Dawn came too soon.
Konrad spent the day preparing, but couldn't find confidence.
At least his new sword—even if called 'bastard' like himself—was magnificent.
"I'm getting too old for the hammer, but this is my best work in the decade."
Sure enough, Konrad had no reason to doubt Haraldson's claim.
It fit him like a glove, weighing a pound more than the old one, but also a foot longer. The hilt left enough space to wield it with both hands, or he could slide his grip back for more reach.
Its type should've been more popular.
They finished by midnight, so he had no chance for practice swings. Welf almost collapsed with a satisfied grin—Konrad didn't even know he could become tired.
Lily was right, experimenting with that spear taught him invaluable lessons.
He knew exactly how to pour his essence into the new blade, starting with five hundred mana in one go. That'd overcharge a transmutation artifact, but his sword could've taken more.
Still, exhausting himself or getting nosebleeds now seemed like a bad idea.
This much he could still recover without a serious backlash—but he already skimped on sleep.
He scrambled for any rune that he could've memorized.
The Green Mage's notes weren't about defensive magic, so Konrad had to get creative.
Nimrod had no such issues, oozing confidence on the main square of the Blood Moon's village.
"You didn't run—what a surprise," he greeted Konrad, cold as always.
"In my moment of triumph? You overestimate your chances."
After Lily's superhero movie reference, Konrad couldn't help quoting his favorite lines, either.
It helped him put on some airs and appear more confident, even as his hands trembled.
Too bad—that line was from a bad guy who'd end up losing.
He had no doubts, though—Lily must've reincarnated, too. All that talk about higher planes—
"Bold words, Cursed One," Nimrod raised his scepter. He'd better focus. "Ready when you are."
Hah, he was anything but that. Still, as soon as he nodded—
The air snapped. Fist-sized, jagged shards of rock ripped from the ground.
They shot toward his chest without a chant, only a tilt of the scepter.
Konrad's own fireball felt slow, clumsy. He hurled it in the boulder's path, shattering stone into molten pieces of dirt. Fragments peppered the ground, avoiding him by a hair's breadth.
Tribesmen yelped, knocked back from the exploding heat.
Because, of course, he had to have an audience. He tried his best not to incinerate them, but he had limited options—fire and light. So, as they said, attack was the best defense.
He summoned another fireball, but whatever his twin did, it missed him by a mile.
Nimrod thrusted his scepter forward, the earth beneath Konrad's feet turning slurry.
It grasped at his boots, and he was too late to sidestep it.
He drew his sword instead, shoving mana through the handle, aiming at the mud.
A mana scatter felt like a good idea. The adamantite in his sword even amplified the effect.
The mud stopped acting like it had a life of its own, but didn't go away.
He could've vaporized the water—if not for the lightning lancing through the morning haze.
Konrad swung his blade on instinct, the impact numbing his arm to the shoulder.
The flash blinded him, with only the smell of scorched metal anchoring him to the battlefield.
"Hey, it's brand new," he complained, eyes shut, and already desperate for time to recover.
A murmur ran through the crowd.
When he opened his eyes, a familiar temper pattern appeared on the blade. It took a dragon's breath to do this to his other sword—how powerful this bastard was?!
Well, the blade held—from the tribesmen's voices, they must've expected a melted ruin.
Nimrod's eyes narrowed, too.
"You don't deserve such a fine weapon," his twin taunted.
Thanks to whatever was holy, the moron took the bait. Konrad's heart was still hammering against his ribs, but this gave him precious moments.
"Says the guy with the Scepter of the Void," he retorted, courtesy of Lily's enlightenment.
While she still couldn't teach him specific runes, she knew a lot about magic. She recognized Nimrod's weapon, too—that thing siphoning mana from the abyss.
Not a massive amount, but it could still fuel smaller-scale spells long after his twin ran out.
It meant that the longer their duel lasted, the worse his chances got. He couldn't block everything or outlast him—he had to brute force a victory, and fast.
"You came prepared," Nimrod spat, slamming the base of his scepter on the ground.
A wall of earth erupted, a tidal wave of dirt and stone, ten feet high.
Not a defense—it crashed forward to bury Konrad, still numb from the earlier lightning.
A fireball couldn't stop that, and it was impossible to dodge—but he had one desperate idea.
Dropping to one knee, he plunged the sword into the ground.
He'd used siphons from other planes before, and they worked on this world, too. But could he target an active spell? Moving so much dirt must've taken out a lot of his twin.
Scatter and transfer. Only using a mana element—and all in reverse.
His own essence disrupted the tide with a scatter.
Magic ran wild, Nimrod restoring his spell in a split second, but Konrad already hijacked it.
The second rune siphoned away all the mana his twin poured in, abusing transfer mechanics.
Packed earth and stone first froze in place, then crumbled into a harmless shower of dirt.
It cost him about a hundred points to pull it off, and then his blade glowed up.
Nimrod didn't take long to realize something was off.
He cut off the spell after Konrad stole about fifty mana—still a net loss, but he was alive and—
Well, the world started to spin, but he had expected that much.
A brute-force method against a practiced opponent? He was lucky it even worked—but Nimrod seemed to have overreacted.
"The hell did you do?!" He released the scepter as if it burned his hand, staring, mouth agape.
"Dispell," he panted, inventing a name for it as he leaned on his sword. "Can't have you ruin the tribe's village. Or that's the only thing you can do, Blessed Nut? Bringing ruin like in the pro—"
He couldn't finish—though he reached his goal.
The shaman raised his arms to the sky. Dark clouds gathered with unnatural speed, swirling above the square. The air grew heavy, charged with the promise of a single, devastating strike.
Okay, he might've overdone the taunting.
He threw another fireball, then two more—a tiny swarm, all missing their marks. It didn't matter; the swirling wouldn't stop, even after his twin took his eyes off it.
Glancing at Lily, she seemed to be enjoying the show.
Well, he didn't expect her to intervene in an honorable duel, but he was out of ideas.
A vortex of power centered right above him, promising another lightning strike.
It had to be an insane amount of energy, and the first bolt was already too much to disrupt.
Even if the adamantite could absorb it without shattering, his arm was still numb.
This one kept growing, charging for long, dreadful seconds. He didn't know how much tempering his sword could take, but there was no way he could've blocked that.
So—what if he didn't have to? He was holding one fancy lightning rod after all.