Birth of the Legendary Battle Mage

Chapter 30

“Alright Nora, begin.”

Just as Julius said, Nora began her attack on the soldier who had been separated from his group. He wasn’t expecting that the girl would actually attack that soon, he had thought she was weak and would hesitate at least a little before attacking, so he wasn’t able to do anything about the balled up fist that met his face nose first. Even though the punch didn’t send him flying, it still hurt as hell, for all he knew, his nose might have broken. ‘This b***h! A mere slave no less, can do this to I who will one day become the head of the cult. I shall show no mercy!’

The soldiers were like Aux soldiers, they used their mana in a different way, inwardly. Out of the seven soldiers present, only one was a proper mage, the rest were Aux soldiers. Seeing as Nora was magic oriented, she would have an advantage over the aux soldier who had to close the gap between them before he could attack, unless his abilities were different.

As Nora jumped back to her initial position after punching the soldier, he became a little infuriated and leaped forward, almost as if without a strategy in mind, just out of pure anger. In the underworld, the hierarchy is very much present and relevant, one could get away with serious crimes just because they are of higher status, unless caught by the law, others lesser than themselves are powerless. So, for a mere slave to even think of striking a soldier, that slave deserved death.

The soldier appeared above Nora with a sword in hand, swinging it with full strength, and although she had cast upon herself, magic that hastened her reaction, strength and speed, she only managed to escape the sword slightly. Since demon aux warriors are leagues stronger than their human counter parts, the advantages enjoyed by mages was greatly reduced, and so, Nora wasn’t in any way superior to the soldier, at most, just a little bit below him.

‘The cult trains the soldiers well, either that or I’m just really weak.’ Nora thought to herself. ‘He was tough, I hope I did ok and met master's expectations.'

"Ok, that was below expectations, but satisfactory." Julius said with a straight face, which mislead Nora into thinking he wasn't impressed. Although, he wasn't all that impressed, it was not as much as Nora was picturing it in her mind.

"Yes master." Nora said as she retreated behind Julius.

"Disgusting." Zaron whispered to himself with an angry and disgusted expression.

'Nora isn't fully healed yet, so this much is enough to test her. She also wasn't a combatant before she became a slave, but watching the soldiers from her original town during combat training helped greatly today.' "Nora, you are still injured, so this much is enough for your test today."

"What will you do with the remaining, should I take care of them?" Emilia asked.

"No, you are not fully recovered yet. I just healed you, so rest a bit before doing any serious work."

With a little blush on her cheeks 'wow, he's playing the husband role well, or… is he really legitly worried about me?' Emilia thought to herself.

Now, the demons were furious, and it was clearly visible on their faces. Zaron was known to be cool tempered and level headed, that aside from his strength was the reason he was selected as a leader. All those qualities were thrown to the gutter moments later. Zaron's face was completely spoiled from anger, and his mana leaked out of his skin almost resembling steam.

"Remove. This. Net! You worm!" Zaron shouted. With each word he said loudly, his leaking Mana flared up a bit.

"I have no reason to keep you guys held up in that place anymore." As Julius said this, he raised a finger and the magic around the demons vanished. "Choose how you will die, together or individually. I am not in a hurry, so take your time. But don't waste too much time even then."

"I'll kill you bastard!" One of the soldiers who was in the same team as the one who died fighting Nora screamed as he charged forward, anger fueling his actions. But before he could leave the space where he stood with his fellow demons, a hand grabbed him on the waist and pulled him back.

"Fool! Do you think you can win against our opponent? One of your brothers (brother here doesn't mean they are related by blood) has died by their hands, are you stronger than him?" Yurs said to the soldier as he pressed him to the ground against his chest.

"Zaron, let me fight this human. I have had enough of his mockery." It took some time for Zaron to respond. He must have wanted to blast the human's head right off it's neck badly, but he didn't want to act out of character in front of his subordinates.

"You may fight him, but don't kill him yet. There are other things left to do." Zaron replied. 

