As he thought, it was hard, his blade got stuck on the bone.
"No wonder. You are not in the shape now to split a skull in two."
He opened his eyes slowly… And saw his blade stuck not in Casper's skull, but in his right forearm's bone.
"T-this bastard… Did he use his forearm as a shield? What kind of crazy man is this guy!?" The Aesir thought surprised and perturbed by Casper's courage.
The White warrior was holding his right arm with the left hand, positioning it in front of his face's right side as a shield.
"Since that shot, I can't feel my right arm entirely at all…" Casper thought, firming his grip on the arm. "As long as I can't feel any pain, I don't care about a blade or two stuck halfway in my bones!"
Casper pulled his arm with all his body weight backward. As the knife was deeply carved in his bone, it did not get out; instead, it dragged the Aesir along until he let go of the grip, but it was late already.
Casper ran in direction to Freygar, who at first expected to be bumped.
If Casper bumped into him, he would surely fall to the ground. Because of his hips, his entire legs were shaking and unsteady.
"If he comes, I will grab onto him and will not let go until he falls with me!" He prepared himself.
But, then, glanced at the blade that was still on Casper's mouth, between his teeth, and gasped.
Casper, instead of bumping into him, crossed between his wide-open arm and his trunk, slicing the side of his belly with the blade while running.
He did not stop there, though. Planting his feet on the ground he braked the rush, turning to face Freygar's back. He leaped towards him again and stabbed him with the blade, launching his head into his back.
Freygar felt both, the pain of that headbutt and the blade piercing his meat. The impact made him fall on the ground and slide on the floor.
Casper also lost balance and fell. The blade remained tucked in Freygar's back.
The two of them kept on the ground, breathing hard. They had the same thoughts crossing their minds:
"If he starts to stand up, I will as well." Although they both did not even know if they could manage to stand on their feet.
In the end, without waiting for one another's actions, they raised from the floor.
Freygar had hit his mask hard when he fell, so his nose was bleeding and he was a bit dizzy.
Casper also had some dizziness because of the headbutt he gave. To the blade to be able to pierce the Aesir's body, Casper had to aim with the side of his face.
His cheek was also cut inside, and so was the tongue. That was Casper's first time wielding a blade that way.
"It looked so cool in the animes… Man… My mouth hurt all over…"
Both stand looking at each other. Freygar, actually, could not remain on his feet, so he needed to kneel with one knee on the floor.
"He is not in a better shape than mine… That shot on the hips helped me. I needed to debilitate him somehow to decrease his movement speed, so firing in the hips was a good thing, although it was half-luck."
It was not that Casper was aiming there, but it was one of his options.
Neither of them was with truly fatal blows except for the shots they suffered. If not for the pistols, the battle could last much more.
As it seemed, the fight was even now again. Neither had the advantage. Both knew this and admitted to themselves. As long as they maintained it in mind and stayed determined to go further, an opportunity surely would show. It was like this in every battle.
The two warriors kept just looking at each other, regaining their energy. They did not want to rush things at that point. Everything that mattered was to gather as much strength as they could to finish that brawl.
"You… You are under Princess Vick's protection… Right?" Freygar asked between his long, deep breaths.
"Yes… I am."
Casper did not know why he started to talk about it. He could just ignore him, but he was curious as well.
"So… Why are you wasting this opportunity for a life of comfort and safety here? If you get caught, and you will get, what will you do?" He seemed exasperated by Casper's stupidity.
"How I will deal with it is not of your business… And I couldn't care less about this shitty easy life. Not when I am in a place where the nobility, or better, Jarls take the freedom of their own folk!" Casper made sure to show all his anger in those words.
"You… You know about the masks already?"
The Aesir seemed perturbed by that. Indeed, no one among the Jarls or Aesir were expecting that Casper would find out the truth about that so soon.
"Yes, I know. I know that these masks are used to manipulate everyone. They can manage to send or stop brain responses, which make the people submissive to everything the Jarls want, and obedient to what they don't want. It's the same as brainwashing.
"That's why the entire society doesn't collapse with this abusive government. They can't even get the freedom to hit back. I am not even sure about the restrictions they impose about protests."
Although, Casper still needed to discover how they could ignore it and trigger the Midwest battle, as well as what exactly was prohibited or not to the civilians, and what the Noble masks could not that the brown ones could not.
"If that's how it is, then we need to make sure that you don't get out of here with this information." Said the Aesir, in a threatening tone of voice.
"And why?"
"What will you do knowing all of this, White warrior? What will you do knowing that you have the freedom that none of the other people have !? "
Casper froze for a while. Just now he could realize the dimension of the power that he had. And… He did not know what to do with that. He had not the time to think about it.
"I… I will…!" Casper was starting to state something but got interrupted when Freygar forced himself to stand and use the wall of the corridor to support his body.
"No. It can wait." Casper thought. "Now, I need to destroy the threat completely."
Casper also started to move.
Their battle finally would come to an end…!
But not that day.
Casper suddenly started to hear footsteps right behind him. He was so absorbed in the battle that he did not notice that the Ridires were already in that corridor.
"A-at least, I will…" He tried to rush forward and finish what he had to do with Freygar. The opponent also seemed to struggle to walk forward.
However, someone bumped into Casper's back, throwing him onto the floor and kneeling with his knees on top of his neck, hardly letting him breathe.
"Damn it!" He shouted, agonized by the pressure on his neck.
Four other Ridire appeared to help to immobilize Casper.
It seemed that the legend of the White warrior was spreading among the Jarls and the military because all of them seemed to know Casper and be careful around him.
Those five men particularly did not let Casper even move a finger. The soldier tried to fight back, but there was nothing he could do anymore.
Surrender was the only option for him.
The Aesir was trying to reach them but got stopped for another group of Ridires that came from the other side and that started to treat his worst wounds. As it seemed, the Ridire had some basic knowledge in first aid.
Freygar looked displeased because of that. He was wanting to finish that fight even more than Casper. It was not just frustrating, but also a hit to his pride to know that someone like Casper was stronger than him.
He wanted to settle here and now who was the best. His honor as a warrior depended on it.
However, his men would not let him do so, not at that moment, when the fuss was turning even more huge each time.
Soon, the entire defense squad of the Third Laboratory was positioned in that corridor, from both sides, and even rounding the spherical room, just in case that Casper got lucky enough to run away.
Casper reached discreetly his hand to his pocket and then put something in his mouth without anyone noticing.
"Thanks to Odin that they left my arm a bit out of this human prison of hands holding me."
After everyone quieted down, the Aesir, still sitting in the ground, gave them the command.
"Everyone, first of all, go alert the scientists that everything is okay now and give them the correct instructions. Hey, you five, we don't need this much holding an injured man. Two is enough. Raise him now and put the bag in his head."
The two Ridire made what Freygar ordered. They raised him from the floor, taking a black bag and putting it on Casper's head.
Casper was dragged into somewhere while blind. The bitter taste of an unfinished battle and a failed mission spread through his tongue and there remained.