“There was generally no such thing as an invincible warrior. They were either delusional people who dominated their tiny wells, and thus had simply not met their match yet, or people who built their reputation on ‘fair’ fights on stages with all sorts of rules.

When it comes to the real warriors, the only thing that existed were the survivors and the dead.” - Saying attributed to Xaliburnus the Conqueror, First Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

“Really now? They send some wenches after us?” said Randall to his younger sibling Vaughn when he saw Elfriede and Grünhildr walk out to face them. His tone of voice made it clear that he saw it as an insult to his pride and pedigree, though a single glance at the weapons in the hands of the two women made him realize that he might have to take them a bit seriously.

“Don’t take them that lightly, brother,” said Vaughn in reply, as he too had noticed the shine on the weapons wielded by the two women, and hefted his massive bladed and spiked shield in a ready position. He was always the more cautious of the two. “Those are blades with mithril edges they’re packing unless my eyes are going bad already.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” replied Randall with a nod. His own greatblade was case with a mithril edge, which was what granted it such a keen and vicious cutting edge. Given his own fascination with the weapon and how religiously he kept it clean and spotless, there was no way he missed the telltale silvery glint of mithril from his opponent’s weapons. “Let’s take care of them quick so we can get back to supporting Vandel and Christa.”

Randall kept a wary eye at the weirdly shaped weapon the woman who headed towards him had in her hands. They looked like a thin sword, but with entirely too many protrusions and edges added to it, though he guessed that his opponent likely had not gotten such a weapon for vanity reasons. He gave a tentative swing with his greatblade the instant she stepped into his range, only to see the woman sway gently and avoid his slash by a hair’s breadth.

He furrowed his brow in some consternation. While the slash was just a tentative swing meant to probe his opponent, he still struck faster than what most people he faced could even react to. The woman seemed to have moved away even before he swung his blade, with such ease as if she saw it coming from long ago.

With an annoyed grunt, Randall swung his blade another few times, from different angles of attack as he probed for weaknesses and flaws in the woman’s reaction. His greatblade was longer than he was tall, but its slim construction meant that it was light, and ridiculously fast for a weapon its size. Yet despite how the blade flashed into a blur when he swung it, the woman he faced avoided his blows with the same ease, no matter where they came from. She had not even raised her weapons as of yet.

Randall took a glance at his younger brother, and saw that he was on the backfoot already as the other woman, a burly one that had arms bigger than most men he knew, struck at him wildly with her pair of oddly shaped axes, but more worryingly, he saw how Vaughn’s shield already had several cuts and gouges that marred its surface.

That was not supposed to happen.

Randall knew that his younger brother had custom-ordered that shield and paid a lot of money to have it made with an adamant alloy and even enchanted it to resist magic. Even his mithril-edged blade would not have been able to leave more than a slight mark on the shield. He knew, he tried.

Yet the shield currently had deep cuts and gouges that came close to piercing through the solid metal. Some of the blades and spikes built on the sides had even been severed entirely, and Randall noticed how Vaughn kept trying to parry or deflect his opponent’s strikes rather than block them, which was something he did not usually do. He usually just relied on his shield’s sturdiness to block everything head-on before he counterattacked.

He had not failed to notice the eerie black sheen that seemed to cover the edges of the woman’s axes, so Randall attributed the damage to Vaughn’s shield to that. He had heard of void magic before, though like most he had never seen it with his own eyes due to how rare void mages were. Still, the sight matched those stories he heard of it.

“Son of a-!” cursed Randall as he was forced to leap back. The woman’s oddly shaped blade had grazed his chestplate, and to his worry, left a sizable cut on the metal. It was the sort of thing he should have expected since he had suspected that her blades were mithril-edged too, but his moment of inattention had given the woman a chance to leap into his range and strike.

Immediately, Randall became serious as he mobilized his limited mana and channeled them around his blade. He was a wind affinity mage, and had long trained to combine his relatively meager mana reserves with his swordplay in a way that caught many of his opponents off guard and gave him his current title as the Sword of Gestis.

An invisible blade of wind coalesced around the blade of his sword, effectively making his cutting edge far broader without any visible sign. He slashed viciously at the woman with the expectation to catch her with the invisible blade.

Instead, his eyes nearly bulged out when he saw how the woman avoided the invisible edge to his blade by a hair’s breadth like before, despite how he was certain that there was no way she could have seen it. Randall brought his blade into a reverse swing as this time he manipulated his mana to send out a bladed limb out of the edge that coalesced around his blade.

Yet the woman also dodged that. Even when he further manipulated the blade to strike at her like a snake - something he rarely did since his mana reserves would quickly deplete if he did it too much - it only managed to leave a slight scratch on her forehead and cut a few threads of her hair.

He saw how the scratch caused some blood to leak out and drop towards her left eye, and struck once more once the blood entered her eye and inadvertently caused her to blink, intent on exploiting the blind spot.

However, the woman ducked below his swing and used one of her oddly shaped blades to strike the back of his blade and push it further away as she charged ahead with a mocking smirk on her face. Her other blade glinted under the light of the sun as she struck at Randall.

Then Randall had no time for thoughts other than to fight for his life as she descended upon him like a hurricane.