"Your Excellency, the Inquisitor sent to the Barbarian kingdom has established contact with the Baron."
A grunt echoed from the shadows, as the metallic exterior of the room slowly seemed to be contracting around me, swallowing my body alive.
"Adding on to that, the Inquisitor in South-East Asia has reported a man called, Li Hwei. He seems to be a transendant who is fighting against the rulers of the Formosa islands. I've taken measures to ensure news about this is suppressed and the people of Empire, nor the Duchies won't have any idea of this information."
I could feel the divine emperor slowly shifting in his seat.
"Hmmn, I see. Your progress is admirable, minister." The emperor was as disinterested as ever. I could never tell what this man wanted.
"If that's all your excellency, may i take my leave?" I was treading close to harrow ground. No one entered or left the throne room, without the explicit permission of the Emperor.
The shadows moved around.
"No, you may not. I still need to know, what is the status of that expedition to the Frost c
Continent?" Maybe there did exist something that intrigued the Emperor.
___
The fat man's eyes groped my body, as the bookworm was doing his best to avoid eye contact.
"So this is the Empire's best? Oh please, my personal guard could crush you in a minute."
I could see the widest grin on the blob's face, almost as if he felt like he had won some imaginary bet with the emperor.
I could take personal insults, but this man had attacked the honour and strength of the Empire, I had to defend it.
"Baron, I've come here to escort you to the Emrpror. But I shall not stand for dishonour being cast in the Empire's name. If you truly believe that your men can take me, ask them for a spar, we spare a minute."
Now the grin was on my face, not like he could see past my mask though.
"Ahh, you've got balls kid. I appreciate that. I would love a show before we depart."
___
I held onto the hilt as strong as I could, i couldn't afford to lose this fight. In front of me lay a 7 foot giant, wearing heavy armour, holding two battle-axes that were moulded to perfectly fit his hands.
"Duelists, face each other. BOW. FIGHT!"
With that declaration, I ignited my blade, the condesced mana erupted beyond the hilt, as a blood hue of light, played with the crimson moonlight and tinted my dark-steel armour. I was already in the standard imperial battle stance, left foot back, right foot front, and both arms gripping the blade, raised to be parallel to my face, the blade facing your opponent.
I didn't move, I wanted for him to make a mistake. This wasn't someone i could simply knock off like an E grade Zenith. This was the captain of the Explorers, second only in authority to the Baron here.
My patience had paid off, as he rushed to me, raising his left hand to cut me down, but I was more agile.
[You have activated skill, 'Swordsmanship']
I quickly moved past the radius of his strike, and was now right in front of him. I heard the sound of his heavy axe bash down at the ground. That was my cue, i piroutted to look at the blade of the axe, slowly being lifted up. I launched my first strike, and my energy blade sliced through the metal hilt of the axe, leaving just a large metal rod in my enemy's arm.
I heard a voice screaming, "Brilliant, what a twist and what a strike.", from the crowds cheering the hulking monster on.
The rod was quickly dropped, as he dashed backwards. He regrouped his mind, and balanced himself. He took his other axe, and entered a two handed form.
This was the most crucial moment. This wasn't a fight to the death, but me striking him down wouldn't bring me dishonour. However, if the merger did occur, the man in front of me would be an asset to the Empire.
So I calculated every move, I activated 'Accelerate', and 'Dash', to quickly cover the distance between me and him, and i activated my ability, "Unnerve", this made it such that the gravity my opponent experienced was 33% higher. His movements felt a lot more sluggish. This was my chance, I raised my blade in an arc that would cut his axe in half. He disappeared.
"What." I had to utter these words to regain my composure.
He had teleported behind me, unfortunately, he didnt know that my Unnerve was based on a person, and not a space, therefore moving wouldn't make him faster. Nor did he know about my B-grade skill, 'Eyes of the White Saint', which allowed me to see in 360° around me.
I quickly piroutted as my energy blade intercepted the wide arc of his axe. My blade sliced through his axe. I raised my left leg to kick his abdomen, my boots were weighted, and I had infused them with mana.
He spit out blood, as I quickly moved into position to place my blade dangerously close to his neck. My right leg stood on the kneeling giant's shoulder.
Everyone had gone quiet. The roaring of the stands were mesmerised after viewing the battle prowess of an Inquisitor.
"So are we done here, Baron?"
My question seemed to bring everyone back to Earth. Their strongest man had been defeated by someone who was probably not even close to the strongest in the Empire.
___
A thought had been crawling into the mind of the Baron, who had found it hard to stand up after witnessing that battle.
