The fragments of the broken ice blade rolled across the floor.
Anplus stepped forward, crushing the pieces completely under his boot.
At this distance, drawing his sword first against a knight. He must have been quite confident. I’m only grateful he attacked first.
“You said you came for the price of blood, didn’t you? Come and take it.”
He swung his sword horizontally.
The broad blade pressed down on the air, creating a fierce pressure wave.
But instead of clumsily retreating, Kirie stepped inward by one pace.
With the broken tip transformed into a sharp point, he aimed the ice blade at Anplus’s left flank.
Anplus, rather than dodging, willingly offered his side.
The sharp ice blade tore a long gash through his cloak.
He couldn’t even dodge this?
Kirie, who had planned to target the legs the moment Anplus tried to evade, felt a delayed doubt.
“Ugh!”
KADUK.
The ice blade clashed against the breastplate.
The wrist of the imperial envoy leader, unprepared for the recoil, twisted.
The spot he had aimed for—above the flank—would normally be deeply exposed in standard knight armor, but Anplus’s new breastplate covered seamlessly right down to just below the armpit.
Having anticipated this, Anplus smiled leisurely.
Proper use of tools is also a craftsman’s virtue.
To the momentarily stiffened Kirie, Anplus threw a left fist clad in steel gauntlet.
It was a strike infused with the subtlety of True Iron—muscles pulled to their limit, then accelerated using the rebound.
The fist surged forward, tearing through the air.
CHEK. A sound loud enough to echo through the corridor rang out.
“Terrifying.”
Yet the green-eyed noble in formal attire neither collapsed nor groaned.
In an instant, he had created a mask-like ice plate to defend his face.
The ice mask, angled to deflect the impact, cracked like a spiderweb.
The shock radiated outward in a circle, shattering the edges and scattering ice fragments.
Anplus silently withdrew his extended left hand.
Harder than steel plate.
This isn’t ordinary ice.
It could even block crossbow bolts.
Kirie merged the ice mask with his broken sword, restoring the ice blade.
The knight from Ventios said it.
A knight who called himself Anplus killed Ventios. That’s not a common name.
No chance of a namesake.
He stepped back, assuming a thrusting stance as he thought.
Blood price.
I must claim it.
Only then will I have the face and justification to return and meet his family.
We’re in a situation where we half-bloods need to stick together more than ever.
If I cause internal strife by failing even to claim blood price, I’d only be doing the direct line a favor.
SER.
Kirie soothed his rising anger with those thoughts.
He tried not to recall the faces of his two old friends who were supposed to build the future of the imperial family together.
My friend.
But no matter how hard he tried to suppress his emotions, he only realized how difficult it was.
“Anplus, Sir.”
In the end, a pained voice escaped.
“Why? Do you want to sit back at the table?”
Anplus, also in a thrusting stance, asked.
Kirie shook his head vigorously, as if leaving a wide opening.
“One last confirmation. I want to hear it from your own mouth. Did you kill Lord Ventios?”
Anplus suspected the intent behind asking something so unnecessary.
According to the documents of the imperial administrators, he was surely already convinced that Anplus was the knight who killed Lobigos and Ventios.
If it were up to his heart, he wanted to answer yes.
That he, as a knight, had righteously punished those who dared step into the beloved territory of the Intezeruto family and killed its subjects.
But the position he stood in now blocked that.
He was here now as the representative of the family…
Position?
Anplus glanced around the reception room.
Only four administrators, Kirie, and himself.
Too modest for an official meeting.
Moreover, he—the family’s representative—was a knight who knew even less about politics than magic.
The family head had precisely chosen someone like him and ordered him to attend the talks.
If he had foreseen this situation, it was truly a vision beyond words.
Anplus gave a hollow laugh inwardly and answered.
“Were you friends with him?”
“!”
Kirie’s shoulders trembled, despite maintaining a stance stable enough for Seongbaek to applaud.
Anplus, now completely certain of his visitor’s purpose, continued.
“So it wasn’t the imperial family sending you for blood price—it was you personally.”
Of course, the territorial dispute was one reason, but that was likely just pretext.
“Calling me ‘you’ like some lowly swordsman?”
His voice clearly revealed his fluster at having his inner thoughts exposed.
Anplus raised his sword in relief.
Now he could set aside the family’s official stance for a moment.
“Ventios was a powerful wind mage. If he hadn’t panicked because of the monster horde, I might have been the one to fall.”
“!”
“Lobigos was strong too. A mental-attribute mage. You can’t cut that kind of magic with a sword. If he’d brought even one or two soldiers, the corpse would have been mine.”
