Razark POV
I dodged and made a counter attack, but just as my blade was about to hit him he disappeared and reappeared a few feet away from me.
I couldn't tell the time, but I could feel that it was as if I was fighting him for a long time. I didn't know how many times I had to switch or reinforce my weapons, but I knew that he wasn't getting tired anytime soon.
"Yield thee, outlander, for this battle is lost. Thy forces are diminished to a mere handful, thy mana and energy spent, and thy weapons shattered. What hope hast thou left to best me?" Valdar taunted me with a wide smirk and raised his staff to cast another offensive spell.
As soon as the black projectile was fired from the crystal of his staff I used a stalking shadow to evade, but the location of my spell was guarded by a sentinel and the sentinel quickly swung down its halberd, nearly hitting my spine. Before the halberd reached a dangerous distance I spun my body and let it hit my shoulder instead.
I watched as my left arm was completely taken off from my main body, and blood started to spurt from me and my former arm.
"Surrender, outlander, for thou art defeated. Cease thy struggles and become mine." Valdar shouted, his voice filled with insanity and his eyes crazy as the pair of amethyst eyes gazed at me as if I was some kind of trophy to claim.
"Remember. Call me whenever you feel that you're in a pinch. But remember as well that you will owe me one," My thoughts drifted to the conversation I had with Miquella. My mind screamed for me to call for her, but my instinct knew that making this decision this early wouldn't be wise. I still have a few more spells I've yet to use and it seems like I have to give up hoping that the old man would wake up to supply…
I'm an idiot.
"Use it. My mana is your mana, what is mine is your and what's yours is mine. We will become one entity in the future so might as well start and get used to this," I remembered the words he uttered that day, the day when I experienced for the first time what true power is.
"You're right I have lost," I started and Valdar's wicked grin grew wider.
"But this is only round one. What do you say we start round two?" I continued as I felt my mana refilled to the brim, and adopting a similar smirk to the lich in front of me I took a stance.
His reaction was priceless, but never once did he falter. He simply gazed at me with serious eyes before his obsessive smile returned and I don't know how he does it, but this one seems ten, no, a hundred times more creepy.
"Hail and well met, fair outlander. Thou art the first to push me so far, and for that, I offer thee my applause. Pray, grant me the honor of knowing thy name." Valdar's tone changed. His expression changed into that of a renown noble.
"Razark. Razark Imeprator," I uttered my full name to him and he gave me a smile and nodded.
"Verily, Razark Imperator. Henceforth, I shall ne'er more confront thee as Valdar The Lich, but instead as Prospero The Tempest, thine erstwhile wind of the north." As soon as those words reached my ears something inside me awoke and it wasn't me nor part of me. A wide grin appeared on my face and I chuckled as if I was some kind of maniac.
Prospero who was in front of me was confused, but then his eyes widened when he felt it as well.
"Took you long enough old man. I almost thought you were dead for real," I chuckled and a deep and dark voice that I have to admit I missed resounded in my head.
"What the hell did you get yourself into my soon to be bond," He spoke as a scythe started to appear on my right hand and as soon as Prospero saw the scythe I was holding he pointed at it.
"*^&*@#! !!!" Prospero screamed on top of his lungs as he lunged towards me with a sword made out of magic.
"Thou keepest showing me many wondrous things, Razark." He spoke in a neutral tone, but I saw it in his eyes. His eyes were flashing in excitement for this fight.
Pushing him back with the scythe I have on hand I began to channel some mana into the scythe and I noticed it's aura growing.
"Feed me more!!!" A dark voice resounded in my head and I immediately stopped channeling mana into the scythe.
"What was that? That wasn't the old man. The thing that spoke to me sounded more dark and old," I thought, but I was unable to continue my flow of thoughts as Prospero once again closed the gap between us and I had to stick the scythe's handle to the ground using my last remaining arm and block his attack with the scythe's handle.
"Old man. Who is this dude? He seems to recognize you," I asked him, but received no immediate answer from the old man who was free loading on my mind.
I dodged left and right to avoid his ranged attacks, whilst his sentinels were still around me, waiting for the perfect moment to strike me when I least expected it.
"Dodge now," The old man suddenly shouted and without any complaints nor comments I immediately jumped as high as I could and below me was a large azure blue beam that went past me.
