Welldark B1 Ch. 01

I was already making my way through the crowd by the time either of them could try to stop me. Not that I would have let them anyway. It was a slow but somewhat pleasing descent. Since people were still standing rather densely, I had to grind myself through an array of butts and breasts. I didn't get to enjoy it quite as much as I would in other situations, since I had something serious in mind for a change.

"...I am sorry, mother, I have failed your trust in my abilities," my ears picked up just as I was past the crowd. Aclysia's voice didn't echo throughout the entire room anymore, she and her mother were on the non-enchanted rim of the arena. Two security people stepped in front of me and made a halting gesture. Respectfully, I waited.

"You lost, but you didn't fail me. I checked the records and your loss is entirely understandable," Derilea's parental voice reassured her daughter. "Don't take it too hard." She took her eyes off Aclysia and spotted me immediately.

"Hello there," I said, raising my hands in a nonchalant greeting.

Neither of them seemed particularly amused that I interrupted their family moment. I didn't blame them for that, but I couldn't wait either. "What do you want, student?"

"I want to fight," I declared. "The right for my own mansion, I desire to earn it myself."

"You want to challenge my daughter now that she's weakened?" Derilea narrowed her eyes. "Such a cowardly tactic will not be-"

"Oh, no!" I quickly interrupted; this wasn't a misunderstanding that needed to linger. "Between us three white-haireds, that'd be pretty boring and unfair. Her Astrality is basically depleted." I based that assumption on a series of damages to her uniform that hadn't yet closed and revealed her snow white skin underneath. "I want to fight her," I pointed at Esther.

Due to procedures or for whatever other reason, the raven-haired woman was leaning against the wall that elevated the innermost seats above the walkway that surrounded the platform. Upon hearing that announcement, she looked over to me, her stoic gaze consistent. The way she quietly stared reminded me of an ambush predator. If she was surprised to see me there, she didn't show it.

Wrinkles appeared on Derilea's forehead and she sighed, "It's unusual, but we had this kind of challenge before... it would require the approval of the headmaster and the challenged party." First, she looked towards Taurus, who nodded stoically, then her gaze travelled over to Esther. "Would you be fine with this? You are under no obligation to accept. If you do, you stand no risk of losing what you already earned."

Esther kept leaning against the wall, arms crossed, chin lowered and pondering. Several strands of her wild hair had freed themselves from their confinement and nestled across her face, running oddly fittingly over the fine bridge of her nose. She raised her head and brushed those strands behind her ear. About half of them immediately decided that they didn't want to stay there and went back to lying across the ephemeral beauty of her face. "I accept," she kept her response concise.

"If you need some more time to regain your Astral Capacity, I am willing to wait," I offered but she was already pushing herself off the wall. Astral Capacity was just another word for Astrality. Mana would also have done it, but was generally regarded as a more archaic term.

"Wasting time is inefficient," she stated and we both made our way to the ring.

Taurus ascended before us, only to quickly break the situation down for the first years watching. Standing close to him, his deep voice felt like an avalanche "A student decided to challenge Esther to a duel and she accepted. His rewards and punishments remain the same." With those few words, the headmaster had communicated everything he thought he needed to.

I took a look around at the gathered student body. From down there, it all looked rather unimpressive to me. The mass of watchers was impersonal and distant, like background sprites in a video game. Regardless of appearances, they were, most of them, ladies that now had to take note of my existence. Sure, I wanted to help my friends to stay together, but I had selfish reasons for this path of action as well.

I wanted to leave an impression with any potential partners there were in this university. The most tantalizing of all transformed her Artefact again. A song of vibrating metal echoed in the air as the feather spread out into the conjoined blades once more. Personally, my attention lay with how that motion made her breasts jiggle. All my mind could think about how criminally perfect her breasts looked even under her clothes. They were easily large enough to make the girth of my dick entirely vanish between them. I didn't dwell on that thought. If I wanted to win, I couldn't be distracted by her beauty.