“You knew everything.”
“I found out myself. So take the blood price from me alone.”
It was said with the intent to confine the fight to this room.
Kirie narrowed his eyes, as if recognizing the intention.
“I had no plans for a big commotion.”
“Scared of the Intezeruto family’s officer-mages?”
“We decided to change the world. Alive.”
He murmured bitterly, then picked up the teacup he had been drinking from and sprinkled the remaining tea into the air.
A blue light flashed, and the tea turned into ice granules, sticking to the door handle like adhesive.
The next instant, the long ice blade in Kirie’s right hand thrust in like an awl.
In his left hand, blue light was still gathering.
It was a light so intense that the flickering candlelight on the walls and the sunlight from the window lost their color.
Something muttered in his mouth seemed to be preparing a considerably powerful spell.
He’s the type who buys time with decent swordsmanship and neutralizes in one go by freezing.
The moment the magic completes, I’ll become an ice statue. If possible, take him down before that. If not?
Anplus swung his sword high and wide, deflecting the ice blade.
Target the left wrist.
Maintain the distance and angle to strike it at any time.
He had taken on an annoying penalty.
Clicking his tongue inwardly, he flowed into natural consecutive strikes, throwing a fist at the exposed torso.
“Your learning ability is lacking. Probably because you’re just crudely swinging a sword like a brute.”
A voice full of rage leaked out.
Some of the mana gathering in his left hand shifted to his body.
TSUTSUTSUCH! A translucent ice plate covered the formal suit Kirie wore.
But Anplus pressed even harder without hesitation.
Deeper. Into the torso.
He stomped the floor hard, channeling the rising force into his fist.
PEOEOK! A direct hit landed, delivering tremendous impact to the ice plate.
Shockwaves raced across the ice like spiderwebs, while the same force rebounded into Anplus’s fist.
But Anplus braced his shoulder and pushed the fist even further against the ice plate.
He drove in even the returning recoil.
CHEK! With the sound, cracks formed in the ice harder than steel, then it shattered into dozens of pieces, falling to the floor.
The penetrating shock pushed Kirie back five steps.
Lips twisted in pain and bewilderment finally let out a groan.
In that moment, the blue mana gathering in his left hand surged wildly, then more than half dispersed.
Kirie stopped only after slamming his back hard against the wall.
He felt muscles regenerating in his directly hit flank.
Inner muscle fibers burst.
Some wind users apply it by creating shockwaves to wreck the inside—it’s that kind of technique.
Doesn’t seem like he used it knowingly, more instinctively… but to use it physically like that is unbelievable.
Kirie staggered but raised his sword again.
Anplus looked at him with pity.
“No matter how poor your learning, would you try the same thing that didn’t work once? Practice your insults more. I’ve been tormented by Trichitas so much that something like that doesn’t faze me.”
“Tri? Who’s that?”
Kirie kicked off the wall and charged.
He leaped into the air, thrusting the long ice blade.
The sword is concise and fast.
Excluding Master Seongbaek, he’s the best swordsman among mages I’ve met.
Beyond just buying time for magic.
Anplus retreated exactly one step to evade.
In that instant, the ice blade extended over a handspan.
SAAAK!
Anplus twisted his body at a speed that left afterimages.
Blue blood smeared the ice blade that grazed his cheek.
The administrators, restless from the murderous attack, trembled.
“Knight! Charge like you did against my friends!”
Kirie’s ice blade drew chilling diagonals.
Thrusts to the thigh, downward strikes to the shoulder, slashes to the face—all sharp trajectories.
Superior swordsmanship beyond average knights harmonized well with cold magic, creating good synergy.
Meanwhile, the blue light in his left hand was stabilizing again.
But Anplus evaded all attacks without even blocking.
“You must have killed plenty of knights.”
He caught the ice blade passing by his shoulder in mid-air.
Sparks and ice fragments flew as the gauntlet’s palm plate clashed with the ice blade.
Bewilderment flashed across Kirie’s face.
But that’s as far as it goes.
Anplus evaluated Kirie as a swordsman that way.
CHEK! His upward slash, too fast for even Anplus to see properly, whipped Kirie’s flank.
He tried to block with ice armor, but it shattered the moment the horizontal sword touched.
“What!”
Hit like a 4kg iron mass, he staggered as if collapsing.
The light in his left hand, finally stabilized, flickered again.
“You’ve fought well in one-on-one duels or formal matches so far, haven’t you?”
Kirie did not answer.
Instead, he severed the middle of the gripped ice blade and gathered blue light.
