Chapter 10: Duel pt2
CLINK!
CLINK!
CLINK!
The sharp, metallic rhythm continued to echo through the clearing as I methodically slapped away the oncoming barrage. My face remained perfectly deadpan, my arms moving on pure, practiced instinct to block each subsequent projectile with the broad iron blade of my battle axe.
'What is this farce?' I thought, my gaze narrowing as I tracked his micro-movements. 'Is this shivering, twitching vermin really the legendary Lovan Ironbark from the novel?'
I was rapidly losing my patience. A hot surge of irritation flared in my chest; I was genuinely pissed off that I had been forced to waste one of my rare, lifetime-limited sacred oaths on an opponent who looked ready to piss himself. I decided it was time to end this joke. But the absolute second I stepped forward to deliver the finishing blow, every evolutionary warning sign in my Great Orc physiology went screaming into red alert.
My blood-red eyes snapped wide. Across the ring, Lovan's frantic shivering suddenly vanished, replaced by an expression of cold, clinical focus.
"Disintegrate," the goblin chief whispered.
Instantly, a massive, glowing blue magic circle erupted from the dirt directly beneath my boots. The dozens of seemingly useless frost stones that I had nonchalantly batted away earlier began to detonate in a synchronized chain reaction, unleashing a localized blizzard of absolute-zero energy.
BOOM!!!
CRAAAAAACK!!
The explosive drop in temperature instantly incased my entire two-meter frame inside a thick, jagged sculpture of solid ice. Anticipating the trap a fraction of a second before the frost bit into my vitals, I willed the system to activate
As I broke my torso free, a violent whistle sliced through the air, accompanied by Lovan's shrill, commanding voice.
"Inferno!"
Suuuuuuiiii!!!
BOOM!
A compressed, volatile fireball of pure alchemical heat slammed dead into my chest. The concussive blast tore through my guard, launching my massive green frame backward through the air.
Scrrrrrrr—!
My heavy boots plowed deep, smoking furrows into the dirt as I dragged myself to a halt, the iron handle of my axe grinding against the earth.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the ravine. Both the goblins and the orcs stood frozen, their mouths open; neither faction had ever witnessed a low-tier magic class wielded with such terrifying, tactical synergy before. The Ironbark goblins had initially only accepted Lovan as their acting chief because he had been a close advisor to the old vanguard, blindly assuming he had some measure of strength. But this?
Outside the howling gale, Dabok's ancient eyes went wide with genuine disbelief.
According to the rigid hierarchy of Luegad, a goblin was structurally incapable of holding their own against an orc until they ascended to the Order of the Second Circle—a threshold where their bloodline evolved into Hobgoblins, providing a catastrophic boost to their base attributes and professional casting limits. To see a First Circle goblin outputting this level of raw, destructive force was entirely unprecedented.
A second later, the goblin crowd erupted into a wild, screeching cheer. The remaining twelve orcs looked at each other in sudden confusion, their morale wavering, until Dabok silently raised his gnarled staff, pointing directly at the glowing, crouched tiger tattoos etched into their hides. The visual anchor reminded them of the horde-wide stat bonus they carried.
In the center of the ring, Lovan ignored the cheers, his yellow eyes staring intently through the receding cloud of black smoke, his brow furrowed with deep suspicion.
"Hehehehe... HAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
A deep, rolling laugh rumbled from the soot, cutting through the goblin cheers. As the wind whipped the smog away, my frame finally came back into view. At the absolute last microsecond before the fire rock could vaporize my chest, I had brought the heavy blade of my battle axe down in a desperate parry, splitting the core of the projectile. The explosive force had still launched me back, but my vital organs were completely untouched.
"So that's how it is... hahaha! He needs a spoken word as an arcane trigger... now this is interesting! Hahaha!" I muttered between ragged, ecstatic breaths.
I bared my tusks in a massive, maniacal orcish grin, a thrill of pure, unadulterated excitement flooding my gangster soul. I couldn't wait to see what else this little bastard had hidden in his pouches.
Griping the rough handle of my axe, I drove my weight forward into a full sprint, tearing across the dirt directly toward him. Lovan reacted instantly, his wrist flicking a fresh volley of frost stones into my path while his fingers tapped into the rare, coveted skill I had been waiting to see.
An iron-hard wall of solid earth erupted violently from the clearing, completely cutting off my charge. Mechanically speaking, a normal brawler would be forced to break their momentum and pivot around either flank, leaving themselves completely exposed to another alchemical trap.
But I knew his sheet. 'Transmutation.' This was the precise spatial mastery that made Lovan Ironbark a legendary target in the lore. Though to my experienced eyes, his current deployment of the skill was crude, unpolished, and completely limited by his low-level imagination—a carelessness that would eventually attract a horde of human crusaders to his doorstep down the line.
