Chapter 1088: 1087: Steel And Storm
Simon stared at the greatsword beside his throat.
Then at Torvek’s face.
He understood immediately.
Torvek hadn’t seen a clone. He had seen Simon cut off Veyra’s arm, grab her by the throat and take her head. He had either been distracted or too far away to see her body turn into water.
’Damn it.’
"Torvek, listen to me," Simon said calmly. "That wasn’t Veyra."
"Liar."
"She was a fake. Her body turned into water when-"
"I said you’re a LIAR!"
Torvek ripped the greatsword free of The Wall and swung.
Simon dropped beneath it.
WHOOSH!
The blade passed so close over his head that the wind of it tugged at his hair. Behind him, the golden barrier flashed where the edge had grazed it.
Simon pushed off The Wall and shot backward into the open sky. Torvek followed without a moment’s hesitation.
"The person I killed can copy faces," Simon said, raising the Chaos Blade. "She copied Veyra. She copied you, Rasken, Haldis-"
CLANG!
Torvek’s greatsword crashed against the Chaos Blade. Sparks burst between them, and the force drove Simon back several meters through the air.
"You expect me to believe that?!"
"I expect you to think!" Simon’s voice stayed level, but his eyes had gone cold. "If I’m right, the real Veyra is in trouble. The Dominion could already be inside the city."
For the first time, Torvek’s sword faltered.
His eyes flicked toward the west, where Veyra’s section of The Wall curved out of sight. Then toward the city, the terraces, the shelters.
Simon watched him
Torvek was a member of the Abyss that had been assigned to protect Vhal-Sar by the Abyss Sovereign. He wouldn’t ignore the possibility of what he just said.
However, the city looked untouched. The west was quiet. The only fighting was out here on the sea.
Torvek’s face hardened again.
"Nice try."
He charged.
Simon’s lips pressed into a thin line.
’This stubborn idiot.’
He met the greatsword with the Chaos Blade.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The exchange was fast and brutal. Torvek swung the greatsword as if it weighed nothing, each strike carrying the full force of a Superior Demon King. Every time Simon blocked, the impact rattled through his arm and into his shoulder.
He couldn’t afford to block too often.
So he stopped blocking.
He started redirecting.
The next downward slash came at his head. Simon angled the Chaos Blade and let the greatsword slide along its edge, guiding it past his shoulder. In the same motion, he stepped inside Torvek’s guard and cut at his ribs.
Torvek twisted away. The Chaos Blade still opened a shallow line across his side.
Torvek’s eyes narrowed at the sharpness of the blade.
He came again… but harder this time around.
A horizontal sweep.
Simon leaned back just enough for it to pass, then flicked his blade toward Torvek’s wrist. Torvek jerked his hand away.
A thrust.
Simon turned his body sideways, and the greatsword’s tip slid past his chest by a finger’s width.
Torvek’s next strike came a fraction early.
Simon’s counter was already waiting for it.
SHHK!
The Chaos Blade cut across Torvek’s forearm.
Blood sprayed.
Torvek leapt back, staring at the wound.
A cold feeling crept up his spine.
He had been swinging a sword for over a century. He had fought masters of the blade in four kingdoms in the demon realm and even in The Abyss. He knew what it looked like when someone was simply strong, and what it looked like when someone truly understood a sword.
And this boy understood it better than he did.
Simon wasn’t using a sword art. Torvek could see that. There were no fixed forms, no named stances. Every movement was simply the best possible movement for that exact moment, as though Simon had already lived through this fight a hundred times.
’What kind of talent is this?’
Torvek gritted his teeth.
’He’s a Greater Demon. How can a Greater Demon swing a sword like that?’
His expression darkened further.
Talent or not, he would not lose to Veyra’s murderer.
Grey light flooded over his greatsword.
The blade thickened. Its edges sharpened and lengthened, and jagged ridges of metal rose along its spine. The same grey light spread over Torvek’s arms and shoulders, hardening into plates of dull iron.
The moment Simon saw this, he realized that Torvek’s affinity was the Metal element.
"Ninefold Iron Tide," Torvek growled.
He swung.
The first strike came straight down. The second followed from the left before the first had finished. The third from the right. Each one heavier than the last, the weight of the blade building like a wave rolling toward shore.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
Simon blocked the first three and slid back with each impact.
But he was watching.
On the fourth strike, Torvek’s front foot shifted forward to carry the growing weight. On the fifth, his shoulder dipped before the swing. On the sixth, the momentum pulled his guard wide for half a heartbeat.
