When the wand’s eruption occurred, Sieg threw himself to the left side, once more performing a skillful side roll. However, such a course of action was predictable despite Sieg’s necessity to do so. Before Sieg could even land, his body was welcomed by a stream of soaring knives which cleanly dug past his robe’s futile resistance and etched themselves into his flesh.

  Sieg could do nothing but bear the pain until at last his evasion of the deadly blast was complete. The moment he landed he did not hesitate to conjure a wind gust that swatted away the following knives dashing towards him.

  Sieg paid no heed to the knives which did pierce him and instead focused on unleashing a rain of fire onto his opponent. Golden 3 on the other hand began taking one wand after the other and sending them forth. Just like so the battlefield ignited into a frenzy of flames. Both Sieg and Golden 3 could not avoid the torching of their flesh as they continued the arduous battle.

  BOOM!

  A wand ignited into scorching fury before another did, then another, and another…

  BOOM!

  As Sieg avoided yet another near encounter with the deadly eruption and just as he retaliated with his own orbs of flames, he could not help but curse at the nature in which Golden 3 chose to approach this battle. However despite his bitterness over it, he could also not deny its genius. To intentionally oversaturate a conductor with his Inner-Mana and then send it forth as it explodes was the perfect way to quickly create devastating attacks while negating Sieg’s inherent advantage of being able to forge spells within rapid succession of each other. In the hands of a lesser foe, then even such a trick would have failed to place a mage within such a precarious situation, yet Golden 3’s mastery over The Artifice Sword-Style was what made this battle such a dire one.

  Sieg would not win this battle if this continued, however, he did not fear such a possibility in the slightest. After all…

  BOOM!

  While once more avoiding another eruption, Sieg felt his legs be pierced by the sharp points of knives. He ignored the small agony which they brought, a task easily done when the heat of the explosion near him was a far worse torture.

  However, even then his focus was not upon that scorching pain, instead his eyes were firmly locked on Golden 3’s remaining number of wands. It appeared that his foe had at last arrived upon his final wand. While Golden 3 may have successfully suppressed him with the clever usage of sorcery, should Sieg successfully dodge this final wand then it meant that his victory would be assured.

  That realization made Sieg’s blood boil with elation.

  I just need to push a little more!

  Fire erupted in the space before his hands and soon a new barrage of fire spears shot forth towards Golden 3. Naturally, Golden 3 was able to avoid most of their fury unscathed and even through a few more knives forth. He then at last reached for his final wand, grasping it tightly with his left hand. Just as he did, Golden 3 opened his lips and began speaking within a foreign language, that of Dragonese.

  “In front of me my enemies wait…”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Planning to use magic now? As if I’d let you!

  Just as Golden 3 began his chant, Sieg summoned forth a bombardment of fire orbs. They were small and were forged of a miniscule amount of Inner-Mana yet that allowed their speed to be quicker and their rate of fire to be significantly faster.

  Golden 3 evaded each fire orb with varying difficulty, his chant never ceasing.

  “...before my eyes I ask that they become part of your dance as they are set in a glorious blaze, I Manifest thou, Fireball!”

  Golden 3’s voice layered atop itself as a fireball thrice the size of the current fire orbs being sent his way manifested.

  It burned with sizzling fury, the wand’s tip aimed directly at Sieg. Then the fireball shot forth.

  Sieg clicked his tongue in annoyance for having failed to disturb the spell’s conjuring and swiftly jumped sideways to evade with the aid of a rapidly manifested wind blast. The fireball would be concerning if it landed, yet far less so than the previous eruptions which Golden 3 had been sending his way.

  Sieg merely assumed that this was the start of Golden 3’s forward strategy. From what he could tell, Golden 3 would send a few spells Sieg’s way in an attempt to make his releasing of the wand's combustion unpredictable and increase the chances of it landing.

  In the next moment however, Sieg’s eyes widened when he saw Golden 3 raising his previously free right hand. His hand grasped at nothing, he merely spread out his palm towards the direction in which Sieg’s body was moving.

  Immediately Sieg’s surprise turned into dread as he saw it…

  Don’t tell me!

