The final spar with Artoria put her against Shining. This spear was much more direct, Shining outclassed Artoria in all but physique, controlling the tempo of the whole battle. She calmly pointed out some weaknesses in Artoria's style, instructing her on how to use her strength better. Artoria adopted her advice and found it effective, deciding to concede this fight, knowing Shining was superior.
When the two of them were done, Scáthach walked to the center of the room, planting the spear in the ground.
-"I'll take you four at the same time."-She then looked at Qingyan.-"Of course, you can also join."
My Knights looked at each other and moved to surround Scáthach, Qingyan joining them as well. They stayed still for a moment before launching an attack at Scáthach. But this battle was different from the previous ones. There was no equal fight; the moment they moved, the red spear already drew blood.
I already had the Royal Scepter in hand, waving it to teleport injured Cellinia from the battlefield. I patched her up using my golden flame, though seeing the red spear pierce her throat was a traumatic experience. Cellinia also wasn't much better, the hand on her throat ant the slightly trembling shoulders showed the impact of that attack.
Next was Margaret. She confronted Scáthach head-on, trying to keep her occupied, but was quickly overwhelmed. Next moment, the spear plunged deep into her chest, about to pierce her heart, when I teleported her out, healing her as quickly as Cellinia. Margaret was also shaken, but collected herself rather quickly.
With two eliminated, the rest had even less chance to turn the battle around. Viviana soon miscalculated how effective her Art was on Scáthach, earning a spear to her head, surviving only due to my quick teleport. She then sat on the ground, her eyes unfocused.
Shining and Qingyan lasted the longest. Qingyan's extreme lightning was a great danger, but it was too uncontrollable, making her a low priority for Scáthach, but she still forced me to teleport her out when spear almost blinded her eye. Shining was able to exchange hits with Scáthach for some time, but her Witchcraft and Arts proved inferior to Primordial Runes.
When Shining felt that she was pushed into a corner, she conceded, resulting in being the only person on her side who left the battlefield on their own legs. Scáthach then proceeded to point out weaknesses for each of them, suggesting how to train and what techniques could allow them to progress further. She especially appreciated Shining, but her personality was not to her liking, so she didn't try to make her her student.
With her 'warm-up' done, she now looked at me, her eyes almost on fire. I sighed and went to the room next to the training ground to change out of my armor so as not to have to repair it after this 'spar'. I returned a minute later with much lighter clothes; armor was no use against her. I only kept the bundled shards of Jeanne's standard on my back, as I never parted with it.
Scáthach took out the second spear, while I held the spear and sword. She looked at my posture, finding it slightly different than before. This only caused her to be more excited, as she rushed at me, spears already aimed at my heart and head. But this level of attack was nothing more than a greeting between us; I was able to deal with it easily.
We started to exchange strikes, tens... hundreds... thousands... In a short time of a few breaths, we took so many blows that the sounds of impact combined into a clash louder than a cannon blast. When we distanced ourselves, my arm felt numb from all that force. The spear in my right hand shook slightly, showing that this round was my loss.
Now, it was time for magic. This time, I made the first move, plunging the spear into the ground, as the music suddenly appeared around me. The whole training room started to change as the melody echoed, causing the shadows to turn into hunters and beasts. Some figures were like centaurs, but with a fawn's body instead of a horse, while some had long horns on their heads; Dryads and Vorkai from my dreams. Next to them appeared tall humanoid figures with long ears, as well as those with legs of a goat and horns.
They held bows, spears, javelins, swords, and many more different kind of weapons. They didn't waste time, attacking Scáthach from all directions. They didn't attack randomly, but rather supported each other, fighting as a group. But to Scáthach, those were annoyances at most; she needed at most two attacks to deal with a shadow. But those were only distractions; my main attack was something else.
Despite my last months on Terra being busy, I never ceased my research and training, especially researching my Teekaz origins. I worked with Promulgator to unleash the full strength of my bloodline, and we managed to achieve a breakthrough in two fields: divination and soul.
