Crusader King
Chapter 160: Source Origin(10)

Chapter 160 - Source Origin(10)

The wielder of the great sword, whatever gender these beings might be, if they even had genders, was trying to attack him now, now, while he was still stuck in fighting the other one, that other one having now stepped back, escaping from losing his hands, something that would've undoubtably helped the still confused and slightly scared Cades in emerging victorious from this harrowing encounter, an encounter where he wasn't even able to completely see his terrain, perhaps one of the worst situations he could've found himself in.

But just as he was already readying himself to block the attack of the great sword using his own, much smaller, sword, a task that he already knew wouldn't go well, he could sense how the other attacker had somehow gone to his back without him noticing, still bleeding liquid out of the forearms but still holding a dagger, and quite intent on stabbing him in the back, a dishonour for many swordsmen, but even worse, a death sentence for Cades in his current situation, and as if that wasn't already bad enough of a situation, he still wasn't capable of using his warp step, an active he now realized to have been relying on an awful bunch in comparison to the others.

Still, his mind was quite sharp, and despite that mind being clouded with a multitude of tasks and still not being able to stop counting, having started anew once he had entered this place and reached about a few hundred, he was still capable of thinking out of the box when needed, such as right now, and there was indeed one thing he could think of on the fly, a technique he had only really used twice, once to send away his other self, and once, before even that, to break the floor beneath him in quite the theatrical way, something he found to be quite funny after he had spent a whole hour just watching the unconscious other him, or perhaps even more, he hadn't really cared about the time.

He just had to push the two away, the dagger-wielder should be easy, the great sword wielder might be difficult to stop with the greater momentum but it should still be possible if he just put a lot of mana into the technique, just like he had done back on the wooden floor, the place where he had actually been having a lot of fun while fighting, not that he wasn't having fun right now, it was just a lot more stressing and difficult than back then when he was fighting against the two, one of which didn't even really fly, something he couldn't really do much against.

Cades concentrated for a moment, causing a slight mistake in his mana sense, nothing to really mention, and as soon as he did, he felt it, his mana, already being near the boiling point from this place and the fact that he was so desperately using the mana sense, something completely new, something that was based on a similar principle, something he would have to use, be it not while using this technique seeing as it would probably disable the sense for a fraction of a second, not that it mattered much if that would be the price for his survival, something he was quite fond of achieving.

He pressured his mana, sending it out just as he had done all this time, but this time, other than all the times before, he put actual force behind it, a principle in magical studies that could simply not be explained, a principle that simply was, a principle dependent on the intent of the mage, perhaps even a principle connected to the soul and the mind, but that didn't really matter right now, all that mattered was that the two opponents were caught by surprise and Cades was congruently using the steadfast active so he wouldn't be swept away by the explosion of magical force either, the mana that couldn't really hurt him as he was the origin, the source, of the entire thing and the mana was his, another interesting principle.

And this, the mana expulsion as it was called, worked quite well, pushing the wielder of the great sword down, causing him to even be weighed down by his literal greatest weapon and struggle to get up again, and also pushing away the dagger-wielder who was somehow managing to hold on with quite the good posture, not that it mattered to Cades who was able to retaliate now.

The dagger-wielding bastard was weakened already, due to his forearms being cut into quite deep, and then there was the fact that the current Cades was augmented by his expulsion, something he didn't even realize yet, something he wasn't even certain of, but something quite interesting, and then, added onto all of that, there was the fact that the dagger wielder was disoriented as well, be it not as much as Cades who had no way to even see the terrain itself, but still, it wouldn't be able to defend itself against Cades next attack, so he just had to make that one count.

And indeed, despite the opponent trying to defend itself, it didn't succeed, instead ending up with Cades most favourable end, with the being ending up without a head, having been sliced of by a quick and powerful attack from the elated Cades who was now quite a bit calmer, only having to deal with that ridiculously oversized sword, not even caring to watch the slowly dissolving corpse of the slain being anymore, believing that he might be attacked at any moment by another such being, but that was an unfound fear, the other being was still laying there, unable to heave its sword up that had fallen onto the ground, something Cades thought to be quite funny.

But the being wasn't completely defenceless, it might not have a weapon anymore, but it still had fists, something it tried to use against Cades as soon as it had the chance and saw the need, if the being was even able to see, perhaps it was using the same technique as Cades, just on a more natural level.

Either way, the fists of the being were of no consequence to a sword, at least not at this level of prowess, and as such, Cades just stabbed at the creature, aiming for quite the vulnerable area, and at the same time one that is rarely defended with many kinds of armors and rarely utilized by swords, the throat.