Catching Up With Lilith

Wolstan runs around me, I keep holding my halberd right at him. My halberd, as in the halberd I own. It isn’t some wooden replica, it’s the real deal. It was made by Wolstan himself to suit my fighting style the best, and as it turns out, he’s quite the blacksmith.

He also isn’t using a training sword. He’s using one of his real, actual swords, each of which are so well made they could probably split me in half from the head down. He made my halberd with such weapons in mind however.

We’re not fighting on the training grounds either. Our fights grew much too destructive for that small area and we had to relocate to the open field I used to train my earth magic in. Just looking around here, it’s clear that we’ve had many fights here.

I keep staring at him intently as he does the same. We’re both looking for even the tiniest opening to exploit. The tension is high, the moment either of us mess up even a bit, they’re getting attacked.

Wolstan changes his footing slightly. I don’t move a muscle, as he unleashes a sword skill. He swings down into the dirt, leaving a trail of blazing light behind the slash. It clashes into my halberd sending it up into the air, but I keep my grip as tight as possible. He’s too fast to smash it back down on him. 

He charges me, and unleashes the same sword skill in an attempt to cut me open. Manipulating my footing with earth manipulation, and it’s easy to keep the strike from getting anywhere near me.

Wolstan quickly changes his grip and strikes at me again, but I parry the strike with the pole of my halberd. I lift my foot up, and with it, a rock I had buried in this exact location last night. “Earth Sense” made it easy to step on.

I harden the rock on the bottom of my foot as much as I possibly can, and kick at Wolstan as hard as I can. Before I can hit anything though, he jumps far out of my range. A fatal error, you can’t change your position in the air, and I know from experience exactly where you’re going to land.

I create hands of earth at the spot he’s going to land, in an attempt to grab his legs. He swings his sword with such force though, his body twists around in the air while also slicing both the hands in half. He lands completely fine.

As he lands, he takes a stance, staring me right in the eyes. He’s serious. That’s the stance he takes when he prioritizes speed over everything else. In the next moment, his sword will pretty much be in my body so I readjust as quickly as possible.

I point the halberd at the ground, taking a lower guard stance. Come on, Wolstan!

I see him charge at me faster than I react to it. I don’t move a muscle. The illusion runs right through me, and nothing happens. Wolstan is still right there, with the same stance.

“That won’t work on me again, my Gift sees through tricks like that.” I say, keeping my guard up.

He says no word as he starts walking towards me. His sword is down, and no malice is shown on his face, in his eyes, or even in his aura. I’m not falling for this again either. I watch him intently for even the slightest attempt to attack.

He looks at me, and smiles as if legitimately proud of me. I can’t sense the slightest bit of hostility, yet I keep my guard up.

“You really are a monster, you know that? It’s only been two years since I’ve started training you and you’re already so strong. I don’t think I’ve met a single 10 year old who could give me so much trouble.”

He has both his arms up, and he’s barely holding onto his sword anymore. But he hasn’t sheathed it.

“I’m proud of you Lilith, I really am. We’ll call it your victory. Let’s do something to celebrate your progress.”

Alright, I’ll play along. I’ll keep a plan in mind though. The rocks I hid in my clothes before the fight. I manipulate them slightly. So slowly he won’t notice. I click them together around my wrists, elbows and shoulders, all in places he can’t see.

I hold my halberd up, and change my expression to look more at ease.

“Alright, if that’s the case. If you’d like, I want-”

As good as instantly, Wolstan’s grip on his sword returns, and he charges at me with full force. I put all the strength into my arm muscles to pull my halberd back down. Not just that, but the rocks on my joints too. I use earth manipulation to pull them to earth too, pulling my arms along with them. As fast as I can perceive, Wolstan’s sword comes swinging toward me, and my halberd falls down towards Wolstan.

Chhiing!

Chrlkgg…

Wolstan’s face and mine are just inches away from each other. Wolstan’s sword is stuck in between the ground and my halberd. I went for his sword instead of him. Several dozen pillars of bedrock I dug up are all pointing at Wolstan’s body. Points sharp enough to cut bone are lined up everywhere just inches away from his body.

“You were expecting that.”

“Of course. Now are you going to give me the win, or are you going to keep struggling?”

“This is nothing, I can still kill you. You might be able to hurt me so badly I’ll never fight again, but I’ll be alive, and you’ll be dead.”

“I wasn’t aiming at your throat or your head, since this is just practice, but what if I was?”

“Assuming you won’t hesitate when you have to take a life, then I’ll give you the win. I wasn’t fighting all out during any of that fight though.”

“Hoh? But you would have had to take out your second sword for that, right? Isn’t that going all out for you?”

“Well, it is kind of pointless discussing the possibilities, but if your earth magic was strong enough to keep my other sword down, then sure, I might give you that.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Alright, alright, now get us out of this iron maiden contraption you’ve developed. This position is exhausting to hold.”

“Right, sorry sir.”

I use earth manipulation to levitate the spikes of bedrock out of the dirt and lay them on the ground. I’m adept enough to shoot them at speeds that could easily be fatal, even with armor, but Wolstan always cut through those like they were nothing, so I had to be a bit sneakier with how I used them.

“Alright, alright, are you feeling another round for today?”

“No sir. That was a very stressful fight, especially right there in the end.”

“We’ll walk back then. Go ahead and put your halberd away.”

“Yes sir.”

