NOVGO.NET Chapter 972: It is a shame
Chapter 972: It is a shame
“Really a shame.”
The words barely left his lips before the final strike came down.
The angle was precise. The weight perfect. His blade arced through the air with the full command of someone who’d performed this execution a hundred times across a dozen battlefields.
The contact point?
Lucavion’s neck.
An attack on the neck would be enough to register defeat.
And the boy—
He didn’t move to dodge.
Didn’t raise his sword in panic.
Didn’t scream.
He just… smiled.
A crooked thing. Half a sneer. Half something else entirely.
“…Heh…”
And then—he moved.
Not like a student.
Not like someone trapped beneath suppression.
But like a shadow stepping sideways from its body.
Arcten’s blade descended, cutting through air, inches from connection—
And met resistance.
CLANG—!
Lucavion’s sword rose—too sudden, too sharp—and intercepted the strike at an impossible angle.
Arcten’s eyes snapped wide, instinct clashing with memory, with training, with every goddamn rule that told him this block should’ve failed.
No…
It wasn’t just that Lucavion blocked it.
It was how.
The moment rewound in Arcten’s mind mid-motion:
Lucavion’s stance had been open—too open. His feet were wrong. His body was too relaxed for that kind of upward deflection. And yet—when the moment came—
He stepped in.
Not backward, but into Arcten’s range, diagonally, shifting the fulcrum of Arcten’s descending strike.
His left foot slid half a length inward, rotating on the ball, hip tilting forward—not to absorb the impact, but to redirect it through his spine.
At the same time, his right arm swept up, blade tilted not directly against Arcten’s, but off-axis, angling his sword just enough to create a false parry.
Not a clash. A slip.
Lucavion’s sword didn’t block the weight of the strike—it guided it off to the side, like water catching a stone and folding around it.
The force discharged along his arm, through his shoulder, and into the twist of his hips—then out the back of his foot.
Clean.
No bracing. No recoil.
Just a fluid motion that should’ve required higher-tier mana control and years of muscular refinement.
But he’d done it casually.
Within 1-star output.
The suppression bracelet pulsed, still active.
Mana flowed around Lucavion’s body—not flaring, not violent—but present. Controlled. Restrained only on the surface.
A swirl of aura slipped down his legs, hugging muscle. Gathering around his joints. Perfect form. Intentional form.
No raw output. No explosion.
Just flawless internalization.
Arcten staggered half a step back, regaining center.
“What the hell was that?”
The question wasn’t meant to be spoken. It slipped out, half-breathed, as Arcten reset his footing.
But before the thought even finished forming—
Lucavion smiled.
Not that smug grin from earlier.
Something subtler. Leaner. Predatory.
“That one just now,” he said quietly, blade tilting to catch the pale light of the mana dome, “would’ve ended it, wouldn’t it?”
Arcten blinked. Once.
Then—
Lucavion moved.
No hesitation. No warning.
His sword flashed up like a streak of light through fog—narrow, fluid, and utterly silent. The blade cut low for Arcten’s side, not with brute strength, but with surgical precision.
Arcten twisted his wrist, catching the blow mid-swing.
CLANG—!
The vibration ran through his arm. Heavy. Sharper than before.
He caught the second strike—barely.
The third—he had to step back for.
By the fourth, he wasn’t adjusting anymore. He was defending.
The kid’s tempo had changed completely. Gone was the measured rhythm of a student testing the waters. This was a chain—fast, seamless, like every motion was drawn from something deeper than training.
Lucavion stepped in again, his foot snapping forward at the precise moment Arcten’s blade recoiled. The contact reverberated through the ring. Sparks scattered.
He’s pressing me.
It wasn’t a thought Arcten had felt in a decade.
He parried one strike—high. The next—low. But each clash bled momentum out of his stance. The rhythm was collapsing, not from speed, but from the boy’s timing.
Every deflection pulled Arcten half an inch off balance. Every pivot forced his center of gravity to shift—not far, but just enough to break form. Like Lucavion wasn’t just fighting him—he was reading him.
Arcten’s instincts screamed to counter, to cut the momentum off at its root.
He dropped his shoulder and swung low, an upward diagonal cut meant to drive Lucavion back.
But the boy was already gone.
Lucavion had slipped past the line of the strike—so close that Arcten caught the faint whisper of his coat against his own sleeve.
Then came the counter.
SHHRK—!
The dull blade snapped upward, tracing a clean line toward Arcten’s midsection. He caught it in time, though the recoil bit deep into his wrist.
’What is this?’
Another strike.
