CHAPTER 131

  AN UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM

  The sky itself answered Rudolf’s step.

  Each stride he took into the arena was followed by a low growl from above, as though the heavens recognised their master. Clouds boiled and rumbled, bending knee to his arrival. Rudolf Edenberg—Alastor, the Thunder Knight—needed neither banners nor heraldry. His presence alone announced catastrophe.

  Above the roiling dark canopy, something vast and unseen loomed. The sword. The legendary Thunderclap. The audience could not see it, but every heart in the coliseum beat faster knowing it was there—waiting, watching, promising judgment.

  Hans—Theodred to the world—knew it better than anyone. He had provoked Rudolf before, begged him to fight with his full might, to bring Thunderclap into the fray. Rudolf had refused. For years Hans had dreamed of this moment, and now, his wish was granted. But the dream’s fulfilment did not bring joy. It brought dread.

  Because Rudolf, a wide-area destroyer, was the worst possible opponent for someone like Hans—a close-quarter duelist who thrived on precision, not overwhelming force.

  A thunderclap tore the sky, and the invisible sword answered.

  Hans flinched. His hands flew instinctively to cover his ears, just as they had when he was a boy cowering from storms. A childhood fear, etched into his body’s marrow. For a brief moment Rudolf’s advance faltered, watching the reflex with something like recognition.

  But Hans was no child anymore. He had defeated terrors far worse than storms. His shoulders rolled, loosening tension, and his twin swords slid into his hands with a whisper of steel. One glowed with a bright radiance—his sword of light. The other, Kindness, hummed low and sharp, its edge trembling with Maximacre microscopic rotations.

  He had no tricks left, no cards hidden. Only his will and the steel in his grip. His breathing was calm, but the tremor in his knuckles betrayed the truth: one mistake meant death.

  Rudolf’s voice boomed across the arena, resonant as a storm striking stone.

  “You’ve climbed far, child. But here—” he raised one gauntleted hand, arcs of lightning dancing across his knuckles—“here is where it ends.”

  The crowd erupted, their chant rising like surf on jagged rocks. Some roared Rudolf’s name, others cried for the miracle boy. But all agreed: this was no duel of shadows like Theodred’s fight with Dijkstra. This was destruction made flesh. Rudolf Edenberg, the Thunder Knight.

  The horn blared.

  Rudolf moved first —Surge— Lightning flooded his veins until his body blurred, transformed into a streak of purple-white lightning. The sand beneath his boots vitrified into glass as he dashed, a living thunderbolt with Thunderclap sword brimming with destructive force.

  Skill: Wings of Freedom

  Aura wings snapped open around Theodred, and he leapt, soaring high. In midair he twisted, swords flashing arcs of light like new-drawn constellations. Timeless Strikes—his blades left ghost cuts that lingered, waiting to snare the unwary.

  But Rudolf wasn’t a total unwary . A flaw he had observed on Wings of Freedom while Hans fought with Dijkstra. That the boy couldn’t just burst into the maddening speed, he attains it like an avian. Gradually increasing. So the moment he stopped was the moment to attack.

  His laugh cracked like thunder—Crescent Moon Strike— his sword carved a shimmering arc of lightning that sliced the sky itself.

  Skill: Armis

  Hans’s rotating sphere of light intercepted, sparks screaming across its barrier. But Rudolf’s destructive charge passed through his rotating sphere of light.

  Pain flared—shoulder torn open—after that the crescent doubled back, striking again, jolting every muscle with stunning force.

  The boy hung in the air, light aura flickering around his arms as he barely kept hold of his blades.

  Rudolf pressed the attack. Both hands raised, he drew on the storm.—Mountain Slash— his blade grew vast, an obsidian titan of stormlight. He brought it down like a mountain falling, gravity dragging at Theodred’s bones.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Theodred barely slipped aside at the last possible instant, his blades snapping into a blur.

  Skill:Maximacre

  The microscopic rotation along the edges, grinding against the descending blade with sparks of light.

  The clash split the arena floor open, sand and stone buckling.

  The crowd roared—half in awe, half in terror.

  Theodred’s aura bled fast. Too fast. Every swing, every deflection drained him. But he fought with precision, carving invisible snares into the air itself. When Rudolf charged again, sparks sprayed as faint cuts opened along his armour—not enough to wound, but enough to sting.

  “Clever boy,” Rudolf growled, shaking his arms, lightning coursing down to cauterise the scratches. Natural healing didn’t work but lighting strands keeping the wound close did.

