Capítulo 7: Duel (Edited)
Sighing, Noxtis listen intently to the scheme from his Teacher as his face went through several different emotions as he heard what the Phantom Mirko told him to do.
'You perverted old man! How do you expect me to say such a thing?! Even if I say that there's no way she would agree to it. She is clearly an important person from those Crimson Scale tribesmen.'
'Just do it, or I'll add 10 more reps to your morning training.'
Gritting his teeth in annoyance, Noxtis ears shuddered at the thought of what even more grueling 'training' would be, and immediately knew what he had to do.
"Fine, we can have a spar."
Holding up his hand before Embervesnet could say anything, Noxtis sighed in his mind. "You have to wager something if you want me to spar with you. I can even be your training partner if you'd wish."
"Huh? What do you want?"
"If I were to win, I would like you to be my...companion."
"Sure."
"I'm sorry, I meant...wait what? You actually agreed?
Just like that?"
"Well of course, why would I ever pass up a chance to be taught by such a powerful and obviously skilled Master. Plus you're kinda cute so I don't mind having you around. Besides, you never know what the future may hold in store, I might come to actually enjoy your company. Master Mirko told me a bit about the companion contract just now.
If you win, then you control the contract, and when I win, I will control the contract."
All Noxtis could hear was the raucous laughter ringing in his mind space, which only further irritated the black-eared beastkin even more, cursing his mischievous master for playing such a prank on him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Wielding the sharpened training sword that was given to him by the true body of his Teacher Mirko, Noxtis felt a bit of trepidation as he faced the beautiful dragonkin in front of him. Having long been tempered of much of his pride and arrogance from the moment his training began, Noxtis did not at all underestimate his opponent and watched Embervesent closely to prepare himself.
Without any warning, Embervesent charged immediately at Noxtis with a double-armed strike with a smile on her lips.
Shifting his stance, Noxtis parried the charging blow while leaping backward to soften the sword strike while dodging. While Noxtis was able to maneuver properly, his arms shook as the strength of the blow shocked him.
Thrilled as Noxtis was able to wonderfully defuse her blow, Ember attacked again and again with slashes from various angles.
Pressured by the continuous blows that left him no room to counterattack properly, Noxtis kept backing away while constantly looking for any sort of overreach or misstep from Embervesent that would allow him to counterattack or break away from the furious pressure he was under.
Ember's furious attacks while at first seemingly entirely offensive left Noxtis little room to breathe and much less room to think as he decided to move into one of her strikes which caught Ember slightly off-kilter. This maneuver allowed Noxtis to push off from the blow and finally gain some noticeable distance between the two at the cost of a cut across his arm that thankfully wasn't too deep.
Not relenting in the slightest, Embervesent smiled as she chased after the quick-footed Noxtis and was thoroughly enjoying fighting against someone who took her seriously and was around her own age. Wielding her blazewood sword with both hands, the beautiful dragonkin again struck out with a powerful blow.
Not taking any chances at blocking such a blow, Noxtis knew he wouldn't be able to do the same maneuver again and flipped backward, using his left hand to push off the ground just as Ember's strike hit the ground and created an explosion of dust and rock.
'Wouldn't I have been heavily injured if I didn't block the strike?! This crazy beastkin is out to kill me!'
Gritting his teeth, Noxtis felt small rocks pelt his body. Taking no time to try and locate the firey swordswoman, Noxtis dashed to his right and circled around the dust cloud while keeping his guard up.
Just as the dust began to settle, a red slash cut through and rapidly approached Noxtis. Having never seen any attack like this before, Noxtis flattened his body to the ground as the arc was much too wide for him to escape.
As the slash flew overhead, a burning aura washed over Noxtis. The heatwave buffeted Noxtis harshly, making it impossible to breathe properly and leaving him wide open.
By this time, the dust cloud had settled with a thin strip of broken glass shards decorating the ground between the two beastkin. Gasping deeply, Embervesent grinned as she managed to pull off one of her more experimental sword skills. Blazing Cresent was the name of applying her dragon breath onto her sword as she slashed.
As flashy as it was, the damage and range of the ability were evident. Unfortunately for Ember, the technique cost her a lot of Qi and an extreme amount of precision on top of needing the dragon tribe's ability to breathe fire. All these requirements made it so she was probably the only being in the entire beastworld that would be able to do such a technique. Blazing Cresent was mentally and physically taxing to Ember's body but was one of her trump cards.
Fully expecting the torn-eared swordsman to be defeated at this point, Ember brushed off the dusk that had dropped onto her shoulders and walked over to the fallen body. Slightly wary, but not seeing the body move at all, Ember sighed as she had hoped for a better fight than that.
Just as she was a couple of feet from the body, Noxtis arched his body and pushed off the ground, and landed on his feet which themselves powered a powerful leap towards the unguarded dragonkin.
Not prepared to face such an abrupt attack, Ember dodged back as fast as she could but with the small gap that was between them, she couldn't block in time as Noxtis approached low to the ground and elbowed Ember's stomach with his left arm disrupting her balance and knocking her off her feet.
Falling back, Ember felt the breath explode out of her lungs as her body slammed to the ground.
Furious that she had been so rudely attacked, Ember felt a wooden blade placed against her throat. Looking up at Noxtis, she was dazed to see a slightly bloodied beastkin towering above her with a genuine smile across his face. Illuminated by the moonlight, Ember's heart skipped a beat as she entirely forgot that she was in a spar.
"I guess I'll take it as my win then Miss Embervesent."
"Oh really?" Flashing Noxtis a brilliant smile, he faltered for just an instant. But with how incredibly close they were to one another, that instant was all it took for Ember to hook her leg around his just enough to unbalance him and push forward into Noxtis' chest to knock him over and end up on top of his torso, effectively cutting off his legs and pinning his arms.
All of a sudden a raucous applause scared both beastkin. Turning to look at what was going on, both Ember and Noxtis just now noticed a crowd had formed to watch the two as they fought. There were even a couple of whistles and cheering for the...interesting...position they were currently at.
Embervesent looked between the crowd to Noxtis several times and suddenly her lightly tanned face almost turned the same shade of crimson as her scales. As she rushed off of his lap and used Noxtis as a shield while holding him close to avoid embarrassing herself further.
At the front of the group was a grinning Crimson Scale elder flanked by the various disciples while just beside that group were the village elder and grandma Reah.
Mortified and embarrassed in front of such a large audience, Ember quickly hid behind Noxtis.
Wincing in pain as the Blazing Cresent had still singed his skin, Noxtis just chuckled as he was close to collapsing himself but found the energy to stand tall in front of the cute dragonkin and her soft pillows pressed comfortably into his back.
Everyone from the Crimson Scale tribe was astonished by Embervesent's actions and did not at all expect the haughty dragonkin princess would ever find refuge behind someone that wasn't her grandfather.
*Cough* "Alright everyone, it's getting quite late already and I think it best that we all get some due rest for tomorrow."
Hearing the stern suggestion of the Crimson Scale tribe elder, the disciples begrudgingly went to their tents while starring daggers at Noxtis. The villagers on the other hand were quite excited by all the commotion and walked towards their own stalls while talking about the riveting display of swordsmanship.
After a small back and forth between the village chief and crimson scale elder, they both nodded to one another as the village chief called out towards Noxtis and Embervesent.
"Come with us."
Then the village chief, crimson scale elder, and grandma Reah all went towards the village main hall.
Looking at one another with a questioning gaze, Noxtis just shrugged as he followed behind the three. Grunting and stomping her feet a bit, Ember reluctantly followed behind Noxtis after picking up her Blazewood sword and storing it away.
Regalos
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