CHAPTER 85 - FIGHT FOR MY OWN AMBITION, MY OWN BELIEFS
LUKE HODGES POV:
I stared at the Lances who were arguing. All while the rest tried to get themselves back to their feet. Mica looked at me with a fiery expression in her eyes, telling me that perhaps I could be used as a punching bag if possible.
Feeling the shivers down my spine, I just shrugged the idea and continued to look back to Xyrus. Something was telling me that things are not right. Everything was feeling off, the weather, the ambient, the mana.
"You think just because he was your pupil we would let him walk free? He killed a Lance for gods sake-"
"There is no proof that he killed Aya! Do you hear yourself, Bairon? You sound like a paranoid child!"
Bairon took a second to say something, his eyes flared with anger as he was triggered by what Alea had said.
"Me, a paranoid child? Lance Alea I take it that you don't know but this boy just played around with us like we were anything but Lances!" He pointed to me, lightning already acting on his finger and arm.
"Actually, I was going all out trying to counter all of you but you guys live up to the title—"
"You should not speak when you are not spoken to." Lance Varay stated, covering my mouth with her ice deviant.
I tried saying other things but all they heard were my muffled words.
Lance Varay walked away from me and made her way to Alea, "There is no need to be wary, we were sent by the council and will by our orders take this boy into our custody until further notice."
Varay wasn't going to back down and much less to an elf of her status. She was trying to let Alea know that the council was in this whole situation and if she wanted to do something against the council's decision, she would be branded as a traitor.
Smart.
The human Lance turned on her heels and faced the direction I kept glancing towards. "Not only that, we have to resolve another problem since it is on our way to the tri-union floating castle. Xyrus academy has been infiltrated and there has been a barrier casted around the academy. They must want to use them as hostages for some unknown reason."
That's when Bairon walked up to me, showing off his authority of a Lance, trying to intimidate me. "So you distracted us from the academy and now have them in your hands?!"
Lightning burst out of his hand and shocked my body. I let out a loud noise of uncontrollable pain. I knew Bairon felt the satisfaction of my pain and now he knew he could use that excuse to make me suffer even more. Holding me by my collar, he broke me off my stuck legs on the ice that Varay had conjured; throwing me to the ground before I had a minute to rest and recover he was already unleashing another deviant spell towards me.
"You Wykes are all the same." I said. I dodged whatever spell Bairon had launched at me and got to my feet. I tried using Mana Rotation once more but it quickly failed on me.
Dammit, if only it were me!
I activated my Will, mana around me shifted into motes and became more sensitive to me, changing the surrounding from vibrant colors to monochromatic.
The shift in transitions took a little toll on me but I couldn't complain, if I were to do nothing, the Lances were capable of killing me or even worse; crippling me to the point where my progress and results were to be at square one.
Mica noticed the change in my appearance, charging up, she pulled out her giant earthen hammer and sprinted towards me or more like she levitated towards me, evading the ground.
"Not this time!" she stated, already being two feet away from me. Her hammer already to the top of her head, the sheer will of her gravity spell all over her body was affecting her surroundings. "This is Mica's world!" Implementing more gravity into her hammer, Mica swung her giant hammer down into the ground hoping her attack had landed on me.
I stood beside her, my eyes stuck to her looking at the mana around her. The earthen elements were all around her, they were favoring her like some… I don't know.
"Don't think just because–"
"I have no time to be here."
Kicking the petite Lance out of the ground and into seven trees next to the other Lances who were standing still watching Aya and Bairon's argument.
Varay was the first to step up, unleashing her ice spell to an extent where I couldn't handle if it were me a couple of years back. But that is not the case now, I am far stronger than her and every single one of them combined.
None of them can best me, perhaps they can beat me in magical experience but not combat experience. I've fought these Alacryans for half of my teen years and early years and I know that for sure. None of them have fought a single Alacryan, much less seen a Scythe.
And I have fought those, Alacryan and Scythes and ended up killing one.
Olfred stepped back and attended to his companion.
Alea and Bairon turned to where Olfred was headed before they turned to me and Varay.
"You see what I mean?" Bairon said before he headed off to where I was, already having his lightning spell ready and aiming towards me.
"You will now die brat." Bairon spoke before launching a lightning bolt towards me.
I noticed the spell's presence and kept Varay at bay, watching over her attacks with and without mana. Varay had conjured an ice blade and started to swing at me, trying to cut off my arm as I tried to reach for her neck and leg but I blocked it with my mana barrier. I was able to master it easily and conjure without much sweat.
