"Hasn't it... Brother?"
Casimir gripped the hilt of White Coffin and met his eyes with cold malice.
"We're not brothers, don't call me brother."
The hooded guy reached for his sword sheathed at his back. "Oh, just when will you accept this?" A faint curve at the corner of his mouth. "Brother..."
Both shifted their weight forward, heels lifting slightly, bodies coiled—ready to lunge the instant the signal dropped.
"I've already accepted everything I needed to accept." Casimir spoke with calm unwavering resolve. "There will be no change of heart, I'll follow my own absurd ideals."
"Such a pathetic way to look heroic." Hooded guy sighed laced with something between pity and mockery.
In the exact moment, the overseer dropped his hand.
STEP—SCUFF...!
In the next blink, they were a meter apart, as if teleported from opposite ends of the arena, blades already drawn and angled toward each other with lethal intent.
CLANK—
The swords met with jarring force, briefly sparking the eyes of everyone watching, followed by a sharp shock that rippled through the arena. Both men backed instantly only to lunged forward again.
Casimir swung his sword with left hand, meeting the opponent's blade, then switched grip to his right in the same instant — rotating his body and driving a left-handed strike at the hooded figure's neck.
However, hooded man blocked it with his free arm.
"Slow."
The word landed cold—followed by a front kick snapping toward Casimir's core. Casimir slipped it by a hair, boots scraping the ground as he skidded back—barely steady—
—and a crushing strike dropped from above.
He caught it with both hands on his sword. The force slammed through his arms, drove him down, his stance buckling under the weight.
The instant the man's foot touched ground, he twisted—firing a side kick.
Casimir evaded again—
—and fired a counter-kick at the same time.
Their movements were brutally expeditious—yet still trackable to the naked eye. Their strikes, however, were a different story. They vanished the moment they were thrown—too quick to follow, too sharp to read.
Steel met steel in rapid succession, each clash spitting sparks, the sheer pace turning the duel into something far more vicious than it should have been.
SWOOSHHH!
Casimir slipped past a downward slash so forceful its whistle cut through the air for meters. But in the same breath, the hooded man vanished from his front—
—and reappeared behind him, blade already carving a horizontal arc.
Casimir reacted instantly, twisting his body and snapping his sword back in a swift reversal—
CHING!!
"Your innate attribute is such a pain in the butt. My ability always render useless against you." the hooded man said as Casimir deflected his deceptive strike and slid back. "And yet, you can barely keep up. You fight like a wild creature that somehow got its hands on a sword."
WHOOSH—CLACKK!
Casimir stepped forward and snapped his blade like a whip, releasing a series of sharp, slicing cleaves through the air toward his opponent. "Holy yap..." he muttered.
The hooded man dodged them all with nonchalant precision. The attacks were nearly impossible to track, but they carved faint, jagged marks into the ground. In the same motion, he drew his sword back and lunged, delivering a clean, precarious slash at Casimir.
Instead of evading, Casimir met it head-on. Steel collided with a sharp clang, sparks flaring as the impact echoed across the arena—then, for a brief moment, everything fell into a heavy silence.
They clashed again and again. Suddenly, Casimir seized his opponent's sword arm with his right hand and drove a powerful knee upward—only for the hooded man to parry it with his elbow.
Without hesitation, Casimir thrust his blade forward. The hooded man evaded, but not entirely—a thin line of blood traced across his neck.
At the same instant, they forced each other apart. The hooded man flipped back onto one hand, landing in a smooth somersault, while Casimir simply pushed off and landed cleanly, wasting no motion.
Casimir stabilized his stance without wasting a moment, raising the blade along his centerline—one hand high near the hilt, the other extended forward, guiding the point toward his opponent. His footing narrowed, forcing the other to step into range first.
"Getting serious, huh?" the hooded man smirked, angling his blade parallel to the ground and bringing it across at shoulder height, both hands firm on the grip. The edge faced outward, his footing grounded, weight slightly forward.
"Ethereal Requiem," Casimir whispered under his breath. A faint, evanescent glow—ice-blue laced with white—radiated from his blade, subtle enough to vanish when directly focused upon.
