Chapter 108: False Accusation
As a few of the spikes struck Seraphina's legs, a sharp wave of pain coursed through her veins like a bitter flame searing the inside of her skin. It hurt deeply, yet she did not pause even for a moment. Instead, she pushed her body harder and moved with an even more stunning speed. Her entire silhouette blurred in the air until even her hair lost its shape, turning into a soft streak of pale blue that drifted with her movements. It looked like a living thread of lightning weaving itself between the countless spikes rising and falling around her. Through it all, the sparks of her magic continued to dance across her figure and light the air around her.
She could move like that only because none of the spikes had managed to pierce her armor. They had not torn through her flesh, though several strikes bent the plates in places. Each impact pressed against her skin with immense force, as if a heavy weight had slammed into her body. That was the true cause of the pain spreading through her limbs.
As she cut down another line of spikes that hissed toward her, a thought flickered in her mind. Was her opponent too immature with his magic to pierce through? Or was it the nature of his element that made such precision impossible? Perhaps it was simply that her armor had too high an endurance to give in. She had never tested it against this kind of magic before, so she could not say for sure.
And then, just as she was beginning to think of her next move, the spikes suddenly stopped coming at her altogether, and for the first time since the clash began she felt a weight press on her body that was not from the strikes but from her own exhaustion. Her hands trembled slightly from the endless swings of her sword, her arms ached deeply from the constant tension of cutting, and her chest rose and fell with heavier breaths that she had not taken in a long time. Her cloak was torn in several places with small holes scattered across it, her armor bore scratches and dents where the earth had slammed against it, and her body itself carried the strain of too much movement in too short a time.
Taking in a soft breath she pushed herself backward with a dash and then climbed swiftly onto a nearby tree, settling on one of its thick branches where she leaned against the trunk and allowed her sword to support her body as she drew another heavy breath. Her eyes wandered slowly across the ground below to catch any sign of movement, yet there was nothing there, at least nothing that she could see for the moment.
She had already suspected that he was hiding under the ground with the help of his element, and now with the silence she was all but certain of it. Those gauntleted hands that had risen before must have been his, and the proof was in the blood that still lingered on the edge of her blade. The greater problem however was not about finding him, since she was sure she could force him out again, but about how she was supposed to defeat him while he held such an advantage beneath the earth, now that she knew his element was indeed earth.
That was the actual problem, since her lightning could not pass through the ground to freeze him in place if he chose to remain hidden underneath for as long as he liked. Though even under the soil he would still need to breathe, which was likely the reason his attacks had suddenly halted just now, perhaps his body had reached its own limit before hers.
"Even if he shows himself…" she murmured inside her thoughts.
But before that thought could finish the ground began to twist and shift, and in the middle of the field the soil rose into a strange shape, curling and turning until it formed a large egg made entirely of mud.
She narrowed her eyes as she watched it swell, and when it finished forming the shell cracked and collapsed into the earth again, spilling mud back into the ground and leaving only a figure standing at the center.
Her eyes focused sharply on what emerged, and at first glance she thought, "What? What kind of nasty creature is that… no, it seems it is actually him. But what in the world is this supposed to be?"
Caelum now stood before her, his body covered entirely in a thick layer of mud that clung to him like a grotesque armor. It seemed he had desperately tried to shape it into something resembling protective plates, but instead it looked like heavy clay plastered to his figure, and even his face was half covered in that mess, though not completely.
When his eyes locked with hers he gave a grin and spoke with mocking delight, "Are you done hiding, Lady? Come on, come on, fight me… why act like such a coward…"
Seraphina exhaled sharply and her thoughts hardened, "He even managed to forge an armor from mud… it looks filthy and disgusting, yet it may still be troublesome if I allow it. My regular spells will not work on him, that much is certain, and if I resort to my superior techniques with sword or magic I might kill him, and that is not what I need right now."
Meanwhile Caelum continued to sneer, "Aren't you supposed to be the fearsome Captain of the Knight Order? Look at you now, hiding in a tree like a coward. Just look at yourself… how pathetic, and yet people actually fear you. Though, to tell you the truth, I never thought in my whole life that I would have the chance to face you directly, let alone defeat you, but here I am now and I feel more confident in my power than ever before."
Her eyes grew colder as she gazed down at him, and her voice inside her heart was filled with bitter restraint, "I think I should simply kill him. Never in my life did I think that I would ever miss a certain someone in a situation such as this… ah, whatever, I cannot afford to let my thoughts wander to that idiotic husband of mine. I should be thinking of the situation at hand. If his power allows him to turn the whole ground into mud then even my speed will not save me from being dragged under. And worse than that I cannot unleash my full strength against him, because if I am careless it will end his life too quickly. That is the worst part about fighting a human opponent. Yet who says I cannot still take what I need from him, even if I cut a few of his limbs away, he will still be able to speak. After all, I need answers, and that is the only reason I am holding back now."
"Ugh… why am I even thinking like Arwyn… that lunatic has affected me far more than I realized."
