novelraw Chapter 64: Marcus Vs Marbas (3)
Chapter 64: Marcus Vs Marbas (3)
From outside, it appeared as if it were just a smooth veil draping the county of Crescenda.
However, from within, it was trembling even just with the presence of Raum Marbas.
The ground had long ceased to resemble a town’s floor. Sones were turned into dust, fused into jagged plates by head and force.
Cracks ran in every direction; some were hollow, some were deep enough to be mistaken for cliffs.
In the centre of the dome, the rift still existed, but none of the men trapped within the dome paid attention to it.
At the very edge of that destruction, Janus was standing still.
Both hands resting forward, fingers slightly curled, holding a magic circuit in his palm, and constantly strengthening the barrier.
And a little far from him, Ymir and Raum stood facing each other.
Raum’s attitude was different this time.
Marbas are the warriors of the demon kin.
Their code of conduct states, be a warrior before claiming yourself to be a demon.
Ever since the tone of the battle shifted, his body had changed even more. He wasn’t focusing on regeneration at all.
Attacks from Ymir left an extensive residue of aura within the wounds, and these residues would stay dormant, making it harder to control and extract.
With his mind focused on battle, Raum does not have the luxury to focus on his wounds.
Ymir lifted his twin blades, settling into alignment with his body.
<<
Raum’s muscles tightened, and his demonic energy lashed outward. His eyes didn’t follow the blades, but the man in front of him.
*THRRMMMP*
The ground beneath them cracked the moment they moved.
*SKRANG*
The collision of Ymir’s aura sword and the sharp blade of Raum’s blood sword sent the ripples of force outward.
Dust lifted in a circular wave, slamming against the inner walls of the barrier.
Janus could feel the shockwaves travelling past him, enough to turn a city into ruins, if his barrier wasn’t there.
Ymir changed his stance mid-battle.
<<
His forward blade aligned with Raum’s throat.
Raum’s right eye moved in an instant, mapping the change in the movements of both blades.
The flames around them burned even fiercer.
His posture shifted, rolling his shoulders back. His blood-black sword condensed even tighter and turned into two blades, as he countered each movement.
Their movements were getting harder and harder to track for Janus. He was constantly looking for an opportunity to distract Marbas.
One wrong move, and Ymir’s blade would slice his head off his body.
The ground kept detonating at the places they moved, and the whole dome was a swirling pocket of shockwaves that sent tremors across the whole county.
Raum’s twin blood-forged blades moved in a crossing arc, one aimed to intercept, the other to kill.
But the moment he would enter Ymir’s range, the air would start to split apart.
Every clash and every collision was forcing Raum’s blade outward.
Ymir’s wrists rotated in one swift movement. And this was again, out of Raum’s expectations.
<<
The vertical alignment had no blind spot.
Flames in Raum’s eyes flickered fiercely as he again mapped the new stance.
The first strike came from above. Raum raised one of his blades, then again, his eye widened.
<<
Ymir in front of him was an afterimage. A diagonal arc flowed from behind his back.
Instead of twisting, Raum put everything in his legs and launched forward.
Ymir’s blade made a fine cut diagonally across Raum’s back.
*KRRAK-KOOM! *
But the attack wasn’t done without damage.
Raum’s forward surge created a massive crater that sent Ymir flying back.
*Krrrh*
Ymir dug his katanas into the ground and came to a halt.
Without any wait. They both faced towards each other and moved.
*Grkkk*
*Grkkk*
"..." Janus looked in front of him, as they both just disappeared with even faster movements than before.
Raum’s blades came first, aimed straight through the centre line.
Ymir’s right blade disappeared, concealed from Raum’s immediate sightline.
Raum’s body turned just to narrow his profile, and then he sensed a katana forming through his chest.
He stepped right and ducked, while Ymir gripped the katana and swung it in a wild arc without a worry of the barrier.
The black aura ripped the very air behind Raum and created a massive crack in the barrier.
Seeing the gap, Raum thrust his blade through, and for a moment it seemed as if he pierced Ymir.
But there was no resistance. The blade passed through an afterimage.
Raum’s pupils shrank, but it was too late. Ymir was a breath away from him, and an afterimage at this distance meant only one thing.