The art was powerful.
But it was also predictable.
Each strike needed the last one to build its strength. And the heavier the blade grew, the longer Torvek needed to bring it back.
On the seventh strike, Simon didn’t block.
He stepped into it.
The greatsword came down where he had been a moment before. Simon was already beneath Torvek’s arm, the Chaos Blade’s edge turned toward the gap in the iron plates under his shoulder.
Torvek barely twisted in time. The blade scraped across iron and drew a line of sparks down his ribs.
The eighth and ninth strikes never came because the art had been broken.
Torvek stumbled back, breathing hard. His eyes were wide.
He had spent decades refining that art, but Simon had taken it apart in seven strikes.
"Enough," Simon said.
His voice was quiet, but there was something new in it now.
Torvek answered by raising his hand.
Shards of metal tore themselves out of the air around him. Hundreds of them, each the size of a spearhead, spinning into a storm that blotted out part of the sky.
They shot toward Simon.
Simon’s patience finally ran out.
If he kept holding back against a Superior Demon King, he would die. And he had no intention of dying because of someone else’s stupidity.
He swept his hand outward.
FWOOOOSH!
A wall of orange fire roared into existence before him. The spinning shards struck it and glowed red, then white. Many of them melted into droplets before they could reach him. The rest burst through the flames soft and warped, and Simon batted them aside with the Chaos Blade.
Torvek’s iron armor thickened.
He charged through the dying flames, greatsword raised.
Simon met him with the wind.
It wrapped around the Chaos Blade, then around Simon himself, until he moved like a gust. He slipped past the greatsword’s swing and appeared at Torvek’s side. A blade of compressed wind lashed out from his sword and struck Torvek’s iron shoulder plate.
SHRRRK!
The plate split open.
Torvek roared and spun, his greatsword dragging a curtain of metal shards behind it.
Simon was already gone.
He reappeared above Torvek. Crimson lightning crackled to life along the Chaos Blade, racing down the black steel and leaping between the coils of wind still spinning around him.
He brought the blade down.
BOOOOM!
Torvek raised his greatsword just in time. Wind, lightning and fire crashed against iron, and the shockwave flattened the sea beneath them. Crimson lightning spread across Torvek’s armor and dug into the gaps between the plates. His teeth clenched against the pain.
Fire.
Wind.
Lightning.
Torvek’s mind went blank for a moment.
He had felt the density of each element as it struck him. Each one was overwhelming. Each one was at the S grade.
All three of them.
’He has three S-grade affinities?’ Torvek thought, horrified. ’As a Greater Demon?’
’What kind of monster is he?’
Both of them pulled back.
Torvek’s greatsword began to glow, iron spreading along its length until it was twice its previous size, its edge shimmering with killing intent.
Simon raised the Chaos Blade. Fire gathered around it, wind spiralled around the fire, and crimson lightning laced through both, crackling and howling.
They lunged at each other.
And someone grabbed them both.
A pair of thick, dark-red arms locked around Torvek from behind, pinning his own arms to his sides.
"TORVEK!" Rasken roared in his ear. "Have you lost your damned mind?!"
At the same instant, a figure appeared directly in front of Simon.
Seraya.
A jade shield flared between them, and her free hand pressed flat against his chest.
"Blackmoon, stop!"
Simon stopped.
The elements around his blade flickered, then slowly faded.
"Let me go!" Torvek snarled, straining against Rasken’s grip. "He killed Veyra! I saw it!"
"And you attacked the Sovereign’s potential disciple in the middle of a battle!" Rasken shouted. "You stupid bastard! Do you have any idea what the Sovereign would do to us if he dies here?!"
Seraya’s eyes were locked on Simon’s face. Her hand was still pressed against his chest, and Simon could feel it trembling slightly.
"Whatever happened between you two," she said, her voice tight, "it can wait. My people are dying out there."
She looked past him at the tide and pointed at the Leviathan, Kraken, Sea Serpent, and the Siren.
"If the two of you kill each other, who’s going to stop that?"
Simon held her gaze for a moment.
Then he lowered the Chaos Blade.
A voice suddenly rolled across the battlefield.
It was calm and low, and somehow it reached every one of them at once, even over the roar of the Leviathan’s fire.
"Torvek. Blackmoon."
Haldis didn’t even turn her head. She was still holding back the Leviathan’s breath with her hexagonal shield.
"If the two of you do not stop this foolishness right now," she said, "I will leave this beast where it is and kill you both myself."