Arkin von Edenvalt, the Fourth Prince, was far from pleased.
He didn’t like how the duel had dragged on this long.
It was supposed to be a match that ended with just the flick of his finger, just like two years ago.
Still, the fact remained that he would win. Damian, the illegitimate child, had overextended himself with magic far beyond his capabilities, leading to his own downfall.
‘I’ll break one of his legs too, for good measure.’
Arkin thought as he launched another ice projectile. The staggering bastard didn’t look like he had the strength left to dodge properly.
If he had any sense left, he would surrender by now. Of course, Arkin hoped that he wouldn’t.
He salivated at the thought of the expression that insolent maid would make as she watched her broken master.
“What’s so funny that you’re grinning like that?”
A voice dripping with contempt interrupted his pleasant imaginings.
“What?”
Crash! The ice projectile, which should have hit Damian directly, shattered into pieces. From the midst of the debris, green flames surged upward.
The whirling flames melted the ice shards, and through the mist of steam emerged Damian, wielding a flaming sword.
“You bastard!”
Arkin quickly fired another ice projectile, but the result was the same.
Hellfire and swordsmanship.
Individually, neither would have been enough to counter Arkin’s attacks, but the combination of the two changed the dynamics.
The heat of the Hellfire weakened the ice projectiles, and Damian’s arming sword struck them, creating cracks.
The Hellfire then seeped into the cracks, melting the ice projectiles completely.
Having drawn his sword, there was no need to keep his distance. Damian surged forward, slashing with his flaming blade.
Boom! The fiery sword collided with Arkin’s translucent mana barrier.
The confident smile Arkin had just moments ago contorted into a grimace.
On the other hand, Damian showed no special expression as he continued to focus on the duel. He quickly twisted his body, aiming for Arkin’s flank.
Mana barriers are typically formed only on the side that’s being attacked. Covering all directions consumes far too much mana.
This requires constant vigilance. If the opponent’s speed is underestimated, it could lead to a fatal injury.
And Damian’s footwork was far swifter than Arkin had anticipated.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A series of fierce exchanges followed. Damian’s lightning-fast swordsmanship left Arkin with no choice but to keep deploying his mana barrier.
‘Aura?’
Once a certain level of mastery is reached, Aura can sometimes exhibit specific attributes. For a moment, Arkin thought that might be the case when he saw Damian’s sword, but he quickly dismissed the idea.
Damian, while possessing some talent for magic, was worse than a common street thug when it came to Aura.
After all, only the sword was ablaze; there was no visible flow of mana in Damian’s body.
‘Wait, then how is he moving at this speed!?’
Not only Arkin but even the guards who were watching couldn’t hide their shock at Damian’s movements.
Despite clearly not using Aura, Damian’s swordsmanship displayed speed and power on par with those who did.
It was hard to believe this was the result of just two years of training as a mere stable hand. Even the Royal Knights’ Captain couldn’t teach swordsmanship like this.
Everyone except for Anna and Felix was unaware.
The swordsmanship Damian wielded belonged to the Steel Wolf—a man who once reached the ranks of legend using only physical strength and skill.
Crack! Amidst the ongoing clashes, a fissure appeared in Arkin’s mana barrier.
While he had managed to defend against the previous Hellfire attacks, the addition of the sword’s physical force had pushed his defenses to their limit.
Arkin quickly used more mana to form a new barrier behind him. He had to prevent the green flames from closing in.
He never imagined the duel would progress like this. If he had known, he would have used flight magic from the start to gain distance.
In the first place, why did he even agree to this duel? All for that lowly maid? There was no need to establish his dominance like this. Damian was just an illegitimate child, while Arkin was the Fourth Prince of the Empire.
And why was that bastard Zika just standing there watching? Forget the duel—if his master was in danger, shouldn’t he intervene in some way?
‘...No, I can’t let this happen!!’
Aside from mana, the most crucial factor in casting magic is concentration.
Once your mind starts wandering, it creates a crack in your focus, leading to uncontrollable problems—just like what was happening to Arkin right now.
Crash! The barrier, weakened, shattered like glass. Damian closed the distance further and inflicted simultaneous burns and cuts on Arkin’s arm.
“Gaaah!”
The wound wasn’t deep. Damian had intentionally held back.
Even in a duel, severing a prince’s arm would cause serious repercussions.
Damian had no desire to invite the wrath of the Empress.
However, the pain Arkin felt went far beyond the severity of the wound. It felt as though his skin had been flayed and then seared with a hot iron.
It was an application of dark magic using Hellfire. The flames were subdued, but the pain was amplified.
Originally, it was used to overwhelm opponents with excruciating pain, but this time Damian didn’t inflict that level of agony.
‘You can’t collapse just yet.’
Damian had no intention of ending this duel now.
Because of that, Arkin still had a chance to counterattack. He used magic to levitate and gain some distance. At the same time, a new ice projectile flew toward Damian.
‘Huh?’
Damian successfully deflected the ice projectile again, but this time he felt a strange sense of unease.
The cohesion of the ice was far weaker than before.
