Trial by Blood (Part 2)
His father’s order was simple: go out there and die.
The young master of Parma refused to accept it. He thrashed wildly, screaming that he would never obey.
The knight commander sighed as he forced the vanguard equipment onto the struggling noble.
“There’s no need to look so hopeless. No matter how powerful Marquis Lawrence is as an archmage, a mage is still a mage. A vanguard unit equipped with force gear is more than capable of standing against him.”
“You call that comfort?”
“It’s not comfort. I’m telling you how to survive. Or do you plan to hide in the corner like a coward, trembling until they cut off your head?”
“What?”
“Hiding here changes nothing. The only outcome is becoming a sacrifice for their revenge.”
He was right.
Whether he died out there or died here, the result was the same.
Yet the knight commander offered the young master a faint glimmer of hope.
“But what if, by some miracle, you use the advantages of the vanguard armor and exploit Marquis Lawrence’s carelessness to kill him?”
“……”
“Marquis Lawrence has no wife and no legitimate heir. The territorial war would end the moment he dies. Our victory. You, young master, would become the hero of the viscounty. Do you understand?”
It was a tempting offer.
But Jeris Parma was not foolish enough to swallow the words whole.
“Do you really think I’d fall for that? You’re treating me like a complete idiot!”
The knight commander gave a small chuckle and nodded.
“I know you aren’t that clever.”
“Knight commander!”
“No need to shout. I can hear you perfectly. As I said earlier, it was only a ‘one-in-a-million’ possibility. If you manage to defeat Marquis Lawrence, that would be ideal. And even if you die trying, it would still be an honorable death.”
“An honorable death?”
“Yes. There’s a world of difference between dying pathetically under everyone’s curses and dying while stepping forward to protect your territory. I don’t need to explain which is more noble.”
Jeris Parma ground his teeth.
His resistance finally weakened. The knights quickly finished fitting the force equipment onto him, then locked their arms through his on either side to prevent any escape.
“Let go. Before I kill you.”
“Ugh!”
Jeris Parma summoned his aura and violently shook the knights off.
“Damn it all.”
He panted with uncontrollable rage for a long time before snatching the whiskey bottle from the table and gulping it down.
The knights moved to restrain him again, but the commander stopped them.
Once the alcohol had steadied his emotions, Jeris Parma spoke with eyes full of venom.
“Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll put on the clown show you all want.”
Fitting force equipment on someone whose mind was in chaos was dangerous.
There was always the risk that Jeris Parma might try to escape while wearing the vanguard armor.
“I will live. I’ll kill that damned Adrian and survive no matter what. And then I won’t let any of you get away with this.”
But Jeris Parma could not run.
The knight commander was already fully armed in vanguard gear, and every soldier prepared to escort him was also wearing one.
So Jeris Parma ground his teeth and reluctantly followed behind the commander.
“If you truly defeat Marquis Lawrence, young master, I will gladly accept any punishment.”
“Yes… that’s how it should be.”
Seeing the young master burning with murderous intent, the knight commander and his men began to wonder if there was, perhaps, a chance.
After all, vanguards weren’t called mage-killers for nothing. Their overwhelming offensive and defensive power was famous.
Even if Adrian was an archmage, if he looked down on Jeris Parma and let his guard down, a miracle might still be possible.
However…
-Kwaaaaang!
-Slice! Swish! Clang!
The moment they saw Adrian and Arsia single-handedly overwhelming the viscounty’s vanguard forces, every last shred of false hope shattered into dust.
“What… what the hell is that?”
The sight of a female knight slicing through everything in her path and a mage bombing vanguards into oblivion looked like a scene from a movie. It didn’t feel real.
The vanguard equipment connected him to the unit’s communication network, flooding Jeris Parma’s ears with countless screams.
“This is what an archmage and an aura master look like?”
He had always heard that mages were prey for vanguards, and that an aura master wearing force equipment could be handled easily if there were enough numbers.
This was common sense. Everyone knew it.
But seeing it in person made him realize that common sense depended entirely on the person.
Gulp…
The two figures before him possessed an entirely different level of presence.
Even as dozens of blue force beams rained down relentlessly, none could pierce the defenses of Adrian or Arsia.
In the slightest opening, the instant their coordination faltered, pure white aura blades and sixth- and seventh-circle spells struck at unavoidable angles.
Even while fighting back-to-back, Adrian and Arsia moved like a single organism, perfectly covering each other’s blind spots and slaughtering their enemies.
“Hey, Commander. You’re joking, right? You want me to go in there?”
“This is ridiculous…”
Arsia’s aura blade, further strengthened by her force sword, cut through everything in its path.
Anything that lay in the trajectory of her swing—whether buildings or vanguards—was sliced cleanly in two and collapsed.
