The Sword and The Shadow

Leguna’s expression was wild and savage. He gnashed his teeth as he waved Lighteater.

I must have this! Only one chance! roared Leguna internally. In order to fulfill his promises, he had to make full use of the fraction of a second he had.

Balor stared at the brat furiously. Would the little shit use shadow blink to dodge his attack? He knew its properties well. Whenever Leguna used it, some black smoke would seep out of his body and cover him. As long as the smoke was absent, he could not blink. He focused all his attention on the brat, both to defend from attack and be ready for shadow blink.

Ten meters, five meters, four, three, two, one, contact!

Until the moment Leguna raised his sword, Balor didn’t see a trace of black smoke. So, no blinking? A direct clash!

“Die for me!” Balor roared. While his sword wasn’t much different from Leguna’s, the brat was going for a slash while he himself chose a stab. He had the advantage of motion. His sword would definitely connect first! The sensation of blade piercing flesh burst through the sword’s hilt. Balor almost refused to believe what he felt. He had connected! The brat was impaled! Black smoke burst out of his target. He was blinking now?

Why? How could he blink now? The brat was impaled, he should be half-dead already! His sword was embedded in the brat, he could not use it to protect himself. If an attack hit him now, he was utterly defenseless. It suddenly struck him. The little shit was trading this injury to defeat him! He would appear behind him and finish him off!

A madman! He was completely crazy! Leguna had some leeway until the strike cut through into his chest if he blinked afterward Balor’s sword would rip his heart to shreds. His only chance was to blink after it connected but before it reached his heart, but how could he judge such a tiny moment? This wasn’t confidence, it wasn’t even arrogance, it was just plain insanity. Nevermind not thinking straight, he wasn’t thinking at all!

The brat vanished. A moment later a slash connected with Balor’s hand, severing the tendons in his wrist. A moment later another slash did the same to his other wrist. Balor had no way of fighting back now. His hands limp, his two swords fell to the ground.

Leguna sheathed his sword in a simple movement, brought out a bottle and crushed it. The glass cut his hand, but he didn’t even wince. He immediately launched dozens of strikes at his opponent’s back.

“Aaaaargh!”

His hands covered in the concoction, he thrust black needle after black needle into Balor’s back. He only stopped once he saw twenty half buried in his enemy’s back.

He had misjudged his moment by an instant. While Balor’s sword hadn’t shredded his heart, it had cut a small incision. Small thought it was, it was still enough to be near fatal. He could not hold on any longer and began to collapse. He stumbled back two steps before he coughed up several mouthfuls of blood. Clutching his chest, he collapsed to the ground, his rear embedded itself in the moist soil.

{Quick! Healing potion!} cried Gahrona. Her disciple was reckless and arrogant, ignorant and very weak, but she still liked him for some reason.

Leguna took out a high-grade healing potion Oljharok had given him before he left Ogrimma. According to the great chief, It could heal him fast enough to be seen with the naked eye. He downed the bottle before slowly taking out the glass in his hands. He wasn’t too worried about Balor anymore. The needles had been carefully shoved into his pressure points. Even without the poison’s effect the man would still not be able to move much.

He started to feel better around the time he took out the last shard. His expression warmed somewhat, before he grit his teeth and got up and walked to the paralyzed Balor.

“Numb all over?” asked he, sighing.

“I didn’t think you knew poisons as well. You got Teacher’s real legacy.”

The needles in his back vanished. But he could not move thanks to the poison.

“Teacher didn’t teach me this, your sister did,” Leguna said, “It’s her gift.”

“Such a wonder gift! She certainly is a great sister, isn’t she?” Balor spat. So she wasn’t satisfied with abandoning him, now she was actively working to kill him?

“You shouldn’t mock your big sister like that,” Leguna said as he struggled to control his emotions, “You know she asked me to do before I came here?”

“Ask you? Let me guess. She wants you to kill me so she can be rid of me once and for all?”

“No!” Leguna snapped, “She begged me to spare you no matter what. She’s the only reason you’re still alive! Your sister… actually went down on her knees to beg me to spare you!”

His heart scratched at his chest as he spoke. He clutched Balor by the chest and dragged him up.

“You were once bitten by a snake, a crimsonblood azureback. She still remembers it. She told me about it so I could make a poison to paralyze you without killing you! She knelt before me and begged me with teary eyes that I promise not to kill you! She asked me to spare someone who tried to kill her! Someone who killed her best friend, and her father! Why?! You’re the only family she has left! No matter what shitty things you do, she still loves you as her younger brother… she’s still willing to forgive you! You’re just a selfish bastard whose mind is clouded by hatred!”

Leguna’s saliva sputtered all over as he spoke. Balor’s face was drenched. He even received several slaps.

Balor spat out a bloody mouthful of phlegm at Leguna’s face and hissed.

“To hell with family… To hell with my sister! She’s the one who forgives me?! She has no right to forgive anyone! She so desperately wants me to stay alive now? She should have thought about that before she abandoned me!”

Smack!

Leguna crashed his palm into Balor’s face again.

“What about you, you animal?! Did you think when you killed your father?! He was your real father! He raised you for over ten years! How could you do it?! How could you! Are you still fucking human?!”

“Of course I am!” roared Balor.

He tried to free himself from the brat’s grip with all his might, to no avail.

“Of course I’m human! I needed other people. I needed others to look after me! I was young and weak! I had just lost my family! But where were they?! Huh?! Where was my sister when I needed her most?! HUh?! Nowhere! No one was willing to help me! Even that old bastard that you call my father! What was the first thing he did when he saw me? He tried to beat me! Vera was the one in the wrong, but who did he scold?! Me! Of course it was me! What did he do when I stabbed him? He used his last breath of life to scold me! There was no love in his eyes, there was no care in his voice! Even in his last breath he couldn’t even spare me a kind word! He never cared about me! Nobody does! If nobody will care about me, then I will care about nobody! You all deserve to die!”

“You’re a moron!” Leguna gave Balor’s face a kick. It wasn’t infused with impetus, but still knocked one of his teeth out.

He stepped on the man’s face and knelt down.

“It’s not your fault, huh? Was it really not your fault? You were going to kill your own family, your sister! You were at fault! That’s why Uncle Ferd hit you! He’s your father! He did so because he still believed you were his son. Even as he died, he was still doing what a father should! I never had any parents, but even I know that’s what a father should do! That’s why he beat you! He’s your father, and he wanted you to know you were wrong! Even as he was dying, he was trying to correct your mistake! But an imbecile like you only saw it as him wanting to beat you. Did you ever think why he did what he did? It wasn’t because he wanted to side with Sis! He just wanted to give his stupid son a wake-up call!”