As those thoughts swirled inside her the ground shifted again and from around his body several coils of mud began to rise. They twisted upward into the air and sharpened into jagged and vicious spikes, and with a sharp motion of his hand they shot forward, his face curling into an irritating smile as he sent them flying.
The spikes streaked through the air and in an instant they were before her, ready to pierce her flesh.
But before they could reach her she leapt to a higher branch above, her movements swift enough to evade them, yet she did not have even a second of rest because another wave had already risen and this time his aim was at the entire tree itself.
"It is truly irritating…" she thought, her gaze hardening. "I am done hiding like a coward."
With that her body once again radiated into countless sparks of lightning, each of them dancing wildly around her frame as though the air itself was trembling, and this time instead of dodging backward with care she suddenly threw herself forward with a terrifying speed that made her movements appear as though even the spikes rising from the earth were sluggish and slow.
Her sword swung without hesitation, sometimes cutting through the jagged tips that threatened her path, sometimes throwing them aside with a quick motion of her arm, and other times when the angles grew too narrow she simply leapt upward to let them strike nothing but empty air beneath her boots. To her eyes it was not much of a challenge, it was as if those obstacles were nothing but trivial stones scattered on the road she was meant to pass.
Yet as she sprinted across the ground, the earth itself trembled once more and several rough spikes erupted in front of her, rising upward like a wall to block her advance and keep her from drawing closer to him. But instead of wasting her strength cutting them down Seraphina shifted her weight and in an instant her body soared as she landed on the sharp tip of one of the jagged pillars, balancing with a grace so effortless that the air around her seemed to freeze.
Nothing happened.
The spike did not pierce her, nor did her armor falter beneath its sharpness.
Her cold voice murmured as her eyes glimmered faintly. "As suspected... these spikes may be sharp enough to bite against flesh but they are not capable of tearing through my armor... well, that is fortunate enough."
From then on she moved with greater certainty, weaving between the earthen strikes, letting them scrape and clang against her armor without consequence. None of them truly harmed her, though when they did connect it left dents and nasty marks across her plated surface. Still, with each passing second the distance between her and him closed.
She dashed forward, her sword flashing, and once again just at the last moment he managed to block the strike as though guided by some hidden instinct.
It was not as though she had been merely swinging her blade without thought. Every exchange, every clash had been as much a study as it was an assault. She had been watching, she had been observing, she had been patient enough to let his nature reveal itself in fragments. That was why she had not yet delivered the decisive blow. There was something strange about the way he fought.
Each time her blade cut for him he seemed unaware until the instant before it reached him, and yet at that instant he dodged or blocked without fail. It was peculiar, unnatural even, as if he moved with senses beyond his own body. She was even certain that if she threw lightning itself he might still evade, and besides, such strikes would do little against something made of mud and dirt. What purpose was there in wasting strength on attacks that could be turned away at the very last moment?
That was the very reason she changed her approach.
Instead of pressing him into retreat with heavy blows, she allowed her sword to dance without pattern, her arms moving in a storm of strikes that came from every direction at once. Her blade flashed from the right, then slashed low from the left, then again from the left but higher, then from the center, then twisted to the right, then crashed downward, then swept again to the left, then upward in a desperate arc, then downward once more. It was as if she had abandoned every shred of technique and style, becoming a beast that fought from raw instinct alone, a creature with no form, no discipline, no thought except survival.
The sound of steel shrieking against steel echoed across the empty field, ringing sharp in the silence of night.
A faint smile touched her lips. "What do you know... it is actually working."
The storm of unrestrained blows overwhelmed him. Though his instincts guided him, though he tried to block as he always had, her speed and her unpredictability forced mistakes upon him. He could not keep up with the rhythm, he could not shield himself from every angle, and so her blade began to land.
Shallow cuts appeared across his armor, scratches first, then slashes that slipped past his defense. His chest, his neck, even his face bore the marks of her sword, not deep enough to be lethal but enough to sting, enough to remind him that he could bleed. And that was precisely what she wanted. His armor denied her the clean kill, her strikes lost their lethality when they met that muddy protection, and what could have been fatal turned into wounds that were merely wounds. Slowly, steadily, they accumulated.
If he were a monster of equal strength it might have taken only seconds for her to end him, but against a human body with extraordinary defense she was forced to chip away little by little. That was why she despised these battles, she always hated when fragile men hid behind armor so thick it made them last longer than they deserved.
And then it happened.
When he finally gave up on blocking one of her wild side slashes and stepped aside, Seraphina's body darted forward without pause. Her sword arced through the air in a wide sweep, its edge glinting as it carved across the space he had just vacated.
For a heartbeat nothing seemed to happen, and then a faint line opened on his armor, running from his abdomen across to his back, as though a seam had been carved into his body. Blood welled from the cut, dripping down the broken armor, and his eyes widened as his trembling fingers touched his abdomen. When he looked down his hand was covered in red.
He was bleeding.
He was drowning in his own blood.
And in that instant the thought came unbidden, heavy and merciless.
Was this to be his death?
