Chapter 838 (2/2)

The Spearman smashed downwards with his spear, treating it more like a hammer than a true spear. The ground cracked and buckled as Shal stepped to the side and out of the way. Roaring, the Spearman strode boldly forward after Shal.

All the while, Shal continued to spend his Mana on Isolating Fear. How long will you be able to last, Spearman? You rage because of fate, but you brought yourself here. And now that losing will grant you your heart’s desire… will you be able to maintain the cutting edge that made you the Spearman?

This time the Spearman’s thrust was so fast that the air seemed to shudder with its passage. Gritting his teeth, Shal danced to the side and feinted toward the Spearman’s knee. Rather than responding normally to the feint, the Spearmen moved to meet Shal’s supposed strike with a brutal knee. It was the response of a confident aggressor.

Wincing, Shal flexed his spear and then let it bow beneath the brutal knee counter to disperse most of the force. Then Shal twisted the spear and smashed the Spearman in the belly. The man dully grunted but did not appear any the worse for wear.

And while Shal struck at the stomach, the Spearman had time to drop his huge spear downward like a guillotine.

Shal’s eyes flashed. The Spearman’s confidence made him predictable in a way. The haymaker style blow would be slow but effective. Still, in the Spearman’s mind, Shal had spent the force he could muster. All his options now appeared to be either continuing to circle or attempting to block the powerful blow.

Unfortunate, Auto Rach. Now, let us dance.Coiling Momentum: Strike.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Shal exploded into motion. Coiling Momentum was a Skill that passively took a little bit of speed off of every move Shal made. A minuscule amount, so little that none but he would notice. Slowly, that speed accumulated. Like an adder waiting to strike, Shal could tap into this momentum for a brief burst of speed. But such was the long cost of charging up sufficient speed that Shal had only used the Skill once before.

That was in a tryout for the position as Ophelia’s lieutenant, in order to impress her enough to accept him. Since then, he had endured a slight resistance in his movements for almost a year. At this point, he didn’t even notice it anymore. It was just part of the way he was.

So when time expanded around him into cavernous split seconds, Shal almost wasn’t sure what to do. Or rather, he wasn’t sure how to control his body, flooded as it was with the overwhelming sense of capability. As he activated the Skill, his heart pounded with such ferocity that it shook Shal’s own ribcage. The beats were far between in the heightened mode but had a force that was impossible to describe.

DUMMM.

Shal raised his spear or attempted to. His arm blurred upward, and the spear that had just smacked the Spearman in the stomach ripped up through the Spearman’s nose, tearing through one of his nostrils and exposing cartilage to the air. Blood sprayed in a slow-motion arc upward.

The Spearman’s head slowly leaned back as the Spearman’s prodigious reflects kicked in, a little too late. Shal watched the individual drops of blood with wide eyes, then controlled his spear as he lowered it. Or at least tried to.

Instead, he brought his spear down and gored a hole into the thigh of the Spearman. The speed was so much that the spear bent as he brought it down into a crescent. Then, when the blade tip entered into the Spearman’s flesh, the bowed spear snapped straight, ripping the wound much wider than it would have been otherwise.

DUMMM.

The spear pierced deeply into the Spearman’s leg. To swiftly dislodge it, Shal twisted the spear and ripped through a good portion of the muscle and flesh in the surrounding area. It brought Shal a flash of joy; the Spearman would not be able to rely on this leg for a while.

As Shal raised his spear one more time with the dwindling boost, he felt the rage and hate in the Spearman’s eyes. This time he didn’t try to control it. He simply let his body do what it had done almost one million times: raise the spear and thrust.

DUMMM.

The Skill finished, and Shal hurriedly pulled his spear out of the Spearman’s midsection. Blood followed like a rush of desperate refugees from his body, spurting out to pool on the ground.

As quickly as possible, Shal stepped backward or at least tried to. What he actually did was lean and fall backward, because his body was wracked by muscle spasms. Shal grimaced. Too much, too fast. My body-

But that thought was wiped off of the surface of his mind as the Spearman finally brought his brutal blow downward. Shal couldn’t help but notice that it began accelerating, as it rushed down to crush him in retaliation for his previous blows. Angry, are we? Good. Then perhaps you will cease playing around.

Even as his limbs struggled to recover from the overexertion they just experienced, Shal gritted his teeth and brought up his spear to block the overhand blow from the Spearman. It was a close thing. A split second longer and Shal would have been cut in half. As it was, his spear was there in time and its flexible shaft bowed beneath the pressure.

But Shal’s expression tightened as the power of the violent image contained in the spear continued to press downward. Images of bodies breaking surrounded the two fighters. Space was already tight in the small room, and it seemed like Shal was surrounded by a sea of corpses. The weight of a thousand bodies’ dripping blood pounded down on Shal with the Spearman’s attack.

Gritting his teeth, Shal strained every muscle he could. He could hear the crack of breaking bones, the groans and sighs of the dying. It was a symphony of noises, rising higher and higher. Shouting, crying, screaming…

Shal’s spear trembled underneath the onslaught, then snapped.

The blow crashed into Shal’s shoulder, shattering his collarbone on the left side and biting deeply into the muscle of his upper body. But just as quickly, Shal lashed out with the bottom half of his old spear. With the splintered and broken end first, he shoved it into the deep gash he had made in the Spearman’s thigh. Then, both to propel himself away and make matters worse, Shal kicked the shattered piece of the shaft.

The head of the Spearman’s spear was ripped out of his torso, taking with it Shal’s breath. Grunting, Shal swayed then took a defensive stance.

The Spearman growled and took a step forward, but stumbled as the leg with a half meter of wood sticking out of it failed him. He righted himself, then glared at Shal. The two bleeding spear-users stared at each other, even as the runes in the air began to spin and glitter, faster and faster.