CHAPTER 42

  THE LINEAGE

  Delimira stood there, staring at the dust that had settled. She had cast a spell on Ezekiel that was almost as powerful as a fifth-circle spell. Even her Parvian friend wouldn’t have been unscathed, or she thought.

  After everything was settled, not only her but others too saw the scene agape. Standing behind Ezekiel was a powerful black horse with a single horn protruding from its forehead. Its wings stretched out wide, covering Ezekiel like a protective shield.

  “An Alicorn.” She gritted, in frustration.

  Meanwhile, in faraway Deadlands, Hans almost choked down on his drink. “ Since when does a mere grade 50 control an Alicorn?” he exclaimed, wiping his mouth.

  “A knight always has a mount,” Hera answered, “but owning one below grade seventy is really unheard of—”

  “It’s not just a mount.” Hans shouted, not believing. “Being contracted with a knight, they aren’t bound by the restriction of classes. They can grow even to classless. Norwin had two freaky birds.”

  He was clearly agitated, and it was definitely not that Ezekiel having a mount had rubbed on him. Understanding him, Hera caressed his back. “Calm down. You aren’t the only anomaly in this world, kiddo. People like Ezekiel are born from time to time. We call them gifted ones, and that’s the scary part about these upstarts, Devildom. Each and every brat of theirs comes under that category.”

  “So what happens now?” Hans asked, confused.

  “That Alicorn is probably a class four. Even if he is gifted it will be impossible for a grade fifty aura user to control that thing. But she is facing a knight and his mount when she is almost out of mana.” Hera looked at Hans with concern. “What do you think? Her odds aren’t looking good.” She said in a low voice.

  “Naah. She’ll win.” Hans’ eyes darted to the screen. “She has to if she wants to gloat later.” He mused, but his eyes had doubts. However, in an instant the doubts were gone when he looked Delimira’s movement.

  Seeing the sudden change in expression, Hera too, turned to the broadcast screen to see what Hans was looking at. Delimira’s hand was clenching the hilt of the rapier.

  “Ha, couldn’t you have just given up? Do you have to push me this far?” Delimira asked, her voice clear in the broadcast. She then heaved long to stabilise her breathing.

  “What the hell are you talking?” Ezekiel countered, his spear slowly raising, aiming at her. “You haven’t changed a bit since the time I saw you in Edenberg. You still look down on me, don’t you?” He demanded an answer.

  “You have a misunderstanding.” Delimira calculated her remaining strength and answered, “I don’t look down on you…I don’t even look at you—”

  “Hmph… taunt all you want. We’ll see after—”

  “The only thing you’ll be seeing is a wide blue sky.” Delimira taunted again, but it wasn’t to provoke him or something. “You can control a mount of class four. Do you think that is some sort of big deal—well, I guess, I can’t lose either. There is a Parvart, who won’t let me hear the end of it if it were to happen.”

  “I guess she is talking about you, son.” Hera nudged Hans, teasing. But Hans didn’t start a banter with Hera. He was focused on screen as such everyone in there.

  “My sword is not for you.” Delimira loosened the grip on hilt disappointing the audience who wanted to see a sword mage in action. But she had a surprise in store for them. Closing her eyes, she cracked her neck. “I’ll show you something to remember.”

  As her declaration fell, the air around her changed, and her canned slit eyes opened, staring right at the broadcasting crystal. “It’s all your fault, you bastard.”

  “She is definitely talking to you.” Hera teased, her eyes glued to the screen.

  Hans didn’t refute this time too. He could also feel those words were addressed to him. Suddenly, a thunder crackled in the sky of sunfall, right above the arena, and the dark clouds began to gather in a spiral. She started levitating, and strong winds started to channel around her.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Suddenly, she gained momentum and shot towards the eye of the rotating clouds. And as she disappeared in those, a deafening roar welcomed the crowd, like a distant cry from another world. There was something massive slithering in the sky above.

  Its shadow flashed as lightning crackled and quickly followed a heavy rain. The roar of the beast mixed with the sound of thunder shook the hearts of the onlookers.

  Finally, the massive body lowered itself and came out of those dark clouds. A long, serpentine body coiled and twisted, adorned with shimmering scales that reflected the lights of lightning in a myriad of colours.

  Till this point, Hans was thinking the creature was a sky serpent, a bit different but under the category of serpents, until he laid his eyes on her clawed feet, its sharp talons.

