Hyperion Evergrowing

Chapter 156: Unmasked

Leif stared up into the grinning face of the eighth Blade, feeling the temperature in the large stone room slowly drop, though not from anything Mouric was doing. Despite the man’s ice powers, the cause of the drop in temperature was Sieg, who was nervously releasing puffs of icy mist from his hands as he flexed and clenched his fingers.

There were several things the scion could say in this situation. He could ask the man if he had recovered from his earlier fight with the seventh Blade, or question if his cultivated reserves of energy needed to be refilled before he fought again. Leif could bring up the necessity of having a fight at all, or invoke his token or affiliation with Hera in order to dodge the challenge. But it wouldn’t work, he could tell from the excited, almost battle crazed gleam in Mouric’s eyes.

The Blade wasn’t mad, instead his eagerness to fight was likely the reason for his level of power, and the cause of his position within the Academy. Leif had caught his attention, and that had naturally resulted in a challenge being presented. He could sense the truth of his observations in the man’s unspooling aura, the eagerness Leif could empathically sense and the increased flow of vitality through the man’s body as his heart rate increased.

Sieg was demanding to know if a duel was necessary, but Leif cut him off mid sentence, giving the man a short nod in gratitude. “Five minutes, and if I lose you want to borrow this mask?” Leif asked, pointing to his face as he clarified the terms, mentally running through a checklist of his skills and abilities.

Mouric grinned, nodding enthusiastically. “Good man! I was worried you lacked sense! Nothing lets two people get to know each other better than a bout! And I just so happen to have a soft spot for festival masks.”

“And you owe me a favour if I win?” Leif asked, letting out a calming breath.

“Oh, sure.” Mouric said dismissively. Leif couldn’t blame the man, he was almost certain this wouldn’t be his victory.

He reached out a ‘gauntleted’ hand, and the Blade shook it with his own meaty paw. Leif pushed healing energy into Mouric’s arm, not as an attack, but instead to heal the dozen minor aches and wounds throughout his body. The massive man snorted in amusement, raising an eyebrow.

“I didn’t want another handicap.” Leif said, stepping away and dropping into a fighting stance, the motion familiar and instinctual due to [Inspiring Tenacity and Prowess]. He sensed the Blade’s readiness for conflict rise as the skill slightly enhanced his ability to read emotions and intent caused by his own actions.

Mouric cracked his knuckles and shot the three students a look as they scampered off towards the sidelines. Leif rolled his neck, conjuring two sets of golden arms, one out in front of him in a defensive position, the other off to either side for balance. The heavier, or more accurately, the denser his body became, the more and more important stability was when it came to combat. Falling over wasn’t ideal while in a fight. Leif shifted his stance, feeling the weight reduction aspect of [Gold Iron Physique] fade away.

The battle before him would be like walking a tightrope. He would need to do everything in his power to not lose, while simultaneously not doing anything that would reveal his identity as not human. Fortunately, being significantly heavier than he appeared wouldn’t be one of those things, since such abilities were fairly common, the man before him likely possessing one such skill.

Fight defensively, take it slow. He’ll be holding back, assuming he doesn’t want to bring the roof down on our heads. Leif thought as Mouric called for Sieg to count them down.

“On the count of zero.” The northerner said. “Three!”

“Let’s see if you’re as interesting as I think you are.” The Blade said.

“Two!”

“I hope I won’t disappoint.”

“One!”

“We’ll see.”

“Zero-”

Mouric burst forward, the stone floor beneath his feet shattering outwards as the sheer force behind his advance made a crater two metres wide where he had just been standing. Leif had expected the sudden attack, saw the tensing of the Blade’s muscles and a flicker of his intention that leaked through his aura control. What he hadn’t expected was the sheer ferocity behind it.

So much for holding back to not damage the chamber. He thought, half alarmed, half amused as [Amber Aegis] triggered, the shield skill rippling to life around him, his [Willpower], enhanced through a certain core skill guiding it to be more condensed around his arms as Mouric’s fist hammered down into him.

The room shook, the newly installed lightning fixtures flickered, Leif didn’t budge a step. The massive human’s eyes widened ever so slightly, then the scion countered, life-force flashing through one of his conjured arms as it rushed forward to shatter the man’s ribs. There was a bright flash of white light that temporarily blinded Leif’s vision, but not his ability to sense vitality. He felt the Blade shift ever so slightly to the side, so Leif adjusted the trajectory of his strike.

An amber fist crashed into a breastplate of conjured ice, the sound of the protective layer of elemental energy cracking resounding through the training room. Leif pushed forwards with his aura, twisting it around the Blade like snakes constricting their prey. A series of blows, spiritual and intangible, happened over the course of an instant as benevolence was rebuffed by a glacial wall, then was stubbornly shoved away, only to rush upwards and and press down from above.

