The ring activated and blasted me forward, following in the shockwave’s wake. When the shockwave hit the wall of flame and dispersed it, I was right behind, lunging toward Keras’ face.
He tilted his head to the side, avoiding the attack effortlessly.
Marissa was right behind him, swinging her dueling cane with the blade extended.
He caught the blade between two fingers, then snapped the steel in half.
Marissa hopped back, abandoning the cane. I swung again, and he batted my sword out of the way. For a moment, right before his hand met the sword, his aura shifted to fire.
Vapor rose from Selys-Lyann’s blade.
Marissa threw a kick at the center of his back, and with my attunement active, I could see her shroud concentrated around her leg.
He swatted her foot with an open palm, and she flew backward, landing and sliding about ten feet away.
For that moment, he looked distracted. The sword attacks were too obvious, so I switched my grip momentarily and fired a blast of gray mana from my gauntlet instead.
That hit him straight on. I didn’t see the telltale flicker of a barrier or shroud. He patted the spot on his chest where the bolt had struck and nodded to me. “Not bad. Wasn’t expecting that one.”
While Marissa closed the distance again, Keras stood up.
Marissa threw the broken dueling cane at him. He side-stepped the hurled weapon, and I used that moment to slash at his midsection.
He grabbed the blade of my weapon faster than I could process. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the blade began to glow red, instead of blue, and I saw steam rise from the surface.
Alarmed, I tried to pull the weapon back, but his grip, even holding the blade, was far stronger than mine.
I grabbed the hilt with both hands, wrenching against his strength, but to no avail.
Marissa swung at him with a charged fist, but he stepped to the side again, seemingly without any effort.
I released the grip on my weapon and blasted him with transference mana from my gauntlet.
Keras slid back a few inches, then tossed my sword to the ground. “I like the glove. That’s useful.”
I glared at him. “Please don’t break my sword.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that.” He blocked, rather than dodged, another swing from Marissa. “Just needed to use some flame to make sure the ice wouldn’t spread across my skin. That sword is dangerous, even to someone like me.”
I tried to blast him again, but he swatted it out of the way this time. Marissa followed up with another punch, but he grabbed her arm and hurled her past him.
She hit the floor, rolled, and growled as she rose to her feet.
Think. What can I do that can actually threaten him?
I took a swing at him with the gauntlet, but he dodged my strike even more easily than he had with Marissa.
My sword might be a real danger, but he knows about it, and he’s being careful about it.
I don’t have anything else that can hit him harder than the cane.
…But Marissa does.
He’s been deliberately dodging or grabbing when she uses her arm. He must know about the bracer I gave her that can boost how hard she punches. And now she has that strength-enhancing ring, too.
Keras glanced at Marissa, then back to me.
Marissa was back on her feet, rushing toward us.
I was only a few feet away from him now.
I moved my arms to my sides and activated the jumping ring.
Slamming into Keras was like hitting a brick wall, but my phoenix sigil absorbed some of the force of the impact.
I wrapped my arms around him in the moment after impact.
He broke my grip a second later, but I’d never had any hope of holding him for long.
Just long enough for Marissa to punch him in the face.
Keras staggered at the force of the blow, and I shoved my hand into his chest, activating my gauntlet repeatedly at point-blank range.
I managed four direct hits before he caught my hand, twisted, and shoved me right into Marissa.
We both stumbled at the impact, but managed to avoid falling over.
“That was good teamwork.” Keras rubbed his chin. “I actually felt that. Been a while.”
Marissa beamed. “Got a lot more where that came from.” She put up her fists in a ready stance.
I didn’t have a weapon at this point, so I just mirrored her. “You ready for more?”
Keras laughed. “Sure.” He sat back down. “Go get your sword, Corin.”
I glanced at Marissa, and she nodded.
I went and picked up Selys-Lyann. Keras let me walk back to Marissa without interfering.
I inspected the blade. True to what Keras had claimed, it looked undamaged. A layer of ice had already spread back across the blade’s surface.
“You could go a little harder on us this time,” Marissa offered. “You weren’t attacking at all.”
She was right, I realized — aside from that tiny ball of flame right at the beginning, he was fighting purely defensively. And given how easily I’d cut through the fire, that attack had probably been little more than a distraction…maybe that was when he’d altered the stone in the floor.
“I don’t think you’re ready for me to fight back.” Keras watched us with a taciturn expression.
“We managed to hit you a few times there,” I pointed out. “And I managed to fight against Derek for a while. He seems to hold his own against you.”
Keras shook his head. “I don’t mean to imply either of you is a weak fighter. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Either of you would have been a good fight for me when I was your own age. But I think you’re missing a couple important points.”
Marissa lowered her guard for a moment to fold her arms. “Whatcha mean?”
“One important thing to learn is that unless someone is highly specialized in defense, their defensive capabilities don’t improve as much as their offensive capabilities do.”
Keras folded his hands. “A Sunstone level attuned has six times more mana than a Carnelian. That means, in theory, they can cast an attack spell that’s six times stronger. But their shroud doesn’t block six times more damage, and they don’t necessarily get any faster.
“There are ways around this, to some degree. One of Derek’s contracts is air based, and increases his speed. Another of his contracts is stone-based, and increases his physical durability. But as an Emerald, he has hundreds of times more mana than you do — and he doesn’t have hundreds of times your speed or resilience.
“The same is going to be true for most high-powered fighters. Even an ordinary human could knock an Emerald level Enchanter out with a swift blow from inside their shroud, unless that Enchanter has spells or items that give them additional defense.”
I understood all that, even if I’d never heard it put in those exact terms. It was the reason Jin was able to knock Orden out with a surprise attack, for example. “Okay, sure, but Derek was attacking us during our fight, and we held out okay.”
“I talked to Derek about that fight. Orden instructed him not to kill any of you. That particular command gave him some flexibility to hold back when fighting you.”
That was no surprise — I could tell Derek was trying to resist the commands, he just wasn’t able to break free.
Keras continued. “Moreover, she ordered him not to summon the elementals from his weapons. Presumably, she was worried that if he summoned them, they’d realize he was controlled and find a way to break him free. If he was trying to fight you at anything close to his full strength, that would have gone very differently.”