  However, that wasn’t all. Its reptilian snout, almost the same as the crocotian he had made with the whiskers unlike he had seen before. As the creature’s face became clearer, its long silver mane with crowned horns came into his sight. The whole figure looked majestic in its own right, and the command it had over nature was evident of its indomitable strength.

  “Woah. This is beautiful.” Hans couldn’t help but mutter those words, and Hera agreed. The nodemaster had seen this before many times, but every time, she was in awe.

  “So, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” She remarked. “Halfblood as if, she clearly inherited her father’s blood.”

  Hans couldn’t hear what she was saying since he was busy mesmerising the creature Delimira had become. “A mount has to be at least of that calibre. I want to her.” He murmured.

  “I understand your excitement, little Parvart.” Hera nonchalantly teased him, her eyes still glued at the majestic presence in the screen. However, her words snapped him out of his bewitched moment.

  Before Hera could add anything further, he intervened, “I didn’t mean any other thing. I meant, I just wanted a mount like her.”

  “You aren’t the knight, you can’t feed your aura to a beast, kiddo—”

  “Damn it, I nearly forgot that.” He cursed and turn to the screen once again, adding, “She looks so damn cool—”

  “You are too,” Hera assured him, “When you become elderwood, you look cool too.”

  “That’s just empty words—”

  “No, I swear I'm not lying.” Hera defended, her tone was so innocent that it was hard to distinguish her from a young girl to a forty-something woman she actually was.

  But it didn’t take her much time to become serious. “Aredhel did something clever with associating her daughter with Rudolf and Sierra, especially with you.” She emphasised the latter part and pointed at Delimira coiling around the clouds, “With her showing off like that, there is probably half of the strong knights who would want to tame her.”

  “For real?” Hans asked, perplexed.

  “Wasn’t you the same?” She questioned, point-blank.

  “No… I didn’t want… I wasn’t talking about the beast bond… well, me saying it, is different.”

  “You sure you two aren’t items?” She teased, but looking at Hans’s distorted expressions. She let it go. “But the fact that she is a student of Sierra, lives around Rudolf, and is friends with the Prince of Parv. That’s a heck of a resume she has; it has warnings written all over the place.

  At that moment, Rudolf and Sierra were also watching the scene. Rudolf had recalled some past words of Aredhel, as they echoed in his head - she is the key of everything. Samson had said to Aredhel to use these words if she needed protection from Rudolf.

  “Dear, I think that serpent’s blood is passed to her perfectly. Isn’t this creature able to resurrect the dead?” Rudolf asked, his words stammering.

  Sierra, however, didn’t respond. What Rudolf was saying wasn’t far-fetched; she had learned this from the man himself. But his resurrection ability came with a huge price that she contemplated if Delimira had to pay. She shook her head; there was no use counting chickens before they hatched, so she left everything on Samson’s plan, if it was still running. There would come a time when they could see him again, especially alive this time.

  Meanwhile, after showing off her dangerous yet mesmerising form, Delimira leered at the stunned Ezekiel. “This is an overkill, you scary elf. Unsheathing your sword would’ve sufficed.” He muttered, his eyes losing any hope.

  “I.TOLD.YOU.” Delimira said, her voice deepened. “IT’S.NOT.FOR.YOU.” She began her descent, her silver mane fluttering against the wind. Her ferocious dive brought immense pressure and tremor; the whole sunfall arena shook, and the artefact which allowed no interventions began to crack.

  The scene was nothing like a fight between a mage and a knight in the senior league of Glory wars, but a god teasing a mortal. She tackled Ezekiel’s Alicorn head-on, but the class four beast had already lost its vigour in the face of fear.

  However, Ezekiel, even in the face of the evident result, maintained his composure.

  Skill: Transcended Strike

  Putting all of his aura into his next move, he turned his spear pitch black.

  He threw it with everything he had, and after leaving his hand, the spear disappeared only to appear stuck near Delimira’s serpentine body’s shoulder.

  The skill carried an immense power. Ezekiel never thought of using it in Glory Wars, but he had to use it against Delimira. It was his last resort, but it only made her angrier.

  She retracted her head a little, and then time seemed to slow as she harnessed the energy within its muscles, gathering momentum for the strike.

  Suddenly, with a lightning-fast motion, she lunged forward, her head accelerating with twice the speed as before. The sudden burst of speed caught the resigned Ezekiel, and she clashed with him, leaving a huge crater behind. Of course, Ezekiel was on his back, unconscious, while Delimira stood in her elf form, clenching her bleeding shoulder.

  “You Loose.”