Androanni watched the young man in front of him carefully. He could see everything: the hunter was shivering from the cold; and the amount of ice produced and the speed at which it was generated were far too low compared to his own, which was more raw and savage.
Even with a mask that dulled his color vision as well as his pain sensations, when he generated ice, it was as natural as breathing. He felt no discomfort, and had to make no effort. He could create as much as he wanted with his huge mana reserve, something a common human could not do. With their mana reserves varying greatly from one individual to another, and being limited by what their own bodies could endure, they were fragile and delicate. This was the opposite of his nature, which had been created by his master to be superior in every way. All it took was a single thought to freeze his target completely. It was as easy as that.
However, despite this mask that was supposed to reduce the pain, he felt as if a thousand needles were pressing on the walls of his heart. Like a kind of silent and omnipresent threat, which could at any moment pierce his heart. This annoyed him terribly.
In this mutual embrace that the passing seconds made more and more deadly, he held the dagger of the hunter, while the hunter facing him held in hand his sword with the black blade. Each was unarmed against the other, but the ice, progressing from their hands to their opponent's blades, threatened to reach and petrify both of their bodies.
With a jolt of anger, Androanni suddenly increased the spread of the icy water, the frost and frost crystals licking the rest of the dagger and threatening to create a javelin of solidified water in the extension of the weapon's handle.
The aggressive frozen formation, suddenly growing like a thin, sharp thorn, forced Ewan to loosen his grip on his enemy's weapon; and gasping under the effort he had to make to produce this small amount of ice, shook his hand to warm it and loosen the last tiny crystals of frozen water that covered it.
He tried to use as little of his ice magic as possible when he could, as he couldn't stand the cold it gave off. Some ice mages, or even simple users like him, with a better constitution, could certainly withstand the low temperatures and produce ice as long as they wanted.
For Ewan, it was more of a double-edged sword: he could use the surprise effect of this magic; but in a fight that dragged on - as in this situation - it quickly became useless. Not only did he not have enough mana, which had gotten him into trouble at the military academy, but this magic was of the same type as his assailant. If he had been able to use magic from another element, such as wind manipulation magic - or even an opposite element, such as the lightning that Carciem possessed - he could have countered his opponent more effectively.
The problem here was twofold: they had the same type of magic - ice creation - from the same power rank; and Ewan was clearly losing to a man who had better control of it, and surely had more mana than he did.
The young man could not afford to waste any more of the little mana he had, and decided to use a breakaway tactic: the more his enemy tried to hit him, the further away Ewan would get by laying traps between them.
Running for cover behind a thick tree trunk, he saw the masked man destroy his frozen dagger in a thousand pieces with a simple pressure of his fingers. Then the Circle member looked at the frozen blade of his sword before looking up to where Ewan had been hiding.
Androanni frowned. This guy was going to be a problem if he kept wasting his time so needlessly. Besides, the tingling sensation nagging at his heart wouldn't stop. He had already felt this sickening thing when he had fought this man in the caves under the city of Ylesse; but the confrontation having been rather brief, he had not paid more attention to it than that.
On the other hand, the current fight was seriously starting to make Androanni impatient, just as those needle crowns around his heart were making him sick; tightening and loosening at any moment. This feeling, oppressive, grew stronger each time he approached the young man, and he wondered if his target had cast a spell on him in a brief moment of inattention on his part.
No... If this hunter had cast a spell on him, he would certainly have felt it at the time. Moreover, it was a sensation that was far too strange; that only manifested itself when approaching the young man.
He didn't really understand what could be going on, and anything he couldn't understand made him angry and gave him a headache. It was time to finish.
Raising his black blade, still frozen, towards the tree where his opponent was hiding, Androanni dashed forward.
However, the young hunter did not stay hidden. Emerging from behind the tree where he had taken refuge, Ewan fired four crossbow bolts from his left arm. His enemy avoided three of them, but the fourth slammed into the piece of armor protecting his right shoulder.
The device, no bigger than his forearm and as thin as the gauntlet on which it was mounted, was a very expensive piece of equipment, but all the more formidable. Lacking a cord to band or an arched portion to create the propulsion force necessary for the attack, the halette worked thanks to a wind enchantment contained in its main housing. No more endless delays between each shot to fire one tile at a time: thanks to this device that he had acquired from a merchant from the West, Ewan could fire as many projectiles as he wanted, shot by shot or in bursts. A firepower that allowed him to repel as much as possible the assaults of the masked man, who had also understood the threat that the weapon represented.