"Don't worry, you have me now..." I whispered with a sly, predatory smile.
Instead of turning, I willed the system to trigger. My thighs compressed and exploded, launching my massive bulk clean over the apex of the earth wall. Descending from the sky like a falling meteor, I brought the pitch-black battle axe down in a vicious, vertical split aimed directly at his skull.
I was fully aware of the fatal mechanical weakness of the Transmutation skill—the caster was required to maintain direct physical contact with the object in question for the magical alteration to take effect. By taking to the sky, I had completely neutralized his ability to reshape the terrain beneath my feet.
Lovan's yellow eyes bulged in pure terror as he realized the trajectory. He threw his tiny frame backward in a desperate attempt to dodge, but the crushing downward draft of my body weight after the high leap caught him anyway, launching his small body into the air.
BAM!
Before his feet could touch the ground, I drove a brutal left hook straight into his ribs, sending him flying backward through the dirt. Without giving him a single microsecond to recover, I immediately triggered my second stack of before the skill could enter its six-second cooldown.
Boom!
I soared into the air again, closing the distance in a flash. But as I descended, Lovan proved why he was a chief. His face contorted with desperate rage.
"Krrrkkk... Concentration!!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.
A crystalline, shimmering barrier of dense mana materialized around his airborne body like a solid pane of glass. I only smiled at the defense. I raised my black battle axe with both hands, my lungs expanding as I channeled a booming, resonant mantra that defied the basic magic of this world:
"By the Order of the Lord of Old, I smite thee!!!..."
BOOOOM!!!
A blinding, cataclysmic flash of white light exploded through the ravine, accompanied by the deafening, high-pitched shatter of thousands of glass shards. Everything—from my opening charge to this exact, reality-tearing strike—had unfolded in the span of a single heartbeat.
Lovan never stood a chance. I had effectively cheated the parameters of a First Circle duel. Desperate to end the match swiftly without causing permanent, crippling damage to my future money-bag, I had invoked a hidden system mechanic that wasn't slated to be discovered by the human factions until the mid-point of the novel: a Sacred Order originating from Melanos, the God of Knowledge, widely feared across the planes as the oldest of the primordial deities.
In the deep lore of Salvation in Pride, Sacred Oaths and Sacred Orders represented an ancient, forgotten variant of cosmic magic. They were high-utility trump cards used exclusively by elite lineages to turn the tides of unwinnable battles by borrowing the raw laws of the world itself.
Sacred Oaths were universal spells established by specific gods to assist their mortal followers without their direct, cataclysmic interference. As long as a character possessed the exact historical knowledge and understood the precise mana flow required, they could execute the spell regardless of their class. The fatal drawback was systemic: each individual possessed a hard, unchangeable lifetime limit on their usage, as the raw cosmic energy permanently fractured the mortal's soul with each activation.
Sacred Orders, however, operated on an entirely different mechanical paradigm. They were structured skills. As long as an entity possessed the core knowledge and continuously practiced the intricate internal mana pathways, their proficiency would scale indefinitely without damaging their vessel. These Orders were highly versatile, ranging across offensive, defensive, support, and miscellaneous attributes.
Naturally, almost every single Oath and Order had been lost to the annals of history, guarded as absolute, top-secret family heirlooms within the vaults of the continent's most powerful empires.
Torug's POV
The smoke cleared. Lovan lay flat on his back in the ruined dirt, his chest heaving as he struggled to even lift a clawed finger against the residual pressure of the Order.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
I stepped over the debris, my massive shadow completely engulfing his tiny, battered frame. I leveled the razor-sharp edge of my pitch-black battle axe directly at his throat. "Admit defeat."
Lovan stared up at the blood-red eyes of the monster towering over him. He let out a long, defeated sigh, his shoulders slumping into the mud. "Haa... I, Lovan Ironbark, admit defeat... what is mine... is now yours."
The second the verbal submission left his lips, the swirling walls of wind vanished, and a succession of transparent blue screens flared to life in my vision.
[Ding!]
[Ayasey is now even more interested in you...]
[Possible location for a permanent settlement has been detected. Do you wish to accept?!]
[Y / N]
Before I could reach out to confirm the system prompt, Lovan's weak, grating voice broke through the silence. "What... what will become of my kin?"
The fear in his yellow eyes was palpable. He had been terrified of his tribe being slaughtered or enslaved from the very moment my warband stepped into the ravine.
I looked down at him, a slow, malicious, yet thoroughly reassuring grin stretching across my tusks. I wasn't even aware of how terrifyingly menacing my face looked as I answered.
"Your kin is my kin now."