Arcten parried—but the rebound caught him off-balance, his right foot skidding half a step too wide. His stance fractured for a breath.
Lucavion didn’t waste it.
He pivoted inside the arc, blade reversing mid-swing, and brought it down toward the exposed gap near Arcten’s shoulder.
THWACK—!
The feedback rune flared between them, registering a strike.
A clean one.
But Arcten didn’t move.
Didn’t stagger. Didn’t bleed.
The strike had been true—but the sword had not.
Dulled. Blunt. Weighted for practice.
The blade bounced off the reinforced plating beneath his tunic—didn’t even leave a bruise.
To the dome’s observers, it was another exchange. Maybe a lucky one. Maybe not enough to count for more than a partial.
But to them—to Arcten and Lucavion—?
It was clear.
If the blade had been real—sharpened, honed like his own old steel—
He’d be bleeding out right now.
Midsection open. Shoulder split.
Dead.
Arcten’s grip tightened around the hilt, jaw locking with quiet restraint.
Lucavion had stepped back already, blade lowered, posture casual. Relaxed, even.
Too relaxed.
“…Huh.”
The boy tilted his head, voice low and light.
“That would’ve been it, wouldn’t it?”
Arcten said nothing.
Lucavion’s eyes were bright with that same irritating calm.
He raised one brow.
“Oh, don’t worry, Instructor. The sword’s dull. You’re fine.”
Arcten’s brow twitched.
The kid smiled. Not wide. Not smug.
Just correct.
“That would’ve been a clean finish if I cared about points, wouldn’t it?”
Arcten exhaled slowly, the breath flaring against the edge of his molars.
He’s taunting me.
Not openly. Not in the crude, showy way some brats did.
No, this was surgical.
Tactical.
He was needling at Arcten’s pride.
And it was working.
You’re the instructor. The veteran. And he just cornered you like a stray dog.
The muscles in Arcten’s arm shifted—subtle, practiced. His stance began to change.
No longer the loose, half-bored footwork of an examiner going through the motions.
Now—he settled in.
Right foot angled forty-five degrees back.
Knees bent.
Sword tilted slightly inward, tip low, elbows tight.
His spine straightened.
Chin down.
Eyes forward.
Lucavion blinked, then his smile faded just a touch.
Arcten’s blade didn’t move much. But his intent did.
Like air freezing before the drop of a guillotine.
“…You’re serious now,” Lucavion said, watching him with renewed caution.
Arcten’s voice was flat.
“You talk a lot for someone who’s not finished the fight.”
The dome seemed quieter now.
Then—Arcten shifted.
His aura expanded—not flaring, not explosive—but compressed. Dense. Heavy.
It rolled outward like a coiled storm being let off the leash, but only just.
Lucavion’s smile twitched.
He noticed.
Arcten took one slow step forward.
This was no longer a lesson.
Not a test.
Not for the grade.
This was real.
He tilted his blade back slightly—left palm open, placed lightly against the flat spine of his sword.
A stance he hadn’t used since Craeglin Pass.
High-pressure containment form.
Three-beat rhythm. Compact strikes. Minimal motion, maximum displacement.
It wasn’t meant to teach.
It was meant to break ribs.
Lucavion’s weight shifted backward by half an inch. He adjusted his own posture.
Arcten noticed.
The kid wasn’t cocky now. He recognized it.
’Good. He should.’
But still, part of Arcten burned.
This shouldn’t be happening. Not in an academy ring. Not against a suppressed student.
And yet—
He moved.
FWUP—!
His body blurred again—but not like before. This time, he didn’t aim to strike wildly. No overhead cuts. No broad sweeps.
The first thrust came in straight—midline, fast as a dart.
Lucavion sidestepped.
Expected.
The second cut curled immediately after—horizontal, waist-height, meant to catch a half-step evasion.
Lucavion dropped, ducked low—pivoted with a slide.
Efficient.
But Arcten was already turning.
He rotated his back foot, dragging the momentum into a third blow—a reverse diagonal slash downward, tight and brutal, the kind of strike that split shields clean in half.
Lucavion blocked—arms crossed for a tight guard—but the force sent him skidding.
Dust trailed behind his boots.
Feedback surged from the rune.
Lucavion steadied himself, landing light on his feet again. No stumble. No fear.
But Arcten saw it now.
The boy had to work for that one.
Their eyes met.
Arcten narrowed his gaze.
“You’re good.”
Lucavion tilted his head, breathing a touch sharper.
“You’re better when you’re pissed.”
Arcten didn’t answer.
But his next strike was already coming.