Chương 74: Chained to Planets

The Accorded Realms isn't a strict, permanent list of Realms with no changes whatsoever. There are occasional additions, and more rarely, there are departures as well. Due to the many benefits that the Accords provide, there are often new signatory Realms who wish to partake in the benefits. Of course, this means they need to adhere to the many rules that drive the Accords.

These include, among others, the disarmament of military forces that have exceeded a certain threshold, the establishment of embassies and diplomatic exchanges, and several cultural and sociological requirements for the civilization of said Realm. The latest signatory is the Realm of Rhel, a world with a history that is intricately linked to the Realmbreaker Wars.

Rhel is perhaps the most controversial addition to the Accords since the end of the Realmbreaker Wars, so much so that several critics are adamant that Rhel's inclusion might just spell the end of the Accords themselves. Editorial Column Accorded Realms News, Page 4 Editor-in-Chief, Mian L. Ryland observed his new challenger with a healthy amount of curiosity. It wasn't often one saw a full-blooded elvhenan on Vyrd of all places.

Even after the signing of the Accords and the resultant cultural exchanges across all the Realms, the elvhenan who originated in Realm 37 were rather reclusive and tended to stick to their home realms. Although, the getup of these ones wasn't at all reminiscent of the kind of clothes Ryland recalled from Herestian. Now that he thought about it, Solverfel's clothes reminded Ryland of Realm 11. Hmm. That was… interesting. The official was clearly unsure of how to proceed.

He was looking between Solverfel and Ryland, but finding no opposition from either of them, he turned to the Headmaster standing at the periphery of the battlefield. Alaric looked to his left to another elvhenan, an elderly one who was very faintly familiar to Ryland. That was odd. He was positive he had never met either elvhenan anywhere. Odder still, the older elvhenan was looking at Ryland with an intensity that suggested that the faint recognition was perhaps mutual.

"I wouldn't mind proceeding," he said.

"If both parties are amenable to the arrangement."

"We are!" The battlemage elvhenan threw a challenging grin at Ryland.

"Isn't that right, friend?" Ryland nodded.

"I have no compunctions."

"There you have it. Everyone here wants this!" Ryland figured a good few of the attendants wanted him gone. So if this duel would achieve that, then they were all for it.

"Alright, then." The poor official didn't look like he had fully recovered from the Glyph of Dread Ryland had unleashed.

"Then let the battle proceed. Please be mindful of the others present. This is, after all, a duel for the students of Arcoryx Academy." He quickly escaped before he could get caught in any other magical blasts. Ryland didn't blame him one bit. After the Glyph of Dread had taken its toll on everyone, several Healer Mages had stepped forward to ensure everything was alright. So far, it seemed everyone was mostly fine. While that relieved Ryland, he didn't feel too contrite about his Glyph in the first place.

The students were determined to see him duel. As such, there would be consequences that they'd need to handle. Ryland could have minimized his impact even further, something that Alaric would no doubt have appreciated, but that wouldn't have helped overall. It would encourage the students to keep challenging him, to keep fighting fruitless battles that went nowhere. Now, they were well and truly aware that Ryland was far, far above any of them. All without any of them being actually injured or anything of the sort.

Ryland was doing well to stick to his policy of not using any truly harmful magic against the students. Alright, one could argue that excessive fear could be harmful. The level of shock he had delivered could very well cause complications for certain students. Sadly, no choice would be perfect. Short of taking on every student challenger one by one and beating them all… Maybe he could have asked them all to fight him at once, ridiculous as it sounded.

"Are you ready, Marionys Ryland?" Solverfel asked. He pulled out two long sabres. The edges of their blades glimmered with Inscribed Glyphs.

"I believe so," Ryland said.

"Though, I am curious. Did you truly intend to fight me because you want to give the students a proper demonstration of a duel?" Solverfel laughed softly. His eyes sharpened, the ponytail of his long, silver hair shimmering as he shook his head.

"I just want to see what you're actually made of."

"There, now we have the truth of the matter." He took a step forward, his blades crossing and their edges glinting with rising magic. But just as he moved, Ryland blasted him with another Glyph of Dread. The blood-red Glyph crashed in and exploded into a frightful aura of terror, swamping the elvhenan with a tidal wave of mana. He sliced through it all with zero hesitation or pause, as though the Glyph had no impact on him whatsoever. But his follow-up slashes missed Ryland by leagues for he had already moved away.

