speed, Aron was a calm rock.
His eyes tracked every twitch of his opponent’s muscles. Instead of swinging his massive blade, he used it as an extension of his body, masterfully parrying the lethal blows.
Each block sent a fresh shower of sparks into the air.
Every resounding ’KLANG’ merged with the cacophony of the war below.
The assassin leader, though momentarily stunned by Aron’s unshakeable defense, immediately switched to a cunning plan.
Flowing like a phantom around Aron, his fingers darted to one of the pouches on his belt. He retrieved a small, round sphere that shone like glass, filled with a fluid as black as pitch.
This was no ordinary weapon.
It was a poison bomb, distilled through ancient alchemy, designed to blind the sharpest eye and choke the most valiant spirit.
The Leader weighed the sphere in his fingers for a moment before hurling it to the ground directly at Aron’s feet.
The sharp crack of shattering glass mingled with the shriek of metal as a dense, pitch-black smoke snaked out from the orb.
Within seconds, this venomous fog completely swallowed Aron, isolating him from the world.
This was no simple smoke screen.
It was a cursed shroud that made breathing difficult, scrambled one’s sense of direction, and even clouded the mind.
While the Leader moved within his self-made darkness as gracefully as a fish in water, for Aron, the world had suddenly become a silent, blind labyrinth.
Though his eyes were useless, Aron stood firm, relying on the experience of ages and the supernatural instincts bestowed upon him by Inferna.
His ears could detect the faintest whisper, his skin the slightest vibration in the air.
He could feel the Leader’s ghost-like movements within the smoke, sense every step he took, every breath he drew before swinging his blades.
The poisoned daggers came whistling through the fog like deadly vipers from different angles. One aimed for his throat, another his heart, a third his legs.
Yet every attack was met by Aron’s sword as if it had struck an invisible wall.
Aron, using his blade not as a shield but as a part of his very being, deflected each blow with an instinctual grace.
The ’KLANGs’ that echoed in the darkness were like the music of the leader’s frustration and Aron’s mastery.
This blind duel continued for a time, but Aron’s patience was wearing thin.
He took a deep breath, feeling the power of the flame surge through his veins. His body filled with a colossal energy, like a volcano moments before eruption.
And then, he roared with all his might:
"ENOUGH OF THIS HIDE-AND-SEEK!"
With that roar, a dazzling, pure wave of energy erupted outward from his body.
This shockwave instantly annihilated the poisonous smoke, tearing it to nothing as if a hurricane had ripped through a foggy morning.
When the smoke completely vanished, Aron and the assassin leader were once again face to face.
For the first time, a look beyond mere surprise—a look of obvious anxiety—was written across the Leader’s face.
With the smoke, Aron’s rage had reached its zenith. His opponent’s insidious games had turned the noble fire within him into a storm of fury.
He had no intention of remaining on the defensive.
Gripping Inferna’s hilt with both hands, he fused his mind with the blade to awaken its ancient power.
The runes carved upon the sword, normally faint, began to glow one by one with a blood-red light.
With each activated rune, a wave of heat emanated from the sword, scorching the marble floor. The artifact was no longer a mere piece of metal; it was the embodiment of a destructive power, housing the very breath of a dragon.
The pure energy radiating from the sword enveloped Aron’s body like armor, his eyes glowing like embers.
The assassin leader watched this transformation in horror.
Aron no longer looked like a man, but a god of war.
He took an instinctive step back in the face of this overwhelming power.
Aron slowly raised his sword above his head. There was no haste in the motion; it was a reflection of absolute confidence and devastating intent.
As the tip of the blade pointed to the sky, the flames erupting from the runes coalesced around it, forming the colossal silhouette of a flaming sword.
With all his strength, Aron swung the blade downward, directly at his foe.
The energy that was unleashed was no simple fireball.
It was a massive tsunami of flame, reminiscent of a mythological phoenix’s wingbeat. The wave of fire melted the marble floor as it passed, leaving a sizzling trail of lava in its wake.
The Leader knew he had no time to escape.
In a panic, he gathered all his remaining mana for a final defensive gambit. A translucent, sickly green mana shield materialized before him. Simultaneously, he crossed his curved blades in an X-formation, taking cover.
It was a desperate resistance.
The wave of fire struck the mana shield first. The sound of the impact was like a thousand panes of glass shattering at once. The green shield held for a moment, sizzled, and then disintegrated against Aron’s pure, fiery will.
As the shield shattered, the heart of the firestorm reached the leader directly.
He tried to cleave the flames with his blades, but it was like trying to stop a hurricane with a twig.
The inferno consumed him.
The leader’s agonized scream was drowned in the roar of the fire. The deluge of flame threw him backward, slamming him into the stone wall at the far end of the courtyard.
When the fire subsided, the scene left behind was horrific.
The leader was plastered to the wall. The left side of his body was completely burned. His armor had melted into his skin, his left shoulder was charred to a crisp.
The heavy stench of burnt flesh hung in the air.
His breathing was ragged and shallow. The arrogant glint in his eyes was gone, replaced by the pure shock of agony and defeat.
Defeat was more caustic than the poison that flowed through the assassin leader’s veins.
Lying on the ground, his body burned and broken, he watched Aron walk slowly toward him.
Each step was like the hammer blow of his approaching end.
There was no escape. There would be no mercy.
Only one option remained: the darkest path.
With a glint of madness and absolute desperation in his eyes, he moved his still-intact right hand. He looked at the curved blade he held, still emitting its green, venomous glow.
Under Aron’s astonished gaze, the leader showed not a flicker of hesitation.
He placed the tip of the poisoned blade against the very center of his own chest and, with all his strength, plunged it in.
A pained groan escaped his lips, but it was not the cry of an end, but the scream that heralded a terrible transformation.
From the point of entry, his veins began to glow from beneath his skin with a sickly, phosphorescent green.
Like a spider’s web, this green light spread rapidly across his entire body. His charred shoulder began to heal with a sizzle, his burnt skin flaking away to reveal smooth, new flesh underneath.
In a matter of seconds, the man who had been on the verge of death stood up without a single scar.
But something was fundamentally wrong.
His appearance had not turned monstrous; he was still the same man. Yet the aura radiating from him was now completely different. The energy that had been insidious and deadly was now suffocating, uncontrolled, and overwhelming.
The pressure in the air increased palpably, as if a giant hand were squeezing everyone’s heart.
The Leader himself seemed disturbed by this new power. His eyes were wide with a mixture of shock and pain. His fingers twitched involuntarily, as if his body was no longer entirely under his control.
This was a power obtained at a terrible price.
"This... this feeling..." he whispered, startled by the alien, vibrating tone of his own voice.
There was no more time to think. The new power within him was pushing him forward, driving him to battle. He was a volcano that had to erupt.
A demonic smile spread across his face as he looked at Aron.
"Hahaha, you will regret forcing me to use this."
His previous superhuman speed had now reached an unimaginable level. When he vanished and reappeared directly behind Aron, even the afterimage he left hung in the air for a full second.
When he swung his curved blades, it was no longer just steel that moved, but a green, venomous energy that clung to them.
Aron raised his sword to meet the attack.
’KLANK!’
This time, the impact was exponentially more violent than before.
The shockwave that erupted from the point of collision completely shattered the marble floor beneath the two warriors. Fiery red and toxic green energies intertwined, scattering lethal sparks in all directions.
The battle had begun anew, but this time, on a far more savage and unpredictable scale.
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Guys, I honestly didn’t expect writing a battle scene to be this difficult... It really drained me. 😅
But hey, at least I managed to get my favorite emoji in CR today, so that makes me happy. 🎉