The Realm Between: A LitRPG Saga (Books 7 - 10), page 62
Sesna stepped up to take the Wooden Training Dagger from him and replace it with a weapon that matched Heshela’s.
You have received the following item:
Wooden Training Sword
Attack: +1-7
Type: One-Handed Weapon
Durability: 6/15
Item Class: Common
Quality: Average
Weight: 1.0 kg
Azure gave the sword a few cursory swings. It felt light in his grip and almost as uncomfortable to wield as the Wooden Training Dagger had.
“Begin when you are ready,” Elohrel told Heshela, who didn’t waste a moment longer.
She charged at Azure like a madwoman, a battle cry leaving her contorted mouth. Azure was surprised at the strength behind the swing as their blades crossed and Heshela pushed into him, growling all the while. He wondered if this was how she normally fought or if she was just putting on a show for their onlookers.
“You’re aggressive. That’s good.” Azure used his strength to shove her away.
“I always go straight for the deep end,” Heshela told him with a smile before slashing at him again.
It wasn’t long before Azure saw what tactic he needed to use to win the fight. The girl had no stopping power. Though she advanced with all her might, that would be her downfall. All he had to do was wait until Heshela tired herself out. With as aggressively as she pursued him, it wouldn’t be long.
Their dance of swing and dodge was definitely riling up the crowd far more than his previous battle. The women cheered Heshela on, and for all her tenacity, even Azure was a bit hopeful for her. But then she began to slow down. Her breathing became heavier as she expended her endurance, and she cursed at him for constantly being on the defense. Every once in a while, he would reward her lambasting with a mock attack, reserving his strength for when he meant it.
Finally, when he felt Heshela’s blade meet his with only half the strength of her first stroke, Azure knew it was time. Even if she blocked, he could probably overpower her. She was tuckered out. The show was over.
Waiting for Heshela to attack, Azure faked her out, spinning to the side so that he ended up behind her. He used one hand to reach out and grab her ponytail, then crossed his blade over her throat with his other. She tried to pull away, and when that didn’t work, did some awkward maneuver with her sword where she stabbed back at him, but it was easy enough to dodge. He pulled Heshela against him, tightening the blade to her throat to show he meant business. If she didn’t yield, she was going to get hurt.
“I yield!” Heshela called with equal anger to the fervor she’d had earlier, her panting so heavy that it almost rocked them both.
This time, the crowd went silent, perhaps worried that Azure might actually harm the girl. For some reason, this victory tasted so much sweeter than the last. Azure knew that if Heshela learned to manage her energy better, she would eventually develop into a strong warrior.
“Enough!” Elohrel yelled to call off the fight.
“You’re not going to kick me in the balls when I let you go, are you?” Azure whispered to Heshela, a smirk playing across his face.
“No, but I might cut them off.” She boldly pushed his sword away, then spun to face him.
Knowing better than to trust her, Azure took a step back, but she pursued, grabbing his face with both hands. Reflexively, he gripped her wrists, but she was unyielding as she went up on tiptoe and planted a sloppy kiss on his lips.
All the women cheered as Azure stood there dumbfounded. Heshela released him and spun around on her heels again before bowing with a flourish, accepting her loss with a ton more grace than her predecessor.
Azure didn’t know how to process what had just happened. Instead, he just stood there feeling awkward.
Elohrel had an ear-to-ear smile on her face. “Good job, Heshela,” she praised the teen before sending her back with her tribeswomen. Then she addressed the crowd again. “Well, the preliminaries are over, and so far, so good. This man has proven his mettle.” The tribe leader pointed to Azure. “Now, we will bring out the other while this one gets armored up. The final battle will not be so easy.” There was a sadistic gleam in her eyes as she grinned at Azure.
Before he had time to ask questions, he was being led back to his hut. On his way, Azure crossed paths with a guard leading Rerdam to the training area. The old knight looked just as confused as Azure had. Unfortunately, there was no time to give him advice.
When Azure returned to his hut, he found his Black Wolf Armor waiting for him on the floor next to the bed. He was pleased to see the whole set. Having his armor all together again made him feel like he looked like an actual knight instead of a piecemeal junkie.
As an added bonus, his Zweihander of Vengeance was resting in its scabbard against the wall.
Once he had put on his armor, Azure picked up his sword and clutched it to his chest like an old friend he hadn’t seen in forever. It felt good to be whole and complete again, his vulnerabilities slowly disappearing one after another.
His energy renewed, Azure was rearing to take the tribe leader on, but he was made to wait, and eventually, that energy began to wane as he ended up sitting on the side of the bed twiddling his thumbs for what felt like an hour before he was finally retrieved again.
The sun had fully set by the time Azure left his hut. It was a black, starless night. Only the glow of lamplight illuminated the village.
When Azure arrived back at the training area, torches had been placed around the perimeter, evenly spaced about five feet apart. Their light made a bright O with a darker nucleus in the center of the ring. Elohrel was standing there, ready to greet him. She had not changed from before, wearing a mix of furs and leather and cloth armor. On her hips were two long daggers, which Azure could only assume would be her weapons for the battle.