[Translocate] had taken him away from the danger zone well before Solverfel had arrived.

"Impressive," the elvhenan said.

"You're faster than I was expecting."

"Am I now?" Ryland smiled.

"You're no less impressive for cutting through my Glyph's effect in such a manner."

"Ah, yes." Solverfel stood straighter. Then he looked at the rest of the gathering with a slow sneer.

"These graduate students really couldn't get through something of that nature? Has Arcoryx Academy relaxed its standards so much that their student body is now susceptible to such meagre magic?" If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Naturally, no one appreciated that. Not even Ryland. Grumbles and glares answered the elvhenan's insult.

Somehow, getting insulted was cutting through the lingering effects of the fear that Ryland had instilled forcefully with his Glyph of Dread. Instead of looking afraid, now half the students wanted to join in on the fight against Solverfel. If nothing else, Ryland supposed the academy administration would need to thank the elvhenan for returning the spirit of the duels back into their students.

"I take mild umbrage at my magic being called meagre," Ryland said. He wondered what it was about the elvhenan that had allowed him to bypass the Glyph of Dread so easily. Realm 37 elvhenans prided themselves on a certain Glyphic technique that allowed them to replace certain body parts with their mana-constructed equivalents for a wide range of benefits. Ryland was wondering if Solverfel had replaced the part of his brain that was responsible for feeling fear. It was eminently possible. Also, incredibly difficult.

Solverfel turned an arched eyebrow at him.

"Only mild?"

"Only mild," Ryland said.

"Then allow me to change that." With a growl, the battlemage empowered himself. Several Glyphs shone along his swords and lifted straight off the blade, quickly imbuing him with a variety of positive effects. The flash of power rippling along his muscles, the flurry of magical lines around his feet, the enhanced sharpness of his blades… Powerful enhancement magic. Solverfel was serious about taking down Ryland.

Which was why he rushed at Ryland with a slicing intent to maim, holding nothing back in the storm of slashes that he unleashed. Fighting battlemages was always an interesting experience for Ryland. They were always far more… upfront than he preferred. They had a penchant for exertion that he didn't see a lot of value in. Case in point, the arc of black-and-blue energy slicing off Solverfel's sabres hammered into Ryland's barrier, only to fade to nothing.

Even when the battlemage attacked directly, his face mere fingerbreadths away from Ryland as he crashed his swords against the transparent barricade of [Eternal Bastion], he didn't leave a mark. He didn't even scratch the barrier spell, much less Ryland himself. That wasn't to say the elvhenan was powerless. Those arcing slashes of blue and black were incredibly potent. They collided with frightful sparks and cracks, the ground around Ryland taking a severe beating from the splash of crushing magic.

It was difficult to place a rank in the middle of a battle he was participating in, but he figured it had to be Primordial-ranked easily. With all those empowerments, that magic might be even more powerful now. While none of it broke through [Eternal Bastion] —or even threatened to do so—the sheer volume of magic surrounding Ryland was making it harder to see things. He still didn't want to use something like [Absolute Null]. Same went for a lot of his spells, actually.

Nearly anything he used would be too strong, even for a mage like this elvhenan, especially when considering the fact that Ryland had an audience he had no intention of harming.

"You seem a little too secure in your belief that you'll be perfectly fine," Solverfel said as he slashed past, rebuffed by Ryland's barrier yet again.

"Perhaps you shouldn't be so cocky!" It appeared that while Ryland was deliberating on how best to respond to a mage who was immune to tactics like fear and intimidation, his opponent had already moved on to the next stage of his plan. There was something slyly different about his next series of attacks. A spell circle had appeared right before the swinging blades, and the sabres slashed through them to imbue themselves with ripping black power.

But just before the spell circles had been destroyed, Ryland had noted something strange. The Centreglyph had been a Soul Glyph of Slicing. It had appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye, but long years had granted Ryland a lot of practice in reading Glyphs off spells. But it wasn't the Soul Glyph that had him concerned. Rather, it was one of the Subglyphs that had caught his attention. A Glyph of Timefail. When the elvhenan's strike slashed in as he grinned widely, Ryland's barrier was cut right through.

