The lake’s light was cold and it reflected a shimmering killing intent.
"His name was Henrik, known as Aran Absolute Blade. Forty years ago, his glory was unmatched, and it was rumored that his sword skill was unparalleled. But he was just a vainglorious man, whom I slashed with one strike, then hung at the city gates to display his corpse. His wife, Eliza, was nothing more than a lowly tavern hostess. I had her beheaded to show the King’s grace and power."
Zote raised his left hand, staring at his palm, as if playing with the memory of that woman’s head.
Magnus’s gaze sharpened.
"Good! Today, I will avenge them!"
The nearly thirty-year grudge of his father’s murder was finally exposed to the light of day.
Magnus, with his crippled body, wielding the broken knife left by his father, wanted to reclaim all the lives Zote had taken.
"Do you have the qualification? Aleksey, go kill him."
Zote was indifferent, ordering his lackey to slaughter the ignorant cripple like dealing with a dead dog.
The one known as Aleksey, the Time Sword, was among the elite, blessed with the divine power of the Judgement Master. This strike seemed to come from the future.
As soon as Zote finished speaking, swift as a ghost, a sword flew, and Magnus immediately drew his broken knife, the two of them passing each other.
The shallows were split open for a moment, and the scything air stirred up waves on both sides.
Blood gushed wildly, rushing outward, with Magnus’s face and chest slashed, his flesh turned outwards.
But Magnus was faster.
At some point, he had retrieved the broken knife tied to chains, wrapping it around his hand.
The Time Sword known as Aleksey, as if sieved by an iron-wire fishing net, turned into angular chunks of flesh, disappearing into the water.
Zote raised an eyebrow.
The other Heavy Priests and Time Swords surrounded them, but Zote reached out to halt them, seeing that they were not second-rate characters.
"Good! I agree to your terms.
A duel to the death, sounds fair, I’ll also consult the heavens, using my own life to divine the outcome!"
Zote also picked up a machete. If he won, from the next day on, he would advance simultaneously on east and west fronts, conquering everyone including terrorists, the army, resistance forces, and pirates, engulfing Mulong.
At this moment, the sun was blazing overhead, and the wind was invisible.
Yet yellow sand danced in the air, swords howled, and figures flickered.
Zote stood in place, idly tapping the water with his machete, splashing waves, beckoning the one-armed man to come over.
Magnus’s legs moved with the wind, as if stepping on the lake water, flying quickly through the air.
A loud clang of metal resounded, sparks flying, the sound hurting the eardrums, and the resulting shock waves caused ripples on the lake surface like an invisible torrential rain.
The waves surged ever more violently around the two men.
It was unclear whose blade was faster, but it was evident they both aimed to outpace the other.
It was unclear who was struck by a blade.
Only streams of blood staining the water between them could be discerned.
How many cuts could suffice to vent thirty years of hatred?
Only one, just one cut that would take Zote’s life, would be enough.
This cut need not be glamorous, just sharp enough; if it could split the wind, it could sever the hatred.
But Magnus had to search long for this cut.
His body was now covered in wounds, his standard military blade flung away, leaving only a broken knife.
The broken knife, chained, darted toward Zote’s neck, fast like lightning.
But Zote moved aside, the blade lightly pressing on Magnus’s shoulder, the same move that defeated his father.
The force seemed as light as a feather, yet the airflow burst forth.
The gap was as great as an unbridgeable chasm.
The blade forged from Ancient Divine Steel shattered once more, while Zote’s ordinary crude iron machete, despite its dull edge, still easily stabbed into Magnus.
As the broken knife shattered.
The blade pressing down on Magnus’s shoulder didn’t exert force, yet felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
Magnus, utterly devastated, collapsed into a shallow pool of lake water, his eyes losing focus.
Just as Marcus had once said.
He should have died...
On that snowy night twenty-eight years ago.
Ending this futile and tragic life early.
"To be honest, I admire people like you. Inheriting the will of the dead, like cockroaches, again and again, as if this is how you resist this world.
I used to be a squire to a knight.
Did a lot of dirty work for him, killed many people with whom I had no quarrel, all his merits were built by me.
But when those enemies came calling.
No one was of any use, just like you.
The fastest blade can sever the past, kill the former self, the burdens you carry are too heavy.
So you’re unimaginably slow, too weak..."
Zote raised the dull-edged machete, stroking the bloodied blade, as if marking the long borders of Old Aran.
"It’s time to fulfill your promise, let the woman go, I’m a man of my word. Now, spare your life and tell me the location of Priest Sharen."
Zote casually tossed the useless machete into the lake, where it sank to the bottom, speaking lightly.
Suddenly, the wind grew strong, as if something was stirring the heavens and earth.
A clergyman looked at the shadow sweeping across the sky, blocking out the sun and plunging the surroundings into darkness. What could it be with no clouds around?
Zote was shocked, was there a Dragon Calamity in Mulong?
"So, sorry Caroso, but I have to find Black Big. Heaven Port is full of boring people. Hm? The lake down there looks beautiful! I want to go there! Is this Mirror Sea? The homeland of Ox isn’t as big as I imagined."
Even Garscek was stunned, it was clear that Dead Face referred to Ox, this girl was in her rebellious phase, her words were explosive. After hanging around with the lowest profession in the contempt chain for a whole year, it was the most crucial time for building core values.
Caroso said he was taking Fafna for training, but Garscek thought he was too conservative.
In terms of speed, Caroso was slow compared to the two of them, like a wheelchair racing against a subspace spaceship, making Caroso look like a lonely old man.
Garscek had been asleep for seven hundred years, but the world she arrived in nine hundred years ago during Emperor Engma’s era had knowledge far surpassing the local prenatal education dropouts.
"That’s not Mirror Sea, Mirror Sea is much bigger. It’s called Salt Lake, used by humans to harvest salt."
"Those ships look so strange! Completely different from Heaven Port, they’re not wind-driven! I want to take a look!"
"Never mind, it seems like there is a fight there, don’t interfere randomly."
Garscek didn’t want an accident, after hearing about the Emperor’s incidents, not even during Emperor Engma’s era had she seen such an amazing person in nine hundred years.
"Alright, alright..." Read complete version only at noⅴelfire.net
The two women landed near the salt-harvesting ship’s shallows. Fafna first played with the water happily, then looked at the tactical black-faced crowd, making a very hip-hop-style salute gesture, "AKA, Heav..."
Before Fafna could finish her sentence, Garscek interrupted her, this girl was too silly, indeed she needed some proper training.
The clergy, realizing the earlier climate anomaly, suspected it was due to these two beings.
Zote clicked his tongue, he really should have asked the sect to bring over the armor he wore constructed with Magic Pattern, but it didn’t matter.
How hideous of a crawler.