Chapter Sixty-Three


    Susanna had to admit the red-headed man before her was good. She raised Avulain, flooding it with arcane mana to withstand the lightning, and slashed straight through the dragon’s destructive beam. That was one thing she had not been expecting at all from the fight, a freaking dragon to appear.


    The axe-wielding warrior’s green eye was filled with a cold calmness like grass frozen in the winter. So far, he hadn’t reacted with surprise or even uncertainty. He defended when he needed to, assaulted when he should, exploited openings he saw, and otherwise acted like a fucking machine.


    It was glorious, and Susanna could not keep the mad grin from her face.


    “This is amazing! Even if I should fall today, I will rest easy for our battle has been legendary!”


    The lightning attack faded, and Susanna exerted the lion Icon. She wanted to put pressure on him but found that no easy task. The man’s foundation was beyond excellent, and she felt resistance. His Icon was a weight beyond hers, like great chains bolted to the earth.


    This was no prey for the lion to feed upon. She felt like being in the presence of a smith of all things—a craftsman, not a powerful warrior.


    She decided to take a precious second to analyze him. Normally, she didn’t bother with such things. Battle was a language, and it usually told her all she needed to know about her foes. Yet, this man, she would make an exception for.


    [Ambrose Severen, Infernal Crusader Level 225]: You stand at a simple grave, and a man kneels over it, head bowed. Clouds gather overhead, and his shadow is a banner of wrath. Chains shackle him to the ground; they are an invisible weight. A ghost of a little girl stands at his side, pointing accusingly.]


    Her [Soul Read] analyze skill always involved metaphorical images of the person or being she was analyzing. This was supposed to give her an idea of who she was dealing with or what.


    She snorted.


    “You’re a real sad bean, aren’t you?”


    She hoped the taunt would make him slip up and give her an edge.


    Instead, he dropped lava on her.


    He did it by opening one of those portal things above her head, and wherever he connected it to, it must have been a volcano or something because the liquid fire poured out from it like a waterfall.


    At the same time, he held out a hand, and the dragon morphed into a cloud that shifted back into an axe.


    She had been ready for an attack and used her defensive [Arcane Armour] skill to wreathe herself in a thin shield that could tank most every attack she had come across.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    She hadn’t tested it against fucking lava, however. It hissed, spitting like a living snake.


    She gritted her teeth, pulling on her spirit to fortify her skill further. Her spirit came from her spiritual skill, [Arcane Rage], and she was close to activating that one.


    Ambrose wouldn’t wait there to see if the lava did her in. She couldn’t just wait until he got tired of attacking her.


    So she moved, kicking off to the side, moving out from underneath the lava.


    “Alright, big boy, looks like I need to pull out the big guns for you.”


    He didn’t answer her. Rather, he did something with his axe, wreathing the edge in a hellish fire. She could see a place within that edge, maybe trees.


    Did he open a portal on the edge of his axe? She didn’t have time to think it over as Ambrose blurred toward her with all the speed and precision she expected from a deadly combatant.


    She activated [Arcane Rage], and violet power erupted around her as if she were turned into a bomb. She roared with it, spreading her arms, Avulain shaking in her grip.


    All thought fled her mind. Nothing remained except the rage.


    With every movement, a detonation of violet mana; with every slash, a hurricane of power.


    But Ambrose Severen dealt with it all with a calm, focused demeanor that defied normalcy.


    He portaled around her, seeking an opening. He found several and exploited them.


    Whatever power he had put into his axe, it cut through her mana like it was butter instead of a magical force. She was too angry to feel shock at him getting through her defenses. She ignored the wound, lashing out with her blade, power booming from her like a thunderclap.


    It should have blasted him backward, but his Icon was keeping him grounded, and he must have had a defensive skill of his own.


    A cloak of violet mana surrounded her. She clenched her fists, thrusting her arms outward. The veins starkly against her skin pulsated with power.


    She was faster than a speeding bullet and could leap tall buildings in a single bound.


    She was power incarnate.


    “I’m fucking super woman, you fuck!” She screamed her fury and rage, her sword blurring with such ferocity and speed that the human eye could not track it.


    Though she could not see it now, the air around them began to warp with the mana pouring out of her.


    “Fucking die!”


    But he wouldn’t. No, the bastard merely portaled or parried her attacks. He did it as calmly as one might take out the trash or perform a menial task. It infuriated her, and her skill reacted like an insane beast, thrashing, striking wildly.


    His calmness did not waver. His green eye held that same glacial light as if someone had carved a winter crystal from the deepest depths of a winter cave into an eye and placed it in his socket.


    His eyepatch burned with the fires of hades.


    And then, like a match burning too quickly, she was spent.


    Her strikes grew weaker; her mana bottomed out like a fuel tank on E.


    Only then did the fucker speak like a teacher correcting an overeager student.


    “My father told me once that when you had two fighters of equal skill, the one who tired out first loses. He said a fight like that was all about resource management, with your stamina being the recourse. I have a bad habit of ignoring my father’s excellent advice. Call it father issues, I guess.”


    Suddenly, he blurred forward, a flash of white and black, and Avulain flew out of her hands. Her feet were swept out from under her just as her mana sputtered.


    She had nothing left in the tank, and her skills vanished. No more defenses.


    She still had her spirit and her Icon, but they wouldn’t be enough to protect her—not when he had his own.


    Ambrose nodded, satisfied that what he had expected to happen had.


    “Now we come to it.”


    He raised his horrible blade, and her eyes widened. She could see the shadow of a great dragon looming over her, eyes glittering with lightning.


    He paused before delivering the death blow.


    “Come on! Finish it!” She screamed at him.


    She was no longer grinning.


    “This is just a contest. I’ve already killed more than enough to win this. There’s no reason for you to die, too.”


    She pounded on the ground,


    “Don’t you do that! I don’t want your pity! End this!”


    Ambrose cocked his head and then lowered his axe.


    “See you around, warrior.”


    Then he walked away from her.


    She didn’t have the strength to follow.