It was as though the transparent planes of [Eternal Bastion] disintegrated upon contact with the magic-wrapped sabres. And then the blades ran right through Ryland. Solverfel screamed. A scream that started out as one of triumph, but quickly devolved into one of frustration. His sabres had slashed through Ryland, but not exactly through his body. Not in a way that had left wounds, at least.

Rather, Ryland had created small rifts just inside his barrier, so where the blades would have struck him, they had merely passed into the rift before his torso and harmlessly out through the second set of rifts behind his back.

"Using the Glyph of Timefail to break through my barrier was very smart," Ryland said, duly impressed.

"But you forgot to account for its major flaw. It can only target one kind of magic at a time."

"Tricksy, tricksy…" The elvhenan raised both blades high, a storm of blue and black energy rippling off both swords. He was certainly preparing something even more powerful, though how that was supposed to actually get to Ryland escaped him. Not that he intended to stand passively and find out.

"And now," Solverfel shouted with a hard grin, the same blue-black power dancing in his eyes.

"We end— argh." He had been about to throw himself forward, but he suddenly found his motion entirely arrested. Try as he might, he couldn't move. His arms shook, his legs trembled, his whole body threatening to rip itself into pieces to get moving, but it didn't work. Solverfel was stuck for good.

"What in all the Realms is happening?" he growled. While he couldn't turn his head much either, his eyes revolved and twisted wildly as he tried to spot what was wrong.

"I can't see anything! What did you just do?"

"Ah, you missed my cast," Ryland said.

"Cast? Of what?"" [Timescape]."" What?" Ryland patiently explained what had happened. In the ensuing chaos of their battle, he had squeezed in a cast of [Timescape] after Solverfel had broken through his barrier. In fact, the use of [Timescape] was inspired by the way the elvhenan had used the Glyph of Timefail.

"My spell's main function is, as you say, tricksy," Ryland said.

"It freezes your perception of time within a space, so you don't think anything is changing. While it breaks apart if anything interacts physically with that space, the tiny moment where you were standing still to gather your power was enough for me to cast it effectively and use it to cover my other spell."

"Other spell?"

"Yes. [Star Shackle]." Ryland dispelled the effects of [Timescape], letting his real spell show. Rifts shimmered into being all around Solverfel. Each was the size of a dinner plate, but through each rift, a chain of shining mithril plunged out and wrapped around Solverfel's arms, legs, torso, and even his neck.

"These are just chains!" the elvhenan said. He struggled furiously but failed to pull himself free from the whitish, pearlescent shackles, to no avail.

"What are these things?"

"Just as you said, they're chains. Chains that are often used to bind down unruly demigods and wayward Incarnations. Each one is connected to a different stationary body in the cosmos. A planet stuck in space. A star without a galactic tug. That sort of thing." Solverfel's eyes seemed to bulge." Impossible." He wasn't the only one with that kind of reaction. Around the battlefield, the onlookers were goggling at the chains emerging from Ryland's rifts.

Several were pointing and whispering, others were staring at Ryland with even more awe than before. Scaring Kleador to incapacitation was one thing. Calling on chains that could shackle not just powerful mages, but divinities themselves was a wholly different level of magic.

"Do you feel like surrendering now, Mage Knight Solverfel?" Ryland asked. Far from giving up, the elvhenan continued struggling up a storm, furiously fighting against the chains as though his energy was boundless.

"Surrender?" he shouted.

"A Mage Knight never surrenders. The only way you'll beat me is by killing me, for as long as I draw breath, I will never, ever be subdued!" Ryland tutted. Needless needling. Death was never a concern. A bit of maiming and wounding might occur if Ryland grew careless, but he didn't intend to lose control to that degree, much less to the point where his magic ended up killing people he was merely sparring with. It was just the Mage Knight trying to goad and unmoor him. A silly tactic.

"Then please allow me to make you surrender," Ryland said.

"What? What are you—" Ryland pointed two fingers at his opponent's face." [Oneself World]. [Translocate]." Immediately, both of Solverfel's eyes were covered up in small rifts. A moment later, he began screaming.