The Storm King

Chapter 427: Taking Control II

“Now, then,” Leon loudly said as Roland saw to Gellius. “Who’s next?”

“I’m… not done yet!” Gellius shouted as he tried to struggle back to his feet. Roland pulled back a bit as the Baron began struggling to rise. A couple of his knights rushed forward to help their Lord, but he waved them away.

Once the Baron managed to struggle back up, he assumed an aggressive stance and began to channel his magic power in preparation to continue his duel with Leon. However, he swayed on his feet and his breathing was pained. A moment later, he pulled his charred golden helmet off of his head and tossed it aside, putting the vein-like burns on his face on display, along with his somewhat dazed expression.

Leon smiled back at the man and adopted a defensive stance. It was clear to everyone that Gellius was essentially done, but if the man himself didn’t quite get it, then Leon was happy to show him that he’d lost.

Fortunately for Gellius, as he stood there taking labored breaths and barely able to stand, reason won out and some measure of clarity returned to him. His eyes focused on Leon and Leon’s aura, which hadn’t meaningfully weakened since the fight began. Gellius found it painfully obvious that defeating him hadn’t taken much out of the younger man, and so he swallowed his pride and began to wordlessly hobble back to the edge of the crowd. The nobleman was extremely conscious of everyone else’s eyes upon him, but he did his best to act with whatever dignity that he could muster.

Leon was tempted to call after him about how ‘he wasn’t done yet’ but decided that the man had been humiliated enough—he wanted the Barons cooperative, not bitter and resentful. So, he stood there in the center of the crowd and raised his arms in an open invitation. Any of the other four Barons who were willing could come forward to challenge him for control of their unit.

Without delay, a large, hulking knight stepped forward dressed in shining steel plate armor. His chest was covered in a light green tabard with the blue sigil of one of Leon’s subordinate Barons. The Baron in question called out, “This man shall be my champion!”

“Very well,” Leon said, smiling. The champion was a fifth-tier mage, but he was extremely heavily armored, and from what Leon could tell of his aura—it was sinking and spread out into the ground more than through the air—he was an earth mage, and one that was probably specialized for defense. In his right hand was a short sword not even three feet long, while in his left was a large tower shield that protected the champion from shin to neck.

Before beginning, Leon wondered if the Baron was trying to tire him out. After how handily he defeated Gellius, he couldn’t imagine any of them thought that this champion could defeat him, but if he could last long enough and demand enough of Leon’s power, then one of the other Barons might have an easier time. He noticed that the Baron whose champion he was fighting made brief eye contact with Baroness Orientis several times as Leon and the man’s champion prepared themselves to fight, but he also acknowledged that he could just be paranoid.

“Ready?” Roland asked the combatants as they assumed their positions opposite one another.

“I am,” the champion replied.

“Yes,” said Leon.

“Then begin,” Roland said.

Leon, unlike his fight with Gellius, moved first. He didn’t wait for the champion to make the first move, for if he was correct and the man was only there to tire him out for another Baron, he had to get this fight over with quickly. He had decidedly more power than any single Baron, but if the next two or three fights were prolonged too much, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to last until the fifth.

So he attacked, trusting in his family’s lightning arts and powerful offensive fighting style to carry him to victory. He blazed with lightning, arcs of it flashing across his entire body as he thundered toward his opponent faster than just about anyone else could see. In an instant, he was upon the champion, raining blows upon the weak points of his armor, striking fast and hard and darting back before any counter could be made.

Leon struck again and again, first at the champion’s wrist holding his sword, then moving around the champion to strike at his left shoulder, and then at the back of the left knee.

Leon’s first blow was successful; his blade failed to penetrate the champion’s armor, but his lightning magic did, causing the champion to lose control of his arm from the elbow down and drop his blade. Leon’s subsequent blows were less effective, with the champion remaining on his feet and with shield in hand.