We managed to control the divination, turning it into an alternative to intuition, predicting only a few seconds into the future, but the precision of those predictions is almost absolute. I still could make more distant predictions, but I rarely did so, as they were mostly tragedies. In the field of souls, we managed to interact with a soul directly, opening a whole new world of possibilities. But for the current situation, there is one interaction that is best suited: attack.
And so I did. While Scáthach had her attention divided, I used a simple but almost untraceable spell to strike her soul, not to damage it, just to stun. At the same time, a simple Glintstone pebble flew at the back of her head. I timed it just right so that when she was about to regain control over her body, the pebble hit her.
Scáthach instantly stopped, looking at me with slight resentment. But this time it was her loss. The third round will decide who is victorious in this spar. Martial techniques, magical abilities, now it's time for the ultimate move.
I could already see how she was gathering the magic power in her spear, as my heart started to hurt. So I responded in kind, divinity gathering in me as the markings of Night Warrior appeared on me. The melody around me changed as the wind around me picked up. Soon, a rain cloud appeared over the training room, as blue flame bloomed on me.
I gathered the flame on my sword, waiting for Scáthach to strike. She saw that, smiled, and threw her spear. In the blink of an eye, the spear was before me, so I met the red spearhead with my flaming blue sword. The impact obscured me in a cloud of dust, making the outcome impossible to see from outside. Everyone was holding their breath when Scáthach suddenly burst out laughing.
-"You... You did it!"-She spoke between her laughs.-"Cut of the fate. Destroyed both cause and outcome."
-"I did."-I answered but my voice was hoarse.
When the dust settled, all present looked at me with shock, or rather, worry and dread would be a more appropriate description. I did indeed manage to sever the fate of being pierced along with the fate of the spear being thrown, causing the spear to end in my hand, but it wasn't without a price.
Below my neck, my whole chest was blown open, no skin or muscle remaining, only the crystalline skeleton and internal organs remained, exposed to the air. Especially noticeable was the Primal Glintstone in place of my heart, pulsating with a blue glow as if beating. It looked serious, and such wounds definitely weren't easy to recover from, but I could now ignore them, an upside of my advanced crystallization.
-"Eno! Are you..."-Artoria was first to rush to my side.
-"Don't worry, I'm all right."-I calmed her down, golden flame already appearing on me to heal everything.
-"Are you really alive?"-Shining asked me, her face both worried and awkward.
-"That's hard to answer, but I consider myself alive."
-"You should keep that thing somewhere other than on your body."-Morgan pointed to my Primal Glintstone.
-"It's not that bad, compared to a normal Primal Glintstone, any of my Originium Glintstone can be turned into one, so I'm quite safe. But I'm working on something like that, but my research encountered a bottleneck lately."
-"Let me look on it later."
-"Sure."
-"Eno."-Scáthach walked to my side. She glanced at my slowly healing chest but quickly looked away.-"It would seem that you managed to overcome your heart demon."
-"Yes."-I nodded.
-"Good. The spear is yours. Use it to create something greater."
-"Thanks."
She was silent for a moment before she extended her hand and started to write runes. Soon, I felt how my healing accelerated. I looked at her and noticed a tingle of pain in her eyes, not worry, just pain due to being responsible for my state. I smiled at her to reassure her that it wasn't her fault.
I had to stay in the training room for the rest of the day before my wounds healed enough not to be obvious, though I'll still need weeks to heal fully. Such a long healing time was caused by the cause of the damage, my blue flame. Scáthach's spear was the catalyst; Gáe Bolg clashed with my blue flames, causing them to harm me; as such, the injury should be classified as a backlash.
Under Artoria's insistence, I decided to stay in Azure Dream for the rest of the week before the court. Morgan stayed here as well, leaving Agravain to arrange matters for her. Artoria also wanted to remain, but Merlin dragged her out; she had too many things to do outside. What surprised me was that Mostima also left with them, hiding her halo and horns with Merlin's magic. She wanted to understand the political landscape, preparing for my appointment as Justiciar.
