The cold morning wind blew across the sand arena, shattering the remnants of the tense silence. I stood right in the center of the ring, the tip of the cheap wooden sword in my hand touching the grains of sand. My adolescent muscles still felt stiff, yet my mind was as sharp as a newly honed dagger.
At the edge of the arena, Sir Vance folded his arms over his steel-armored chest. A cunning, condescending smile was etched on the middle-aged knight's face. Clearly, he had no intention of dirtying his own hands this morning simply to teach a "lesson" to an outcast cadet like me.
"Since you feel brave enough to injure a fellow cadet, Draven, I shall grant you an honor," Vance's baritone voice echoed. "This is a test of courage. We shall see how a lower-class cadet holds up against the middle class. Damius Greyvein! Step into the ring!"
From the crowd of Orvelis's faction, a young man stepped forward. Damius Greyvein, son of the Viscount Greyvein family. He was a middle-class student, and more importantly, he was Cedric's direct superior in Orvelis's hierarchy of sycophants.
Damius's posture was far sturdier and more muscular compared to Cedric. He carried a high-grade ironwood practice sword. As soon as he stepped within the sand boundary, he stopped two meters in front of me.
Damius tilted his head, staring at me with eyes radiating pure cruelty. "You angered my master, trash," he whispered, softly enough that only I could hear. "I will break both your shins. You will crawl out of this arena."
I did not answer. My eyes were solely fixed on how he held the sword, how his feet gripped the sand, and the rhythm of his breathing.
Damius assumed the high stance typical of Aethelgard Knights. He raised his wooden sword above his right shoulder, puffed out his chest, concentrating his entire center of gravity for one devastating strike.
Telegraphing. His movements were too noisy. To the eyes of a war veteran, Damius's posture was akin to shouting an announcement of where his attack was headed.
"Begin!" shouted Sir Vance.
Damius lunged with a solid straight step. Sand kicked up from his heels. He swung his wooden sword in a ferocious diagonal cross-slash, aiming to shatter my left collarbone in a single blow.
My veteran brain processed the trajectory of Damius's shoulder and hip rotation in a millisecond. My plan formed perfectly.
Shift the left foot fifteen degrees to evade the slash, let his sword pass through the air, then slash his wrist which would be left wide open due to momentum.
I gave the command to my body to move.
However, reality hit me harder than any sword.
This eighteen-year-old body betrayed me. My untrained adolescent muscles experienced a reaction delay of about half a second. My left leg felt as heavy as lead. I wasn't fast enough to evade completely.
In that final, deadly fraction of a second, realizing that attempting to parry such a heavy slash with my cheap sword would only shatter both my wrists, I forcibly twisted my waist. I tilted my left shoulder, altering the angle of impact so the sword would not hit my collarbone head-on.
Thwack!
The tip of Damius's wooden sword struck my shoulder with a horrifying thud. My white uniform tore instantly. The sensation of hard wood scraping and tearing skin provoked fresh blood to seep out.
I staggered back three steps, holding back a grimace of nerve-biting pain.
A triumphant cheer from the crowd of nobles exploded in the air. They saw it as a decisive blow proving my place at the bottom of the food chain.
Yet, that stinging pain did not make me panic. Quite the opposite. That wound was the key unlocking the gates of hell.
The blood seeping from my shoulder triggered a chain reaction within my Sanguine Core. The blood seemed to evaporate into a ferocious, searing energy. My heart roared, pumping bursts of adrenaline and wild mana into every fiber of my muscles.
My initially unsteady posture instantly grounded itself, becoming incredibly stable. The grip of my fingers on the slippery wooden sword hilt hardened like an iron vise.
The world around me suddenly seemed to move slower. Tachypsychia. My perception of time stretched as the survival instinct at the brink of death fully took over.
Damius, seeing me silent with my head bowed, smiled dismissively. He thought I was holding back tears or in shock from his blow.
He stepped forward for the finish, assuming a wide stance. This time, he prepared to use the Ultimate Strike from the academy guidebook. An incredibly wide sweeping slash from below. If it connected, that swing would shatter both my knees simultaneously.
Fool, I thought coldly.
As Damius shifted all his body weight forward to initiate his upward slash, I discarded all the rules of academy formality.
Instead of raising my sword to parry, I dropped my center of gravity drastically. I lowered myself into a half-crouching position and hid the length of my sword behind my back.
This sudden change in elevation disrupted Damius's line of sight and focus. However, his momentum was already established. His large body was already thrown forward. He was caught in the trap of his own inertia and could not cancel his attack mid-way.
