Chapitre 20 : Orion Windsor ?
("No stealth attack this time. Let me prove to myself that I'm not a coward.")
The panther waited until Adall's sword was inches away from her before making a quick leap backward.
Adall, having narrowly missed his target, struggled to regain his balance.
It must be said that his physique wasn't exactly optimal for wielding the sword in his hands.
While the young boy tried with all his might to stabilize his center of gravity, the panther, much faster than him, executed her very first offensive move of the battle.
After landing from her backward leap, she darted forward and crossed the distance separating her from her opponent in one swift motion.
She had promised herself not to use any stealth attacks during this fight, and she kept her word.
She reappeared in a flash within Adall's field of vision and without delay, she swung one of her front paws toward him.
Shaaaa!
Adall, still struggling to regain his balance, couldn't react to his opponent's expert movements.
In fact, he wouldn't have been able to do anything even if he were in perfect condition.
After all, how could he react to a movement he couldn't even follow with his eyes?
Adall was still amazed by the sudden disappearance of the panther when he swung his sword at her, when suddenly he felt his left arm detach from his body.
("What happened?")
He hadn't seen the moment he lost his arm.
But unfortunately, he didn't have time to think about it.
"Aaaaaaaaaah!"
He let out a scream of excruciating pain and fell to his knees.
His blood continued to gush out like a fountain, and he quickly lost what little strength his frail body possessed, fainting from pain in an instant.
Meanwhile, the panther was languorously licking her paw after her successful attack.
She looked like a professional gourmet savoring the most delicious meal of her life.
She didn't notice the silhouette that had slipped behind her and was pointing a magician's staff at her.
"Magic reinforcement + Wind Blade"
[Reinforced Wind Blade]
Shang!
The panther's head was separated from her body in an instant by the spell cast by the silhouette that appeared behind her.
She, who had just won her first battle without a stealth attack, had her life taken away the next moment by the latter.
What irony of fate!
"The difficulty of the little test I set up may have been too high."
After uttering these few words, the silhouette turned to Adall's bloodied body, and with a movement of his staff, they both disappeared in a light reminiscent of the teleportation a little earlier of the young boy.
***
Adall suddenly woke up from his sleep.
After a quick inspection of the surroundings, he could affirm that the cabin he was in was unknown to him and that he was still in the forest.
The sound of cicadas and nocturnal creatures he heard was more than enough proof.
However, he had no wounds or scars on his body.
If he hadn't noticed that his shirt was stained with blood and that the left sleeve was missing, he would certainly have thought that his fight against the panther was just the result of a nightmare from his earlier sleep.
As he tried to get up, he heard a voice addressing him from outside the room.
"Oh... Are you already awake? I thought it would take you another hour or two! After you've changed, come join me. We have a lot to talk about."
Even though Adall didn't recognize the voice and therefore couldn't guess its owner, it still felt somewhat familiar to him.
("Where have I heard it before? Yes, that's it! It's the voice from the teleportation that sent me to this damn forest.")
Indeed, while Allen, Jason, and Martin were yelling at each other to figure out what was happening, Adall heard a voice in his mind saying to him:
"I guess it's finally time for us to meet, Adall Windsor."
At first, he thought it was his uncle Merlin, but upon further thought now, why talk about a meeting when they had already met several times?
Adall quickly put on the clothes prepared for him by this mysterious being and headed straight for the exit without further ado.
"You're already here? You're quick!"
A familiar face!
He, who had spent the last two years in the library to avoid being in the same room as Endric, couldn't be mistaken.
"Orion Windsor, the first patriarch?"
"It seems like those many hours hiding from your cousin in the skirts of the librarian have finally paid off."
Adall almost lunged at the mysterious being when he heard these taunts against him, but since the experience he had with the shadow panther was still fresh in his memory, he automatically knew that it wasn't the right decision.
Besides, what did he know about him to speak to him like that?
So, he let out a "harumph" at the provocation of the mysterious being and let it slide.
("Now that I think about it. How is he still alive? Shouldn't he be over 1000 years old today? A lich? Besides, is it really him?")
"I see you have a lot of questions. So, let's start with the simplest one."
As he spoke these words, the mysterious being gestured for him to sit down, indicating with a wave of his hand a free chair next to him.
A request that made him hesitate a bit at the moment, but he eventually complied, thinking that if this being meant him harm, he certainly wouldn't be able to escape it. So, he might as well listen to him quietly for now.
The voice then continued its monologue.
"Oh yes! I'm the one who teleported you here. Yes indeed! I am Orion, the founder of the Windsor family. If I know you so well, it's because I've been waiting for you for 1000 years, you, my most talented descendant."