Compared to Lars, Mouric’s aura control was slow and ponderous, likely by design. But that didn’t mean Leif was necessarily his match. He punched forward, this time physically, at the same time a sharpened blade of his presence tried to puncture the human’s aura for long enough to disrupt whatever skill was coming next. Mouric laughed as Leif’s vision cleared, his ice clad forearm of flesh and blood having blocked the scion’s blow.

“Not bad! Not bad at all!” He grinned, the gleam in his eye redoubling.

Leif winced internally, quickly stepping back as a pillar of ice lanced up from where he had been standing.

“I suppose if you already had the interest of one Blade, getting the attention of another is only to be expected!”

He was about to reply when the man kicked the three metre tall slab of ice, sending chunks of solid ice flying towards him with terrifying speed. Leif briefly flashed back to when an ice elemental had blown up under his feet, he silently hoped this encounter would end better than that one had.

Leif blocked, dodged and deflected. Then Mouric was in his face again, a fist, this time coated in a layer of ice coming in low. The Blade was faster now, and when Leif blocked, he realised that Mouric had indeed been holding back at the start. The scion took a step back as the impact blasted through his body, the floor cracking as the kinetic energy partially dissipated into the stone ground.

He realised then, desperately fending off a barrage of increasingly powerful punches, kicks and massive slabs of ice trying to flatten him into the floor, that hitting someone when you had a skill that made you the centre of attention if you did just that, probably wasn't a good idea. Especially when extra interest wasn’t exactly the goal. Or in this case, was actively hindering his chances of making it out of the situation with his identity undiscovered, and his life still intact. The latter being tied at the hip to the former.

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Leif stepped back, and blurred into a streak of gold, reappearing an instant later on the other side of the room. His feet cracked the layer of frost he was now standing on. In the moment of respite his teleportation had granted him, Leif considered how fights between high level individuals couldn’t be truly appreciated from up in the stadium. He just wished he had made this discovery in a more ideal environment.

There was a newly created glacier in the centre of the room, the towering structure of crystalised water shimmering under the dim lights as they blocked his line of sight with Mouric. Leif wondered how much time had elapsed, only for his subconscious to immediately respond with the answer. Less than two minutes had passed. He hissed out a breath, adjusted his stance, and readied himself as the seconds ticked by. Then the glacier exploded as a metal hammer head blasted through it, the weapon on a collision course with Leif’s chest.

A golden barrier flickered to life before him, then the dark steel of the hammer smashed right through it, disintegrated the conjured arm he had brought up to defend himself with, and sent him flying back, impacting the far wall and making every light in the room flicker out at once. Healing energy flooded towards his torso, mending fractured bark and knitting together torn muscle. Leif tried to move, but stunned as he was he didn’t use enough strength to pull himself free from the wall.

The hammer began to fall, but Mouric appeared with a pop of displaced air, his meaty hand already wrapped around its shaft. Panic flashed through Leif’s mind as he looked up at the still grinning Blade.

“I knew that wouldn’t kill you. You’re very tough, you know that? Give it a few levels and you’ll be a massive pain in the ass.”

The scion grunted in reply and tried to remove himself from where he was embedded into the wall. Mouric leaned forward, keeping the head of his hammer in place, making escape impossible. Leif kicked out, but couldn’t take the step needed to teleport again.

“My win then.” The human asked. A chunk of ceiling fell to the ice covered ground beside him. Mouric winced. “Whoops.”

“No.” Leif rasped, raising an empty hand.

“No?” The Blade said, cocking an eyebrow.

A sphere of tightly compressed wood fell into the scion’s ivory palm, it immediately fell, its sheer weight making it almost fall out of his grasp. Mouric’s eyes shifted to the object as it began to glow with an inner golden radiance. Then it exploded, tendrils of wood snapping out in every direction, cracking against the floor, and crashing into the surprised man with enough force to repay the favour, sending him flying, his body mostly unharmed due to the near instantly conjured icy armour as he twisted in mid-air to land on his feet.

The wood writhed and spasmed, spearing into stone, a wildly flailing arm destroying a pillar. Leif stepped out of the cloud of dust, the violent and chaotic motions of the now uncompressed wood weaving around him, parting to allow his advance. He was undamaged, courtesy of [Wood Manipulation] and the increased attributes from his advancement, without both the feat would have been impossible.

Mouric landed with a crash, the man skidding half a dozen metres before coming to a stop. He put a thumb to his nose and snorted out a globule of blood. He let the head of his weapon smash to the ground, creating another small crater. He chuckled, snorted, then spat out more blood.

“You, were holding out on me? Against a Blade of the Academy?”

“I didn’t want to destroy the chamber.” Leif said, gesturing at the thoroughly ruined training room with a golden arm.

