Chương 225: 5.24 A blade

After the guests left, their group settled in for dinner. Although Elizabeth professed to a lack of appetite, Irwyn was happy to report that the cook assigned to them had done a good job. Especially since he had not asked them any questions about preference, nor had a chance to extensively refill the pantry. Instead, he had prepared something bordering a buffet with a selection of steamed vegetables and meats to take from alongside a variety of side dishes.

Then, not an hour after dinner, another unexpected guest arrived. Irwyn first noted their presence as it neared the building where they sat within the parlor. It attempted to hide itself with Void magic, yet failed to slip past his keen senses. There was simply too much to fully conceal. A Domain shone through like a lighthouse covered in tarp. Elizabeth was no slower in noticing spreading the word, and within a few seconds everyone was ready for battle in case the presence was hostile.

At first, it wasn't even certain that the new arrival would be heading towards them, but that became increasingly clear as it neared and never stopped approaching their new residence directly. So, when it thereafter made the ill-advised attempt to slip through the Void to enter the parlor through the walls, the newcomer was met with the full might of nine Concepts as Irwyn did his best to restrain them without cracking the shell around his Soul.

Sneaking in implied hostility, but it was not likely undead—especially with no telltale smell. Capture was a more likely motive than death. So perhaps they could be forced to retreat rather than causing a real fight in the tower. It helped that Elizabeth was actively pinpointing exactly where the mage would appear after their brief dip with a mote of magic." Starfall cage" His brief chant empowered the magic as it tried to lock the much more powerful assailant in place.

A constant stream of Starfire dots fell, their trajectories not unlike thickly spaced bars. Elizabeth, in the meantime, was already striking. An ebony blade of Temzdaflame cut into a tiny gap he had purposefully left for her. And behind it, all the supernatural strength of her body and magic. Naturally, this was not enough to defeat a Domain mage. Not nearly. But it would likely give them at least pause when combined with an ambush. Earn a second to assess the situation and evaluate how much danger they were in.

Well, the coordinated attack lasted for about half of that. Almost instantly, Irwyn felt a casual attack bounce against his own spell, shaking it but not breaking. An instant later, a more serious strike shredded through his cage. Elizabeth's swing was likewise intercepted. But it had been a feint in the first place. As soon as she was met head-on, a much subtler spell shot forward from the side while she stepped back through the Void, no slower than their opponent had.

By the time her reatreat finished, a new spell was already at her fingertips. Irwyn was recreating the cage as it had not actually been fully destroyed before, just damaged, simultaneously splitting the room in half with layered barriers. The rest of their group had evacuated to the far end, with Alice focused solely on helping them evade anything that might come at them.

"This is rather embarrassing," their uninvited guest spoke. Irwyn immediately felt that voice jolting memories, though he could not place it. Nor could he really see the person's face behind the ongoing flashes of magic.

"Dervish?" Elizabeth paused mid cast.

"Yes, Your Ladyship," the man stood upright, and Irwyn properly recognized the voice then. In fact, it was rather mortifying that he had not done so immediately. The magical cage was quickly dismissed.

"What are you doing here?" Elizabeth asked, almost bouncing with excitement.

"First off, you should not have dropped your guard so easily," Dervish frowned.

"I could have still been undead in disguise."

"Irwyn would have sensed you then," she countered.

"His smell is infallible, until it one time won't be. And that's all it takes," he shook his head.

"Have you at least requested help, since you detected me?"

"Yes. Which has been called off now," Elizabeth confirmed.

"Seriously, why are you here?"

"I was reassigned after recent injuries," he explained.

"You don't look hurt," Irwyn commented, looking the man over again. Besides the dark garb of a Blackburg Shadow, there was honestly not much to note.

"It's my memories," Dervish explained.

"A Lich tried to erase my skill with blades so that the Domain of the same would leave me. I have persevered, but it is necessary to re-establish some of them properly before going into the field again. Hence, I can only contribute away from the front lines for the time being."

"And your task is here in Spireholm?" Elizabeth questioned, smiling.

"Investigating the potential subversion of the Brightbeak heir is a matter that should have a Domain mage available. Once you accepted involvement, it was quickly determined to be a suitable task for me as we already have a rapport. I am replacing a colleague from the Duchy of Purple who is more needed elsewhere."

"So, you will be staying here with us?" She asked excitedly.