Rerdam was nowhere to be seen, so Azure could only assume he’d been taken back to his hut to armor-up as well. This would be a one-on-one battle with the tribe leader, who Analyzed as red to Azure. While he wanted to be hopeful, he doubted she’d make the same rookie mistakes as the women he’d fought before her.
“And now for the main event!” Elohrel announced to her tribeswomen.
An almost deafening round of cheering erupted from the group. It was so loud that Azure wondered if they could hear it all the way back at the sellsword encampment. Even Princess Zadori and Jin glanced around questioningly at the overzealous women.
“Are you ready to bleed?” the tribe leader asked Azure as she drew her weapons.
The grey handles were slightly curved, extending into two-part blades. Each one wove around the other, the first shorter than the second. The longer blade ended at a hooked point. They looked designed to both slice and gouge out flesh. Azure did not want to be caught by one.
“I thought we weren’t doing that,” he replied, only half-joking.
“I like to play a little rough sometimes.” She smirked at him before raising her voice to her people. “Now, you will see the true power of The Sapphire Eye Warriors.” And then she lunged forward to lead the dance of blades.
The skirmish began much the same as his fight with Heshela, with Elohrel pelting Azure with an onslaught of attacks that he was forced to either dodge or block. He was not surprised that she would put on a show, and the women around them reacted similarly, excited to see so much energy funneled into the battle. Unlike Heshela, though, Elohrel knew when to pull back and conserve her strength. She also allowed space for Azure to get an attack in, though he could tell that was all part of her plan. During the two previous battles, Azure had analyzed his opponents to see how they fought so that he could find their weaknesses. Now, she was doing the same thing to him.
Her perception admittedly was vastly superior to his. When he did try to genuinely attack her, she seemed to see it before it was coming, easily dodging out of the way. Most of the time, she didn’t even bother humoring him by crossing blades, perhaps not wanting to have to sharpen the edges of hers later.
Anytime she saw the opportunity, typically when he was trying to attack her, she’d dash in and land a hit, easily locating the vulnerabilities in his armor. It felt a bit unfair considering that Azure was pretty sure she’d examined his armor beforehand.
Level 56 Elohrel Pusha delivers 140 damage.
They were a little more than flesh wounds, but not enough to take him out of the fight.
“I know magic too, but I’m trying not to murder you.” She winked at him after delivering a nasty blow to his shoulder, the hook of one of her daggers catching behind his armor before she yanked it out.
“Oh? Are we playing that game?” Azure was more than ready to call in a Greasy Summon for reinforcement. He was not getting anywhere on his own.
“No,” the tribe leader replied plainly.
“So I guess you’re not even going to let me get a hit in.” Azure slowed, bored of this game of cat and mouse where he ended up getting injured every few minutes for the enjoyment of the crowd. She needed to go in for the kill and end his misery.
Purposely leaving himself wide open, Azure lowered his sword. There was no point in the dance any longer. He was destined to lose.
“Giving up so soon?” Elohrel hummed at him.
She had almost twice the levels on him, so there was no question that her fighting skills were superior. Azure was about as weak in the tribe leader’s eyes as the small girl had been in his.
“I can’t win. You might as well finish me off.” He shrugged.
“That’s not how this goes,” Elohrel reminded him. “You fight until you are rightly defeated…or I’ll castrate you right here in front of everyone.”
It was a compelling threat, making Azure raise his sword again. There was no doubt in his mind that she was serious.
The tribe leader dashed in to attack, swinging the hooks of her blades around as if she planned to use them to grab the back of Azure’s head and decapitate him. He jumped back, holding his sword vertically in front of him to act as a shield. Metal clanged against metal, and he boldly stepped forward, leaning over their crossed weapons to headbutt her.
It was the first damage Azure had done to Elohrel, and she was enraged by it.
The sheer anger in her eyes summoned fear into him. Though he wasn’t supposed to purposely lose, Azure knew somehow that he had overstepped.
She came at him with everything she had—a flurry of slashes so fast that he couldn’t hope to dodge them all. The injuries piled on in such rapid succession that Azure didn’t even have time to process them—the only indication that they were there, the warmth and wetness of his blood as it rained down around him in small droplets.
Level 56 Elohrel Pusha delivers 240 damage.
Level 56 Elohrel Pusha delivers 180 damage.
Soon, she had him on his knees, his Health bar blinking in his peripheral vision.
“That’s enough!” A male voice rose from the crowd.
Azure was so busy staring his imminent death in the face that he barely noticed Jin stepping up to the tribe leader and grabbing her by the wrist from behind to stop her from finishing him off.
She spun on her heels and hissed, swinging her blades at the elf, but he deftly jumped out of the way.
“That’s enough,” he repeated more calmly. “He’s clearly lost. If you keep going, you’re going to kill him. As it is, he needs medical attention.” Jin gestured to Azure where he was kneeling, his body slumped slightly forward.
In his vision, he saw droplets of blood falling from somewhere on his face. Now that he wasn’t being attacked, he had time to feel pain, and there was a lot of it.