"Are you not going to prepare yourself?" she asked, probably perturbed that my own Artefact was nowhere to be seen. It could easily be seen as me either making a fool out of myself or not taking her seriously. Granted, the latter would have preceded the former.

I raised my hand to make clear that I needed a second, then readjusted my pants so they sat as comfortable as they could. "I'll be ready in a moment," I said and closed my eyes. I visualized a change in the world, a distortion in the space around me. The world bent the slightest bit to my will, at the cost of my Astrality. Suddenly, there was a weight in my right hand and I came to see a weapon in my hand.

In shape, it was just like Esther's, two conjoined blades, one a long sabre the other a short sword. The colour was completely off, however. It was a silvery white, drawing the outline of the edges and runes on the translucent surface. At the core, concentrations of light shone like tiny stars, connected through thin lines. It was a copy of her Artefact, one that looked like I had formed a constellation of it and ripped it out of the night sky.

Testing, I swung it a few times. "Since I already figured out your Artefact's abilities, it's only fair that I give you the details on mine," I announced. Personally, I didn't mind the entire student body knowing about my Artefact. It wasn't the kind of gimmick that could be hidden for too long anyway. I did skip my realization about hers though, since I didn't want to step on her toes or anything like that. "I-"

"Stop," Esther interrupted me at the first word, dropping her fighting stance as she realized this conversation would take a bit longer. "First verify if you got my abilities correct," she lifted her tricorne for a moment, putting it back on in a manner that better tamed her hair. "An equal confrontation would be honourable. Demonstrate that you have correctly observed my Artefact and I will hear about yours. Fairness is a virtue."

There was a sharp undertone in that last sentence, a warning that she would let me have hell if I was lying about anything. "Alright then, if you are fine with everyone knowing," I shrugged and weighed the copy of her weapon in hand. "To put it basically, your Artefact manipulates time in two different ways." I glided the index finger of my left hand over the runes on the sabre, mine were only glowing due to the material the entire thing was made from "The main blade is used to take you back a number of seconds, restoring your position and maybe even your Astral Capacity to that moment." That alone was already an outrageously good ability, so the people watching started mumbling once again.

A mumbling that grew louder when Esther confirmed what I had said so far. "Correct," her tone was as direct and stern as always, softened by her velvety voice. The envy of people around was graspable. Any ability that restored Astral Capacity was immensely powerful. The resource was required for basically every action, offensive and defensive alike.

"The shorter blade's ability, I am not quite sure about," I admitted. "It seems you're accelerating yourself or slowing the world down. Either way, I hope that I'm wrong and that there is a bit more to it."

She slightly tilted her head, "Why is that, good enemy?" Although it sounded a bit antiquated, the way she called me 'good' was just goose-bump inducing. It had nothing of the playful way people called dogs good, just a sign of respect.

"Because, if you keep moving quicker in comparison to the rest of time, you will age quicker. I would hate to see your gorgeous face wrinkle ahead of time," I answered outright with a flirtatious wink. "The rest of your body, as well, I would love to see firm for as much of eternity as is possible. I love myself the size that jiggles and slumps a bit, but the sagging from age isn't quite as aesthetically pleasing."

Most of the room was baffled. The usual reaction and also as stupid as usual. They were all thinking it anyway, I was just honest enough to put it into words. Much to my (very pleasant) surprise, Esther was chuckling into her raised hand, however. Something that only reinforced that adoration I felt for her since I first saw her.

"A crude reason," her tone broke a little, reflecting her amusement. Her singing accent continued on to make all of her words the audio equivalent of being presented with an oiled up ass for a post breakfast workout. "You need not worry, neither do I seem to age in those instances nor am I of a species that will encounter that issue at any early point in the future."

"Splendid, the bags of hopes and dreams are safe," I mumbled, the magic engineering still carrying it all across the hall. Somewhere up there, I could guess that Willt was shaking his head in vicarious embarrassment. "Well then, let me tell you what I can do," I weighed her weapon in my hand. "My own Artefact... are my eyes," I revealed, pointing up to my head.