The man of the Circle was now trying to avoid each of Ewan's shots, and changing his mind, took shelter himself behind a tree halfway between his position and that of the young hunter. The latter took advantage of this short respite to reload his halter by slipping several crossbow bolts into the back of the aircraft.
Whistles rang out in the air, closing in on his position, and he ducked just in time to avoid shards of frozen water javelins striking the trunk of the tree he was hiding behind with force. His opponent had extended the palm of his right hand towards him, and generating ice spears at very high velocity, could hurl them like forcefully thrown javelins without having to make the slightest move.
'To be able to shoot so close, this guy has a huge reserve of mana...' Ewan thought.
There was no other explanation than an impressive reserve of mana, for his opponent to still be able to produce ice even after all this time in battle.
Momentarily venturing into the open, Ewan fired crossbow bolts at the masked man. The latter, confident, ventured into the open. The young hunter thought he had an easy shot at him, but he couldn't predict what followed.
Still under cover behind the tree, he fired several shots at the masked man who was advancing toward him while continuing to fire ice javelins. However, even though the crossbow bolts hit the Circle man squarely in the armor, he did not stop. He continued to advance toward the young hunter, hurling javelin after javelin.
It was a face-off, and the first one to look away or step aside would lose more than a fight. They were both putting their lives on the line, with Ewan at a distinct disadvantage. Unlike his opponent, he could not have an infinite number of projectiles, and the back of his leather apron, where the spare crossbow bolts were stored in several overlapping rows, was almost empty.
What's more, the more the distance between the two of them decreased, the more the risk that Ewan would find himself in range of the artifact that the other man possessed increased. It was urgent that he change his position, to put some distance between them, and with an agitated look, looked briefly all around him to find a place where he could take refuge.
This was both his mistake, and the opportunity Androanni had been waiting for with patience.
Aiming accurately at the young man, he fired again, an ice javelin shooting out of the palm of his hand in a flash. The projectile, emitting a smoke of icy water vaporizing under the sunlight, reached its target without any difficulty: the armed arm of the young hunter. The latter could do nothing to avoid it, the attack having come from the blind spot that he had created himself by looking away.
The shock was so violent that Ewan was thrown backwards.
The halette broke into pieces, releasing a brief gust of wind, and Ewan's gauntlet tore off before falling to the ground. The tip of the icy javelin also hit his flesh, cutting several inches into his arm and spraying blood all around; before continuing on its way to plant itself right into a rock behind the young man.
Falling to the ground, Ewan put his right hand on his left forearm, full of blood and crossed by a huge crimson red scar. He already had scars on his elbow, and if this new wound was not treated quickly, his skin would end up with a new mark. However, the condition of his arm was the least of his worries.
This guy had managed to get rid of the only weapon and advantage the young man had; his sword still being trapped in the ice and left on the ground where the two opponents had come to clutch each other.
Looking behind the masked man who was still advancing towards him, Ewan thought: did he have time to escape to the side to retrieve his weapon? Should he back up first, even if it meant losing sight of his sword? Even if he retrieved the frozen sword, could he use it despite the grace that imprisoned his blade?
The Circle man was already too close for Ewan to dodge the possible effects of his artifact, and if he dashed off too soon, his opponent could predict his movements as he had predicted the location of his traps. Resolute, the young man made a decision: he would have to move at the last moment to maintain the element of surprise.
The masked man, now very close to Ewan, was already raising his sword towards the young hunter, when a shout rang out.
"EWAN! TAKE COVER!" A voice shouted.
Without even questioning who had just shouted this order at him, Ewan immediately rolled backwards.
The characteristic whistling sound of arrows whizzing through the air made his ears twitch, and the projectiles flew into the back of the masked man and onto the ground where the young hunter had been just seconds earlier.
Continuing to roll backwards through the foliage of a shrub, Ewan leapt to his feet and ran toward a nearby tree. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two people about twenty meters away: Géandre, accompanied by a blond man shorter than him.
The reinforcements were finally there.