The time passed quickly, before I could even fully turn the Gáe Bolg that Scáthach gave me mine, I was already standing by Artoria's and Morgan's side, preparing to depart for court. Morgan was in her usual dress, face covered by a black veil. I also stood there in my armor, head covered by the hood, but my halo and wings were fully visible.
But Artoria didn't wear her usual clothes; instead, she was now covered head to toe in silver and blue armor, a cloak, and a helmet carved to resemble a lion's face. Her armor made her look much more eminent, giving her an air of maturity her petite frame lacked, but her height still left some things to desire. Looking at her now, I knew that researching a method to allow her to grow to her adult size would be a necessity later.
Accompanying Morgan were her 'sons', acting as both guards and assistants. I also had my entourage, composed of Mostima in her official priestess outfit, acting as my assistant, and my Knights as my guards. Everyone was in their full armor, not hiding their racial characteristics or halos. Qingyan wasn't present this time, as the lack of a halo would cause some troubles we needed to avoid now.
-"Are you ready?"-Artoria asked, her voice sounding different due to enchantments on the helmet.
-"After you, Sister."-Morgan answered, trying to sound natural despite still adapting to their new relationship dynamics.
-"You'll need to call me brother or Arthur there."-Artoria reminded.
Two of us nodded.
Artoria took an audible deep breath, straightened her already straight posture, and started to walk forward. Morgan and I followed her, the witch in black and angel in white, created a contrast that attracted as many eyes as 'King Arthur' herself. But no one dared to stand in our way, giving us a free path to the court hall.
To be honest, calling this place a hall was generous, as it was barely more than a wooden station build in a giant tent. On one side was an elevated platform for the King and his close associates, and a U shape bleachers that were in front of it. The bleachers consisted of two layers: the upper for nobility, the lower for knights. The nobility had more comfortable spaces, seats, and tables, while knights only had the floor to stand on.
In current Britain, there were a total of seven so-called 'kingdoms' with kings ruling them. Present here were four different kings: Morgan, who, as King Lot ruled Scotland and was the previous regent; Urien, King of Rheged; Rience, who ruled Wales; and Leodegrance, who cared for the lands of Cameliard after the passing of Artoria's mother and father.
The remaining three kings were Vortigern and two Anglo-Saxon usurpers. They obviously didn't respond to Artoria's call, not even pretending to acknowledge her as High King. We expected that, so their absence wasn't an issue.
Aside from kings, there were about seventy nobles present, representing all major households in those four regions. Nobles controlled most of the towns and villages, only having a small standing force mostly for peacekeeping, but they held most of the economy in their grasp, making them troublesome to deal with. Most of the army was in kings' hands, while many knights were free agents, most of them still served some liege.
Artoria now was a lone king, having no army and no vassals, but her identity as heir of King Uther and the sword in her hand, granting her the title of High King, was worth more than lands or army. In times where bloodline mattered more than ability, few were more noble than Artoria.
When we entered the hall, everyone quieted down, but few people knelt before the High King. Only some knights and people like King Leodegrance and old retainers of King Uther gave her deserved courtesy. Artoria nodded and ordered them to rise before sitting on her chair. Morgan and I sat by her side, showing our allegiance.
Seeing Morgan by Artoria's side, most of the people in the know were startled, not sure what to make of it. With Morgan declaring her stance, nobles shifted in their chairs, knowing that the previously weak High King was now someone they couldn't offend carelessly. But while they couldn't do anything about Morgan's decision, I, a relatively unknown knight, quickly became their target.
The First Royal Court started without many issues; the greetings and introductions of various households took over an hour, giving everyone time to gauge those present and formulate their strategies. Morgan, who was regent, should preside over the order of the court, but she left that in the hands of Agravain. She just watched how everyone pretended to be civil.
As this part of the court passed, the time for the serious matters drew near. This was the first step in deciding whether Artoria's reign would start smoothly, and many would try to gain benefits while leveraging this fact. Now, we only needed to make an example of a few to establish order and Artoria's prestige.