"Dance of Dread." In sync, the hooded man spoke with a sly edge. A deep crimson, tinged with purple, wreathing around his blade with an irregular aura resembling distorted, shadowy flames.
Between half a blink, they vanished and reappeared at the center of the arena, their swords surging toward a clash charged with raw animosity. In the very next instant, just before impact, they blurred again, disappearing and reappearing past each other, their positions reversed.
Erupting a flare like a solar spark a heartbeat later, and a menacing pressure spread across the arena. They moved with inhuman agility, cutting through the space as the air grew thick and oppressive, that could be felt against the skin.
They tore across the arena in rapid circles, blades colliding in relentless succession. To any observer, they appeared as shifting specters in the dust.
Each lunge and coalesce left behind faint, ghostlike afterimages, while their strikes scattered dim, incandescent sparks that lingered for a moment before fading. The duel began to resemble something otherworldly—a strange ritual, as if two phantom figures circled an inexplicable, flickering flame.
Students around watched them with furrowed brows, mild annoyance etched across their faces rather than gawking. Whispering about the unfairness done by the Academy by setting them against such inhuman talents and similar things.
" Form 1: Despair."
The hood guy leaped backed after clashing his sword with Casimir and drew his sword to make a full upward swing and jolted towards Casimir, leaving the traces of red—purple projection path made by his sword.
As their blades neared collision, he abruptly dragged the tip of his sword along the ground instead, scattering dust into the air. The sudden cloud obscured Casimir's vision just long enough for the hooded figure to redirect his strike and crash against Casimir's blade from an unexpected angle.
Without wasting a blink, Casimir responded. He spun his sword in a full arc, forming a sweeping, spherical zone around him—like a whip cutting through the air. The motion was so fast it cleared the dust instantly, leaving thin yet deep cleave marks carved into the ground along its radius.
He didn't stop. In the same motion, he pivoted sharply, turning on his heel as he sensed the hooded man behind him. His blade cut back through the thinning dust, slicing into something still obscured from view.
CRASH!!!!!
Casimir flinched and leapt backward, narrowly saving his head from being split open, though the hooded figure's blade grazed his sword arm. The attacker followed through with a crushing downward thrust aimed at where Casimir had stood.
The impact was devastating. The ground shattered on contact, fragments of stone bursting outward as dust billowed into the air, leaving behind a crater as if struck by a miniature cannon.
"Form 2: Death." the hooded guy muttered as he landed, his blade buried deep from the thrust.
'I see...' Casimir steadied himself as he skidded back.
'Since I'm immune to his deception ability, he switched to pure tactics.'
'He opened with a direct lunge, using raw force to pressure me. At the last moment, he scattered dust to obscure my vision to track his attack.
Anyone else would've fallen for that alone.
But that wasn't the real move.
He used the dust as a distraction and made it seem like he had slipped behind me—but even that was a feint. Instead of circling around, he leapt high above while throwing his sheath behind me. Which was cloaked in his Qi, it mimicked his presence, while concealing his own presence, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint his true position in that fraction of time.
I struck at the false signal… and in that instant, he descended, driving his blade into the ground—just shy of killing me.'
Casimir didn't wait to balance himself. Mid skidding, he swung his sword in a horizontal arc, releasing a ranged slash that tore through the air toward the hooded figure, who had just landed.
The man evaded it by the narrowest margin, leaning forward by barely an inch—just enough to let the strike pass, though it sliced clean through his hood as it went.
The slash continued across the arena, racing toward the elevated stage where the professors and senior officials sat—only to vanish the moment it reached the boundary. An unseen, triple-layered energy field shielded the platform, nullifying non-physical attacks.
"Close," the hooded guy muttered, with a scornful smile forming beneath the torn hood.
"Let's finish this. We're running out of time."
Casimir narrowed his eyes, jaw tightening as he clicked his tongue. He drew his sword back, positioning it for a diagonal upward strike.
Opposite him, the hooded guy stood loose, almost careless, his back slightly turned, blade hanging behind him.
"Form 3: Griev." Hooded guy sighed cryptically and moved first—swinging his sword twice in quick succession, releasing two diagonally opposed slashes before raising his blade overhead, arms locked, the edge poised to fall straight down.
"Random Bullshit Form: Acceptance," Casimir muttered.