"What the hell was that?" I asked in a daze when I saw the huge wall that had formed because of the attack. Even with our combined attacks from the previous round the room was still intact, yet that one attack created that big gaping hole on the wall.
"Careful Kid. You're currently up against a fallen," The old man for once sounded serious and I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as I created a mana shield to block a spear that was thrown towards me.
"Fallen?" I asked as I still had my eyes locked on Prospero.
"Normally you're either born as a God or become strong enough to claim the title God. Prospero was one of the latter. But what distinguished him from others was his ability to be very versatile in the art of magic," The old man started to explain, but it was cut short as Prospero fired another one of that attack and I had to jump again to avoid it, but this time a sentinel followed suit and intended to intercept me on mid air.
Using the only arm I had I slashed the sentinel with the scythe, but it was too shallow and I had to create a mana shield around me to block its halberd.
"Duck!!" The old man shouted and without question I did as instructed. I felt a huge gust of energy went past me, even without looking at it I could see the bright blue azure light reflected on the ground.
"How do I defeat him?" I asked the old man and he was once again silent.
"Use the dark knight's valor," The old man instructed and as soon as the attack was done I jumped back to create some distance between us. Once I was far enough I stabbed the spear once again to the ground and chanted.
"Dark Knights valor" I chanted and a blinding red light engulfed the whole room and two giant humanoids around 8 meters tall appeared behind me. Both of them were wearing a black hood with red linings that covered their heads and a robe that hid their big bodies. The two humanoids were holding a halberd and a shield. The halberds were black and silver accompanied with golden runic patterns on the blades, whilst the shields were red ruby in color with black runes engraved on the front of the shield.
"Ho! It seemeth thou hast yet to show me everything. Verily intriguing. These twain seemeth stronger than mine own sentinels," Prospero commented, but he was not in the slightest nervous by this situation.
"Very well, thy shalt show thee true power," He Spoke and soon a floating book appeared out of nowhere and my muscles tensed when I realized what book it was.
"A Grimoire," I thought as I quickly tried to burn it with a black flame projectile, but unfortunately my attack was only met by a yellow barrier.
"From ashes and flame, rise up and take flight," Prospero started to chant, I charged at him and tried to disturbed his chant, but the yellow barrier withstood my attack, Prospero saw this and continued on his chant.
"O mighty phoenix, bring forth thy might.With wings of fire and a heart of heat,Bring forth destruction with thy blazing feat.Soar through the skies, leave nothing but ash,Phoenix of fire, let thy power flash.With flames of glory and a power untold,Rise up, O phoenix, and let thy fire unfold! Phoenix's Spirit" He finished chanting and I had to take a few steps back to prepare for what's to come.
The room temperature rose quickly as the Grimoire was opened and was now facing me. I watched as the pages started to turn bright orange and soon fire came out of it.
Raising the scythe towards the Grimoire I prepared my attack.
Soon a Phoenix came out from the book and flew towards me.
"Rainbow flamed phoenix fire" I casted and a rainbow phoenix formed in front of me, flying to intercept the other Phoenix.
Both Phoenixes met and a bright light shone throughout the room, I quickly closed my eyes and turned back to avoid getting blind.
Once the light started to dissipate I opened my eyes again and turned back to see that Prospero was no longer standing there. Turning around the room I found no one around me at all. The area around us was in flames as cracks were beginning to be visible on the walls.
Out of instinct I tilted my head to the right and a spear shot past me and embedded itself to the ground in front of me.
"What grade was that Grimoire old man?" I asked as I looked around again to try and trace his mana. Only for the same thing to happen, but this time he hit my right thigh.
I jumped back a bit and created a stone wall around me. I quickly pulled out the spear that was deep embedded in my thigh and poured some healing magic from my pouch.
"It was a grade six, close to seven" The old man finally answered my question and I was somewhat relieved it wasn't an eight or nine. Thank the Gods it's not a grade ten, because if it was I would have to run away.
"But this is just normal magic, a cloaking type. The grimoire he uses emitted a lot of fire mana in it, so I doubt this trick is from the grimoire," He replied to me, but there was that unsettling feeling that this is not all true.
Lowering down the stone wall I noticed the fire around us was closing in, near it I found my arm.