Just because Artefacts tended to take the shape of items didn't mean that it was a hard rule. In very rare cases, they replaced a body part. That came with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Being unable to be lost in battle was an example of the former, having a massive dragon claw the latter. Lucky for me, mine was rather inconspicuous, for the most part.

"With them, I can manipulate space to a limited degree. I can materialize items from my imagination, teleport, create small distance portals, those kinds of things."

"THAT IS SUCH BULLSHIT!" I heard a certain red succubus scream from the top of her lungs. Smiling in her general direction, I gave her the nicest display of my pearly white teeth. It only caused a second, wordless roar of anger to emerge. She was such a cutie when she was angry.

"If you want a drawback, it's that it all costs me Astral Capacity, particularly this," I waved around the copy of Esther's artefact. "Matter materialization is no joke, you know. I mean, I get a lot of it back when I dismiss the item, but still!" I turned my charming grin over to the tricorne-wearing lady. "You control time, I got space, I say the two of us were meant to find each other."

"Perhaps," Esther sounded more sceptical about this or perhaps she just didn't have any strong feelings on such arbitrary connections. Maybe I was just misinterpreting her stern tone. "Have you said all you wish?" Although she gave me the option to refute that, she took a fighting stance. Hips lowered, legs bent, one arm extended forwards for balance, the other back, weapon at the ready.

"I suppose so," I answered, copying the pose. I felt like a bit of drama was adequate at this point, "Let's have an intimate dance then, Esther, only you and I, to the song of magic and might." We both crouched slightly and got ready to begin.

I was not going to have a series of slow engagements like the previous fight had been. Many things could be said about me and one of them was that I was a committed fellow. Charging aggressively over the field, I set out to test my copy against the original as quickly as possible.

I put the force of my entire body behind an overhead strike, aiming to use what height I had on her to my advantage. Our weapons clashed and locked, Esther hadn't even tried to dodge. Our muscles strained, as I slowly pushed her down. In a contest of raw strength, it seemed I had the advantage. 'Good to know,' I thought. Normal human expectancy about strength related to size and weight could not be solely relied upon when different races and magical enhancements were involved.

It seemed she had engaged so willingly to test the same thing. Now that she had found out that I would win in a situation like this, She would avoid it for the rest of combat. The rapid movement of her eyes alerted me to the fact that she was aiming to end this current lock. The runes on her shortsword drained away and the bell-like ringing of her blades separating came when I was already retreating. The stab at my gut was just a few centimetres short.

Although I did dodge that attack, I cut into my own arm with the copy of her weapon in the process. I knew my way around a regular sword, but the length of the entire thing made it feel similar to a spear, while the double-tipped nature made most regular slashes difficult.

Esther noticed my struggle to handle her weapon and immediately chased after me. Assaulting me with a constant barrage of quick slashes with both of her blades, she forced me back step by step. She must have remembered the time it had taken her to get used to the unusual shape, as she knew exactly how to exploit every last beginner's error I made. I had to cede the entire ground my initial charge had granted me. Ground she had freely given and was now conquering as if it had always been hers.

I put both hands on the handle in an attempt to split my own copy of her weapon. Two separate swords, I could handle a lot better. She didn't give me the time to just do it, of course, lunging straight at me. I relaxed and closed my eyes, for just a bit longer than a blink. Enough time for her to stab me, had I remained in place. Instead, when I opened my eyes again, I was behind Esther, the two of us standing back to back. With a massive tug, I separated the blades and turned around to attack.

Just like she had struck air when I teleported, so did I now find the sabre cut through nothing. Esther instantly appeared two steps back in her time, to my left. I hadn't committed fully to my attack for exactly that reason, keeping the shortsword raised at her new angle of attack. I blocked and she resumed her relentless assault. Our blades reverberated with every clash. The notes of my blades were far removed from metal, sounded more like the rim of a glass being circled with a wet finger. The song kept shaping, as I moved my copied weapons to parry a continuing flurry of blows. Step by step, she forced me backwards, never locking our blades for long enough to allow a contest of strength.