"Not quite with you, but close. I am not a good spy, as you have just shown. But I will be within reach, trying to shed the forceful rust."

"Then maybe we could help with that," Irwyn said from the side, suddenly feeling anticipation. How long has it been since he had seen Dervish? Back then, he had been barely halfway through Imbuement. A Domain mage was basically incomprehensible at that stage. A mountain taller than his eyes could see. Yet, now? After the Trial, Irwyn was sure he could finally make his first real teacher on magic sweat.

"Before then," Desir stepped from the back of the room, clearing his throat.

"Perhaps introductions would be for the best?" And that is what they did. Though much to the shapeshifter's chagrin, Dervish was quite aware of him. After all, he had been shadowing Elizabeth during her entire stay in Abonisle, which very much included all their interactions before the incursion there. Though they quickly built rapport despite that. They even apparently had an inside joke no one else understood: When Dervish spoke of a "peculiar song", Desir couldn't hold back his laughter.

Afterwards were Waylan and Alice. Though Dervish was not much of a socialite, their resident shapeshifter smoothed the conversations with natural ease. Even so, it didn't take long before the talk of sparing came back. Over their long journeys, Dervish had obviously come up as an excellent battle instructor who had given Elizabeth a head start and Irwyn the chance to catch up. Their other two mages were very keenly interested in some of that as well. The only problem was the venue.

"The dress," Irwyn suggested.

"It should work here in Spireholm, right?"

"I suppose it is a Beacon city," Elizabeth said after a pause to think.

"Indeed, I should have thought of it earlier." Summoning the dress that she no longer wore from her bag, Elizabeth quickly confirmed that the marvel of magic was indeed functioning. That allowed them to be transferred into that familiar training hall. It would heal or at least lessen injuries and should easily withstand a battle at the level they were going to unleash. They took their positions, Irwyn and Elizabeth at the front, while Alice and Desir planned to operate as support from a good distance behind them.

Irwyn smiled, preparing his first spell and… They were completely brutalized. There was no kinder way to say how the following fight went. Alice and Desir were taken out of the battle before Irwyn had the chance to even react, then Dervish proceeded to obliterate Irwyn's layered barriers with a single sweep, a black longsword coming to his neck as a show of defeat a moment later. Thereafter, he went to completely dismantle Elizabeth's own swordplay within a second and likewise brought her down a peg.

"Still too inexperienced," Dervish commented once his point was made.

"Experience doesn't help too much against insurmountable power," Irwyn said, trying not to sound sore about the whole thing.

"You would be surprised. When a Domain takes a field without contest, your only objective should be survival. Not fighting. Not defending. Stalling at all and any cost, so that you may earn a chance at reinforcements."

"I had hoped for something more fun when I rushed ahead," Elizabeth sighed, but did not dispute the point.

"Ironically, Waylan is the most difficult in your entire group for me to deal with," Dervish ignored her light sulk.

"I am subpar at detection, so I might have genuinely missed him had I not known he was present."

"Thanks," the sneak's voice sounded without him making an appearance. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Now then, again. You will take this seriously, and I will restrain myself only to my already weakened Domain. It's better if Waylan steps out for this; he is needlessly at risk."

"As peer usual," Waylan snorted as he made his way towards Elizabeth, who sent him back to the room they had come from.

"Good. In position. We start when the coin hits ground," Dervish announced, produced said coin, and immediately proceeded to toss it into the air. In the meantime, the group rearranged themselves. Elizabeth and Irwyn could fight in almost perfect sync, but Desir and Alice did not fit into their battles so seamlessly. Some improvements on that front were had during the months of Inquisitorial work, but haphazard encounters could not even compare to the sheer pressure of the Trial.

Therefore, the weaker duo would focus on being supportive from within Irwyn's barrier in a way that wouldn't disrupt their own side of the fight. The coin hit the ground a moment later. Immediately, a swarm of weapons sprung from Dervish. There were swords, sabers, glaives, axes, and a dozen other types of edged arms that Irwyn could not even name. Though their bodies were built from Void magic, Irwyn immediately felt that it was relatively feeble.

With only the Domain of BLADES but not VOID in use, the constructs would be possible to dispel, equivalent to just nine Concepts with some extra raw power behind them. At least defensively. A blade was something that cut, not something that withstood damage. At least as far as Irwyn understood it. A Domain could surely get esoteric with how exactly it was applied. That was not something he could predict, though.

