Shattered

In an instant, seeing the giant sword swing straight down at him, the black-haired Ashur had no choice but to retract his attack against Carlem and Castien.

Turning his lightning-filled hands, now towards both Carlem and Castien's swords, while using the force to send a massive shockwave against them. Sending Carlem and Castien's hands flying away from him as they refused to let go of their swords.

But this tiny instance, allowed the black-haired Ashur to react to Atures's attack. As he suddenly closed his eyes, before his eyes suddenly shot open again as a cracked world suddenly revealed itself to him once again.

Everything looked like it was in slow motion from his heightened senses, as he slowly moved his hand as Atures's blade was only a half a foot away from severing his arm. and slowly placed his hand on top of the giant sword that was now filled with cracks, all of which seemed to converge into a single point. resembling the lines of a spider's web.

Placing his hand directly over that point, the black-haired Ashur slowly, yet quickly, started injecting a massive amount of pure force energy into it until Atures's huge blade suddenly shattered into pieces like glass. Just as it was about to make contact with Ashur's body. Shocking, not just Carlem and Castien. But also Larfal, Riveria, and also everyone else in the stands.

To everyone else besides Ashur, it looked as if Ashur just lightly tapped on Atures's huge blade as fractures suddenly form before suddenly shattering it into pieces with a single touch with just his hand. Just as Atures's huge blade was about to cut him.

It was widely known that all of the royal knight's weapons were all individually crafted by the best weaponsmith in all of Alf's Royal Forest, and were made using mithril and other high-class materials. They were not just weapons to them, but also prestige. A sign of a knight who had overcome all hardships, and become a royal knight.

So to see such famed weapons suddenly shatter at the slightest touch, was of a great shock to all of them.

But the most shocked of them all was none other than Atures himself.

He never cared anything about prestige, or what the weapon was made out of, or who made it.

But he knew how durable his sword was. After all, it was specially designed to handle his brute strength and wild fighting style. As he felt normal swords were just too light, and would always break whenever he handled them.

So his eyes could only widen his in disbelief, as his giant sword which was made of mithril, and a small amount of orichalcum, which was designed to be sturdy as possible, suddenly shatter into pieces..

It not only shattered his logic, but also his pride as a warrior.

Time seemed to resume, as Atures giant body crashed to the ground, sending dust everywhere and creating a small dust cloud around the four of them.

Suddenly, a figure burst out of the dust and lunged at Castien as a glitter of metal was aimed straight at his heart.

Castien quickly blocked with his sword, and quickly got a look at A small bleeding hand holding a large shard of Atures's shattered blade, as it connected with Castien's blade, inches away from his neck.

A large drop of sweat dripped down his brow as a tinge of fear quickly appeared on his face.

He was sure that his attack was aimed at his heart, but in the next instant, he found the broken price of shard inches away from his neck and was aimed straight at his left carotid artery. Leaving him only half a second to react.

It was only thanks to the long blade of his sword that he was able to react. If not, he was sure that he would be spewing blood from his neck right now.

If it wasn't for Ashur's skill with the sword, he might have thought that the attack came from an experienced assassin.

Seeing that his surprise attack failed, the black-haired Ashur let out a barrage of deadly attacks. Each aimed at his vitals.

Castien had to constantly back up, as he parried Ashur's lightning-fast strikes.

Seeing Castien overwhelmed, Carlem quickly ran over wanting to help, But as he did, he suddenly noticed something about Ashur.

He seemed to be...slowing down?

Castien also noticed this. How would he not?

As the recipient of his attacks, he could feel it better than anyone. And wondered if it was another one of his tricks.

But as Carlem watched, he was slowly being convinced it wasn't.

He had noticed that beads of sweat started to drip down the black-haired Ashur's face, as his attacks slowly grew more and more sluggish.

Carlem didn't think he was faking it this time, as there were several openings he could have exploited, but hadn't

Was it because he destroyed Atures's sword? This seemed the most probable.

Even though he didn't know how he did it, breaking a sword like Atures's probably didn't come without a cost. And there was also the fact that he only exhibited exhaustion right after he did so.

