Chapter 1111: War of Establishment VIII
In a moment, Leon and Terris exchanged dozens of blows. Each time their weapons met each other’s, the clash created a deafening shockwave that caused even the misty veil and the clouds above to ripple.
Leon’s surprise in Terris’ weapon dulled as his mind focused on the task at hand: simply staying alive. Terris was a skilled fighter with a nearly impenetrable defense. Leon slashed and Terris blocked; Leon stabbed and Terris deflected; Leon conjured lightning and Terris dissipated it with a cloud of ice. A few times, Leon managed to use his speed to get past the black ice mace, but Terris’ armor prevented any real damage from being inflicted upon him.
In fact, since Terris’ helmet was open-faced, Leon could clearly see how much fun the man was having, as the wide smile that graced his face the moment their duel started never once faltered, even when Iron Pride scraped against the scales of his armor.
“You fight well…” Terris praised as a blast of steam forced Leon back, “… for a beast. Never have I seen an Ascended Beast fight like a man as proficiently as you are now…”
“Perhaps I am a man,” Leon countered as he raised Iron Pride and let loose with a flurry of lightning bolts. Terris batted away the first with his black ice mace, and then a burst of ice crystals dissipated the rest.
“A good joke,” Terris responded as water dragons that dwarfed Maia’s usual constructs in size erupted from the fingers of an outstretched hand. “It surprises me not that a beast wishes to pretend he is a man. What comforts and glories can be found in the wilds after bearing witness to what mankind has wrought in the universe? There is a reason why we rule the universe, and not the creatures of fell blood.”
Throughout his short monologue Leon bobbed and weaved amidst the water dragons, attempting to use their size against them, but to no avail; if one dragon blocked another, the first would simply plow through the second, and as both were made of water, neither lost cohesion. With the strength of the Iron Needle in his blade, however, the lightning that Leon summoned as he dodged boiled the water, eventually causing the dragons to vaporize and join his storm clouds.
“There are countless figures within the Nexus who bear Inherited Bloodlines!” Leon indignantly responded. “Including the Thunderbird Clan, who ruled the Storm Lands for hundreds of Nexus cycles!”
“And where are they now?!” Terris shouted back as he charged through what remained of his summoned water dragons, his black ice mace bearing down on Leon like a falling comet. Leon met the mace with Iron Pride, and an explosion of ice and lightning threw him hundreds of feet back whereas Terris was hardly moved. “They’re all dead!”