He had trained so desperately, he had grown strong so that this fate would never reach him, yet now he felt it slipping away. He had been holding his ground, even gaining the upper hand moments ago, so how could it turn into this? He had blocked almost every strike, he had even tried to counter, so why had her blade finally broken through? Was it truly experience that drew the line between victory and failure? Was it something as fragile as that?
The pain tore through his side and into his very being, as though his soul itself had been ripped from his body. His hands trembled and with them his entire frame shuddered, his knees weak beneath him. A strange, unwelcome sensation filled his chest, tightening, suffocating, until he realized what it was.
Fear.
It was fear, raw and bitter.
Why? Why was he afraid of a woman? He was not supposed to feel fear. He had cast that weakness aside long ago, he had buried it deep, so why now was it rising? Why now, when he should be beyond it, did his heart race with terror? A woman... she was only a woman, there was nothing to fear. That was what he had always believed, what he had always told himself.
And yet the truth would not let him escape.
"So why am I suddenly trembling so much? Why am I terrified?" he thought bitterly, his chest sinking with a weight he knew all too well.
This feeling. This suffocating weight. It was something he had known before. It was something painfully familiar.
More than a month ago he had simply been a normal worker who had never even dreamed of combat, let alone imagined himself fighting, and now here he was facing one of the strongest women in the whole town, perhaps even in the whole Kingdom.
Back then he had been nothing but an awkward man who could barely speak properly to people and who always ended up in some kind of clumsy situation no matter how much he tried to avoid it. Despite all of that, he had been almost happy with the quiet life he lived, waking up early, going to work, talking a little with colleagues, and, as soon as his job ended, heading straight to a cake shop to eat until his stomach was full before wandering about at his own pace. He despised overwork, never wished to do more than what was necessary, and that small rhythm had been his life until the day he met her.
It had happened suddenly, something he could never have predicted, when he was rushing along the street, eager to finish the extra tasks assigned that day so he could enjoy his own plans for the night. In that careless running, he collided with a girl, crashing into her and, in that awkward accident, even catching sight of something personal of hers.
When his eyes met her face, he found himself captivated without warning, struck by her beauty—her long black hair flowing down her shoulders, her eyes dark as night, and something about her that words could not quite describe. From that single encounter, everything afterward began to twist into something strange and unrecognizable, and his whole life slowly shifted into something entirely different.
No matter where he went at that time, his thoughts could not separate from her. He kept returning to the image of that first clash, and one might call it foolish to cling so much to a chance meeting. Yet how could he not, when a man who had never once been close to a woman, who had never believed such luck would touch him, suddenly found himself colliding with one? It was not something easy to forget.
From the very next day, he did something even he could not justify, something only a shameless man might do: he hid behind a wall, waiting in hope of catching sight of her. By sheer coincidence, she appeared. He followed her steps quietly, feeling guilty yet unable to stop himself, and through that clumsy pursuit, he discovered she worked as a waitress in a tavern. From that moment, his days began to turn toward that place.
When he finally gathered his courage and stepped into the tavern, he found her there alone. Though that should have made him happy beyond words, what filled him instead was such deep awkwardness that he could barely sit properly in front of her. Still, he managed to speak with her, to share food, and to listen to the small fragments of her life. In those moments, she spoke of her strange love for the sun, calling it the most precious thing in the world. He had always heard people speak fondly of the moon, but the sun—that felt strange, almost absurd—yet it made her stand out in a way that drew him closer without his permission.
It was then that he began to realize his feelings. Not that he had been completely blind before, but he finally admitted what was already there, though the thought of confessing still felt impossible. Around that time, he met her friend, who seemed wary of him and did not trust him in the least, treating him almost like trouble. He wondered if she might cause problems for the one he liked, so he thought he should one day try to speak with her too, though he could never have guessed what kind of future such meetings would shape.
After many days of hesitation, he finally confessed his feelings. His chest nearly burst from fear, and when she turned him down, he felt as though he might collapse then and there. Yet in the strangest turn, she also kissed him. Before long, his life unfolded into something bright and unbelievable, and he even married her.
His days were steady, filled with a happiness he thought might last forever, until everything shattered when he was accused of stealing a relic.
He had no idea whose relic it was or even what such a relic meant, but it was discovered in his own house on a holiday when he had done nothing but sleep. When the knights barged into his home, they searched everything with sharp eyes until they suddenly pulled out that thing, as if it had been waiting there for them to find. He tried again and again to explain that he knew nothing, even falling to his knees and begging them not to take him away, yet not a single word reached them.
They did not care. They did not listen. In the end, he could only accept the cold silence of their judgment, hoping that his wife, Eska, might be able to do something for him.
He was given no time to hope for long. He was thrown into prison almost at once. The room was small, no more than a cage, with only a single bed pressed against the wall, and the air was heavy and dark. He crouched there for some time, arms around his knees, unable to think clearly, waiting and waiting as though release might still come at any moment, wondering how it could be that he ended up in such a place when he had done nothing wrong.
Yet even that waiting did not last long. The sound of boots echoed, and soon the knights returned, led by the very same man who had arrested him. What followed could not be called anything other than the beginning of a living hell.
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(Chapter Ended)