Chapter 29 - The Unequal Battle (1/2)

Evan and Fien's duel was about to begin, but suddenly they were stopped by Marcel's voice, ”Before you fight, I need to clarify one thing that none of you know.”

Everyone but Zak looked at Marcel in anticipation of his words.

”Even though this will be a friendly sparring session, we don't want you to hold back. So fight to the fullest, you can even throw lethal blows. Zak and I will easily patch you up after the fight, or stop you if we see one of you wouldn`t survive the next attack.”

Evan and Fien nodded, then Marcel slammed his palms together to signify the start of their duel.

Whoosh.

The girl attacked first. Marcel's words about complete freedom of action pleased her. Now she could do as she wanted.

With lightning speed, Fien got to Evan, stabbing him squarely in the chest with her rapier. Evan saw this and jumped aside, bypassing the whole hail of attacks.

Evan decided not to rush his attack. He understood that it`s a battle between two magicians and his opponent hadn't used any spells yet. So he wouldn't be in a hurry, either. Today was Evan's first time fighting another mage, he didn't want to make any mistakes.

”Marcel, your daughter is good enough. I think if she becomes an ”Amplifier”, she will have a great future.” Zak remarked, putting a couple of grapes into his mouth.

Marcel did not answer and only smiled slightly. While Zak was staring at Fien, he observed Evan's actions.

The girl wasn`t upset that her attack hadn`t worked and went back to attacking Evan. He ducked, dodged and parried the blows. At one point Fien made a mistake and Evan seized the moment. He punched the girl in the stomach with all his might and she immediately vomited blood.

”That hit was extremely powerful. Fien will have a hard time recovering from it”. Said Marcel

Fien bounced to the side and finally decided to act. There was no way she wanted to lose to Evan.

Whoosh.

Mana had gathered at the girl's hand then, a wind began to appear around the rapier. Evan immediately felt the danger.

He didn't know what kind of spell it was, but Zak was well aware of it.

”Zero Level spell -”Humble Whirlwind”, element - wind, Amplification Magic. Pretty good, though I haven`t expected anything less from your daughter.” Zak said slowly, looking at the swirling wind around Fien's sword.

”You're absolutely right.” Marcel took a sip of wine and continued with a slight wistfulness in his voice: ”Fien is a precious flower, too bad that her life used to be hell.

Fien was not Marcel's biological daughter; Marcel had no wife or children. Years ago, he had picked her up on the street, dirty, skinny, shabby, miserable and weak.

Marcel had seen potential in her, so he adopted her and helped her in every way he could. It was common for a magician to do such a thing. For the most part, magicians were free people who didn't want to bind themselves with family ties.

For them, it was real chains that only restrained their movements. But the most important reason was something else. Because of the reluctance to create a family, a magician had little chance of having a child of his own. So, practically no magicians had their own children.

It was all about talent. Magicians knew very well how hard life was for people without a talent for magic. So they did not want to condemn their children to such an existence.

There were of course those who killed or abandoned their children because they had no talent for magic, but there were not many such bastards.

...

<Wow, her sword emits power>. Evan was wary and prepared to use his spell on Fien's next attack.

Evan's ”Warp” began to spin and the girl attacked.

Fien quickly reached Evan and swung her rapier several times, striking.

The Amplification spell had greatly increased the power and the speed of her weapon, and Evan felt it with his own skin. Evan easily dodged every punch, but...

Splash.

Suddenly blood gushed from Evan's body, and his face froze in shock.

<What?> Evan didn't understand what had happened. He was sure that no attack had hit him, but suddenly he felt a searing pain in his chest.