Paragon of Destruction

"A wager?" Arran eyed Brightblade suspiciously. When she smiled like this, it was rarely a good sign. And with a wager added, he knew there could only be trouble ahead.

"First, take a look," she replied. "After that, you can decide if you're interested."

Without any further words, she turned to the large group of novices standing nearby. Arran's arrival had interrupted their training, and they were now standing idly, staring at him with curious eyes.

"Cohort! Form ranks!" Brightblade called out.

The novices set into motion at once. In a few short moments, they had formed up into four lines of three dozen mages each, with two paces' distance between each line.

Arran was surprised at the speed and precision with which they moved. It was obvious that they had practiced this extensively, and even if he did not understand their purpose, just the sight of it was enough to impress him.

Brightblade shot him a brief grin before turning back to the novices, clearly pleased with their performance.

"Attack!" she shouted.

An instant barrage of attacks burst forth from the first rank of novices, slamming into a large wall several hundreds of paces away. And even before the attacks struck their target, the second rank of novices had stepped forward and launched attacks of their own.

It didn't stop there. A moment later the third rank took the lead, and again, a volley of magic attacks was flung at the wall in the distance. They were followed by the fourth rank, and even as the fourth rank stepped back again, the first rank once more took the head.

Arran watched in wonder as the novices spent a good two minutes launching a continuous storm of spells at their target, never more than a moment between attacks.

Now, he understood the tactic. With time to recover after each attack, the novices would last far longer than they could otherwise. And while that would be of little value in a brief fight, in a prolonged battle it would be invaluable.

Moreover, although these were just novices, Arran could already imagine the effect of a group of adepts fighting in this manner. While novices' Essence reserves would eventually run dry, adepts should be able to maintain a pace like this for hours on end.

"Halt!" Brightblade called out. The novices stopped their attacks at once and quickly turned to their original positions, and Brightblade turned back to Arran, pride clear in her expression.

"Impressive," Arran said. "Fighting like this, they can go on for ages."

"That's an advantage, but not the main one," Brightblade replied. "Hunters are at their strongest up close, and a single one who reaches our lines can kill dozens of mages. But attacking like this…"

"There won't be any gaps for them to use," Arran said, instantly recognizing what she was getting at.

His own preferred tactic against mages was similar to what Brightblade described — to close the distance as quickly as possible, then overwhelm his enemies without giving them a chance to respond.

And this tactic of Brightblade's was designed exactly to counter that. Against a constant barrage of attacks, there would be little chance to close the distance without getting hit.

Brightblade gave him a pleased nod. "Exactly. And this is just a single cohort. A full legion can cover an area of miles."

Arran frowned. "So this wager you mentioned… you want me to fight them?"

He had not forgotten her earlier words, and after seeing the cohort in action, he had a good idea of what she intended. With a tactic created exactly to counter his fighting style, she would naturally want to try it.

"Well-guessed," she said. "And if you can defeat them without getting hit, I'll give you a thousand Essence Crystals."

"Without getting hit?" The task seemed impossible, but after a moment of thought, Arran responded with a nod. Not because of the crystals, but because he was curious to see how he would fare against such tactics. "Agreed. Where do I start?"

Brightblade seemed surprised — and more than a little suspicious — at how easily Arran agreed, but she pointed at the wall in the distance. "Start at the wall. If any attack gets past your shields, you lose."

Although starting at a distance of three hundred paces would put him at a disadvantage, Arran did not object, and he quickly headed over to the wall.

As he took position, Brightblade turned to face the novices. "Cohort!" she called out. "Today, you will face Lord Ghostblade! Do not disappoint me!"

The novices responded with eager looks, already gathering Essence for the attacks they were about to launch at Arran. With his status, defeating him would be a victory worth celebrating despite their massive advantage in numbers.

Yet Arran wasn't concerned, and he faced his opponents calmly, patiently waiting for the confrontation to begin.

Finally, Brightblade's voice thundered across the training grounds.

"Begin!"

In an instant, Arran formed a Shadowcloak and rushed to the side. When several attacks slammed into the wall a moment later, he was already fifty paces away.

The furious assault on the wall continued relentlessly, but there was no need for Arran to worry about it. None of the novices would be able to detect him at such a distance — their Shadowsight would cover a dozen paces, at most. And that was without the distraction of having to attack.

He approached the group at a casual jog, completely ignoring the continuous stream of attacks that soared through the air dozens of paces to his left.

When he was almost upon the group, he burst into a sudden sprint, sword drawn as he rushed into the novices' midst. A few detected his approach at the last moment, but it was already too late — before they could launch any attacks, Arran was already among them, striking down his opponents as quickly as he could move his sword.

Faced with this ferocious assault, the group collapsed into chaos almost instantly. Some of the novices drew their weapons while others lashed out with Essence, but their panicked attacks only added to the chaos in their ranks.

In just a few breaths of time, half the novices had already fallen, and the others offered little in the way of resistance. None of them had Shadowsight anywhere near as good as Arran's, and against an invisible opponent who outclassed them in both strength and skill, they were all but defenseless.

