Chapter 407 – Yield?
As Damion continued to follow the trail of carnage he eventually came across a Realm Breach. True Sight told him the Breach was a Semi-Stable A Rank Breach. He considered heading in but given the trail of dead Demonic Beasts led up to it, he suspected that whoever was responsible for the carnage was inside.
Around the Realm Breach were more of the same Demonic Beasts that had been slaughtered, a type of winged hyena. They were not large, at least as far as Demonic Beasts went, only about a meter at the shoulder and a meter and a half from nose to rump. They did not have much of a tail, but the wings sprouting from their shoulder blades had wicked looking barbs at each of their joints.
Damion decided to follow proper etiquette on kills and spoils, so he waited outside the Realm Breach for the person to return. The wait gave him a chance to continue compressing his mana to raise his magic power. An hour passed, then two, then ten. When the twelfth hour was approaching, Damion was about to give up and head inside to see if perhaps the challenger of the Realm Breach had died or needed assistance, but then the portal to the Realm Breach flickered and vanished, leaving a man standing where it had been.
Not an Iblis, or an Alfar, but a man, a human being. Damion was quite surprised to see a human. But he recalled the goblins’ warning, that all the humans they had ever encountered were evil. True Sight told Damion the person was an A Rank knight, which gave him another shock, since he knew of only one A Rank knight and when the man turned around, Damion had his initial guess confirmed.
Justiciar Willem Straus. Damion had considered that if he could survive Exile, then so could someone else. But surviving Exile and surviving for close to a year in a foreign world were very different things and from what Damion could see, Straus had risen in strength.
In the instant before Straus spotted Damion, he knew he had an opportunity to strike, but he let it pass. Strauss had been here for a while and was clearly thriving. If Damion was going to get the lay of the land, or find the Iblis, then he needed information and he did not have the luxury of picking and choosing his sources.
“Hello, Justiciar Straus,” Damion said, startling the knight.
“Wells? Damion Wells?” Straus questioned, in disbelief. After a moment Straus burst out laughing.
Damion waited patiently for the man to stop laughing. He understood the irony of the situation, getting Exiled and then meeting a person you had Exiled. Was it fate? Bad luck? Damion hoped it would be a bit of good luck, maybe for both of them.
“If I fight you, will you Exile me again?” Straus said in another fit of laughter.
“I can if you’d like, but there is no guarantee of where you will end up next.”
“Then perhaps not. So, tell me, how did you end up here? Finally made an enemy of someone you couldn’t trick or that Teft couldn’t protect you from?”
“Let’s just say, I was sent here to do something,” Damion said cryptically. He did not want to give the man the satisfaction of knowing he had been tossed through an Exile against his will.
“You? I get it. I remember you using different affinities. I thought perhaps you had some special artifacts. But that was just wishful thinking. Who in their right minds would create an artifact that could cast Exile.”
“You know why I am here?” Damion questioned. If Straus did know about this supposed seal, then perhaps he would be able to tell Damion where to go.
“I have a pretty good idea. But first. I want a rematch. If you defeat me, then I’ll tell you what I know.”
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Damion looked at the older man and assessed his chances. Before he defeated the knight by having spells the knight had no knowledge of. Casting Exile was one of the few ways he could beat him. That advantage was gone now, especially since he did not want to use Exile on the knight again. However, Damion had grown considerably since their last fight. Before he was a low-grade B Rank mage, now he was very close to crossing the threshold of A Rank.
“As long as you promise not to cry when you lose,” Damion told Straus.
Straus’ face contorted at the taunt, exactly what Damion wanted. An angry opponent was usually less observant, more prone to overreaching and less likely to wait for Damion to reveal his tricks before striking.
“I promise!” Straus shouted, pointing his sword at Damion and unleashing a bolt of lightning.
The attack did not surprise Damion at all. He knew the man’s sword had a lightning attack glyph, similar to the fire attack glyph on his old sword. Using Blink, Damion vanished from where he was and reappeared a few meters to Straus’ left.
The knight guessed that the mage would use Blink, however, he seemed to think Blink would take Damion to behind him and attack from there. Expecting an attack from behind, Straus quickly spun and sliced his sword through the air right behind him. It was only after he hit nothing but air that he noticed Damion standing calmly a few meters away watching.
“I take it that you are ready,” Damion mocked. Rage began to burn in Straus’ eyes and Damion knew he had achieved his goal of making the knight lose himself.
Casting Ice Sword and Ice Shield, Damion readied himself for a fight like he had not had for a long while. Straus took the mage summoning a sword and shield as an affront to knights everywhere and rushed forward.
It only took Straus a few steps to cross the distance. The knight brought his sword down in a forward slash which Damion easily blocked with his shield. Unfortunately, Damion’s shield was only B Rank, and while he could pump more mana into it to boost its strength, it was still not a true match for an A Rank artifact.
After Straus’ sword bit into Damion’s shield, the mage used more mana and used the weaker shield to trap the knight’s sword. Seeing ice crust over his sword, Straus gave it a yank, trying to rip it free of the shield, but the sword was locked in place.
Damion started to pull his shield to try and yank the hilt of the sword from Straus’ hand, but Straus was not going to relinquish his weapon so easily. The knight channeled his own mana into the sword and lightning erupted around the blade shattering Damion’s shield.
The force of the shield exploding knocked Damion and Straus away from each other, but neither was hurt by the blast or the pieces of ice shrapnel. The pair looked at each other for a moment before they both charged in again.
Damion reformed his Ice Shield, this time making the edges thicker. Straus would still be able to cut into it with his sword, but it would require heavier blows and the application of more mana. As a knight, Straus did not have the same level of mana or mana regeneration as an average mage, let alone a mage like Damion. This meant that, unless he wanted to exhaust his mana, using it to cut through a shield that could easily be reconstructed was a fool’s errand.
The two began exchanging blows, Damion blocking some with his shield and parrying others with his shield. He tried to alternate between the two, letting his mana alternate repairing the damage caused by Straus’ sword.
The knight quickly realized that Damion was matching him blow for blow and the younger man did not appear to be struggling at all. Straus decided to try and take the fight up a notch by coating his sword in lightning. Since he was not sending the lightning out as an attack, the drain on his mana was minimal, but it did increase the damage dealt to Damion’s sword and shield.
Each time Damion blocked or parried a lightning reinforced attack from Straus, he had to deal with a bit of an electric shock. Even if the knight was not intending to, each time they connected, small bits of lightning would shoot down the sword or the shield, giving Damion a shock with each one. After a dozen of them, he was getting annoyed by it and decided it was time to raise the stacks himself.
When their swords clashed again, Damion kept his blade locked together with Straus’. While the knight was locked in place, the younger mage cast Manipulate Earth and caused the ground around Straus to give way. The knight quickly found himself knee-deep in mud that then suddenly hardened around his legs.
Distracted by the sudden drop and not able to leap backwards or up to free himself, the knight lost track of Damion’s blade for just a moment. But that single moment was enough for Damion to knock Straus’ sword aside and place his on the neck of the knight.
“Do you yield?” Damion asked, gently pressing his blade to Straus’ skin.