But Leon didn’t let that stop him, and he continued to spin around the champion, striking every vulnerable spot he could. The champion managed to harden his skin into stone, confirming Leon’s guess that he was mostly defense-focused, but that wasn’t enough to save him. Eventually, the champion fell to his knees, his less-armored joints bleeding from Leon’s attacks, and much of his armor blackened by lightning burns.

When all was said and done, the duel lasted less than a minute, and Leon wasn’t too much worse for wear. That being said, he could feel the strain of using his power so intensely, even if it wasn’t yet a problem.

Playing off what little fatigue he felt, Leon spread his arms in a welcoming gesture and shouted, “Anyone else?!”

Almost immediately, another of the Barons stepped forward. He was clad in heavy armor much like the last Baron’s champion, and unless Leon’s senses were failing him, this Baron was an earth mage, too.

Leon suppressed a sigh. It seemed that his guess was proving true; the Barons were going to wear him out—probably so that Baroness Orientis could take charge if she could beat him when he was tired.

‘But things aren’t going to go that way…’ Leon thought to himself as a smile broke out across his face. This sort of thing—testing his martial skills against worthy opponents—was one of the things he honestly couldn’t get enough of. He wasn’t that fond of killing, but fighting was another story, and this challenge that the Barons were giving him was one that he relished.

“Begin!” Roland shouted, and Leon sprang into action. Instead of charging this time, he conjured as powerful a lightning bolt as he could without turning his power silver-blue and hurled the bolt like a javelin as hard as he could.

The bolt traveled with characteristic speed, exploding upon the Baron’s chest plate before the man could react. Showered in sparks and with Leon’s magic power ravaging him outside and in, the Baron wasn’t able to respond before Leon appeared before him with a flash and a clap of thunder and snapped his fingers in front of the Baron’s face.

Fire erupted from Leon’s fingers, enveloping the Baron’s head and shoulders. Silence fell upon the watching knights as, for just a moment, it seemed like Leon had just murdered the Baron. But as the flames died down and the Baron fell backward, everyone breathed a sigh of relief; the Baron’s aura was still strong enough to prove that he still walked in the land of the living, though it was also weak enough to prove that Leon had beaten him handily.

It also proved that Leon wasn’t playing around anymore as he was with Baron Gellius. He’d held back enough to not kill those he was fighting against, but other than that one concession, he was fighting to win.

Naturally, when all eyes turned toward the fourth Baron—for everyone could see what was happening as clearly as Leon could—he paled a little, but he, with all the courage and dignity that he could summon… sent out one of his subordinates to fight Leon in his stead.

Of course, just because the Baron wasn’t willing to face Leon personally, that didn’t make his choice a poor one. Like the previous two combatants, this champion was another earth mage, and he began to solidify his skin before he even began to walk into the ring. Much like the previous two, the man wore the heaviest, most protective armor he possessed, cladding himself head-to-toe in dark green scaled armor, beneath which was grey mail and thick cloth padding. Leon could even sense magic flowing through the armor, showing that it had been enchanted, though he wasn’t able to tell what, specifically, the enchantments did. And, like the first champion, he possessed a sword and shield, though this shield was a smaller kite shield rather than a massive tower shield while his sword was about a foot longer.

Regardless, he decided to shake things up for this fight. He summoned one of the prototype weapons that he’d been working on in his spare time before the civil war began. It was a weak thing, a bracelet that could only fire a few wind blades before breaking down, but it required much less of Leon’s magic power than did a lightning bolt or fireball.

“Begin!” Roland shouted again, and Leon moved faster than the mortal eye could see, appearing in front of the champion as he did the previous Baron.

The champion had anticipated this, though, and had begun to raise his shield before Roland had called for the fight to begin. As his eyes registered Leon’s presence, the champion charged forward with all the speed that he could bring to bear, which compared to Leon’s wasn’t much. He put all of his weight behind his charge, trying desperately to put on a good showing before the inevitable happened.