*Shiing!*
A black arc carved across his side from the blind spot.
The force behind it didn’t just cut his arm off, but it sent his body skidding across the fractured ground before he forcefully dug his foot in to stop.
The ground beneath him ruptured again.
Janus clenched his teeth as the barrier rippled violently from the impact.
A deep tremor ran beyond the barrier, shaking the county at its core.
Raum straightened.
Black blood seeped out from multiple wounds, and his left arm was separated from his body.
He exhaled slowly.
Trying to contain his anger within, his bloodline authority was corrupting his demonic energy to the point that even being in its presence was suffocating.
The bloodline of Marbas was currently granting him powers rivalling those of high-ranking counts within the house of Sorrow.
He had never been pushed this far.
Ymir didn’t pursue him, even after taking Ruam’s arm, even after forcing him back.
He just stood still, breathing calmly.
He was compressing every ounce of aura across the battlefield that had receded, drawing it back into his body.
For him, it was a matter of preservation. Because, unlike Marbas, who seemed to have an enormous reserve, Ymir’s reserve was not enough to rival the demon in front of him.
The more Marbas corrupted the field, the more Ymir compressed his aura towards himself.
He rolled his shoulders once and cracked his neck.
His grip on the twin katanas tightened, and then, after some thought, he let them loose.
The katanas disappeared.
He didn’t take any stance like previously.
His body relaxed, and for a moment, there was silence.
Utter silence.
<<
The shadows across the field intensified.
He took a step forward, as Raum took a stance once again.
And then...he vanished.
Raum’s eyes turned sharp in an instant.
His senses expanded, and demonic energy probed each and every part within the field.
Even Janus couldn’t feel anything, and he was an assassin.
He couldn’t find any movement or any signature of aura within his own barrier.
*Shiing!*
A blade manifested on the surface of Raum’s neck. In that very instant, he saw Marcus swinging his Katana to slice off his neck.
Panicked gripped in his eyes, and he shot backwards with everything he had.
Raum couldn’t feel Ymir’s presence.
He touched his neck, and there was a fine cut on the surface.
If he had not reacted, his head would have been rolling on the ground.
His body reacted, and a massive amount of dense demonic energy surged around him to protect him.
*Shiing!*
This time from behind his neck.
He swung his sword wildly, but met nothing.
Only there was a cut on the back of his neck.
Raum tried to focus. He tried to sense anything, any friction in space or air.
His stance lowered.
His feet dug into the ground, and flesh changed its form as it spread like roots beneath the ground.
A trick to sense anything around him, that is, if it touches the ground.
But...
Ymir appeared in front of him, far enough for his sword not to reach him.
*Skrhch!*
"Petty tricks," he smirked and dug his sword into the ground, exploding outward an intense force of his aura, as the Demonic flesh burned.
Raum convulsed his demonic flesh back into his body.
"You-" he screamed.
"I will kill you!" He growled.
"Yeah, you seem to be doing a pretty good job at that," Ymir replied.
"You mock me with words while hiding in shadows?" Raum snarled.
He stomped, and the entire dome shook as a ring of black blood spikes erupted outward in every direction.
Ymir disappeared again.
Raum’s eyes spun wildly, trying to follow the presence.
He could barely sense anything.
*Shiing!*
A black arc flashed from behind his right shoulder.
He spun around, swinging his sword in a horizontal arc, but the blade met only the afterimage of Ymir.
"You fight like a coward. You’re no warrior," he spat.
A katana pierced the black blood spike in front of Marbas.
And Ymir appeared, standing on its hilt.
"What’re you complaining about?" Ymir said. "You weren’t winning in a face-off either."
Outside the dome, the Duke family of Valante, the remaining defenders and the civilians were on the edge.
The ground constantly trembled from the distance, as they sought refuge in the neighbouring County of Cascendra, in the castle of the Count of Orchiv.
Giovanni stared through the window as knights of Orchiv prepared for the battle. Gates were shut silently, and people snuggled into their homes.
The constant stream of earthquakes didn’t help anyone ease their anxiety.
"My lord," he heard a voice, and looked back at his butler, dressed in a three-piece black and white suit.
"The holy knights have arrived."