  “Your clever ends where my power begins.” —StormEye—The storm exploded outward. Bolts of lightning rained in merciless torrents, each one a spear with Rudolf as its center. A perfect offense and defence combined.

  Theodred darted like a moth through fire, Wings of Freedom carrying him through the storm. His blades flashed, parrying bolts, redirecting their fury. But each defence bled more aura than his Regenratio could mend. His reserves thinned dangerously low.

  Still, he endured.

  Rudolf raised his hand, and the sky answered. A lightning bolt struck Thunderclap itself, awakening its blessed core. He had already stopped Hans’s charge, to turn faster Hans needed to regain the momentum and it would take time.

  This was an opportunity he was carving bit by bit.

  He swung taking a leap crossing the distance in a flash—Divine Punishment— Like a meteor, trailing arcs that cracked the air itself. Rudolf descended on Hans but before him, came Thuderclap’s blessing

  The arena quaked.

  The gravity doubled.

  Theodred hit the ground, knees sinking into stone as though the earth had turned to mud. His wings faltered, too heavy to bear him. Each breath now felt like dragging chains across molten iron.

  Then came Rudolf with a perfect vertical slash. Aimed to obliterate Hans.

  Skill: Armis

  Sphere after sphere, but each shattered in sequence until he was left with nothing but his crossed blades.

  The Thunder Knight smiled for the first time, teeth flashing like lightning in the dark. He lifted the sword, which hummed with a storm’s heart.

  “Stand, boy—or give up”

  Theodred forced himself upright. His blades trembled in his grip, aura flickering thin. His breath tore ragged from his lungs. His eyes were bloodshot, his body barely clinging to control. But his gaze never left Rudolf’s. That unbroken defiance had made the warlord hesitate—for several instances.

  But this was a duel with his reputation on stake, he wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it.

  Above, clouds blackened further, drawn low as if the world itself bent to the Thunder Knight’s will. Lightning webbed the heavens, the air thick with ozone, with the raw promise of ruin.

  The herald’s voice could barely be heard over the storm.

  “—the Ninth Rank Rudolf, preparing Nimbus!”

  The crowd became a living beast, their roar shaking the stands. Some screamed in terror, others in worship. Wagers were clenched tight, prayers muttered through trembling lips.

  Theodred spat blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and raised both blades once more.

  “I’m not here,” he rasped, “for giving up.”

  The dome of lightning crashed down—a brutal, living thunderhead swallowing the world whole. The Warlord’s Domain, raw and unyielding, spilled from the sky like a curse.

  Hans gritted his teeth, fingers clutching Kindness. “Restore.” The sword pulsed—draining its last breath into him, refilling his aura just enough. One card left in a deck already played to the bone. He had used every element of surprise in his battle with Dijkstra. He’d bought time—for Rudolf to twist the fight his way.

  His eyes locked on the descending Nimbus.

  Wings of Freedom snapping sharp, desperate. Flapping, chasing momentum in a sky thick with static. Hans felt the weight of his own failing design—the way his aura-preserving flight modification had sacrificed bursts of speed of Lightcloak. Rudolf had found the weakness and used it like a noose.

  He closed his eyes, inhaled the crackling domain around him. When they opened, they shone—sharp, clear. All of Skills ignited, firing in perfect sync. He was inside the Nimbus now. Rudolf’s godly territory. And Hans? Just a mortal trespassing.

  A breath slipped free. His gaze flicked tracing the Warlord.

  “Where are you looking, boy?” came the whisper—close, cold, seething.

  He swiftly turned gaining a distance but maybe was late in doing so.

  The Warlord’s fist smashed towards him, a violent pressure leaving a crater where seconds before was untouched stone.

  “No where,” Hans spat, voice hard as flint. “Where are you looking, old man?” From above him, just as he sneaked behind Hans, Hans had did the same.

  But not without a plan. His hand already motioning a mighty swing of something gigantic—a hammer of solid light coming at Rudolf in a devastating arc.

  The blow was fast due to Wings of Freedom and heavy due to unstoppable momentum. It slammed into Rudolf, flattening him into the very crater he had punched down before.

  Hans stood, balanced on the rod-end of his weapon, the glowing metal body resting heavy on the ground beneath him.

  “Got you.”

  It was a cruel mirror—Rudolf’s own maelstrom, reborn in solid light. The very same way he had made his second sword of light.

  But did it work? Question remained unanswered.