Of course, there was the possibility that this could also be a trap, but he was willing to take the risk.

"Castien, formation 6-2!" Carlem rapidly shouted as he charged in.

Quickly. Castien reacted in turn, and his footwork quickly changed to a quick practiced manner. Even though Castien quickly continued to parry Ashur's deadly strikes.

As Castien continued to parry, Carlem quickly struck forward with his sword, But as if having eyes on the back of his head, the black-haired Ashur suddenly turned around with the movements of an acrobat and quickly blocked Carlem's sword with the large shard in his hand.

But, the next second, he quickly swept his head back, as Castien's sword swiped right over his head.

But it wasn't over, as Carlem's sword swiped right past his waist.

It was now Ashur's turn to be on the defensive, as the two of them rapidly attacked together with their swords.

The two's motions were perfectly in sync, like a dance. One would attack, while the other would defend, as they kept repeatedly switching from attacking and defending.

Taking advantage of his small and nimble body, the black-haired Ashur barely managed to avoid most of their torrent of attacks, only for a except few. Such as lashes across his back and sides, with a few on his front as well.

Up in the stands, as Larfal watched the torrent of attacks from Carlem and Castien, and the slowly accumulating wounds across Ashur's body, he knew the battle was soon coming to a close.

As what Carlem and Castien were using, was none other than the dual dragons of Alf's royal swordsmanship.

This swordsmanship mainly focused on and covering each of their weak points while also serving to confuse their enemies from their constant switching, and skilled practitioners could easily face off against several enemies at once, and out of the five, Carlem and Castien were the only practitioners of this swordsmanship.

So it could only be said that he had confidence in the two.

Or that would have been the case if he hadn't witnessed what he had witnessed today.

His expectations had been shattered beyond belief.

With fighting skills that seemed to best even his royal knights, together with strange abilities he displayed such as being able to move and grip things with just slight gestures or generating red lightning from his hands, or destroying magic with a single slash of a sword.

Not to mention destroying Atures's sword with a single touch.

These were all things a normal child his age wouldn't be able to do.

It was either he was an unparalleled genius or happened to be a demon in disguise.

Especially after his hair had turned pitch black with a black and red around him. It seemed like he was an entirely different person.

Even though he had seen many cruel acts and things within his life, When he saw the smile on his face and the look in his eyes as he electrocuted Seph with his red lightning, he couldn't help but shudder.

It was an expression of pure madness and ecstasy unlike he had ever seen before.

Something about it couldn't help but rouse the fear deep within him.

This made him hesitate.

Would it be alright to leave Riveria in his hands?

---

Sweat dripped down the black-haired Ashur's face as the wounds slowly started to accumulate across his body.

But as the attacks piled onto him, his expression didn't change.

Even while the blood-soaked shard in Ashur's hand seemed to chip and crack.

His hand never stopped as attacks landed on him in rapid succession.

Barely avoiding them by the skin of his teeth.

But this didn't mean he was out of tricks yet.

While dodging, he discreetly extended his hand and several shards of Atures's sword were sent flying towards Castien from behind.

But this didn't escape from Carlem's keen eyes as he noticed his small gesture and instantly moved to deflect the shards.

But as soon as he turned around, Ashur threw the blood-soaked shard in his hand out like a dagger and it instantly shot out as The force propelled it like a bullet.

The speed was too fast for even Castien to react as it landed squarely into Carlem's back. Sending him flying forward.

But that wasn't all, as the dagger-like shard left and flew out of Ashur's hand, the black-haired Ashur swiped his bloodied hand forward as blood flew out and landed straight into Castien's face. Momentarily blinding him.

Red lightning gathered and swirled around his hand as he stuck forward.

But right at he was about to strike the final blow-

Fwung!

A pitch-black spear suddenly pierced straight through his knee and into the ground.

halfway across the arena, A strained Seph rapidly huffed up and down as he tried to support himself while sweat continued to pour down his face

"Don't..*hah* count me *hah* out so fast.."

Darkness consumed Ashur's vision as he finally felt his exhaustion finally reach it's peak as the swirling red lightning in his hand slowly started to fizzle out before his body crashed to the ground.