I didn't have much more space to retreat into, thus I stood my ground and went on a swift offensive. Sabres crossed, we both went ahead and attempted to stab each other with the short sword. However, she was quicker, both in speed and in reaction, knocking my weapon out of my hand. Her window to wound me was open, the tip of her blade coming for my side. I closed my eyes,and let the Astral Capacity drain from me. The shortsword vanished in a portal. A second opened a moment later, with a sound like shattering glass.

Esther jumped back when the sword re-emerged above her head, falling like the sword of Damocles always threatened to. The small portals I made immediately vanished again and I caught the blade in its fall. I wished the portals came with less of a delay or cost, but then they would have made things a bit too easy.

"This is a pretty difficult weapon to handle," I once more weighed both halves in my hand, the sabre's blade was heavier than the handle by a longshot. It made it even harder to swing correctly, but added a lot more force to the impact. By contrast, the shortsword was just light overall, barely noticeable, making it quick but easy to swing in too wide an arch. "On a good day, dual wielding takes getting used to, but even in the one-handed state it has its own complicated set of moves... impressive that you can wield it so accurately."

"This is no place for compliments," Esther stated, although she was smiling that little bit. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was having as much fun in this as I was. "We can exchange pleasantries after this."

That sounded wonderful. "Is that a promise?" I couldn't help but imagine 'exchange pleasantries' to translate to 'getting to fondle her big, bouncy, beautiful chest'. Pretty doubtful that that was what she had in mind, but I was still in mental jubilation when she nodded. "Alright then, then I should stop fooling around like this."

My eyes closed and I imagined the type of weapon I normally worked with. My mimic of her weapons disappeared, was reabsorbed into my Astral Capacity and quickly reshaped into something new. It wasn't anything to sing home about, easily created due to familiarity and simplicity. Fast enough to block the scissoring strikes of Esther, aimed straight at my neck. The unequal twin blades grinded against the backs of my clenched fists. Silver-white, scaled gauntlets now protected both of my arms up to the shoulders.

"You can be pretty cheeky," I smiled, I hadn't taken her for the type that would take advantage of me closing my eyes whenever I used my ability. Good for me that I still had taken safety precautions out of sheer habit. Having to close one's eyes regularly in the middle of combat caused some healthy paranoia.

Esther's lips curved a bit further, revealing her meticulous, white rows of teeth in a charming display of danger. She did have long canines, I noticed. Not quite on the vampire levels, but more defined than the average human.

"You are too able to not take advantage of your weaknesses!" Esther's tranquil tone finally broke for one moment of excitement. The challenge between us had now started in earnest. My Astral Capacity had been diminished and she had gotten to observe my abilities in their basic application, levelling the playing field. Now we were both using the weapons of our choice and giving it our all.

Esther backed off just enough to raise her short sword. Accelerated, she turned her weapon around and stabbed downwards.

The strike was too fast to be avoided. I decided to take the forward route and rammed into her with my left shoulder. Rather than the meat between neck and shoulders, the blades scraped over the back of my ribcage. The pain made it rather difficult to enjoy the fact that I was pressing against her chest, squishing against the heavenly pillows located there. As much as I liked the little taste of it that I got, this was still combat and she wasn't so weak that I could afford fooling around. With a powerful punch in the guts, I made her fly backwards.

I had to force her time shift out of her. The fact that it was both teleport and healing meant that she had to sacrifice one to use the other with maximum effectiveness and I'd rather have to deal with her recovering from a few punches than with her appearing out of nowhere. Esther knew this just as well. Shrugging off the pain, she conjoined her weapons again.

While stabilizing her stance she conjured her electrical magic and sent several waves of it in my direction. Screaming, the bolts of lightning flew towards me. I managed to dodge two of them, willingly taking the hit of a third to bridge the distance as quickly as I could. Bits of my shirt burned away and were mostly restored by my Astral Body.

She met my charge with a lunge towards my chest. The smart target, I had a fairly broad chest. Sure, a hit to the head could decide a fight immediately, but it was much harder to hit a smaller surface that most people guarded instinctively.