In the same instant, both lunged.
Casimir shot forward like a streak of blue-white light, tearing through the incoming slashes and nullifying them. Their blades met with overwhelming force, the impact erupting in a thunderous clash as metal shrieked and sparks burst outward from the point of contact.
"What kinda abominations they're?" A student among the viewers whispered to a student beside. "Spamming ranged slashes like it's no big deal while many of us still often stumble in a proper ranged slash. Guess that's what being ridiculously rich gets you."
"Otherwise there's no way for such gap in skills despite being in the same age group." Another replied back.
As their blades clashed, the hooded guy spoke, "You know, you've gotten noticeably stronger and faster since last time—but your skills and tactics are still the same, brother."
CHING—SKID!
They both pushed back. Casimir plunged his sword toward him which he dodged aside effortlessly and tried to grab Casimir's arm. But failed as Casimir reacted instantly, swinging his blade sideways, forcing him to bring up his own weapon to deflect.
In the next blink, Casimir flashed behind him, his blade already cutting toward his back before he could even turn.
CLING!
"You can't trick the tyrant of tricks with such lucid ambush, my dear brother."
Without turning, the hooded guy thwarted the strike behind his back, reverse-gripping his sword to block it. Simultaneously, he sprang upward, knocking Casimir's blade off line before twisting midair and bringing down a tremendous counterstrike that cracked the blade of Casimir at its center.
"You should have dodged this one."
In the momentum, Casimir grabbed his collar and slammed his forehead straight into his face.
"Ack—" Hooded guy flinched and released himself from his grip by retaliating a high kick aimed at Casimir.
Casimir stepped back, narrowly avoiding the kick. "About skills... You don't possess anything of your own. You're just a delusional aristocrat who have to beg his daddy for everything when no one's watching while acting superior in front of others."
Hooded guy chuckled, covering his face with one hand as a mischievous grin spread beneath it.
"Is that so...? " His eyes widened slightly. "Then what's stopping you to ask your dad for assistance..."
He just had to say that Casimir's expression darkened direly, eyes flaring with unhidden animosity as he surged forward and collided his sword against hooded guy's. The already cracked weapon finally gave way, snapping apart on impact. On that cue hooded guy leapt back as much further as he could.
"Or ask that monster you—"
He didn't get to finish when Casimir's sword came darting at him like a spear which he parried instinctively.
"This won't..." In the same beat he saw an open hand millimetres away from his face.
Casimir closed the distance in a blur, grabbing him by the face with one hand while catching the falling blade with the other simultaneously and crashed his head into the ground with brutal force making everyone around the arena feel the tremor from afar and pressed the edge of his blade against his neck.
"Halt! The duel is over."
The overseer's voice cut through the arena with rigid authority. The entire exchange had lasted less than a minute.
"You should be grateful it wasn't a real duel."
Casimir straightened, sheathing what remained of his broken blade—only then noticing the wide, psychotic smile beneath on that guy's face—eyes closed in quiet amusement.
"Winner: Velimir Vronsky."
As the overseer declared the result, Casimir frowned, a flicker of perplexity crossing his face.
"Huh?!"
Velimir rose, brushing the dust off himself before giving Casimir a casual shrug with a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
Casimir turned toward the judges' platform.
"I don't mean to question the decision, but… may I know why I wasn't declared the winner? I clearly overpowered him in the end."
One of the judges seated at the center stirred. He lifted his chin from where it had rested against the back of his hand, as if mildly inconvenienced by the need to respond.
His gray hair, slightly overgrown yet carefully combed, fell in loose strands across his forehead. Unshaven, with sharp, assessing eyes, he carried a quiet severity; a faint cut ran along the bridge of his nose. He wore a dark, tailored academic suit—high-collared, with a narrow tie.
"Of course. The first reason you didn't win is simple—this wasn't a street brawl. It was a formal tactical duel, one that demands discipline, technique, and judgment. Throwing your sword like that was a reckless and tactically unsound move.
Second—and more importantly—you failed to notice a decisive detail. The moment you lunged in to slam him to the ground, his blade was already aligned with your heart. Had this been a real duel, he could have pierced it without hesitation. At best, you would have managed to bring your blade to his neck."