Arran took care not to injure them, of course. These were mere novices, and not particularly skilled ones, either. Instead, he hit them with the flat of his blade, using only a small part of his strength. That was more than enough to cause them painful bruises, but not so much as to seriously harm them.

When most of the novices had fallen, Brightblade's voice finally sounded.

"Halt!"

The word put an immediate stop to the chaos, with the novices who still remained standing stopping in place. The others, meanwhile, slowly got back to their feet, more than a few of them sporting fresh bruises.

Arran let his Shadowcloak dissipate, and after a brief glance at his defeated enemies, he returned to Brightblade's side.

She gave him a flat stare. "That's not what I had in mind."

"That's why it worked so well," Arran replied. "And either way, it's a win."

"Don't worry, you've earned your crystals," Brightblade said. "But let's give this another try — this time, without you using Shadow Essence."

Arran gave it a moment of thought, then nodded. "Very well."

He returned to the wall unhurriedly, then turned toward the novices once more. Even at this distance, he could see that their enthusiasm in facing him had diminished considerably.

"Begin!"

Before Brightblade had finished the word, a thick earthen wall shot up from the ground a few dozen paces ahead of Arran, blocking the novices' attacks as he rushed forward.

A barrage of spells tore through the wall in moments, but already, Arran had put up a Force shield. The shield collapsed as quickly as the wall, but the brief delay brought Arran forth another few dozen paces, and behind it followed another shield — Wind, this time. And when that shield failed, another earthen wall burst from the ground.

This wasn't an effort Arran could maintain for long, but crossing the three hundred paces between the wall and the novices only took him a few short breaths.

This time, the novices saw him coming, and their discipline failed as soon as he fell upon them. In moments, the group collapsed into chaos, and it took only moments before half of Arran's opponents were defeated.

Uninterested in seeing her students receive another thrashing, Brightblade called out once more. "Halt!"

The fight came to a stop once more, and Arran sheathed his sword, then walked back to Brightblade.

This time, she gave him a pleased look. "It seems you have progressed even more than I expected."

"I've had good teachers to help me," Arran replied truthfully.

"From what I hear, you've put in considerable effort yourself, as well," she said.

There was no need for either of them to mention that Arran's victory owed much to the weakness of his opponents. Against the novices at his own estate — the Houses' most promising students — he wouldn't have fared nearly as well.

"But let's try this again," Brightblade continued. "Without you using magic."

Arran gave her an incredulous look. "That's impossible," he said. "I can't reach them without magic. Not without getting hit, at least."

Of course, if he were to rely on his resistance to magic, reaching the novices would be simplicity itself. None were strong enough to harm him. But that would expose things neither he nor Brightblade wanted to share with the world just yet.

Brightblade, however, merely raised an eyebrow and extended her hand toward Arran. An instant later, he felt a shield of Essence take shape around him.

"This protection should match what most Hunters have," she said. "See if that's enough for you to break through the attacks."

Arran gave her an uneasy frown. "If I do that…" He glanced at the novices, then continued in a low voice, "The strength I'll have to use will draw attention."

Brightblade gave a dismissive shrug in response. "You're heir to the Matriarch, and the Valley is filled with stories of you — no few of which far surpass anything you're capable of actually doing. You're well past the point of having to worry about drawing a little more attention."

Her words weren't quite enough to convince Arran, but with a small sigh, he headed back to the wall.

This time, the novices looked at him with wary eyes even before the fight began. Any hopes they had of scoring an easy win against the Matriarch's heir were long gone, and now, they mostly seemed worried about whether they'd receive yet another beating.

"Begin!"

The ground cracked under Arran's feet as he leaped forward, the first volley of spells passing harmlessly beneath him. Moving with bounding leaps that tore the ground where he landed, he crossed three hundred paces in barely two breath's time.

A few of the novices' spells still hit him, but nowhere near enough to break through Brightblade's shield. And as the novices saw him approach, their faces filled with fear. Their ranks broke almost instantly, their discipline failing before he could even reach them.

"Halt!" Brightblade's voice sounded again, ending the fight before Arran had the chance to strike even a single one of his opponents.

With the battle having come to a premature end, she turned her attention to the novices.

"This is what you are training to face!" she called out, a harshness to her tone that hadn't been there before. "When you fight the Hunters, this is what you will fight! And if you break like this, each of you will die!"

She gestured at a nearby adept and curtly instructed the man to continue the novices' training, then turned her attention back to Arran.

"Let's find a quieter place to talk," she said, no sign of the anger she had shown the novices on her face.

"Was that your plan, then?" Arran asked as they walked off together, Brightblade's two guards following a dozen paces behind them. "To use me for scaring your students?"

"It's part of my plan," she replied. "You are the closest thing we have to a Hunter in the Valley. If war breaks out, it will help the students to know what they'll be up against." She gave him a glance, and in a slightly annoyed tone, she added, "Though with how much you've advanced, I fear you might be too good an example."

Arran shrugged in response. That his strength had increased should be no surprise — even if he had spent the past year focusing his efforts on magic, he still had the Dragon's Ruin and enough dragon meat to last for years. And if the meat was beginning to taste a bit stale, that did little to reduce its effectiveness.

"But there's another matter," Brightblade continued. "And it's something best discussed in private."