A mace with blunt spikes protruding up, down, left, and right formed.
BU-UUNG!
The long-swung mace aimed for Anplus’s head.
Enough power to crush the head even through a helmet.
Anplus swung his gauntleted forearm like when deflecting Daiodel’s strike of True Iron Swordsmanship.
He struck the side delicately, pushing balance and center of gravity to deflect the mace.
To an onlooker, it would look like simply batting the mace away with his arm.
Eyes wide, Kirie transformed the mace into a long ice chain.
He spun it once in the deflected direction, swinging the chain.
At the same time, he summoned a dagger behind the mace handle, preparing to stab Anplus’s bound neck.
Anplus did not dodge the wrapping chain.
He brought down his raised sword in a slow, off-beat motion.
SER, GEOK. The coiling ice chain was cut like centipede segments.
But Kirie gritted his teeth and gathered blue light again.
Unbefitting a noble who valued leisure and dignity with his life.
A large ice shield grew on his left forearm, and the remaining chain in his right hand turned into a long sword.
Anplus kicked the shield to disrupt balance and whipped the sword body against Kirie’s hand, dropping the sword.
“Ugh!”
The moment he tried to create another ice weapon, the steel gauntlet grabbed his collar.
The white silk shirt collar crumpled miserably, and several buttons tore off, rolling on the floor.
KUUNG! Anplus pushed Kirie back to the table where they had been negotiating.
He swiftly kicked his shin with steel-plated boots.
“Keuk!”
HWICHEONG. The mage, losing both center and focus, saw the flickering mana in his right hand disperse.
Anplus pushed him straight into the chair he had been sitting in.
“Such insult!”
Ice spikes shot up from the floor like spears.
Enough to panic anyone, but Anplus had experienced similar earth techniques multiple times.
He evaded those aiming for thigh or shoulder but took head-on what his breastplate could handle.
KADDDUK.
The ice spear blades slid long across the rounded iron plates.
In the meantime, Kirie grabbed the armrests and rose, but Anplus was one step faster.
He moved as if knowing Kirie’s next action—and he did.
“Doesn’t look like you’ll claim the blood price?”
Anplus pressed Kirie’s forehead center with index and middle fingers, forcing him back into the chair.
The mage, crushed by two fingers, wore an expression beyond bewilderment—absurdity.
“Kirie. To beat me, don’t make weapons—freeze this entire room in one go.”
Anplus said without a single disturbed breath.
The panting mage in disheveled clothes and the calmly standing knight in breastplate formed a strange contrast.
“You know it. Cold isn’t particularly useful on the front lines.”
In both building structures and freely changing forms, it lost to earth.
It was recognized in supply or investigation missions thanks to preservation properties, but not welcomed on battlefields where anti-personnel lethality mattered.
“So you learned weapon handling. Thanks to the advantage of integrated offense and defense, you did reasonably well.”
Anplus recalled the ice armor’s hardness.
If worn over the whole body, it could block most attacks, magic or sword.
“But I’m a knight who bet my future on the sword. You can’t beat me with weapon arts. And with your bloodline, you probably can’t cast a spell to freeze this room instantly.”
“You bastard.”
“The mana you gathered in your left hand—you couldn’t cast the spell in the end. It was meant to freeze the whole room so I couldn’t dodge, right?”
Kirie could not answer.
It was affirmation.
“Still not finished casting? I was planning to cut your left wrist when it completes. Seems like it takes about 3 minutes—so around 25 seconds left?”
It hit the mark.
He gritted his teeth for a moment.
From the start, it was like being on the palm—no, on the sword.
Anplus smiled down at Kirie.
“You lost. Give up the blood price. Time to return as imperial envoy leader. You have work there too, don’t you?”
He boldly sheathed his sword first.
Of course, it was leisure possible because he was confident in drawing and bare-handed fighting.
Kirie grimaced, brushing back his disheveled silver hair.
Blue light flashed from his left hand, and scattered ice chunks and the ice blocking the door melted instantly, then evaporated.
“Yes. As envoy leader, I have work too. We said we’d change the world alive.”
Though reluctant, he said what he must.
“Thank you for your mercy, Sir Anplus.”
Having drawn sword first in the meeting and lost, even if drained of blood and killed, he would have no complaint.
“Not at all. Lord Kirie.”
Anplus briefly considered killing him.
Fewer enemy talents the better.
But that would only give the imperial family another pretext to nitpick.
Moreover, the conflict between imperial collateral and direct lines could be exploited by Intezeruto.
He thought he’d played bad cop enough.
Time to step off stage here.
He’d return to it soon enough anyway.
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