B3 | Chapter 72 – Tessia’s Sword
Theodore POV
It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that Tessia's sword was a weapon of legend. The Sword Saint, he was an elusive man. Someone who trained only a few people, and trained them well. That was all he seemed to care about. He didn't care about power or politics, he cared only about swordsmanship.
And he had trained many swordsmen and women over the years, and all of them had gone on to become great.
Every time he finished training one, he'd give away his sword after a final test. And then take on a new sword. It was fair to say that all of his swords were legendary, and Tessia had inherited the latest one.
With the Sword Saint's disappearance, there were many rumors that his sword was now in Tessia's possession. And now, everyone could see the sword.
But the question was, would she be able to use it?
A sword is only as good as its wielder, after all, and a bad swordsman can never be a great swordsman.
But the Sword Saint had given her his sword.
So that had to count for something, right?
Tessia, she was a good fighter. She was a good swordsman. But when the match started and she didn't bring out her sword, Theodore was disappointed, so that's why he pushed her to her limits, and beyond. He wanted her to bring out the sword.
For a long time, she resisted. He could see it on her face, feel it in the way her mana behaved. Whatever it was, there was some sort of mental block that stopped her from using the sword.
So he pushed.
And pushed.
And finally, her mana shifted. Changed. It grew wilder. Angrier. And she looked pissed off. Her hands moved down to her hip, as if she were pulling out an invisible sword, and a sword slowly started to materialize in her hand.
Theodore blinked, and a sword was right in his face.
There was zero time to think. [Blink]. With a gash in the earth in his wake, he had no time to observe it. Only dodge. How could he have known that her skill with the blade was that of an actual master. He'd always heard the tales. That the Sword Saint could cut anything.
But this was absurd.
It wasn't like he hadn't fought someone with a blade before. He'd fought multiple, and he'd beaten them all. But they weren't like her. When she grabbed the sword with both her hands and raised it above her head ready to hack it down, Theodore felt genuine danger in this fight for the first time ever.
Gold light filled up Theodore's entire vision as she brought it down and his skin started sizzling immediately.
[Mind Division].
Theodore's brain cracked open and suddenly there were five brains inside one head.
He tried to activate his absorption skills instinctively. Reaching out with his mana to suck up the thermal energy but he came up empty. Trying to grab the kinetic energy of the swing was futile as well; there was nothing to grab.
It was weird. It was like the sword didn't exist in a way he could touch.
Honestly it was a pleasant surprise. This was actual danger. But then the light got brighter and the sword started humming this crazy high-pitched noise and the mana around her spiked up to a stupidly high level.
She was going to blast him into atoms.
It was him or her.
She swung.
A massive beam of golden light tore through the air, and he ducked under a slash of pressurized wind generated by the sword and stepped sideways as the ground exploded.
Debris flew everywhere and hit his face but he kept moving and started pumping mana through himself like crazy. Taking in all that mana and converting it into kinetic energy, he held it inside his body as she raised her sword once more, this time a dangerous sheen to the blade.
It felt as though the blade itself was alive, and it wanted his blood.
Meanwhile, the kinetic energy felt like he swallowed a grenade, just multiplied many times. So much so that he was quite literally vibrating with the force of it.
[Blink].
The world warped and he appeared right in her personal space.
She looked shocked, though he didn't know why. Was space around her supposed to be off limits for whatever reason? Regardless, he didn't hesitate and shoved his fist right into her stomach and released all that stored energy at once just as she brought down her sword.
Everything went quiet for a second.
She looked at him with wide eyes.
Then blood spurted out of her mouth and her knees gave out and she just crumpled to the floor.
He stood there waiting for the referee to call the match but nothing happened. The silence stretched on for way too long for his liking and it started feeling weird. She was lying in a heap and bleeding but the barrier hadn't dropped and the announcer wasn't saying anything.
Startled, he looked down at her face to see if she was unconscious and that's when he saw her mouth twitched. A small, bloody grin spread across her face and it sent a chill straight down his spine. His instincts started screaming at him so he snapped his head up and froze.
There was a massive wave of gold light crashing down on him from above. Time slowed down to a crawl as he increased his brain's speed. It was huge. It looked like the sky was falling. Is that a slash? How the hell did she launch a slash that big while lying on the ground?
It didn't make any sense but he didn't have time to figure it out because it was about to squash him flat.
So he tried to trigger [Blink] immediately to get the hell out of the splash zone but nothing happened. His mana reached out to warp space and it just hit a wall. Fizzled out. He was still standing in the same spot like an idiot and the gold wave was inches from his nose.
Did the sword have some kind of domain that cancelled space magic? Then why did it not work earlier given how surprised she was? More importantly, did she adapt to my [Blink] that fast? That is terrifying.
Honestly that was the scariest thing that'd happened to him recently but he couldn't dwell on it because he was about to die.
Well, eliminated.