The distance between us was down to one meter.
Right as Damius's sword swing shot up from below, I pivoted the toe of my boot, drove it into a mound of arena sand, and kicked it upward with full force.
A fist-sized sandstorm shot up, hitting right into Damius's face as he leaned forward.
A dirty street tactic from the bloody trenches.
"Argh!" Damius cried out in shock.
Sand entered his eyes, blinding him instantly. Damius squeezed his eyes shut and reflexively raised his chin. His "deadly" sword swing lost its direction, slicing through the wind, and striking the sandy ground. That empty strike pulled his upper body further forward into a completely unbalanced position.
Taking advantage of his blindness, I darted diagonally, out of his arm's reach and into the blind spot on his right side. I slammed the wooden blade of my sword with a short, explosive swinging motion.
My target was the popliteal fossa nerve, right in the crease behind his right knee.
Smack!
Damius's right leg lost its support function instantly. His nerves went dark. He let out a stifled scream and fell hard to his knees on the sand.
Without a fraction of a second's pause, my wooden sword bounced off his knee, utilizing the spring force to rise upwards at a very sharp angle. My wooden blade struck the radial bone on the outside of Damius's right wrist, which was holding the sword.
Crack!
His radial nerve was pinched by the hard blow. His fingers went numb, and automatically opened. His expensive ironwood sword slipped and fell to the sand.
In a matter of two seconds, Damius was now momentarily blind, kneeling, unbalanced, and unarmed.
The finish had to be absolute.
I released my left hand from the sword hilt, lunged forward, and grabbed the back of Damius's blond hair roughly. Using my back and shoulder muscles currently infused by the Sanguine Core, I yanked the young man's face downward with all my might.
At the same time, I launched my body and drove my right knee upward, meeting his descending face.
CRACK!
The sound of crushing nasal cartilage colliding with knee bone echoed loudly, drowning out the sound of the morning wind.
Damius's body jerked upward for a moment, before finally sprawling backward completely unconscious. His eyes rolled back white, and his nose spouted fresh blood that soaked the arena sand.
I stood up slowly, regulating my ragged breath. My injured shoulder throbbed hotly; the side effects of using the Sanguine Core were starting to exact a toll on my adolescent muscles. However, my face remained cold.
The silence that followed Damius's fall was truly absolute.
The arena was instantly dead silent. Hundreds of pairs of eyes widened, their mouths agape. The mocking cheers of the nobles died in their throats. A Viscount's son, a middle-class fighter, had just been brought down by an outcast commoner in a matter of seconds.
Damius lost not by beautiful swordsmanship, but by a kick of sand and street brutality.
"Enough!"
A roar of anger shattered the silence. Sir Vance stepped across the ring boundary. The knight's face was beet red, veins bulging at his temples. Seeing his prized pupil humiliated in this manner was an unforgivable insult to his pride.
The dense blue mana aura of a Mid-Rank Knight exploded from Vance's body, pressing the air around the arena until it made the other cadets breathless.
"How dare you use cowardly dirty tricks in a sacred duel, Draven!" snapped Vance, his voice thundering full of killing intent. "Throwing sand? Attacking the knee from behind? You defile this arena! I myself will discipline you, you wild dog!"
The shrill sound of metal drawn from a scabbard was heard. Sir Vance drew a real longsword that reflected the morning light, not a wooden practice sword. This was no longer a disciplinary punishment. He intended to finish me on the spot.
My physique was already screaming for rest, blood continued to drip from my shoulder, but my instincts knew not the word retreat. On the battlefield, retreating in front of an angry enemy meant death.
Instead of throwing away my weapon or kneeling to beg for mercy at the sight of that steel sword, I did something that made the breath of everyone in the arena stop once again.
I stepped forward, planting my boot right on the chest of the still unconscious Damius. I rotated the tip of my wooden sword, which was now cracked and sharp. Then pressed it right against the jugular vein on Damius's neck. The jagged wooden tip slightly pierced his skin, bringing forth a drop of fresh blood.
I lifted my face, staring directly into Sir Vance's anger-filled eyes. His oppressive knightly aura did not daunt me in the slightest. I had faced General Kaelzor's aura that burned the sky.
The anger of this corrupt instructor was nothing more than a passing breeze.
My tone of voice did not rise; it remained flat and cold as ice, yet its resonance managed to vibrate every eardrum in the silent arena.
"One more step, Instructor..." I said softly, pressing my wooden sword one millimeter deeper into his pupil's neck. "...and the Greyvein clan will have to find a new heir today."