So, while they had to focus on defense—because that was clearly the lesson that the Domain mage wanted to teach them—it would have to be proactive. Irwyn could probably destroy the blades, but withstanding them would be much more difficult. For that, he used his staple attack. Overhead, a constellation of stars came into being, then immediately rained down. Striking the hundreds of moving, puppeteered blades sounded difficult when spoken about, but Irwyn had overcome far worse during the Trial.

Then Starfire struck Void, the Light within joining it in mutual annihilation. Without a Domain to contest that part of the equation, it did not even require too much power from Irwyn. It wasn't quite perfect, though. Irwyn had gotten much practice with hitting a swarm of random targets, but he had underestimated the will behind them. After the first couple moments, Dervish began to get tricky. He concealed his blades behind others, or merged several into one weapon that would split apart right before being hit.

If that happened just a few times, that would still be manageable, but Dervish began to adjust faster than Irwyn could. Thus, a few of the blades slipped through. That was where Alice came in. She had softly chanted something that Irwyn had not caught in the heat of the moment, but now she had erected a construct akin to a barrier layered over Irwyn's own. Except rather than trying to contest the manifested weapons directly, she was teleporting them away as they reached it.

Whenever one slipped by the stars, Alice took care of it, at the cost of her creation shaking and cracking whenever she did, large gouges sliced out of the spell every time that had to be fixed. Irwyn was not sure what Desir was doing, but the occasional glimmer of faint blue suggested Fate. Elizabeth, in the meanwhile, had gone off to harass their opponent in closer range.

That being said, she fought defensively, constantly diving through the Void to reappear at different places from where she would at most send a single attack, then retreat again. To have any chance at striking her, Dervish had to devote a significant number of his weapons to rapidly flicker across the area. Elizabeth was also sometimes attacking from within the Void. Her own blade would strike out, manifesting basically on the surface of Dervish's body.

The Shadow would still dodge with apparent ease, but it kept him busy and distracted. In fact, there was no doubt another layer of the battle happening in the Void's blackness that Irwyn simply could not see. Like that, the battle continued for stretching seconds. Irwyn kept up his arms race against the swarming blades, iterating on his magic to better deal with their likewise increasing tricks.

He overcharged his falling stars, purposefully letting them explode into swirls of Light that weakened anything Void-based in their immediate vicinity. At the same time, Dervish began bypassing his line of defense by sending a few of his attacks through the Void itself. Irwyn countered that by conjuring an intangible aura of Light above even Alice's spell, a method he had tested with Elizabeth to prevent exactly that.

His barriers already stopped anything from appearing inside them, but this method allowed him to spread the effect into a larger area without being tied to something as destructible. That, however, meant that he was forced to devote some of his limited focus into it, letting a few more of the blades slip through the mundane way. That in turn increased the strain on Alice. She was clearly the weak point of their defense, and everybody knew it.

With just two Concepts she was trying to influence a battle between giants, and that weighted on her heavily. But her role was still vital. Just like Light annihilated Void, the same went the other way around, so Irwyn's barriers would crumble very quickly once attacks started landing on them, no matter what he did. Desir had no doubt reached the same evaluation, and placed a hand on Alice's back.

Irwyn could not tell exactly what had happened, but her strained expression eased a little as the battle went on in a similar fashion. In equilibrium for the moment. With their pocket watch busy, Irwyn could not tell how long the battle had already gone on, but he estimated about a minute. Then Dervish smiled, eliciting a strong sense of foreboding. His lips parted to chant:" For all they did take, My blades would not break" The difference was instantaneous.

Irwyn could only stare in bafflement as the tide of edges suddenly began to withstand his own attacks. Light tried to annihilate with Void, yet found it unnaturally resilient. Immediately jumping in to compensate, Irwyn pushed more power into each of his spells. Before, he had needed only a fraction of the mana that each of the blades held to destroy them. Suddenly, that rose to almost a half.

And for once, Irwyn was losing the battle of sheer output, for despite all his focus in that direction, a Domain was a greater multiplier than any of his advantages. The once almost manageable stream became overwhelming, not to even mention the strain Alice had been subjected to during those few moments before Irwyn could adjust to the changing situation. Her magic had quickly scored more perforations than a butchered carcass and would clearly not last any longer.

First wounds began to appear even on Irwyn's final defensive barrier beneath it, that quickly accumulated towards massive damage. Irwyn could think only of one thing to do.

