"Brats like you should learn to never bite off more than you can chew."
Those were the words that Lark whispered into Alvin's ears. The words that reminded him of the past. The shame, pain and embarrament he had caused the noble.
After the incident, Lark managed to graduate from the magical academy but only as a mere C-rank. It would have been a good enough rank to graduate with for any normal person, but Lark had been groomed with the best instructors and barraged with the best potions to aid his growth.
Considering these factors, him graduating as nothing but a mere C-rank was extremely underwhelming. It testified to his immense lack of talent. His case was even worse due to his older brother's talent in not just magic, but social and political skills as well.
After their father's passing, Lark's brother—North Volden became the undisputed head of the family. upIt only took a few years, but North actually managed to gather enough credits and propel himself to the rank of a count. A position which his predecessors had been working immensely hard for till their deaths.
After spending some time as a magic knight, Lark managed to further his skill by quite a bit, but his brother's achievements made his seem utterly irrelevant. He developed an inferiority complex towards his brother and decided to just leave. After all, his subpar magical talents and inability to find a rich influential girl due to his personality had made him all but useless in the eyes of his family. And although, he was not maltreated or openely disrespected and insulted, he still had his pride as a man.
He decided to banish himself to a place far away from home at the other side of the country where he later managed to become a magic knight captain. He was not one of those idiots that were trying to become self made even with their abysmal talents, No, he just did not want to feel too overshadowed by his brother. He still used and abused his family name like any other despicable noble brat would to gather undeserved merits though.
Throughout all of this, he never once forgot about what Alvin did to him. After discovering that Alvin's guardian was dead, he conducted a full on search of him and made use of the Volden family's information network as well as his authority as captain to do it.
When he learnt that Alvin had joined the Swordhearth family's personal guard, he became somewhat discouraged as he knew that he could not afford to pick a fight with the count even with his family backing.
The Swordhearth's were a considerably old and immensely powerful family as they had been ruling over as counts for the past five generations now! They had maintained a nigh perfect reputation by not indulging themselves in scandalous acts, thus they were not consisting of main and branch families like any other old family would. They only had the patriarch's nuclear family, then a few other relatives.
Lark had almost given up hope when he found out the fact, but then the timely arrival of an emissary of a certain organization rekindled his hope. Their emissary brought to him plans of overthrowing the Swordhearth's by killing Raymond.
The plan which they had crafted was a rather simple one. It only involved them luring the count out to their turf by pretending to get involved in drug dealings, then their representative and team were supposed to handle the rest. The baron had only decided to up their chances by sending out his own goons, a plan which everyone else consented to.
Lark had run into Alvin by chance, and armed with the special drug he was given if things were to go south, he was fully prepared to repay the latter the favour he owed him from their younger days.
"Do you remember know?" Lark asked as his evil aura pressed against Alvin's being.
From the way by which his eyes trembled, he could more or less guess that Alvin had finally recalled. And a smile formed on his face as he witnessed Alvin's distressed expression, the latter was falling into even greater despair.
"Alright then..." Lark muttered to Alvin's hearing, before moving his hands and releasing his grip on the ice mage's collar, flinging him away.
"Urgh." Alvin subconsciously groaned as his body hurled into the reinforced walls, crashing into it with a loud boom.
*Boom*
Lark then began to move his eye balls around the wide tunnel. He seemed to be searching for something, but his dubious grin never left his face. This continued for about a second more before he finally found what he was looking for.
There, a small distance away from where he currently stood was his weapon–a silver bladed rapier.
He nonchalantly trotted towards his rapier as he did not seem to be in the least bit worried about Alvin. Upon reaching his desired location, he picked up the silver bladed rapier which had been discarded until now and when he did, he was quite surprised at the strange new feeling he had.
'hmm. It got lighter. No, I just got bigger. But can I really use it like this.....' Lark thought as he fit his now large hands though the handle and weilded his weapon.
*Slice*
*Slice*
*Stab*
He sliced and stabbed at the air a few times in order to get a better handle on the new feeling as well as to make an informed decision.
'hmm. Not bad I guess, it's still usable.' Lark decided before pointing his new weapon at Alvin who had only just managed to get himself up.
His entire body felt sore as he stood and stared at lark and his weapon. He immediately got an idea of what the latter wanted, but there was no way out of the situation. Running would be a very foolish action and refusing the challenge would not matter to Lark, the only option was to face him head on.