[Aaaagh! My arm!]
But the real problem was Adrian.
They had thought an archmage would at least be manageable.
Mages were known for powerful attacks, but they suffered from casting delays and clumsy movements in close combat—fatal weaknesses.
That common sense simply did not apply to Adrian.
He dodged the vanguard attacks with nimble, minimal movements like a martial artist, cast spells at the same time, and unleashed grand magic at zero range whenever he wished.
[Gaaah!]
[M-monster!]
Being cut in half suddenly seemed like a merciful end.
Anything was better than being crushed into pulp by Adrian’s hand.
In the end, the vanguards of the Parma Viscounty lost all will to fight after facing just two people.
-Kwaaaaaang!
-Kiiiiiii!
-Rumble rumble rumble!
At the same time, three sky fortresses from the Lawrence Marquisate—which held the numerical advantage—charged forward and rammed the Parma sky fortress with their hulls, sending it flying.
A million tons of mass scraped past the viscount’s castle above Jeris Parma’s head, spewing lava-like sparks before crashing beyond the city limits.
BOOM!
Rumble…
The world shook as if the end of days had come.
And within that violently swaying scenery…
“Well, who do we have here?”
Jeris Parma’s eyes met Adrian’s piercing blue ones.
“Adrian.”
The apocalyptic landscape somehow felt more realistic than this moment.
The blood-soaked scene he was experiencing for the first time was more horrific and shocking than he could have imagined.
[We surrender! We surrender!]
[P-please spare us! I don’t want to die!]
When the Lawrence vanguards arrived and surrounded them, the Parma forces dropped their force swords and surrendered.
“I thought you’d be hiding somewhere… This is unexpected, Jeris Parma.”
Adrian walked forward with an innocent smile, now free to move without interference.
Arsia approached beside him with a completely expressionless face, making Adrian’s smile look all the more eerie.
Thud.
“Huh?”
At that moment, someone shoved Jeris Parma from behind, forcing him to take a step forward.
The distance between him and the two monsters shrank even further.
When he looked back, the once-confident knight commander was now pale with terror. He bit his lip and gestured desperately for him to go.
Jeris Parma squeezed his eyes shut and shouted with all the courage he could muster.
“Adrian Lawrence! I challenge you to a one-on-one duel!”
It was a request no honor-conscious noble could ignore.
But Adrian was different from ordinary nobles.
“Ha, what is this lunatic saying?”
Snap!
Adrian answered with a snort and a flick of his fingers.
Shrieeeek!
A single black shadow streaked down from the sky like a brush stroke, grazing right in front of Jeris Parma.
“Huh?”
Before he could understand what had happened, a burning sensation flared in his left shoulder. When he turned to look…
Splurt!
There was only a fountain of blood where his arm should have been.
He blinked blankly.
The moment he registered the injury, unbearable pain crashed over him and he screamed.
“Aaaaaagh! I’m dying! Aaaargh!”
A moment later, a massive eagle with wings spread wide appeared behind Adrian.
The bird was enormous—its wingspan easily exceeded two meters.
It held the severed arm in its talons. The force sword, still attached to its sheath and strap, was tangled with it.
“I took out a seventy-trillion-route loan to buy new weapons recently. Looks like I’ll be able to pay it back quickly. There are vanguard sets lying everywhere, and a sky fortress rolling around in the backyard. Oh, and the highlight will probably be your family’s treasure vault, right?”
“Ugh! You… you planned this from the start?”
“Call it killing two birds with one stone. Revenge, money, and a nice bonus. Perfect.”
When Adrian flicked his fingers again, the black eagle soared high into the sky and vanished.
Terrified that the bird might attack again, Jeris Parma collapsed onto his backside.
Adrian approached the fallen man and tapped his cheek lightly with the magic staff he was holding.
“Second rib, left humerus, scaphoid, talus.”
“W-what?”
“The bones you broke in my body.”
“……”
“If it had only been fractures, I could have endured it. My patience is quite strong. But you already know, don’t you? You tormented me mentally far too much. Even I have my limits.”
A ghostly chill crept into Arsia’s previously expressionless face. She looked ready to draw her sword at any moment. Adrian gently stopped her.
“You won’t be dying easily.”
“Hic… please… forgive…”
Adrian smiled faintly and cast a recovery spell on the pale, blood-drained man.
Just enough to stop the bleeding.
He ordered his subordinates to take good care of Jeris Parma, then walked toward the retreating knight commander.
“S-shall I guide you to the lord’s office?”
Adrian nodded at the knight commander’s offer.
“How kind of you.”
“I am unworthy of such praise.”
Only thirty minutes had passed since the war began.
And just like that, the battle against the Parma Viscounty came to an end.
“I didn’t expect to have company here.”