Arkin was clearly at his limit, yet it seemed as though he was intentionally conserving his strength.
“Hah! You fell for it!”
With Arkin’s shout, a gust of wind enveloped Damian.
It was wind magic deployed behind the ice projectile, sending shards of ice that hadn’t fully melted slamming into Damian.
He tried to deflect them with his sword, but there were too many. The force knocked the sword from his grip.
At the same moment, the Hellfire burning on one of his fingers was extinguished. Damian’s stamina and mana were still intact, so it was likely a form of overload.
‘This is different from the Hellfire I used before the regression.’
It was similar, yet not exactly the same. His experiences from the past life were helpful, but he couldn’t rely on them completely.
The solution was simple: keep training and refining his control. He needed to figure out the rhythm for handling Molek’s Hellfire.
He could think about that after this duel was over.
Meanwhile, Arkin assumed that Damian had run out of mana. He couldn’t stop the smile from creeping across his lips.
‘No matter what, I’ve won!’
Arkin was at his limit too. If he cast any more spells, he’d likely be bedridden for days.
However, he hadn’t exhausted his mana entirely. He just needed to wait for Damian to admit defeat.
Or so he thought.
“What?”
Arkin’s vision suddenly flipped upside down. Thud! At the same time, his back slammed into the ground, a dull pain surging through his entire body.
Damian had disrupted Arkin’s center of gravity and thrown him down using only the strength of one arm.
“What are you grinning about?”
Damian quickly mounted Arkin. Using both legs, he pinned down Arkin’s movements and raised his fist.
“When fighting an opponent barehanded, the most effective move is to mount them.”
Derek’s teachings replayed automatically in Damian’s mind.
“And next?” “Without mercy, strike their face. This is especially effective against mages. If they can’t concentrate, they can’t cast spells.”
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Damian drove his fist into Arkin’s face repeatedly. It didn’t take long for the once-prominent nose to twist, and blood to spill from between Arkin’s lips.
“You! You filthy—bastard!”
Arkin couldn’t even form a coherent sentence under Damian’s relentless blows.
There was a hint of indignation in his voice. Physical combat like this was unheard of in a typical duel between mages.
However, nothing in Imperial Law forbade it. So Damian’s actions were entirely justified.
In the first place, those ignorant of dark magic mistook Hellfire for a type of flame spell. But Damian was no mage.
“Listen well. From now on, don’t even think about coming near the palace or Anna again. Not even in your dreams.”
“Wh-what are you—talking about!”
Desperate to escape, Arkin flailed his arms, but his feeble punches couldn’t even reach Damian.
‘Was this bastard always this big?’
From below, looking up at Damian, he appeared far larger than before. No, he didn’t even look human anymore.
It felt like a ravenous wolf was baring its fangs at him.
“You! Shut up! Why would I—!”
Arkin screamed, but there was nothing regal about his tone. Gone was any semblance of the refined prince.
“Fine. Then go ahead and try. I’ll make sure to crush you into pulp once more.”
Zika and the rest of Arkin’s entourage could do nothing but watch as their master’s face was pummeled.
A duel grounded in Imperial Law was sacred, and no outsider could intervene lightly.
An official witness like Zika could step in to prevent a disaster, but this situation didn’t warrant that yet.
Despite the blood pouring from Arkin’s face and a few missing teeth, he was still conscious. The safety mechanism hadn’t activated.
This was by Damian’s design. He could have knocked Arkin out immediately, but he intentionally avoided inflicting fatal injuries, opting instead to accumulate pain.
He couldn’t punish Arkin now for the crimes he would commit in the future.
But Damian remembered every single one of them. Beyond that, he also harbored a deep personal resentment toward his half-brother.
‘Hitting him with my fists is more satisfying than I expected.’
With each punch, the tension within him eased a little. It felt like a refreshing breeze was blowing through his chest.
Why would he waste the opportunity to legally beat Arkin under the guise of a duel?
And who knows? Maybe Arkin would learn his lesson and turn over a new leaf after this.
“A-Alright! I surrender!”
Wham! Even after hearing the declaration of defeat, Damian didn’t retract his final punch.
The blow left Arkin’s face grotesquely swollen, like a misshapen loaf of bread, and he fainted with only a faint, shallow breath left.
“D-duel concluded... The winner is Damian Renect...” Zika announced in a trembling voice. He and the rest of Arkin’s followers still couldn’t fully comprehend what had happened.
Leaving behind Arkin, who lay gasping like a fish out of water, Damian slowly stood up.
His appearance was even more haggard than before the duel, and his left arm hung limply by his side.
Blood dripped steadily from his right hand, which had mercilessly pummeled Arkin’s face.
It was a mix of both Arkin’s blood and his own.
Yet his eyes, as they had been from the beginning, emitted an indescribable light. No one dared to move.
Anna and Felix felt an overwhelming urge to cheer, but seeing Damian in this state, they had to suppress their emotions.
They knew he had changed. But the aura Damian exuded went beyond that—it carried a strange, oppressive weight.
“I’m hungry.”
Damian muttered quietly as he looked at them.