Finally, Hadjar, flicking his wrist slightly, took a step back and abruptly swung his blade. It traced a wide arc, leaving a ghostly image in the air. The scarlet sabers ended up crushed, and the nobleman, pressing his palm to his cheek, took a step back.
However, Oneg wasn’t bleeding. Instead of hitting him with the cutting edge and chopping the aristocrat’s head off, Hadjar had simply slapped him with the flat of his blade.
“Bastard!” Oneg of Boreas growled, blushing from the insult.
Hadjar, still as calm as when the fight began, sheathed his blade.
“Let’s stop here, my Lord,” Hadjar bowed.
“We’re done when I say we are!” Oneg yelled, finally shedding all of his refinement and arrogance. “I wanted to keep this attack as my trump card in the Thunder rank advancement tests, but I suppose the famous General can be its first victim.” The noble spat out the last words venomously.
Oneg assumed a low stance and thrust his saber forward abruptly. It whistled and then stopped; a scarlet ray erupted from the blade. Like a striking snake, it cut through the air and flew toward Hadjar at an astonishing speed. From the side, it looked as if Oneg’s saber had suddenly become ten yards long.
Hadjar’s sword was already in its sheath. Once again, the people jumped to their feet. Exclamations of surprise and admiration filled the clearing when steel lightning flashed and Moon Beam cut the scarlet ray in two.
Hadjar’s strike had been so quick and precise that it seemed as if he hadn’t pulled the sword out of its sheath at all, but had instead materialized it out of thin air. It looked like the blade had been in his hand the whole time, just invisible.
The people sat back down. Even Hadjar considered the duel to be completely over, but Oneg’s bloodthirsty grin suggested otherwise.
Realization came too late.
The two halves of the noble’s attack went around Hadjar and targeted the maids and cooks.
Hadjar rushed after them.
“Your... choice... General,” Oneg said, panting.
This final attack had cost him all of his energy, so, regardless of the outcome of that last clash, the winner of the duel was more than obvious. Hadjar didn’t care about that at the moment. He was playing catch up with death. Not his own, but with the demise of others, and so the stakes seemed unusually high to him.
One half of the Technique was charging toward a frightened maid who was hiding behind a silver plate. As if that could ever protect her...
The second one was aimed at the young apprentice of a cook. The boy was about ten. Even his mustache hadn’t begun to grow yet, and if the selfish noble had his way, it would never get a chance to.
Hadjar made his choice. He threw his sword at the right half of the ray. Grabbing the boy, he blocked the second half. Blood soaked the ground, and the ray melted away into the darkness. However, Hadjar was no longer in the spot where the first droplets had fallen.
Hadjar had chosen the boy because he weighed less...
A black shadow flickered. Not a single cry had escaped the former General when the scarlet ray had pierced his left side. Moon Beam had only been able to slow the strike of Oneg’s saber for a moment. But that had given Hadjar enough time to overtake death itself.
Strength had never been what he relied on. Speed, however...
“Don’t worry,” Hadjar whispered.
Shielding the frightened maid, he lowered the little boy down next to her. The terrified girl hugged the crying child immediately.
Hadjar smiled, nodded, and straightened up. With his left hand, he pinched the bleeding wound on his left side. The maid screamed and held the child even tighter. She saw a terrible, bloody stain spreading over Hadjar’s back. Where the second ray had struck him.
“You have no right, bastard!” Oneg squealed out, paralyzed with fear.
What he saw in front of him definitely wasn’t a human being.
Chapter 206
he aristocrat noticed the reflection of a beast in the depths of Hadjar’s clear blue eyes. As Hadjar slowly walked toward his sword, which was stuck in the ground, all the noble could see was a dragon approaching him.
“Stay away from me!”
The saber fell from his weak grasp, and the aristocrat fell back on his ass, ignoring his friends’ screams.
“Stay away from me!”
Hadjar raised his sword above him and slashed. A storm burst out of it, one capable of wiping a whole city off the face of the earth. A thunderbolt struck, roaring like a dragon that had awakened after a thousand-year slumber. A flash of steel light blinded the spectators for a moment, and then everything was quiet.
The unscathed Oneg lay on the ground, his eyes glassy. He wasn’t dead, he’d just fainted. However, the people were amazed by a very different spectacle.
A few inches away from the aristocrat’s head, a jagged tear had spread across the ground. Several yards deep, it looked as if a giant from the ancient legends had cut the earth with a huge broadsword.
The fury in the Mad General’s eyes gradually faded away, until finally being replaced by indifferent calm. As if nothing had happened, he pulled off his top. Sitting down on the grass, he laid out bandages and various miniature flasks he’d previously kept in his numerous pockets.
He completely ignored the people stunned by his behavior and the bewildered look on the Princess’ face. She was trying to count the scars on his body, but couldn’t.
“Let me help,” Nero sat down beside him.
Hadjar nodded and allowed his friend to treat the wound on his back. It stung. Suddenly, he remembered Nehen.
***
He lay on the animal skins. Officers and commanders were shouting outside his tent. They were trying to get the camp back into a disciplined state after their recent victory over