Was the Blood Oath of the Emperor, the only reason why the entirety of Runesca spared from his expansion. He thanked his useless father for the first time in a long time. The first Baron was a useless infidel who believed in booze, more than he did his fellow man. He died early because of that same nectar. But before he did, him being a part of that blood oath.
That was perhaps the best thing that his old man did before thrusting this barren wasteland into his head. A smile crawled on the Baron's face.
___
I looked at the humongous man who had got back up,
"My name is Rex. You're strong." I smiled within my mask, as I reached my hand out.
There was no response for a second. Then his hand reached out too, his hand was almost twice as big as mine.
"My name, it's Kandhr. It was an honour to fight you, Rex." I saw a weird misshapen smile on the hulk in front of me.
___
I was travelling by horseback, alongside the Baron and the Bookish kid. It seemed that the Bookish kid was the Vice-Captain.
I opened my imperial map, we were around a 100 miles from our start. We could reach the Empire in 20 hours or so, and the Imperial Palace in another 3 hours.
The horse that the Baron was one of the highest breed, it could reach 150 miles per hour, and had runes engraved on its skin to prevent the wearer from experiencing backward force, nor fly off the steed. But the Baron's weight, and the weight of the huge luggage he carried slowed it down to match the speed of my horse.
We needed to find lodging soon, it was going to be night again.
"There's a village around here, they're a subsidiary of our Guild. We can rest there for the night." Added the Vice-Captain.
"Sure, I don't mind." I added on.
I wondered about the stay there, or whether this barbarian kingdom would have proper toilets. The Baron's castle had a proper sanitary system, but this was a village.
Soon, we had reached this new village. The metal sign was rusted, as very few letters could be made out, but the main name had been painted on the rust. "Rustborough."
A name befitting the town, I thought as we trodded in, looking at the mostly wooden, and some straw houses that could be swallowed by an inferno by one shot of lightning.
___
Zekros was looking at me, i couldn't let him down. I had been stuck on shaping mana. Everytime I'd gotten close, I would get distracted.
I looked down at my hands, the shape was molding around my fingers, I was being as careful as possible, taking minimal steps to achieve the most control.
The blob was mana was starting to look like an arrow. Yes, this was it. I could do it. And once I did, Zekros would finally acknowledge me.
SPLASH
The mana exploded again.
"My student, it has been three days of training, I learnt shaping mana in less than two hours. Maybe you must not have the talent for magic within you. Wait what the hell am I saying, everyone has mana within them, therefore everyone has the ability for magic. You can do it, all you need is more practice." He had made an argument and disproven it himself. I looked down at the rushing mana within me, as I felt like I was going to scream out at the heavens. Why the hell was i so unskilled.
"Well, it's time for me to get to Antares and Arafat's swordsmanship lessons." I said.
I could atleast swing the sword properly. That was my only solace. Zekros excused me, and proceeded to come with me to the training grounds.
The magic training was conducted within the observatory. It was the highest building within the city that lay inside the large runic walls. The city didn't have a name, it was just called the Northern Runesca Guild Base.
The city spanned much larger than the cities I was used to back home. My mom took me to Toronto before my sister was born. I remember glimpses of the city, but i was sure it wasn't even close to being as huge as this was. It spread over more than five hundred square miles of land, blanketed by a wall that towered over everything.
Although I called it a city, it didn't have cars, just horses, and mules that were being rode around, and the buildings had a more medieval vibe to them. Nevertheless, this was a metropolis if I'd seen one.
We had gone past multiple alleyways and reached the inner circle of the city. It was where the military compound was. It had gates all around, to ensure that explorers and military men were quickly dispatched in the case of an emergency.
The military compound abruptly moved from a medieval architecture into a brutalist grey type. Boxy buildings built for utility rather than aesthetic filled my sight. I'd felt sad, thinking of my school when I first saw this place.
Anyway we were almost at the swords training barracks. It was a grey brutalist building with a huge engraving of a sword done over its billboard.
As soon as I entered I saw Antares training, a training sword cutting at a straw dummy. His movements were precise and strong.
Arafat wasn't there. It was possible he was in his physiotherapy. His wound had cracked his spine, and despite the heal charge mending the cracked part, the muscle tears and some other parts of his injury had to mend through time.
Antares saw us approaching and stopped his relentless assault.
"Oh look who it is, it's a king of magic, and there's Zekros, I almost didn't see you man." Antares and Zekros had a relationship like this.
"Unfortunately, it seems that the king of magic here still can't control or mould mana. Maybe it's because he's been tainted by the sword master. Ofcourse I'm talking about Arafat." A grin filled both of their faces and they blew up laughing.
Now they were both looking at me,
"It's time for the king of magic to finally cut down a straw dummy."