"Let's talk first, Virion." Lance Varay summoned an ice sword in her hand.
I tilted my head at her. "You want to talk at this very moment?" I asked her confused, we were supposed to spar in front of everyone, this didn't feel like an appropriate time. It was Lance Varay though, I don't mind talking to her.
"Yes." She responded. "Virion, what is your goal in life? What is it you want to achieve with the powers you possess." That's what she wanted to know? Really? I feel like everyone wants to know this nowadays. It's like they're afraid that I'll turn on everyone one day.
"My goal in life?" Did someone ask her to do this.
"Yes." The look on her face was still unchanging, emotionless and calm. "What is your goal?"
I shrugged. "To protect my family, that's always been my goal." I had a talk with Elder Virion about this, why was I being questioned again about it. I can't imagine they asked her to do this. I turned to the other Lances watching, they were just staring at us. "That's always been my goal."
"No." She said and let her guard down. Lance Varay was always serious, but right now it felt different. She never showed interest in me, just that I was interesting because I was a Blood Deviant.
"No?" I said with a confused tone, wondering why I got a no for answering her question. My goal was to protect my family, why is she saying no to that.
"That's not a goal, that's a purpose, you get strong to protect your loved ones." She paused for a second then went on. "Your goal was to get strong, so that you could protect your loved ones." I still didn't see where this was going. "But that can't be your main goal, you have immense powers, what do you want to do with them? You can't always focus on protecting your family, Virion, they might be what drives you forward, but what else do you want to achieve with your power?"
I scratched my head. "Isn't my answer sufficient enough for you, my goal was to get strong, so I could protect my family, that's all you need to know." This conversation was a little confusing, was she trying to figure something out.
"It is, but what else." She insisted, and I activated "Blood Oath."
"Lance Varay, I don't know what you are going on about, but I've told you my goal, please accept it." My voice was laced with annoyance. "Let's just spar, you have my utmost respect, but this isn't something you should care about."
"You're wrong." Lance Varay lifted her sword, and pointed it at me. "I need to know, what other goal do you have in mind?" I closed my eyes and stared up at the Sea Serpent inside of my mind.
"Can you give me an example on what you mean?" I pointed my sword at her and set my body ablaze with blue fire.
"I can't, this needs to come from you, and you alone." Frost started to emit from her, and I had to say, she was beautiful, too bad she was way older than me.
"I'm over this." I started to reinforce my body with mana, and coalesced mana behind my body. "I don't know what this is all about, but I'm starting." I launched myself at her, swinging my sword at her head.
Her ice sword blocked my attack, and she raised an ice sword out of the ground at my chest. I spun, grabbed the ice sword out of the ground, and swung it at her. Lance Varay shattered the ice, and I brought an ice sword out of the ground behind her and in front of her.
She shot up off the ground and floated in the sky above me. I bit my lip as a laugh almost slipped out of my mouth, thinking about the men I killed, and imagining killing a Lance. I could kill a Lance, Lance Olfred.
Lance Varay conjured multiple ice swords around her, like a fortress aimed at me. I stood down on the ground, looking up at her, without any emotion on my face. I was trying to hide it, not wanting to smile or laugh now.
Time to get faster, "Blood Acceleration." Lance Varay sent the ice toward me, and I dodged each one after the other with ease. She appeared down in front of me and swung her sword at me, I brought my own blade up, and deflected her attack with my superhuman speed.
"Is this really you trying, Lance Varay, they wanted a show." The fire around me blazed even harder, pushing her further from me. I shot myself at her, and as I did her body encased itself in ice. I swung my sword at her, and our blades met again, we held them together, and I watched as her ice ate away at my fire, and my fire did the same to her ice.
"What's your goal, Virion?" I looked at her shocked, and I brought multiple ice swords out of the ground aimed at her head. She pushed me away, and spun, and broke each of the swords with her own. "Answer me."
For some reason, I was starting to get angry. Lance Varay appeared in front of me, and I deflected her attack, and brought my sword to her chest covered in ice. However, before I could reach her, she gripped my wrist with her open hand, and threw me across the room.
I used wind magic to keep myself from hitting the ground too hard and landed on my one knee looking at her. I could feel my adrenaline and anger start to build up more, she was taking this slightly seriously. I placed my left hand on the ground, and as I lifted it up, an ice sword similar to the elven one I had appeared in my hand.
I spun both swords in my hands, I would use more water magic, but she can just freeze whatever I send at her. It would just be a waste of mana, so I conjured multiple arrows above my head, made of fire. I knew that she could protect herself still from them, but I was merely using them as a distraction, not that it would work anyways.
"Virion." Lance Varay stood still and stared at me. "What do you want to do with your powers?" I stopped myself from going off on her. "You have countless options, but you need to discover them now, tell me, what is it you want?"
My eyes started to twitch slightly, I could feel the Serpent, it felt like I was being sent a message, a message that I should kill Lance Varay. I knew I couldn't, I needed her alive, that brought up an idea. "My goal is to bring peace to this world." I told her, and she nodded her head. That was my goal, to make sure my family was okay, and that Dicathen wins the war, and we take down Agrona and Kezess.
"That's good but is that the truth." She shot herself at me, and my guard was down, her sword cut my right arm, and blood ran down my arm and onto the ground. I quickly closed the wound, using my blood healing. "Don't let your guard down."
I smiled at her. "Thank you." I used wind magic to move myself away from her, and then started to manipulate the blood on the ground, and the little amount there was, started to circle me like my water usually does. I could form little needs of blood, this could do serious damage. I pointed my ice sword at her, and one blood needle shot at the Lance, barely visible, the needle went right through her armor on her shoulder, and right into her, the needle came out the other end and came back to me.
Lance Varay grabbed her shoulder and turned to me. "What did you do?" She got into a defensive position.
I aimed two more small blood needles at her legs as I began to speak. "They wanted to see my blood magic; well, this is it." I sent the needles at her, and sensing their approach she brought up an ice wall, my one needle got by, being too fast, and it shot through her leg.
Lance Varay fell to one need, and her eyes went wide as she realized just how fast this blood technique was. I vanished in front of her and appeared in front of her swinging my sword at her, two ice blades deflected both of my swords as Lance Varay rose to her feet. "I see, so this is the power that defies reality."
A giant ass dragon made of ice appeared above my head, as I was pushed back away from Lance Varay. She's using this, I know Arthur had trouble with this spell, or he will in the future when they sparred.
I stood there facing the Lance, while the dragon flew above her head. We just stared at each other. "You want to bring peace to Dicathen, don't you think that's what everyone else wants, there has to be something else eating up inside you, trying to break free, what is it you truly want."
I rose the blood up into the sky and formed countless needles of blood. Her dragon landed in front of her, and my blood needles ripped it to shreds, but she quickly replaced the parts my blood destroyed. I brought the blood back to me, and brought up my own ice wall, as her dragon shot an icy mist at me.
I shot myself out from behind the wall, blood still circling me, and went straight up to the ice dragon. It swung its icy claws at me, and I dodged it by sliding under it. The dragon brought its tail to me, I pushed myself to the side using wind magic, and the tail went past me. Lance Varay was staring at me from behind her creation.
The dragon started to emit a bigger mist than before, covering both itself and me, and I pushed through it and went straight for the Lance. I brought the elven sword up to her throat as I appeared in front of her.
Lance Varay was too quick though, with her enhanced abilities using that ice armor spell, she dodged my attack, which gave the dragon time to attack me from behind. I flew up into the air, using my wind magic, then formed a small twister spell that removed the mist from the field, revealing the dragon again.
I landed about twenty yards from the two, I could activate my phase two, but that doesn't feel necessary. "Why do you care about what I truly want, Lance Varay? What if I want to keep that to myself? What if I'm telling the truth, I want to bring peace? Can't that be enough for you?"
Lance Varay did something I wasn't expecting, she smiled. "So, you do have something else in mind." The blood started to spin around me faster. "I just want to know you, Virion, before anything else happens." She wants to know me? I should be honored, but I was just annoyed.
I got rid of the ice sword in my left hand and held my elven sword in right. "I appreciate that, Lance Varay, that you want to get to know me." I didn't know if this was going to work or not, but I was going to try it. "This, however, doesn't seem like the best place to do that."
"I disagree, the battlefield is a great place to get to know someone." She responded, and the blood circling me started to rush to my hand, forming into a sword. I gripped the blood that I made into a handle, and the blood hardened, so that I could hold it. The blade was identical to my elven sword, but I could do so much more with it, at least that's the theory.
"I'll show you who I am, Lance Varay." I pointed my one sword at her and sent her a smile. I took a deep breath, and then got ready to strike. "Don't die on me though." I couldn't defeat her before, but my power has grown significantly over the past few months, and I became smarter.
She looked at me confused, and I focused, so that this next spell worked to perfection. Illusions of me started to form all around her, circling her, each one holding two swords, and performing whatever action I wanted it to.
An Illusion took my place, and I made it so she couldn't see me. I started to walk around the room watching her examine each one. One of my illusions spoke to the Lance. "Keep up with us." My illusions shot themselves at the Lance, and the dragon started to destroy illusion after illusion. The Lance didn't seem impressed, but it didn't matter.
One of my illusions got past the dragon and swung its sword at her. She brought her sword up and the illusion went through her, showing that it was fake. The Lance ignored it and took on the next one.
I started to feel for the blood inside of her body, I was being nice before, but now it was time to show her my power. I was stronger now, I could disrupt her magic for about three seconds, maybe less.
I built up a lot of wind mana behind me, and to make sure she didn't sense it, I had the illusions attack her, so she was facing me. Hopefully, she thought the mana forming was more illusions. The illusions behind her were sending fake spells at her, like fire balls, ice swords, wind blades, obviously they weren't doing anything.
I was getting ready to test out this new sword, see what it's capable of. When there was enough wind behind me, I got into a sprinting position. I was planning on launching myself right into her.
She destroyed another illusion, the dragon was swiping at them as well, and I decided it was time. I got ready to remove her magic, and then shot myself directly at her, still unable to be seen, but she could sense me.
In a split second, I was standing directly in front of her, behind the dragon, she must have sensed me because her eyes went wide, and that's when I disrupted her flow of mana, which caused the dragon to crumble to the ground. This allowed more of my illusions to get by, and attack her, but that didn't matter.
I swung my elven sword at her, and out of instinct, she brought her sword up and blocked my attack. That's when I swung my blood sword, and when she went to block it with another sword, the blood liquified, and passed right through the sword made out of ice, then reformed appearing against her neck.
We both froze, I held my sword there, and all the spells around us were dispersed. I removed the illusion spell I had on her, allowing her and every else to see the real me. My blade cut into her neck slightly and blood dripped down. The sword can pretty much do what I expected it could.
"Well, this is over." I pulled my sword back, and slowly took a couple steps away from her. "I hope you found out what you wanted, Lance Varay."
"I found out enough." She told me as the shield walls around us disappeared and people started to walk out to us. "You're a silver core?" I nodded my head. "I can't even imagine how strong you are going to be when you hit white core." I couldn't either.
"Just as I thought, impressive, Virion." Elder Virion spoke up first as everyone gathered. "Lance Varay, thank you for sparring with him."
"It was an honor." She bowed to him.
Tess and Curtis came up from behind me. "You just defeated a Lance." Tess whispered to me, so that only Curtis and I could hear.
"I didn't know you were that strong." King Glayder exclaimed. "I think he passed with flying colors." I turned to him. "To be able to land a hit against a Lance, and then win the match."
"Passed?" I said questioningly.
"King Glayder, there is still a lot to talk about before we do anything, please don't worry about it, Virion." Elder Virion told me. "Virion, was that a new blood spell you used?"
"Yes." I answered.
"I've never seen that sword before, so I figured." He responded. "That was enough for today, Virion, we are going to go back to the council room to talk, you can do whatever."
"Alright." I nodded, and the council members left, except for Aldir, he sent me an interested look, and then joined them. What was that about? I turned to Tess, Curtis, and now Kathyln and Ellie who walked up to us slowly. Boo was walking behind them, staring at me.
"That was amazing." Curtis spoke up first. "Your blood magic is on a whole different level from back at the academy."
"Yeah." I nodded my head. "I've had a lot of time to practice, now that everyone knows about it."
"Makes sense." Curtis placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'm glad you're on our side then."
"I can't even spar with him when he uses his blood magic." Tess shook her head at me. "He can just remove your magic, and it sucks." Kathyln was just standing there, staring at me.
"I see why they allow you to fight." Ellie told me, I forgot, she's never truly seen me fight for real. This was probably a shocker for her. "I don't like it, but I see why, you are too strong to just sit in the castle."
I sent her a smile. "Well, I'm going to go wash up, and then eat something." I paused for a second, thinking about the Serpent. I probably would go bond with it some more after I ate. "I'll see you guys later, okay."
"We can walk together." Tess said, grabbing my arm.
The five of us then walked out and back to our rooms, I didn't really need an escort or company, but I wasn't going to make a big deal about it. At the end it was only Tess, Ellie, Boo, and I.
"What was Lance Varay saying to you during the fight?" Ellie asked me, as we stopped in the hallway, that led to our rooms.
"She was asking me why I wanted to fight, and what my main goal in the war was." I shrugged. "I didn't know why."
"What did you say?" Tess gave me an intrigued look.
"To protect my family." She might not have accepted that answer, but these two can. That truly was one of my goals, however, the more time that passes, the more I realize that I want to be something in this world.
I am in this world, I belong to it now, this is home. I know that, I've accepted it a long time ago, but I have to embrace it. I know what happens if I don't do anything, so I must do something.
I want my name to be remembered by all, and feared by my enemies, this wasn't just a peaceful world like my last one, war is here, and I am here.
At this moment, anything I wanted has pretty much happened. I created a new element, blood magic, I killed mutant monsters, saved countless lives. I proved I could change things by saving Claire.
My goal is to be known by all, just like Arthur in the novel, while making sure that my family is safe, and we win the war. I could make a name for myself here, I couldn't in my last life, I died because I was weak, I'm not anymore.
Our names will be legendary, even greater than Agrona and Kezess.