He hit nothing but air. Leon had deliberately baited him out like this, appearing in front of him only to provoke a reaction. Once the champion started his charge, Leon nimbly dodged to the side, raised his arm with the wind bracelet, and let loose with every shot that the bracelet could handle.

Half a dozen wind blades were conjured by the enchantments in the bracelet and were hurled with great speed into the champion’s exposed flank. Most of the wind blades splashed harmlessly across the man’s armor, but Leon managed to hit behind the man’s knee with one well-placed shot. Unfortunately, it didn’t have much effect apart from staggering him a bit, while the bracelet loudly snapped in half from the magical strain and fell to the ground.

Leon frowned and felt a little dismayed at the lack of punch that the bracelet had, but it was, in the end, just a prototype, and he didn’t feel too terrible about it.

As the champion turned to face Leon, Leon charged at him, eschewing elemental magic in favor of physical might. The champion had been thrown off his balance a little by the surprise of Leon’s unexpected attack and the hit to the back of his knee, so his shield wasn’t raised in a good position. Leon consequently barreled right through his defenses, crashing into the champion with enough force to dent his scale armor and lift him off his feet.

And he did not come back down. Instead, Leon held him up almost as easily as he might hold a doll. The champion was so shocked and winded that he dropped his blade, though he managed to keep ahold of his shield. This didn’t help him, though, for Leon only waited just long enough for the reality of the champion’s situation to dawn upon him before slamming him back to the ground hard enough to almost bury him in the relatively soft dirt.

The champion may have had stoneskin, thick padding, and tough armor, but the force of that impact still cracked a few bones and forced all of the air out of his lungs, leaving him gasping for breath and unable to move for the pain. He was also barely able to process Leon standing over him, blade in hand and pointed down at his exposed throat.

After a moment of silence that was broken only by the champion’s wheezing, the watching knights began to get very uncomfortable. Leon had won another fight and had again done so with completely different tactics than what he had used before. Slowly, all eyes began to turn in Baroness Orientis’ direction. The Baroness herself did her best to maintain an aloof smile, but the blood draining from her face told Leon and all the rest all they needed to know. Leon’s show of strength had been more than effective at least as far as she was concerned.

“Yeeeah!! Good job, Sir!” Alix called out, waving her hand in the air in triumph while also shooting dirty looks toward the defeated Barons. She then turned to Valeria and loudly asked, “How do you think he’ll beat Lady Orientis? With lightning? Fire? Maybe he’ll just bend her over his knee like a child and give her a good spanking. You want to bet?”

Leon almost chuckled at his former squire’s antics—while also internally cringing at the provocation—and glanced at Orientis to see how they’d been received. The Baroness herself seemed at a complete loss as to how to respond. On the one hand, Leon had just beaten her colleagues so handily that it would be a huge risk to challenge him. On the other hand, her noble pride wasn’t going to listen to her fear and reason and demanded that she follow through with her challenge.

Leon watched as these thoughts warred in her mind and across her sharp features. He personally thought that she would follow her pride’s demand—she was in front of all her knights, after all, and she wouldn’t want to lose face.

He was then shocked speechless when, instead of summoning her armor or sending out a champion, Orientis slowly walked forward a few steps and said, “I think I will refrain from challenging Sir Leon. Good Sir, you have certainly proven your strength to me, and as agreed, since I will not be challenging you here, I will not challenge your orders from here on.”

She then took a few steps back to rejoin her knights, leaving the rest of the crowd—and especially the other four Barons—utterly flabbergasted, gobsmacked, and otherwise confounded.

After picking his jaw up off the ground, Leon almost sheepishly said, “Well. I guess that’s that, then.” After taking a moment to shake himself, pull his gear back into his soul realm—including the broken bracelet—and regain his poise, he loudly said for the Barons and all their knights to hear, “I hope that this settles the issue of command. I will forgive Baron Gellius’ and everyone else’s previous incidents of insubordination, but I will tolerate no more from any of you. Got it?”