  He saw a small ball of flowing water suddenly manifest in the area just before Golden 3’s open palm. Sieg’s head turned numb and he wanted to take action against it; however it was already too late.

  The ball of flowing water trembled before soaring towards Sieg’s chest at a terrible speed. As it traveled through the hot air it stretched forth and began to transform into pure white ice, an ice within the shape of a jagged blade.

  Then…

  “Ack!”

  Sieg felt a cold and wet sensation course through the center of his chest.

  No! No! I— I can’t lose like this!

  The agony that the sword of ice brought was instantly drowned beneath the sheer weight of the despair which collided into him. He wanted to scream in protest yet when he opened his mouth only crimson blood seeped out. His white teeth too were drenched in crimson while his chest heaved heavily back and forth.

  Sieg’s eyes could not mask his despair, nor his utter confusion. So great was his shock that before he realized it, he uttered a murmur.

  “S–Since… Since w-when did y-you learn M-Magery?”

  He had never once expected that Golden 3 would pull out such a card, after all Golden 3 had never even shown a hint of interest upon The Magery Techniques. It was not foolish to think that he lacked the ability to summon forth incantationless spells, and yet he had done so upon this very day, executed in a style familiar to every slave within the third stage no less.

  However, before Sieg could receive an answer, he saw Golden 3’s expression distort violently before his right hand suddenly bulged.

  What followed after was the unique sound of flesh, bones, and muscles being rapidly torn apart from the inside out. With that sound came a shower of blood which shot forth in all directions as Golden 3’s entire right arm combusted. Within that explosion were threads of his Inner-Mana which were of a light blue color, contrasting drastically with the crimson of the scattering blood.

  Seeing this, Sieg was first left within utter shock before his previous suffocating despair transformed into elation.

  “Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!”

  Before he realized it, he had already unleashed a hefty laugh. One accompanied by the sound of gargling blood.

  “Hah-hah-hah– Fool! Y-You had gotten me, I’ll admit that much, yet it appears that your attempts to mimic The First Sword’s style failed, Hah-hah-hah! Now look! See the situation before us! Instead of one of us obtaining absolute triumph we will instead crawl to the end of this duel as pitiful bleeding pieces of scorched flesh! Hah-hah-hah! Come on Golden 3, let us see who has more blood to spare!”

  Sieg could not help but let his mouth run loose, he was far too happy to care. For a moment he had truly thought it was the end, that victory was impossible, yet now things had shifted. With both having received a critical injury it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to it, and the one which fell last would claim triumph over this duel of fire.

  Hello to readers of my story; Order of Fate. Unfortunately I am writing this to inform all those who have reached this far, and perhaps to the select few who have come to like what I have shown of this fantasy world of mine, that this story as of this post will be entering a partial hiatus. At first I began writing this series because I was foolish enough to think that I would always have the time to do so, however, with my life suddenly experiencing a shift in circumstances I have now found that this is no longer the case.

  As such I can no longer continue with this series with any certainty of consistency.

  I have had stories inside my head for years and at last this year I decided to finally start the long process of writing them. My skills in that regard are subpar at best and as a result I tend to review each chapter over and over again until I feel it's acceptable, until I can say I’m happy with it. Such is my nature as a writer yet even then I had begun writing this series despite already being in the process of writing my first novel: Clone Seeker.

  I love both stories and have so much planned out for each of them but now that my circumstances have shifted I can no longer continue doing both and be content with the quality of the writing. I say all this to explain that I will be placing my focus upon the series which I started first and the shorter of the two stories. I will pour all of my dedication towards it and give it a proper beginning, middle, and end.

  To do that however means that I have to place Order of Fate on pause. I will still write it when I have the chance to do so but I will post chapters very sporadically moving forward, if any. Then when I’m finished with Clone Seeker I will return to this fantasy world and give it the full attention which it deserves.

  I apologize to those who liked what I wrote so far, it was my overconfidence that placed me in this position. However I would also like to thank those who have read this far and taken the time to read this rant of mine.

  Truly thank you, it means alot to an aspiring author.