Bloody Refusal
Gladius arched an eyebrow quizzically. "Me?" His voice held a curious, almost bemused tone, as though he found their proposal inexplicably amusing.
"Precisely," the lanky mage sneered, hints of vicious delight creeping into his expression. "We mages will obviously be the prime combatants in this battle. It's only reasonable for you to take the vanguard first. Now get going; we don't want that beast waking preemptively because of your dallying, do we?"
"So I'm supposed to be some sort of lamb for the slaughter, then?" Gladius's lips curved into a sardonic grin, though his eyes remained sharp and assessing. "Shouldn't you mages know some kind of scouting art or technique? Or is it because of your Innate Spirits that the magic you can wield is quite limited in scope?"
"Tch. Stop speaking as if you know anything about Magic," the shorter Ember Forge mage spat out, his face twisted into a sneer of contempt. "You keep doing this, asking about Magic and such. Wouldn't it be better for you to stick with just what you know? Now, can you stop wasting time already? You're quite skilled with fighting, so sneaking forward shouldn't be an issue."
Gladius maintained his faint, inscrutable smile, though inwardly he was somewhat surprised that it had taken this long for these mages to show their true colors and reveal their genuine opinions about him.
The superiority in their eyes was palpable – it didn't matter that he could fight alongside them with the sword; they would always see Magic as the superior force, and him as little more than a common servant to be used and discarded as they saw fit.
"I see," he replied, his tone deceptively light and conversational. "So this endeavor is simply a petty manifestation of your egos, an exercise in reminding me of my status as your subordinate...or perhaps an admission that you're all pathetic cowards, too craven to confront the beast first. I can accept either reasoning, truly. By risking my life first, you derive satisfaction for your bruised pride while shielding your own hides."
His words seemed to echo in the stillness of their surroundings, carrying a weight that hung heavy in the air.
A brief lull of silence engulfed them, the mages visibly confused and increasingly annoyed at Gladius's brazen defiance.
In their eyes, they were being quite reasonable – respectful, even. A damn common mortal should have been over the moon at being treated with such wary caution by true mages. This arrogance, this blatant disrespect, was quickly becoming infuriating.
The woman mage snorted derisively, taking an imposing step forward as she spat out her words like venom. "You kill some mindless beasts and already think you're our equal, huh? So what if you die? What are you going to do on your own if you leave us? And even then, you really think you can just refuse our orders?"
Her magical staff already began to thrum with power, Mana flowing through her body as a searing aura radiated from the focus, the oppressive might of her magic attempting to bear down upon Gladius in a clear display of dominance.
None of the other mages stepped in to intervene. Sure, they had seen Gladius continually slay Nascent Beasts, but these were also beasts that they could have dispatched within mere seconds, with far greater power than anything Gladius had exuded thus far.
The Ember Forge mages couldn't even truly count Gladius's slaying of that ambushing Nascent Monkey beast as anything too remarkable – that beast had already been a hair's breadth from death at the time, so even with his surprising speed, the mages still held supreme confidence in the superiority of their Mana-fueled might.
After living their entire lives disdaining common mortals and controlling their own personal servants, it was near impossible for them to see Gladius as anything more than a strong, stubborn bumpkin who needed to be put in his place.
The belief in their inherent supremacy had been engrained into them since childhood – just how could their minds change to accept anything else?
Gladius simply offered a faint smile in response, his expression betraying nothing of the turmoil that raged within.
Before the mages could utter another word, before they could treat their supposed 'servant' as they believed he ought to be treated, a glorious ray of silver light glistened brilliantly within Gladius's palm.
A sharp, biting presence erupted forth, causing the mages to instantly fall silent as a potent sense of danger began to erupt from the very depths of their souls – their Mana senses alerting them that a true blade of death was being unsheathed right before their eyes.
"Want me to be nothing more than a mere servant, then what use are you all to me?" As Gladius's cold voice flowed out, he slashed his spirit sword through the air in a blur of motion.
The blade brilliantly glistened, glowing with a powerful radiance as the very might of the Sword Force flowed into its ethereal form.
But it wasn't just the worldly Sword Force that pulsed within the spirit sword's translucent steel. There was also the great force of raw, unbridled Mana crackling across its edge, amplifying its sharpness to lethal, razor-fine degrees that seemed to slice through the very air itself.
The sturdy spirit sword aimed its deadly point straight towards the woman mage's slender neck.
"Ahh!!" The maiden shrieked in utter horror, her eyes widening in sheer terror as primal instincts screamed at her to flee.
There was no time for the other mages to react – they only saw a flash of silver the moment Gladius summoned his spirit sword to lethal form.
At the same time, the woman mage hastily tossed something from her pocket –a glistening orange crystal.
The glistening orange crystal exploded outwards in a searing conflagration, conjuring a shimmering barrier of roiling flames.
The "Jewel of Neutralization" was a treasured artifact meant to absorb and nullify debilitating spells or techniques, its fiery shroud possessing the unique property of devouring any energy foolish enough to trespass within its blazing domain.
Under normal circumstances, the jewel's power would have bought her precious seconds to gather her wits and mount a defense.
But Gladius's sword strike operated on a plane far transcending such paltry protections.
His sword sense detected a mere pitiful amount of Mana power flowing through the fiery barrier, far lower than the level of his sword slash.
An earth-shattering thunderclap heralded the spirit sword's passage as it carved through the fiery veil with merciless ease, dispersing the flames into a thousand smoldering embers.
The sword's momentum remained utterly unbowed as it hungered for the soft flesh of the woman mage's exposed neck.
The woman turned deathly pale, her eyes wide with sheer, visceral terror as the reality of her situation crashed down upon her like a tidal wave.
She frantically shouted unintelligible words, thrusting her magical staff forward as she hurriedly blasted out a searing wave of flames in a desperate bid for survival.
The flames went haywire in front of her, whipping about in a wild, unfocused frenzy. She couldn't concentrate her Mana, causing her Fire Mana to be released in a berserk state that scorched the very earth itself into molten glass. The power of these unchecked flames would have been more than enough to incinerate lesser mages like the one Gladius had slain the previous night.
A sizzling heat permeated the atmosphere between them, the oppressive aura of the uncontrolled inferno causing the air to ripple and distort. Wisps of flame drilled holes into the ground, their intense heat so potent that even the mages found it difficult to breathe.
But to Gladius's newfound power, augmented by his comprehension of the Sword Ice Force, it was little more than a tickling breeze.
'Chi!'
The searing flames were sliced apart with contemptuous ease, all of them reduced to tiny, harmless particles of dissipating ember in the wake of Gladius's spirit sword.
There was no stopping the blade's relentless advance – its speed was too amazing, too blindingly fast to defend against.
The spirit sword brutally tore through the woman mage's neck, cleaving through flesh and bone with equal disregard. Blood soon splattered high into the sky in a crimson arc, the thick droplets seeming to hang suspended in the air for the briefest of moments before raining back down upon the earth in a macabre shower.
"No!!!"
The Gale Academy and Ember Forge mages all shrieked in utter horror, their faces draining of color as a rush of nausea and revulsion howled through their bodies.
Before them, the once beautiful woman mage was nothing more than a decapitated corpse, her lifeless eyes forever frozen in an expression of pure, unadulterated terror – a reflection of the last thing she had experienced in her final, fleeting moments.