The massive man chuckled again, then broke out into a bellowing laugh. He leaned on his hammer, wiping away a tear of mirth. “That- that’s funny, that’s way too funny.”

“Any chance you’d be willing to stop this? Call it a draw?”

“Nah, this is way too much fun. I never thought I’d get two good fights in one day. Gods bless the quadriad, I wish we held it twice a year instead of once.”

The chamber had fallen into a dark ambiance, the only light in the spacious room that which was being emitted from Leif’s amber arms and motes of golden vitality drifting around him, and Mouric’s faintly glowing ice.

Sieg waved his hand, his own conjured ice catching their attention. “Guys, the chamber can’t hold out much longer. There’s already massive structural damage, this has gone on for long enough.”

“Bah! It’ll hold! We keep going! There’s at least two minutes left!” The Blade said dismissively.

“Mentor… I do not think this is wise.” Sieg tried again, though from the look on his face he likely knew it was futile.

“We keep going.” Mouric grinned at Leif.

“Fine. But only if you take full responsibility for the damages” Leif said. Mouric nodded happily. Leif couldn’t help himself, despite the situation his mouth cracked slightly upwards as the large man charged forward again. Then he summoned another sphere from his spatial ring.

This time the Blade wasn’t caught off guard, a detonation of ice blasting out to combat the explosion of super compressed wood. Ice met unravelling branches, freezing some in place and being shattered in others. Mouric’s massive hammer crashed through the writhing world of wood and ice, smashing a path through the chaos. Leif stepped back, activating-

Mouric’s aura crushed his own into the floor, the sheer weight and unyielding force behind the sudden attack interrupting Leif’s attempt at teleporting away as he was surprised for a fraction of a second. His own aura reasserted control over the space around him, but the delay had been enough to trap him in place. He staggered back as the hammer sent a shockwave through his arms, the internal structure of his upper body getting turned to pulp from the impact. He kicked off, forcing everything he had into [Might] to create distance and the several seconds he would need before he was healed.

Chunks of ice rained from above, each larger than Leif’s entire body. The chamber shook, rocked by repeated impacts as he punched them out of the air with conjured arms of gold. The hammer flew in from the side, shattering his protective shield and sending him spinning through the air as he temporarily lost all feeling in his right-hand side. Two wooden swords appeared from his storage ring, striking out at the vitality signature Leif could sense coming towards him, not from the right, but from the left.

Mouric caught one blade in his armoured hand, but the second drove into his shoulder, the weapon of compressed wood, not as explosive as the spheres, nor anywhere near as heavy, having just enough force behind it to shatter the protective layer of ice and punch down into skin. Leif landed on one foot, fell forward onto the other and forced [The Amber Path] to carry him away. The Blade tried to prevent the teleport once again, but Leif’s aura defences were up and the attempt failed.

Leif blurred away, stumbling as he slipped on the icy floor, crashing to the side as the still healing damage to his body unbalanced him too much to remain standing. His opponent appeared behind him an instant later, but he was already twisting, hand and ring outstretched, a javelin of wood spearing towards Mouric’s unprotected, grinning face. The man jerked to the side, the projectile sailing narrowly past him, then his foot landed on Leif’s arm, pinning it to the ground, the head of the Blade’s massive hammer smashing down right next to Leif’s face a second later.

The scion froze, knowing, even as his body rapidly repaired itself, that he had lost. His clothing was in tatters, especially around the torso, revealing frost covered ivory wood that had been manipulated into the shape of a breastplate. The cloth on his arms were likewise in tatters, but the pretence of armour he was using to disguise the nature of his body seemed to hold, at least for now.

“I yield.” He gasped, making the large man beam.

“Good. Damn. Fight.” Mouric laughed, wiping a thin line of blood off his cheek where the javelin had barely missed its mark. “I think you have more than a little competition, Sieg!”

The man in question ran over, Linus and Adriana hot on his heels, though their progress was slowed as they tried not to slip on the icy and very damaged floor. “Mentor! That was way too far!”

“Pfft, please! Your friend is already mostly healed. He’s like a cockroach.”

“Are you okay, Leif?” Adriana asked, her steps lighter than the other two due to her wind magic.

The scion groaned, his vision swimming and mind racing. The phantom beat of his heart pounding in his chest as golden blood flooded every inch of his battered form.

“He’s fine. He’s fine!” Mouric laughed, leaning over his defeated adversary. “Now then, I’ll be taking my prize.”

And so he did, plucking Leif’s mask off his face with two meaty fingers. The Blade, one of the strongest humans in the world, blinked down at Leif. Then he snorted, tossing the thin piece of painted wood to the side.

“Fine then, keep your damn secret!” He said, his chuckle quickly turning into a full belly laugh.

Leif looked up at the howling man from behind his second, plain, wooden mask. Every ounce of tension fled his body, mind and soul as Mouric stomped away.