When Bairon's lightning was four feet away from me, I ignited my ice magic and conjured a pillar twice the size of anyone in this area. Taking inspiration about the giant trees here in the Beast Glades. The Ice pillar took Bairon's attack like it was nothing and absorbed it, no breaking, no shattering.
Lance Varay tried to stand her ground as the ice pillar hit her from behind but it was too much for the poor Lance to withstand. I witnessed as the mana around her danced without any containment, almost like it was excited to be used by her. I found it astonishing as some people are favored by the mana particles and some are not.
However, this wasn't the time to be interested in why the mana was acting like that. I had a job right now and that was to get to Xyrus city, something was happening and I needed to know why.
The human girl Lance crashed against another thick tree that similarly resembled the pillar of ice I conjured. Not broken but instead reinforcing itself with the tree, the ice pillar developed itself into a prison for Lance Zero.
"One down." I calmly spoke while closing my hand into a fist continuously. Having this type of strength was out of this world, I would have never thought I would be fighting the Lances and actually winning back in my old world. "One more to go."
"What? You dare disrespect a Lance?!" Bairon was flabbergasted upon hearing me say that. He once more let his anger flare his power and even his mana which dance more vigorously every second that passed with him charging up his attack.
Alea and I only watched him.
Perhaps Alea couldn't move because of my victory against Varay but I didn't move because I wanted to see what Bairon was so proud of. I wanted to see what the Wykes were hyping up, whether it just be the name of a noble-man or just pure bark, it was all down to this man.
Was he the strongest human in the whole continent?
Maybe.
Yet, little did he know that there are way stronger beings than what he will ever be able to understand. Beings that are called god-killers for a reason. Generals that could level a city of dicathen if they were ordered to.
[Thunderlord's Wrath]
So it's this spell that he decided to show me.
I kept my cool and only watched his body being infused with lightning magic. I was ready to see the full extent of this power spell, but in the end it was just for my pure curiosity.
Bairon Wykes, the lance, the general, the one sole threat to anyone who would dare to hurt Lucas, launched himself from the peak of the Beast Glades to the bottom of the ground aiming for me.
Breaking the sound barrier, a sonic boom wave scattered away from us upon hitting the ground. The trees and the high-end grass shook violently before settling in like nothing happened.
"I see." With those words leaving my mouth I couldn't help but to see Bairon's face turn from pure pride to complete dissatisfaction and confusion. "Your 'Thunderlord's Wrath' was just an enchantment for you body, perhaps to multiply your attacks while you had this enchantment. But that's all there is, it is not an attack spell."
He stayed on his knees and arms to the ground trying to keep himself from fully dropping down to the ground. He was out of breath but then again he was a Lance, a general, and here he was out of breath and non-powerful like the novel had made it seem during the war.
"This is… pathetic." I laughed, a historical laugh. "Is this what a Lance can do? Is this up to your capacity?" Taking a step back I managed to see what was around me, everything around me had this sense that I was not meant to be here in the slightest but what are they to say that to me, to make me feel as if I am not something of an anomaly myself.
They are nothing… The Lances… Alacryans… Asuras… Alacrya… Dicathen… Epheotus… Nothing…
This power I was given… This knowledge of my past life as a normal human… The countless times I have read this world's words. I was not going to let this world make me feel like I didn't belong just because it threw everything to me. Ever since I was born, I had this fixation that maybe I had the power to change Arthur Leywin's life and destiny and yet as things went by, the years, everything was telling me that I couldn't change the course of his history and this world's history. I thought it was selfish of me to do so but now I have people I care about. The more I fought alacryans, the time where I met some Retainers and Scythes, told me that if I had no power or dedication to become stronger, everything would go worse than what the novel described.
The war between Dicathen and Alacrya would have happened earlier than what the novel intended it to be. The death of Arthur's father. Sylvie's sacrifice. Arthur becoming a Lance. Virion's time of loss. Alea's death. Aya's death. Every Lance that had to die because of my lack of ambition or power, it would lead to destruction because of me.
Whether I had to be a hero, a shadow for Dicathen, or even the villain, I made up my mind that I would fight for my own ambition, for my own beliefs now.
"Isn't that right?"
I turned to face behind me, where Alea stood. She stared at me like I had said something crazy. Then she heard the sound of a stick breaking behind her, turning and taking a step back did she finally realize what was going on.
"How– When did you master that technique?"
"Ever since I found out I was able to kill a Scythe."
Alea turned to where the me that fought the Lance once stood only to see how it disappeared into the air.