I pull out the leather sheath from my clothes, and put it over the sharp end of my halberd. I tie it up, and then begin the long process of storing it away. I focus on every last part of it, and… it disappears.

I do a bit of stretching to calm down after that duel, and then run off after Wolstan.

“You aren’t going to take those spikes with you?”

“Well, it’s not like they’re going anywhere. We are coming back out here tomorrow, right? I’ll just stick them where I need them to be before you show up.”

“Just what are you planning to do if the opponent doesn’t give you prep time?”

“Fight to stall, while making my preparations underneath their feet without them noticing. I can also make a pretty large dust cloud if I need to run away.”

Wolstan looks down in thought. Even with all my practice reading other people’s expressions I still don’t quite know what he’s thinking about.

“Lilith, listen up to what I’m about to say, alright?”

I nod, I can tell this is important.

“You’re strong. Really strong in fact, at just 10 years of age. I can still thrash you, but it isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. It’s really easy for me to see most sword instructors losing to you in a fight, even.”

“That’s because you’re so strong, and such a good teacher, sir.”

“Yeah, yeah, what I’m trying to say is I’m kind of reaching the end of my rope here. Other than fighting against enemies with swords, there isn’t much left for me to teach you. In that regard you still have quite a fair bit to go since that’s my specialty but if I fought against you with any weapon other than the sword, there really isn’t much information left for you to learn.”

I listen in closely. I understand the point Wolstan’s getting at. He’s only been sparring against me with his own sword for a while now.

“So, I wanted to tell you, there’s a whole lot of people way stronger than me, and people that specialize in weapons I don’t have the faintest scrap of proficiency with. So don’t get conceited. Don’t go thinking you can go and fight the world because you can fight me.”

“Sir, I’d never!”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good. Why I’m telling you all of this is because I have an offer for you, if you want to take it.”

“I’m listening.” I shut everything else out. I know for a fact that this is important.

“The whole reason you wanted to get stronger is that you wanted to live, right? Well as you are right now, as long as you aren’t thrown into a complete and utter war zone, you should be able to handle yourself around a demon. The offer I want to make to you, is if you still want to get stronger despite that.”

Stronger still? I agree with Wolstan’s assessment, and given the visions I saw, my current skill level as long as I don’t slack off I should be able to get around the death I foresaw. Would it be worth pursuing strength even after that? I’m 10, I still have a lot of options I can consider.

“The offer is that I take you back to the capital of Osnye with me. You’ll get introduced to a whole bunch of different opponents that are as strong as me but have totally different fighting styles. Duel with them, and you’re sure to become even more of a monster than you already are. Keep training like that, and it’s possible you could take on some truly strong demons. That’s my honest assessment.”

Take on some truly strong demons? Think… those visions of two years ago showed me that I’d go to Uxak Elite Academy at some point assuming those were visions of the future. After a bit of research, that is a real school in the Nymet Kingdom that has a private class of just Gift Holders that it trains to serve in combat against the demons.

So if I trust those visions for a moment, I should currently have enough strength to avoid my death there. However, the fact of the matter remains that I’d still be going out to fight demons after my time there is over, so it might be beneficial to take Wolstan up on his offer.

Even then though, that academy’s education, especially among Gift Holders is renowned. I might be able to get away with not taking Wolstan’s offer and instead focusing on something else. What else could I possibly focus on though?

I mean, preparing for that fight that might possibly happen kind of took up my whole life. I still also want to think about what happened to Rain, and how I have her memories. My only lead on that though requires investigating some of the most dangerous places in this world though, so maybe I should take Wolstan’s offer?

“Wolstan, I put a lot of thought into it… and, well I’m leaning towards yes, but I’m not sure yet. I need more time to think.”

“Don’t worry about it, take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

We both walk into the Amber manor through one of the side entrances, as we’ve done many times over. This time though, Leah is standing there waiting for us. She looks incredibly anxious.

“Ah! Lady Lilith! You’re back early!” Now she sounds excited?

“Leah, your emotions are all over the place. What happened?”

“Sir Annei is back!”

That’s all I need to hear as I start bolting towards the front entrance of the manor.

“Lady Lilith, wait!”

“No use…” 

I hear Leah and Wolstan behind me, but I don’t pay attention to what they’re saying. I recognize I should probably put something nicer on than the outfit I use to duel Wolstan, but I don’t care. It’s my brother, and he’s been gone for a year now!

The fact he had a Gift caught up with him and he had to go serve against the demons, but now he’s finally back to visit!

I run faster than a 10 year old should really be able to run. I activated the “Sprint” skill I had gotten in one of my many duels against Wolstan as soon as he heard Brother was here. With it, I’m able to run as fast as an adult would be able to. Honestly, it’s so useful I have no idea how I was able to live without it.

I keep running through the manor halls all the way to the entrance. After a year, I finally get to see Brother again!

I finally manage to get to the foyer, and see several servants there. Right there in the front entrance though, is Brother flanked by two other people in uniforms of the Cralian military.

Brother’s aura seems much different from when I saw him last. He seems a bit more muscular, and he’s dressed in a really rough and torn mage uniform that gives him a really rugged look. He also doesn’t look like he’s shaved in a bit, and I think I notice a pretty huge scar running down his face though.

When he sees me, he lets out a gentle smile, and I’m filled with relief. He’s changed quite a bit, but he’s still Brother.