Elohrel huffed at the elf, but she lowered her weapons. Then she holstered them before turning back to Azure and striding over to him. Azure would have cowered away if he didn’t feel so weak. The blood loss was making him dizzy.
Elohrel placed her hand atop his head and mumbled some words in Elvish. A blue light surrounded Azure, and his wounds began to heal. The relief was immediate, like cool water being run over a burn. His Health bar increased just as quickly as she had hacked away at it, though she stopped when he was less than halfway healed, wanting him to feel the consequences of his mistake.
“Get him out of here,” the tribe leader growled to her guard. “This one is done. Bring me the next.”
Azure was half-led, half-dragged back to his hut. Every step was painful, and with no healing potions of his own, he’d feel no relief until he slept. Sitting on the bed, he wondered how long it would be before he was retrieved again, and if he and his friends would be traveling back to the encampment that night.
An uproar of noise signaled that Rerdam’s fight with the tribe leader had begun. Azure listened, trying to guess when it was over. There were lulls between the cheering, but ultimately, they peaked. He assumed it was finished, waiting patiently for the voices to die down. Even after they did, no one came to retrieve him.
An hour passed before Azure asked the guard watching him what was going on, but she had no response, just as oblivious to the outside as he was. After another hour of silence, Azure decided to lie down on the floor, worried that he would earn more punishment if he bled on the bed.
The night carried on, and soon exhaustion set in. With no news of what had happened, Azure grew worried, but his need to relieve his pain usurped that. If he slept, he could at least heal up some of his injuries. That made the thought of sleeping on the bed even more tempting. A full eight hours on it would heal him completely. Sleeping on the floor would only provide a fraction of that healing.
Fearing the tribe leader’s wrath, Azure elected to stay on the floor. If his party was allowed to leave, Jin would, no doubt, come wake him. Any relief from his unhealed wounds was better than none, and there was no real point in sitting there suffering, waiting for something he was unsure of.
GOD OF LIFE
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE REALM – DAY 782
Azure awoke as stiffly as if he had been chained up all night. His armor gave no room for comfort, and having slept on the floor didn’t help.
“Are you ready for your bath?” a washwoman asked as she stood over him with a guard by her side.
Azure groaned, missing the fact that he’d been politely asked this time instead of told that it was time for his bath.
Sitting up, he noticed a plate of fruit and nuts on the table. He had slept past breakfast.
Just as he was about to stand, Jin came around the corner with Princess Zadori on his heels. There was a soft smile on his face, which Azure hoped meant he came bearing good news.
“Are we free?” Azure asked, realizing that the desperation in his voice sounded pathetic.
“We are free,” the elf announced as if they’d both just been exonerated from prison. “All we have to do is get Rerdam and Uden, and we’re out of here.”
“Oh, thank the Gods!” Azure pulled himself from the floor and hobbled over to pick up his sword.
Though he was also still injured, Rerdam seemed far better off than Azure. His clothing was tattered, but most of his wounds looked superficial. Azure was still dealing with scabbed-over gouges that might pop open and bleed again if he wasn’t careful.
It wasn’t until they had retrieved Uden and were heading toward the front of Smallguard that Azure realized they were all missing items.
“What about the rest of our stuff?” he asked the elf.
Jin cringed slightly from the question. “There was a price to pay for leaving with our lives.”
“What do you mean a price to pay?” Azure’s blood pressure quickly began to rise. “Haven’t we all suffered enough?”
“That is not for you to decide,” the guard escorting them piped up.
“I have your bag in my bag. I’ll give it back to you once we’re outside of Smallguard,” the elf told him.
It was fairly easy to guess that Jin didn’t want to give it to Azure now because he was worried that he would pitch a fit. Azure couldn’t help but wonder exactly how much was missing.
“I think I want it now,” he pressed.
The elf turned to him. “I can’t afford you causing a ruckus before we leave.”
Azure cocked his head to the side. “This isn’t the first time I’ve lost things.”
Jin pressed his eyes shut, stress apparent in his voice. “Please, Azure. Let’s just get out of here first.”
Azure could not deny that he wanted the same. If Pin Virgursk didn’t agree to whatever terms The Sapphire Eye Warriors had come up with, Azure might kill the man himself to avoid having to deal with these women again. His patience for compromise was gone.
“Fine.” Azure sighed, preparing himself for the worst. If he expected to be stripped of everything, he wouldn’t be disappointed with whatever he had left. At the very least, he had gotten to keep his Black Wolf Armor and Zweihander of Vengeance. That was something.
The half-imp was irritatingly chipper. The least mentally scarred from their time in Smallguard, he told his friends that he had spent his days mercilessly trying to flirt with the guards until they got fed up and gagged him. Once he’d known his life was no longer in danger, he hadn’t felt intimidated by the women at all.
An uncomfortable silence settled in the air as Uden tried to engage his companions in conversation about their experiences. More than anything, Azure did not feel that it was okay to talk about it while they were still in Smallguard, though he would admittedly rather forget about the entire thing, in general. The tension in his shoulders didn’t lift until they were outside the gates and out of sight of them.
“Here.” The elf handed Azure a bag, not even slowing.
Azure gave it a queer look.
You have received the following item:
