I kept on my attack, swinging at her as she backed away from me, not able to throw an attack at me. I brought up a wind wall behind her, not letting her back away from me anymore. Ice shards appeared around her, and she launched them at me.
I formed a shield made out of the blood circling, and felt as the ice collided, doing zero damage to the blood. I released the blood, letting it circle me again, and then disrupted her flow of mana causing all spells to disappear.
I pointed my sword at her, and she looked disappointed in herself. "Sorry." She didn't say a word to me as she removed herself from the battlefield, leaving Curtis, Ellie, and Boo.
I released all of my spells, except for the blood circling me and my ice sword, and I could see the look of relief as the fire dragon dispersed from Ellie as she stared up at it. Curtis's sword lit up again, and Ellie aimed her bow at me as she climbed on top of Boo.
They both approached me. "You are just as strong as I remember." Curtis said, and then shrugged. "This was expected."
Ellie released an arrow, I sidestepped it, and watched it fly past me. I sensed Boo running at me, and pushed my hand out, causing Boo to freeze and Ellie to almost fall off. "Boo, what's wrong?" Ellie looked up at me and saw that I was doing something. "Let him go, Veer."
Curtis swung his sword at me, I dodged it, brought my sword up to his chest, but the fire emitting from his sword erupted in my face. I emitted ice, stopping the fire from hitting me, and Curtis backed away from me.
I launched myself at Ellie, seeing Boo's eyes go wide as he tried to move, but couldn't. Ellie released another arrow, causing it to move around in the air as it headed my way. I released a mist, not letting her see me, then when the arrow got close enough, it froze.
I appeared before her, on Boo's back, but Ellie wasn't there, she rolled off of his back, and made her way to Curtis. I bent over Boo's head and rested my open hand on his head. "Boo, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." He made a loud sniffing noise, and I released my control over his blood, jumped off of him, and made my way to Curtis and Ellie.
Ellie pulled back another arrow, and Curtis got in an offensive position, getting ready to attack me. I don't know if he would do that, knowing it hasn't worked yet, they're all too slow. Curtis ran at me, swung his sword, I parried his attack, dodged an arrow, dodged another swing of the sword.
I brought my sword up to Curtis's throat and held it there. "Damn it!" He exclaimed, then turned to Ellie. "It's up to you." He then joined the others on the sideline.
Ellie pointed her bow at me, and I stood there and waited for her to release a mana arrow. I could easily dodge it; I wasn't really worried. An arrow shot at me, and then another, and then another, all coming in different directions.
I vanished, and appeared behind Ellie, she spun, shot an arrow, I ducked my head, brought my sword up, and held it on her. "Not bad, El." That attack would deal damage to a normal mage. "You did well."
"Thanks." She swung her bow around her back, not disappointed with losing to me. "I can't believe how fast you are; I mean, I saw you fight before, but up close like this is different."
Everyone started to make their way over to us. "Yeah, I have a spell for that." I placed the blood flowing around me back in their tubes, then deactivated my blood spells, not needing them anymore.
"No wonder you beat a Retainer." Ellie whispered to me as she stood next to me and looked at everyone coming towards us. "I wish I could have watched that fight." She really didn't, I was getting my ass handed to me for a while.
"Amazing, Virion, truly." King Glayder spoke up. "You are spectacular."
"Thank you." I sent him a smile.
"Veer, your blood magic is annoying, being able to hold your enemies still is insane." Prince Curtis said. "No wonder Tessia hated sparring with you when you were allowed to use blood magic." Tess must have told him about our time training together.
"Thanks for sparring with us." Princess Kathyln told me and bowed. "I appreciated it."
"No problem." I waved the bow off, she shouldn't be doing that. I did wish that they put up a little more of a fight, it was kind of boring. "If you ever want to spar again, let me know, I'm always looking for people to train with."
"Then why don't you ever ask me?" Ellie asked from beside me, and I turned to her.
"Because you use a Bow, you more of team fighter, but if you want to train together, we can." It was hard sparring with someone who can only shoot arrows at you and dodging them was easy. "I forgot to ask, Claire, I'm guessing, but did you join a dungeon raid team?"
"Yeah, I did, I'm on Prince Curtis's team." I nodded my head, surprised, but it made sense. "I'm surprised we never met inside of the dungeons." I missed the dungeons, slaughtering the beast, I shook my head, trying to push away the thoughts. We haven't figured out how to counter the corrupted will, I knew we needed a potion, but we didn't have one that would work.
"Yeah, me too." I said.
"Virion, can we talk to you in private afterwards?" Queen Glayder asked me, I gave her a confused look. "It's nothing bad, you aren't in trouble." That's not what I care about, if I was in trouble, they couldn't do anything to me.
"Uhh, that's fine." I told them. "Curtis, that sword blast thing you did was nice, if I used a regular sword, I would use that." I guess I could, I could have an ice sword explode in front of an enemy, then conjure another as they deal with the mist.
"Lance Bairon helped me master that." The Prince told me. "Would you like to talk to Veer now, and then we could all hang out?" He turned to his mother and asked.
The King and Queen looked at Curtis, then at me, then at Curtis. "That's fine, but Curtis you should stay with us, it involves you." I knew where this was going, I turned to Ellie.
"Bring everyone to the balcony, we can chat there." I motioned for her to leave.
"Okay, good idea." She tilted her head at Boo, and then turned to Claire and Kathyln. "Come on, I know a good spot to sit and chat."
"Nice." Claire followed her, Kathyln nodded her head at me again, and left. She was a very strange but smart girl, if only she talked more, I would like to get to know her, because little is said in the novel. I mean I know a decent amount about her, but I would like to know her from personally talking to her.
"Virion." The Queen said, and I faced the three members of the royal family. Why couldn't Kathyln stay for this? "Obviously we know, our son doesn't."
"What don't I know?" He asked his mother.
"Virion will be becoming a Lance." The Queen said, and Curtis's face didn't seem shocked, almost like he knew it was going to happen.
"Makes sense, only Blood Deviant in existence." He smiled at me. "Congrats."
"Thanks." I smiled back at him.
"Virion, we know that we don't have the best of relationships, but becoming a Lance, means pledging yourself to someone of royalty, you're human, so it would be expected to be one of the royal family members of Sapin." The King said exactly what I thought he was going to; he was hoping that I would pledge to him, or Curtis I was suspecting. "Now, like I said, our relationship isn't the greatest, but if you pledge yourself as a human Lance, after the war, I will make you my son's personal Lance, and you have my word, you won't have to serve me directly."
"Oh." I said, trying to find a way out of this. "Can I have some time to think about it?"
"Of course, Virion." The Queen said. "We want you to know that we are truly sorry about what happened with your brother, and we would never do something like that again without good reason." I wanted to roll my eyes but stopped myself. I was joining my brother with the elves, there was zero doubt about that, Elder Virion is the only person here that has my loyalty.
The Queen and King gave me one last weird smile, and then walked away from Curtis and me. "I'm sorry about them, but again, congrats on becoming a Lance."
"Yeah, thanks." I said, watching them leave the hall all happy. "Let's go, I'll lead you to the balcony."
We started to walk out of the training hall. "My parents do bring up a good point, are you going to pledge yourself to them, and us humans?"
Curtis didn't need to know the truth. "I'm not pledging myself to the humans, my loyalty belongs to the people of Dicathen, I'm sure you understand that."
"I do, each Lance is considered to be a part of a race, then they serve Dicathen, like Lance Varay and Bairon are human Lances and Lance Aya is an elven Lance." We exited the training hall into the hallway.
"I know." I answered him, turning the corner. "When the time comes, I'll make a decision." They weren't making me a Lance officially until Arthur came back, which they didn't know when, I did, about nine months.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Arthur becomes a Lance as well, you two will be the first ever brothers serving as Lances." I nodded my head, knowing he was going to be a Lance, Lance Godspell, I wonder what my nickname will be. I'm already known as the Devil of Dicathen because of my blood magic. "You think he will?"
"It's Arthur, he's training with the gods, I don't see how he doesn't become one." I spoke honestly.
"True." He laughed, and I could see everyone sitting on the balcony up ahead. "Oh, I see them."
We walked onto the balcony, and everyone turned to us. "What did they want to talk about?" Ellie asked us.
I shook my head. "Nothing serious, it's fine." I made my way to a seat right next to Kathyln, and sat down.
I wanted to go to my room and absorb mana, but I'll wait to do that, I haven't seen these people in a while. I could feel myself getting closer to white core each day, so I was excited.
"So, Veer, tell us about the whole company you took out." Claire asked me, and flashes of wiping out one hundred people played in my mind, all the blood flying everywhere, it was amazing. My sword entering their chest and throats, shit, I shook my head. "What is it?"
"Nothing, nothing, if you want to know, I'll tell you." I rested back onto the chair, not really wanting to tell this story.
"I would like to hear it." Kathyln turned to me, and I nodded my head.
"Fine." I answered and got ready to explain what happened that day. The only person here that knew I took down a Retainer was Ellie, so I couldn't tell that story.
Ellie made her way over from on top of Boo and sat with us around the table. The four of them stared and waited for me to begin.