'ice spear.' Alvin thought as he conjured a long spear of ice, which he imbued almost half of his remaining reserves into to strengthen.
His body ached immensely as he flexed his muscles and assumed a stance, but he could do nothing more than grit his teeth and bear it. His brain was too tired from dealing with all the pain being transmitted by his nervous system to think up an adequate plan, but he was not intent on dying yet, so he would undoubtedly do his absolute best.
"Hahaha. Let's do this! En guarde!" Lark roared as his grin performed the impossible feat of growing even wider, he ran forward while wielding weapon. An action which Alvin responded to by doing same.
*Bang!*
A loud noise was heard as the two weapons collided, each embedded with the intent to kill the opposing weilders.
*Bang*
*Bang!*
More noise sounded as the two became engaged in heated combat with each lunging or stabbing or slicing at each other. Lark's movements were a lot more sloppier than Alvin's, but his tremendously enhanced physique and incredible regenerative ability made dealing any damage to him very difficult.
Each time Alvin would create crack in Lark's defence and exploit it to the best of his abilities, Lark would literally do nothing and the wound would heal up in mere seconds. It gave him a very vain feeling as his attacks slowly lost their momentum. But at least, he managed to learn two new things about Lark's regenerative ability.
*Clang!*
*Slice*
The first thing he had learnt about Lark's regenerative abilities was that, while near instantaneous normally, it took him a longer span of time to regenerate weaker and more delicate parts. This theory was proved right when Alvin attacked Lark's thighs and hamstrings.
Following this line of though would lead to the second thing which Alvin ha learnt from the exchange—that even regeneration requires a significant amount of mana. Now he could not be a hundred percent sure of it, but it was a valid guess.
Alvin had obtained two very important and crucial pieces of information, vutthe situation at hand did not permit him o think properly as it took all of his concentration an more to push through the protests which his body was making and prevent himself from getting killed.
"Argh." Alvin groaned in pain as Lark's sword pierced his skin. Alvin was getting hit much more frequently now as Lark attacked wildly, paying absolutely no heed to caution and technique.
"Hahshehehaha." Lark's crazy laughter sounded again as he relished the feeling of his sword piercing the former's skin. As blood spewed from the wound and splashed on Lark's face, a sickening ecstacy reflected on it. His micro muscles twitched in pleasure as he was reminded of the reason why he ever started fighting with a weapon in the first place.
The reason for his becoming a swordsman was partly due the fact that it was forced upon him by his family, but mostly because he enjoyed the feeling that came from using it. Hence the reason he stuck to it even though he had very average talents.
What he did not realize though was the fact that the satisfactory feeling he derived from wielding the sword, had evolved to something closer to fanaticism, courtesy of the [Draught] which he had consumed. Slowly but surely, he was losing his mind.
*Clang!*
The clash, as well as Lark's insane laughter continued for a while more. Alvin was now visibly being pushed back as even more injuries littered his body. His weapon made solely of ice now donned several cracks, which Alvin had to expend even more Mana to prevent it from falling apart.
Alvin's arms were hurting as he felt his weapon grow heavier and heavier with each exchange, he had already pushed his muscles beyond the limit for even an A-rank and his entire body was in pain. It was to the level that for a moment there, dyeing and being rid of the horrific pain didn't sound so bad anymore...
'get a grip Alvin! You can't, and absolutely won't die here!' Alvin encouraged himself with the words, but it did not move him any further from death's door. This was reality, and as such, merely reaffirming one's will to live would not have any effect on the real world.
It might improve one's mental state, all fine and good, but it certainly was not going to suddenly grant one some sort of power up like in those unrealistic animes.
*Boom!*
Yet another loud explosion shook the entirety of the tunnel they were in. The brief shockwave caused by the unexpected occurrence interrupted the one sided duel as both mages struggled to reaffirm their balance first and foremost.
'woah..' Alvin thought as his body trembled, courtesy of the rumbling earth.
His eyes coincidentally went up, and he saw the metal rods that had been used to hold up the ceiling shake violently, so much that the looked like they were falling apart.
'no...they don't look like it, they ARE falling apart!' Alvin immediately became alarmed as he racked his brain on what to do. The bodily pain he was experiencing suddenly diminished as the survival instinct engrained in him practically screamed at him to run away.
A/N:
The situation is becoming even more dire and their long duel is slowly approaching it's climax. But just what is the cause of these unnatural explosions? We shall soon find out!