"Flee!" He commanded Alice, who just stared at him dumbly, most of her mind still focused on her faltering spell.

"Teleport us away!" Desir interpreted for her. She still seemed confused, but obeyed the direct demand. She tried to teleport Irwyn too, but he didn't let her, stopping the mana from entering his body. The duo reappeared on the far end of the relatively small training room, where Dervish's weapons reached them within half a second. That officially put them out of the fight.

If they were treating the scenario like a real battle, the two of them would have fled far enough away to not be easily reached, but that would have removed them from the battle just the same. That was what Irwyn had intended, though. His barrier shrank down to a fraction of its prior size, contracting until it was layered just over Irwyn's body. The aura of Light likewise only extended a few centimeters above it.

By reducing the area so drastically, Irwyn forced Dervish to deal with a new problem: The lack of physical space. There were countless weapons, but only so many cubic meters of open area for them to fit into. Only 360 degrees to strike from—less actually, since they were preserving the floor. It was the same issue Irwyn had run into when using large quantities of weaker spells. They still took up some area, and that quickly added up once the number grew truly large.

That had not been much of a problem with the larger barrier, but suddenly Dervish had to bundle his blades so close to each other they were basically touching, and even that still wouldn't let him fit them all. It made them far easier for Irwyn to intercept. So did the absence of allies susceptible to friendly fire. With neither Desir nor Alice standing next to him, Irwyn intentionally let his mana surge out of him in an uncontrolled flow.

In between moments, he became like a miniature sun, his being becoming practically invisible beneath the sheer shine of his rampaging mana. All of which was aligned with Light, naturally weakening any Void magic that tried to reach him. With the stars still constantly falling, Irwyn was able to find a new equilibrium. Dervish tried to press him hard, but he was able to hold on, not letting the blades so much as touch his inner barrier again. After a few seconds of that, the pressure tangibly lessened.

He is focusing on Elizabeth, Irwyn immediately realized, and devoted much of his magic to creating an opening he could counterattack through. That was easier said than done, though. Try as he might, the swarm of blades had him in a deadlock, unable to break out just as it was incapable of getting in. Elizabeth did not seem to need the help anyhow. With his sight blocked, he could barely feel her flickering across the room in rapid succession. Dancing against insurmountable odds, yet still avoiding defeat.

Never snared, never captured. Even when more and more attention was devoted to the hunt. Irwyn realized a simple fact from that: Without a dedicated Domain contesting her, she was better at controlling the Void than someone sharing the element who held far more power—and by virtue of that, mental speed and magical might. When the second minute passed, though, Dervish seemed to have had enough. Irwyn did not see his lips move due to the lacking line of sight, but still heard his voice.

Piercing and unnaturally fast, yet still clearly legible in the same way powerful chants often were." A line in the sand, Alone I stand" After that, the fight was over in seconds. If the first chanted spell had made the blades multiple times more durable, the new one just made them… more of everything. Faster, sleeker, more piercing, and yes, also harder. The multiplier was lower, but it still doubled basically everything about them. How can a single spell have such an impact?

The limited space no longer made enough of a difference. Despite the anathemic relationship between Void and Light, he needed to almost match the quantity of mana between their spells. That was simply not sustainable. Even if Irwyn was probably the single Conception mage who could channel the greatest quantity of magic in the entire Federation due to his continued focus in that direction, it was still only a fraction of what even a restrained Domain mage could manage.

With his advantages negated, the onslaught quickly broke his best efforts. As soon as his barrier was touched, it was sheared straight through, and Irwyn released his spells in defeat. Elizabeth likewise could not hold on much longer. Irwyn did not actually see what got her, since it happened inside the Void, but only a couple of seconds after he had lost, she reappeared on their side of reality and didn't fight anymore, clearly indicating her own surrender.

They had put up the best fight they could, but in the end, it amounted to only two or so minutes, despite the massive elemental advantages on their side. Irwyn felt a bit dejected about that. He could not help but think how different Dervish was compared to the flailing newborn dragon. Not necessarily in raw power, but in the sheer breadth of experience. Though he had used greater might to overwhelm them, Irwyn did not miss that the entire time he had forced them on the defensive, even while holding back.

Not once did they get the chance to do anything even resembling a real counterattack. Nor was the opportunity offered to get clever or turn the situation around.

"Well done," Dervish congratulated them.

"Though it may not seem like it, you have completely shattered my highest expectations."