Countess Elfrid, the Brigham Empire’s intelligence chief and a seventh-circle archmage, had sneaked into the Parma Viscounty right before the battle began. She narrowed her eyes at the familiar voice and turned around.
“Duchess Olivia Riberdale, I presume?”
Standing where their gazes met was an unexpected heavyweight—Olivia Riberdale, a key noble of the Lucias Kingdom and fellow archmage.
“And you must be Countess Elfrid, the intelligence chief of the Brigham Empire?”
Brilliant golden hair and bright yellow eyes.
Olivia Riberdale’s appearance was as dazzling as her hair color. Anyone who didn’t know her would have mistaken her for a celebrity.
Yet the black-haired, crimson-eyed Countess Elfrid standing before her was equally stunning. Passersby on the street tilted their heads, wondering if a photoshoot was taking place.
“Ladies! There might be a war soon, so please evacuate—hiiik!”
A kind middle-aged man tried to warn them, but the two women vanished like ghosts, nearly scaring him to death.
“Nice spot.”
Using blink magic, Elfrid and Olivia had moved to the rooftop of a high-rise building.
Ziiing!
The sky fortress above detected their mana and cast a search spell.
However, the fortress’s detection magic identified the two as local residents and returned to standby mode.
“Not bad.”
“You as well.”
The two women complimented each other on evading the sky fortress’s surveillance, then narrowed their eyes with suspicion.
“Now that I think about it, Marquis Lawrence was a disciple of the Riberdale school, wasn’t he? Did you come to support your junior?”
“Hardly. Would it be appropriate for a foreign nation to interfere in a territorial war? It would only bring dishonor to the disciple. I could at least claim I came to cheer, but what brings the Brigham Empire’s intelligence chief here?”
“I happened to see the news and found it personally interesting.”
“Personal interest? Truly?”
“Of course.”
On the surface, the Brigham Empire and the Lucias Kingdom maintained a symbiotic relationship. But sharing a long border meant they could turn on each other at any moment.
Sparks flew between the two women as their nerves clashed.
“You didn’t come all this way because you suspect Marquis Lawrence isn’t truly a disciple of the Riberdale school, did you?”
“Please refrain from strange accusations. He is indeed our disciple. Every piece of evidence he presented was undeniably genuine.”
The sharp question carried weight.
In truth, Duchess Olivia Riberdale still could not completely believe that Adrian was her father’s disciple.
She had come to observe the territorial war with equal parts curiosity and doubt.
But she revealed none of it outwardly, so Elfrid could not determine whether she was telling the truth.
Then Olivia launched her counterattack.
“The Lheinhatz Kingdom and our Lucias Kingdom are allies. If you’re thinking of dragging Marquis Lawrence into the empire, I suggest you stop. We cannot simply stand by and watch.”
“As I said before, this is purely personal interest. Though I won’t deny that I’m also gathering information.”
Both women had accurately pinpointed each other’s intentions, as if they could read minds.
“……”
“……”
But the tension lasted only a moment.
They both knew that no amount of questioning or rebuttal would make the other yield what they wanted. Their war of nerves quickly lost its intensity.
“Then let’s leave it at that.”
“I agree. There’s no point in growling at each other. We’d only tire ourselves out.”
A truce was declared. After that, the two women remained aware of each other but exchanged no further words.
How much time had passed?
Crackle!
Both archmages, sensitive to mana, sensed encrypted teleportation coordinates spreading across the Parma Viscounty.
It was a space-movement interference spell.
A standard tool of modern warfare used to prevent enemy surprise attacks and escapes.
And the deployment of this spell meant…
The war had begun.
“There they are.”
Soon, three massive flying saucers—sky fortresses—appeared in the far distance, slowly approaching the city.
“They aren’t giving us even a moment’s rest. Charging straight in.”
“Wait… is that Marquis Lawrence?”
“Good heavens…”
“No matter how advantageous the situation is, advancing alone while leaving his own vanguards behind is too reckless.”
“The woman beside him must be his fiancée, Countess Klein, the aura master.”
Perched dangerously on the building’s railing and using far-sight magic, the two women held a conversation that sounded more like a live broadcast.
They had been at each other’s throats when they first met, yet now they wore identical expressions of concern over Adrian’s recklessness.
But then—
“Huh?”
“Hah…”
When they witnessed Adrian and Arsia breaking through the viscounty’s defensive line alone and completely overpowering the enemy vanguard unit, both Duchess Olivia Riberdale’s and Countess Elfrid’s faces hardened like stone.
“What… what is that?”
“……”
Adrian’s combat style could be called innovative in a positive light.
In a negative light, it was heretical.
A mage engaging in close-quarters combat? They had neither seen nor heard of anything like it.