Evelyn of the Fourth P.O.V.

Today I will finally get my chance again. After all the effort I had put in these last few months I will finally have a chance to advance and claim the name of Evelyn of the Third. The man standing opposite me in the ring has the same black mask covering his face as his tight leather armor is covered by the loose cloak. Today I will put everything I picked up about curse mana in the last few months into practice.

As the signal was given he charged in same as he always does, I used to think that he did this to unbalance me and because he wanted to make me go on the defensive and turn the battle into one of attrition but now I knew that his resources were just as limited as mine if not even more so because of the constant strain the body puts on stamina during a fight.

Unlike every other spar we had I willing went along with his plan and defended the strike easily with a timely conjured wall of ice. The ice quickly turned black upon contact with the curse mana which is why my follow up was to use an earth spell to move the ground below the ice. Despite not knowing it, my opponent just gave me a very durable shield.

Seeing that his opening trick didn’t work he quickly took some distance and tried for a few long range slashes, sending arcs of curse mana towards me. The massive flame wall I launched back wasn’t enough to burn through the curse mana but it certainly weakened the slashes to the point that it only severely cracked the ice wall instead of going through it. An added bonus was that the flames did a lot to get rid of the baggy cloak he used to hide his movements.

I could tell that he was suspicious, both of my reactions to his attacks were something I practiced heavily while preparing for this fight and now it was time to show him just how much I picked up while he was away.

I took his next charge head on, focusing more on the timing of his curse skill activation that the direction of the blade. That turned out to be a mistake as he simply didn’t activate and curse skill leaving me on the backfoot as I pumped a solid chunk of mana into summoning a strong wind explosion to create some distance once again. As sure as I was that I had the counter to his curse skills I still had to be careful of his regular sword techniques as all of my spells still required a chant, regardless of how short it was and how quick I had gotten at casting it.

The clash between us repeated a few times and while he hadn;t managed to land a single cursed attack on me I was starting to rack up a good amount of cuts.

“I think you should just stop there.” The king said as he looked down from the balcony. “Evelyna you proved that you have improved but I don’t think it's enough just yet.”

I defiantly shook my head as I motioned for the fight to continue.

“Have it your way.” the king shook his head in displeasure as he motioned for one of the guards to call the healer.

Realizing a clean win wasn’t in the cards for me today I chose to bank the spar on mutual blow. I gave the shadowy assassin an open path to my shoulder that he took, the tip of the sword amining to pierce straight through. The few earth spikes I launched were all cleanly side-stepped as he clearly felt the mana taking shape in the earth.

Right as his stab was about to make contact he finally activated his curse skill just like I’d hoped. As the curse mana was being called up so was my flame spitter spell from the same arm that was about to be hit.

The metallic taste of blood started to cover my mouth after I bit my tongue. The chant had been finished barely in time that I hadn’t had the time to clench my jaw for the impending stab, the reflexive biting motion I made once I felt the pain radiating from my shoulder caught the tip of my tongue.

It was all worth it however as I saw the black cloak getting tossed aside as the black flames spread. The pain I felt was nothing compared to what I was about to inflict. Despite taking the worse end of that exchange I had managed to not only keep myself curse free, but absorb his curse mana into my flame spitter spell and launch it back on him.

My next move seemed to show the spectators as the didn’t understand why I would use a strong holy cleansing spell right after. My opponent was experienced enough with cursed mana to know what I was trying to do. Sadly for him there was nothing he could do as he had no protection against the beneficial spell I cast in his general area.

As the holy light washed over him it brought with it a wave of pain that left him thrashing on the ground as the curse mana the flames had inflicted on him were getting exorcised with holy mana in the middle of combat.

I didn’t even waste the time to stop my own bleeding as I didn’t know just how much curse mana actually latched on to him from that one attack, My next spell formed a quick earthen coffin around him locking him in place and giving me time to chant a longer lightning strike that landed three inches from his head.

With the final strike given, I fell to my knees, my free arm moving quickly to staunch the bleeding from my shoulder but my eyes could stop staring at he black scorch mark the lightning bolt left next to his head. The mark of my victory.

The healer quickly rushed to me and began his work, despite winning the spar I was in a much worse shape. Despite my plan working out in the way I wanted, eventually my execution left a lot to be desired. The gap between us was larger than I initially thought and that made the taste of victory so much sweeter.

“What were you thinking?” the healer berated me. “That stab went clean through the muscle and even chipped the bone! Do you know how lucky you are that none of his curse strike got on you, if it had you would have had to wait three days before we could have even attempted to heal this.”

The king had also made his way down to the courtyard, his hair a mix of gray and white the clearest sign of his age as he still maintained his body in shape for combat. His frown however let me know that he wasn’t pleased with my choice and agreed with the healer.

“It wasn’t… It wasn’t luck.” The one to break the silence was my opponent, he still heaved from the pain inflicted on him by cleansing the curse.

“What do you mean?” the king asked, turning the glare onto him.

“I don’t know how but… but she knew my final cursed strike wouldn’t… wouldn’t work.” He heaved out. “She counted out the fire spell consuming the curse mana, hah, not only that but she even knew it would end up inflicting me with a weak curse if I got touched. A curse that was weak enough to be cleansed a few moments but that was all she needed.”

That’s when he removed his mask, still heaving for air and with his arms still shaking from the previous pain and a predatory and evil smirk cut across his face. Both of his eye were fixed on me.

“Not even I knew you could imbue flames with cursed mana like that, where did that idea come from?” He asked, “No, don’t tell me yet, let me think about it.” he contradicted himself.

“I look forward to our next spar,” he said, his voice quieter and filled with joy and anticipation that made me shiver a little. “You’ll tell me if I got it right or not before we begin.”

“Oh not you too.” The king let out a sigh as he looked between the two of us like petulant children.

“I’ll give her a month before I challenge her to regain my title.” he reassured the king.

I didn’t get a chance to gloat as one of the messengers approached us in the courtyard and made straight for the king. The man wisely stopped a good ten paces away from the king where he bowed and then slowly covered the rest of the distance aware that any rash movement in the presence of the king will see all nine of the combatants on the training field moving to kill him

“Your Highness, one Ajax has arrived at the palace.” He said. “He posses an invitation and has brought with him the sigil for his new house.”

So the kid is moving quickly, good for him. Hopefully my shoulder will be patched up quickly because I want to see what his sigil looks like.