9. Battle Between Wits

What the hell do we do?

Nathanial glared at the three-star aura user with the end of his sword violently trembling in place. His grip tightened around the man’s wrist. Right now, he couldn’t let go. No matter what happened, he needed to keep the enemy aura user locked in place. Just long enough for Richard to come to his aid.

Yet, as Nathanial tried to stop him from moving, an unsettling feeling overwhelmed him. The man was slowly regaining control—pushing him back in a sheer contest of brute force.

The man grabbed onto the end of the iron blade and grinned. “So, is this the best the Kingdom has to offer?”

He snarled before pulling it aside and head-butting Nathanial’s skull. Blood dripped down from his forehead, but he held onto the enemy soldier.

“Do you think I’ll let you go so easily!” Nathanial locked eyes with the man and stomped on his left foot.

The enemy soldier groaned in pain with Nathanial’s iron sword inching closer to his throat. Even though the young Silverlight knew he couldn’t kill the man before him, that didn’t mean it was hopeless. If the archer before him had mastered his third aura star, then the energy wouldn’t shroud his entire body.

Instead of a wasteful glow, it would have focused on a limited area of his body.

The foe before them was still in the early stages of his mastery. Nathanial could take him down, but not alone. His arms shook as he wrestled to regain his bearings, but the Empire’s archer didn’t relent. A violent twist nearly broke Nathanial’s stance with a might that could snap limbs pulling in the opposite direction.

But before Nathanial’s arm gave way, Richard lunged from the side with an aura-clad blade in hand. He drove the sword forward, right into the vulnerable gap in the archer’s armor. Sparks of gold and crimson danced in the air. Yet, no matter how hard Richard tried, he couldn’t push the sharpened edge any deeper.

“What a tremendous amount of aura!” Richard gasped as his arm recoiled from the blast.

The archer shattered Nathanial’s sword before regaining control of his other arm. He pulled the young man’s wrist, flinging him toward Richard. With a metallic bang, their bodies collided. Their armor scraped against each other, and Nathanial couldn’t help but curse their misfortune.

“What’s the plan?” Richard whispered.

Nathanial watched their foe create distance. “Not sure, but I’m up for any ideas if you have one.”

Richard laughed before shaking his head. He revealed a faint smirk before tightening his grip on his shield. From their brief exchanges after their draft, Nathanial knew Richard had formed his second star. He was the only one right now who could harm the Empire’s patrol leader.

His eyes drifted to the other members of the Everheart patrol group. Many of their comrades still fought the ambushers, and Chris, their patrol leader, was currently facing off against another duo.

Nathanial and Richard had no one else to rely on. And the archer would hear any form of communication exchanged.

“Just go wild,” Nathanial said. “Don’t bother trying to cover for me.”

Richard raised a brow. “You sure? You could die with the slightest mistake.”

“We’re dead anyway if we fail. Just make whatever happens count.”

In a second, the archer closed the five-meter gap. The scarlet aura drew a narrow arc toward the midsection of their bodies. A shiver raced down Nathanial’s spine. Just as the slash connected, Richard pulled him back and raised his shield. A golden aura enveloped the surface, and a metallic bang erupted from the sheer force behind the strike.

Richard gritted his teeth and braced his body. His arms rocked from the immense force, and the sheer power almost sent him reeling backward, but just as he braced for a step back, Nathanial stood by his side, shoring him up.

Together, they resisted the pressure, but Nathanial knew they wouldn’t last.

He needed to think of something. Anything to change the current situation. However, the slightest mistake would kill them both. That was when, Nathanial heard it. A frightened yet courageous battle cry emerged from behind the abyss-cloaked archer.

The voice came from none other than Fredrick.

The last member of their trio.

“Over here, you bastard!”

Fredrick charged at the man and thrust his iron sword. The blade struck the black cloak, shrouded in aura, hardly making a dent. And at the sight, the man snarled before spinning on his heel and landing a back kick straight into Fredrick’s chest.

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With a single hit, the armor shattered. The realization that the man before them was a far more skilled aura user surfaced, and somehow they had to overcome this. Fredrick lay there on the ground, holding his stomach while gasping for air. Blood trailed down the corner of his mouth, and from that single strike, Nathanial knew his friend was done.

But he wouldn’t let the opening Fredrick created go to waste. In an instant, Nathanial rushed forward and swung his broken blade down at the man’s shoulder. It dug into the thin layer of aura shielding the cloak, but that was exactly what Nathanial wanted.

The archer’s shoulder slumped downward, weakening the man’s stance. Just enough for Richard to redirect his opponent’s blade to the side. Their foe’s expression hardened. Richard extended his other arm forward, propelling the blade closer and closer to the man’s chest.

And that was when Nathanial saw it.

The aura was shimmering faintly beneath his broken blade. Their adversary couldn’t cover his entire body after all. Just a vast majority, and when they did attempt to protect a large area, the other sections weakened.

Richard channeled as much aura as he could into the end of his sword. Golden light pulsed from the surface, and when the two forces clashed, a blast of air erupted in outward-moving waves, pushing the leaves on the nearby branches away.

Nathanial continued to bury his blade deeper into the archer’s shoulder. Cracks formed along the aura’s surface as the crimson energy flowed to the center of the man’s body. For once, a look of fear manifested in the archer’s eyes. He immediately fought to bring his sword back around, but before it could return—a dagger flew from behind him and dug into his forearm.