Thus, he activated [Basic Armament], [Mana Reinforcement], [Severing Aura], and every other defensive measure he had and braced himself. It hit him like a mountain made of razors, and tore through his defenses instantly and he felt his skin ripping open and blood spraying everywhere.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. But he wasn't going to let a sword beat him. Just as she'd adopted to his [Blink], he had adapted to her too.
It just took this long to use it all in this slowed state.
Gritting his teeth he forced his body to suck in the energy. He grabbed the kinetic force crushing him and the thermal energy burning him and pulled it all inside. The slash kept pouring into him endlessly.
It felt like he was drinking from a firehose of pain. His body was screaming and he was bleeding from a dozen cuts and by the time he finally absorbed the last of it, he was shaking. It was too much. It was the single biggest amount of energy he had ever held in his life and he could feel his control starting to tear apart from the pressure.
That was a first.
If he was proud of one thing, it was control over his mana and energies.
But this.. He couldn't hold it. He had to get rid of it right now or he was going to explode. So he just released it all. He didn't even aim properly; he just blasted everything he had right back in her direction.
***
Jasper POV
The old man sitting beside him was taking his sweet time brewing that tea, but Jasper didn't say a word because he knew better. He just sat there and let the sweat trickle down his back because honestly the old man terrified him.
He was the one maintaining this entire subspace so he could do whatever he wanted. Just the fact that he had made this space was honestly mind-boggling. But if you added on top of that the fact that he was not only maintaining the space but also monitoring everyone and making sure they didn't die and that he teleported them out of here was absolutely insane.
Their consciousness or soul or whatever the fuck he pulled in here so they don't get injured and could watch in this "virtual" space.
He was just phenomenal. This guy was a master of his craft. But frustratingly, he moved with these slow and jittery motions of an old man while brewing that tea, and it made Jasper want to scream.
The old man poured the hot water and watched the steam rise.
He let the leaves steep for what felt like an eternity.
Finally he poured a cup for himself and then one for Jasper.
Jasper picked it up and tried not to let the cup rattle against the saucer. The old man didn't like that, it was not proper, he said. So he had to maintain some old decorum the old man had beaten into him when he drank tea.
They were watching the match but were sort of outside the normal stream of time. Everything on the field was paused or moving super slow or fast depending on how the old man wanted it.
"These youngsters," the Old Man grumbled, pausing for a moment to shake his head, and blew on his tea. "Absolute monsters."
Confused, Jasper sipped his tea but nodded quickly. For all he knew, the man could be watching something far ahead from the time stream than he was showing Jasper. "Yes. They are exceptionally talented."
"Back in my day we didn't have all these flashy lights. We hit each other with sticks and we liked it."
He took a sip and sighed happily.
Then he looked back at the fight and saw the girl unleash that massive slash from the sky. It was huge and crackling with ridiculous amounts of power for a girl her age.
The old man rubbed his beard. "Curious." He looked at Jasper sideways. "Say, brat, will the barrier be able to hold that attack?"
If anyone else called him a brat Jasper would have incinerated them on the spot. But this was the old man so he just swallowed his pride.
"Of course it will," he said confidently. "That barrier is one of my greatest creations."
The old man raised a bushy eyebrow at Jasper.
"Is that so? Haven't you gotten lazy and not updated its structure in ages?"
"There hasn't been a need to," Jasper said feeling a bit defensive. "It's perfect as it is. And as I said it won't go anywhere."
They watched as the boy on the field managed to absorb the attack. The barrier didn't even ripple and the remnants of the energy faded away harmlessly.
Jasper puffed out his chest a little.
"See?" he said.
The old man had his eyes closed and was just enjoying the aroma of his tea, but he opened one eye and looked at Jasper and chuckled.
It was a dry sound that made Jasper's skin crawl. Was the old man doubting him? Jasper quickly said, "The barrier has held on for many—"
Jasper quickly started to say.
But then the boy released the energy.
A beam of pure white destruction shot out of Theodore and the screen went white. Jasper paused in the middle of a sip. When the light faded Jasper blinked.
She was gone. Incinerated. The ground where she had been lying was gone too. He looked up and saw that the blast hadn't stopped there.
The arena wall behind her was vaporized.
The protective barrier was shattered.
And there was a massive hole going straight through the spectator stands where people had been sitting just a few seconds ago.
***
Theodore POV
The silence was heavy. It pressed down on him for a moment. For a solid second nobody moved and nobody breathed.
Then the noise hit Theodore.
It wasn't screams of terror as he had expected. In fact, it wasn't anything of the sort. Instead, the crowd went completely feral. They were hollering and stomping their feet and screaming his name like a bunch of maniacs who hadn't just seen a chunk of the audience simply cease to exist in front of them.
Theodore stared at the smoking crater and the missing chunk of the stadium while the noise washed over him. Well isn't that gonna be a massive clusterfuck of a situation.
People that "died" were going to be absolutely pissed at the organizers.
And him, well, he was gonna catch some troublesome attention. For this barrier was infamous.