As Yurs stepped forward, readying himself for an attack, his mana began leaking from his body just like Zaron's, but more violently, resembling turbulent waves. It was apparent that he had been suppressing his anger the whole time. “Which one of you wants to die first, step forward.”

In an instant, he moved from where he stood into Julius’ face, covering a distance of almost 15 meters in less than a second. In the same motion, Yurs thrusts his blade sharply aiming at Julius’ forehead, but just as the blade went closer towards Julius, Julius transitions smoothly into a sitting position. The attack was fast, Emilia didn’t even notice until their enemy’s sword was above Julius’ head and in between her and Nora who stood behind Julius. Nora stiffened up a bit because of the attack, thinking within herself how she was lucky to face the soldier she fought earlier, she now understood why Julius, her master, was not satisfied with the result from her fight. ‘The soldier I fought is not even worthy to call himself a warrior before these people, and against such an opponent, it took me that long to defeat him, and not without some injuries… I am too weak.’ Nora thought to herself as Emilia dragged her backwards away from Julius and Yurs, about 20 feet behind.

“What is he… Is he sitting on air?” Ao asked. He wasn’t the only one thinking this because Julius had seemed to sit on top an invisible platform. One would have said he transitioned into a horse stance position to evade Yurs’ blade, but he seemed too relaxed in that position and it didn’t look like he was even trying at all or using much of his muscles.

Yurs jumped back a couple of feet after his initial attack, taking an offensive stance immediately after. As he watched Julius closely, waiting for when he gets up from his awkward sitting position, he lessened his breath, and tunneled his eyes on his target, preparing for an explosive attack. Just as he had painted an image in his mind, he burst forward explosively at Julius as he returned to his initial standing position. Yurs followed his explosive movements with a wide swing of his sword, but all he sliced was an after image of Julius after he dodged the attack. ‘Such a lowly technique. Pftt.’ Yurs thought to himself. “Why do you rely on such cheap tricks? Worm!” Yurs shouted a bit, with the disgust he felt clearly shown on his face. “Fight me head on if you dare!”

“What are you even saying? Are you dumb? That wasn’t a technique just now.” Julius’ response sounded a little as if he was disappointed in his opponent.

‘What does he mean by that?’ Yurs once again closed the little gap between them in and instance as he pushed against the ground with a hint of anger in his movement.

A series of thrusts and cuts were done by Yurs as he tore the air with his sword after Julius dodged every single attack he dished out. The only thought on Yurs’ mind was why he couldn’t touch even the cloths of this man, talk less of his flesh. The other Demons who watched from within the magic barrier also had the same thought. Emilia wasn’t as surprised as the others since even her would have been able to hold her own against the demon. After avoiding every single one of the demon’s attack, Julius had seen everything the demon had to offer, whatever trick the demon had would be useless he thought. “This is enough” Julius said as he stopped Yurs’ attack in between two of his fingers before proceeding to snap the sword.

“With his fingers? This despicable human must be dealt with today.” Zaron said his thoughts out loud unknowingly. “Disgusting human! Why bully the weak? Let me out of this and you’ll see!”

“Huh? Listen to this guy. From what I can tell, you aren’t much stronger than this guy. You can’t even break out of such low level magic barrier to begin with.” Julius replied.

“You worm!”

“Ok I shall fulfil your wishes. The disrespect is getting out of hand.”

Julius released the magic spell, and the demons were once again free to move. He had nothing more to gain from them, so he told them to just attack him at once. Feeling disrespected, Zaron instructed the others angrily to stand down and leave the fight to him. Ao who was a quite the cunning and sly type had planned to slip away when Zaron and Julius started fighting, while Yurs immediately collected a sword from the demon who stood in front of Ao. With a quick battle stance, Zaron prepared to attack and with a sound battle cry, he sprung forward towards Julius pulling all the strength he could muster into his attack. The demons behind him were all shocked, “Isn’t that the leader’s most powerful battle stance?” “This fight would be over before it even begins” they said, but as soon as Zaron reached about one meter away from where Julius who hadn’t moved a single muscle yet was standing, all they saw was their leader slaming against the wall of the rock behind Julius with a force greater than the one he attacked with.