He paused briefly, leaning forward slightly, he pressed his fingertips together beneath his chin.
" You gambled the duel rather than actually fighting like a seemly Martial Seeker."
"Understood."
Casimir brought his open hand to his chest in a brief salute, bowing slightly. "I'm grateful for your explanation."
Without another word, he turned and began walking toward the arena's exit.
"Now, who should really be grateful for being this not an actual duel, my dear brother?"
Velimir's voice followed from behind as he moved in the same direction.
Casimir stopped and glanced back, with hardened cold eyes.
"But don't you worry… next time—" Velimir's eyes gleamed with unsettling dominance, "—we'll fight to kill."
"Too bad," Casimir replied flatly. "That won't be a fight. Just a one-sided slaughter… by me."
"We'll see, my brother. We'll see, take care."
Velimir walked past him, then paused. Tilting his head back slightly, he added—
"For the first time today, I noticed… your white hair carries a faint shade of ivory."
And then he was gone, fading from Casimir's sight.
***
The sky lay cloaked in a dull blue-grey haze—daylight not gone, just fading. Fog pressed low over the hill, swallowing distance, softening everything into silhouettes. There was still enough light to walk by.
The air was damp and biting, the kind that clung to skin and slowed sound, leaving only a quiet, heavy stillness behind.
Casimir was running with unwavering pace on dark uneven slopes dusted with snow.
'My final exam concluded today. Soon, I'll receive my official license. After that… the next hurdle is securing a decent contract—with a suitable guild or mercenary group.'
He traversed through the hill penetrating through the thick, unusual haze surrounding the hill.
'And why has the weather been so strange for this time of year…?'
DASH—!
'Мама must be cooking potatoes by now...'
—!
…?
'What's this?!'
Suddenly, Casimir felt a thrilling chill through his body, thus wincing him a little.
'It's same as I felt in the morning— no...it's different. Back then, it was a single presence. Now... it feels like multiple eyes are boring into me all at once.'
Casimir eyes sharpened scrutinizing around with suspicion, tension creeping into his expression. Although, nothing clearly was visible.
'It's not exactly bloodlust… but it's close. No—something else. Something I've never felt before. Could be wild...'
Ha—
Something flickered at the edge of his vision—just a blur to his right, near the trees lining the path.
Gone in an instant.
Casimir didn't slow. He kept moving, pushing forward without breaking stride.
'What— I saw that right?'
The thought had barely formed when something appeared again—this time on his left, a little ahead.
A figure.
Towering—easily over ten feet.
Casimir closed the distance just enough to see it clearly.
It was staring at him.
Two wide, circular eyes—almost human in shape—sat unnaturally large in its skull. Pale, unblinking and fixed entirely on him.
Its head stretched forward into a narrow, bird-like skull, ending in a dull, pointed beak, supported by an unnaturally long neck.
The body beneath it was draped in long, shredded white strands—fur, feathers, or something in between—hanging in damp, uneven lengths that brushed against the ground.
From its head, curved horns jutted outward—like those of a mountain goat. Thick at the base, ridged, spiraling slightly back.
But they weren't clean. They looked aged, cracked, almost fused into the skull as if grown through pain, not nature.
Casimir gasped,'What are these things...?'
A faint unease stirred within him yet it wasn't visible on his face. He didn't change his pace and kept moving forward.
But the deeper he went, the more frequent they became.
One… then two… then groups of three or four, lingering along the path.
He had no intention of playing the hero—or satisfying his curiosity. Only one thought remained steady in his mind:
Get home.
He was only worried about his mother—driven by an ominous feeling he couldn't explain.
SKID!!!
He halted abruptly out of the blue, boots grinding against the ground as his hand tightened around the hilt. Ahead, the fog thickened, nothing was clearly visible in the haze—
—but beyond it, at a certain distance, he felt something different. Not like the other entities—standing still on the both side of the route staring at him.
It was bloodlust.
Then—
Through the haze, two flaring points emerged, locking onto Casimir with a piercing, unwavering glare.
"Mother... it seems things won't go as you planned," Casimir gradually drew out White Coffin and ducked low, feet spread wide, blade drawn back across his side, it's broken tip pointing forward.
"... Looks like we're having more than just potato today."