"Hey you think you can stick my arm back together?" I asked the old man and he chuckled.
"That is such a little thing to do. Of course I can," He replied and I nodded, knowing what my next move was I started to carefully dash towards my arm.
Dodging yet another spear I managed to see it. It was behind the flames. Turning away from my initial objective I jumped high only to see flames behind, no room, no empty space, no way for him to navigate at all.
Soon I felt a cold feeling on my back and when I looked down I could see the tip of a spear pointing out of me.
"So that is how he's doing this," I choked out as blood started to come out of my mouth.
"Razark pull the damn spear out so I can heal your hole," The old man shouted and I bit the scythe handle before using my only hand to pull out the spear.
I could feel the flesh of my body slowly reconstructing.
"The flames," I told the old man who didn't seem to realize what I meant.
"Prospero is hiding within the flames around us. It's a theory, but I'm pretty sure he's hiding inside all this flame around us," I told the old man my findings, and he seemed to agree as he didn't retort nor decline my theory.
"Let's end this once and for all," I growled as I looked at the arm beside me and picked it up.
Although it was a bit… Who am I kidding? It's burnt to shit.
"Still think you can fix this? I'd rather have it whole than missing a few chunks of it," I joked and the old man let out a soft chuckle before I started feeling immense pain from my shoulder.
"Hold out a bit. Reconnecting one's joints isn't the most pleasant feeling," He mused and I had the urge to hit him now. A warning could've been nice.
Once my hand was healed I noticed he didn't attack me at all.
"Old Gods tend to have pride in them, most of them anyways," The old man spoke in a proud voice.
"Torrent," I chanted and slowly but surely wind started to gather around me, spinning in high speed, slowly creating a tornado that pulled all the flames around us.
Being in the middle of this fiery tornado was by no means pleasant. I could feel the stinging feeling on my skin and the hot burning pain all over my body. Since the scythe was made of metal I could feel the sizzling hot metal pressing against my skin.
"Blizzard," I grunted as soon as I couldn't hold the pain anymore. Soon enough blue light started to shine around me and the fiery tornado around me could be seen to slowly freeze.
"Gotcha now ya bastard," I screamed as I saw a figure frozen amongst the ice and as quickly as I could I threw my scythe and it spun and accelerated towards that figure stuck on the ice.
The ice cracked and broke and the figure fell down, the scythe stuck on his waist.
"H..how did thou find out?" He choked some blood whilst talking, he stood back up and pulled the scythe out and tossed it back to me.
"Next time if you're gonna do that kind of trick. Try not to flood the whole area on fire. That would just make it suspicious. Well. If there is a next time anyways," I taunted him and he smirked before chuckling.
"Thou art so ignorant. Dost thou bethink this is how much I amount to? Nay, thou hast yet to face somewhat like me. I am diverse. Not for my strength in magic. Nay. 'Tis for my talent in creating magic." He spoke in a normal and low voice, but his magic was starting to rise up in its power signaling an ultimate… No this was stronger than an ultimate spell.
"Divine Spell. Great Library," I could hear his whisper although our distance was around twenty meters apart. At first nothing happened, but soon the earth shook and the area around us slowly transformed, a dome appeared above us and slowly bookshelves started to slowly appear one by one.
What's worse wasn't the fact that he controlled this space. No, it was the books. All of them contained magic, meaning that.
"Shit. All of em are Grimoires," The old man completed my thoughts and I could feel my entire body pale as if the blood inside me stopped flowing out of fear.
"I doe present to thee. Mine own self made divine spell. The Great Library. Now be proude of thyself that thou wilt be the first mortal I bury in this library. Be honored that thou wilt be buried beside many Gods that have fallen in this very library." He spoke in a voice filled with authority and as if his words were absolute.
"Hearken thee, Razark of House Imperator. From this moment forth, this shall be thine ultimate abode." He spoke and those very words sent chills down my spine as the event in front of me slowly turned my whole body white as I never felt so cold like this day.
In front of me were Grimoires. Hundreds of them. A variety of Grimoires from the first grade to the ninth and I could also feel a handful of Grimoires that had magic stronger than the nine grade ones. Indicating its grade to be that of the tenth grade Grimoires.