Tarous, стр. 30
One of the blades impaled Tarous in the face, one in his stomach, and one in his groin. It appeared that a blade also impaled him through both of his thighs and in both of his shoulders. The last two appeared to strike both his arms. It was a technique that was meant to be impossible to dodge. You either had to have high defense or the ability to block all the attacks simultaneously.
The attack happened in less than a moment and Tarous had no time to even think about dodging. When the attack was finished none of his injuries would hurt except for his left shoulder. The blade impaling it and the blood pouring from it were real. I had attacked his shoulder so I wouldn’t kill him.
Tarous could tell that I wasn’t taking this fight seriously or that first strike wouldn’t have been to his shoulder. This made him glare even harder at me. I think I hurt his pride again. It seemed the best way to motivate him.
I removed my sword from his shoulder. Blood coated the blade of my sword. I gave it a quick flick to sling off the blood from the blade.
Tarous’s hand glowed golden with his life energy. He placed the glowing hand over the wound and the wound stopped bleeding. Using a technique to heal seemed rather sad to me. I could heal instantly from almost any wound. How terrible it would be to be born anything but a Rask.
Without giving me more than a second to relax Tarous shot towards me once again. He was truly determined to win and in the corner of my tiny black heart I was rooting for him.
I used the next stage of my inescapable illusion sword art technique. I divided myself and instead of just one of me standing in front of Tarous, there now stood three of me. All three of me began to talk at the same time and in perfect unison.
“This part of the technique is also known as the Demon Mirror by my ancestors. It is a part of my inescapable illusion sword art technique. One of me is real and the other two are illusions.”
Each of my illusions began to spread out. All three of us surrounded Tarous. He was trapped. We had cut off all avenues of escape. I once again used my inescapable illusion sword art. This time instead of nine blades, twenty-four sword blades shot towards Tarous. The attack came from three directions, and the number of blades shooting towards him made it difficult for him to see.
Tarous felt a sharp pain in his back and realized that one had been a true strike. The left side of Tarous’s body flickered with a golden light for a second. Nothing seemed to happen. I found it rather strange. I wondered if Tarous was trying to use a technique.
Next he once again used his healing technique as his hands glowed and he reached back and touched the wound to heal it. After a few minutes his back had completely healed. I let my senses roam over Tarous’s body assessing his strength. His abilities were just as I thought from our previous battle.
“That’s enough for today. I can sense inside of you the power of death and life swirling in great quantities. You are able to use your death energy with some skill, but with your life energy you are completely lacking in skill. The one technique you have that uses life qi is only to heal and you barely have any skill in using it. If you are only ever able to utilize half your abilities you will never be able to beat me.”
I motioned towards the two books I had set down earlier.
“One of those books tells about the basics of life qi. It also teaches you how to sense the life energy of others. The other is a technique called Devouring Life. It is a monster technique. My family acquired it a long time ago. Read both of them and prepare for our next fight. Today you weren’t even a decent warmup for me.”
I continued to pick at his pride. It was to motivate him to improve, but it was also becoming a rather fun thing to do. I could see Tarous prickling up in anger. Despite his anger, Tarous walked over and picked up the books. They were both thick and old looking. I could tell he wanted to become stronger. I then turned and began to walk away.
“Time for bed, you can keep the cube and the books.”
My sword turned back into a cube without a word. After a few tries Tarous managed the same. He was a quick study. Tarous seemed surprised I would let him keep the cube, but two short swords would be useless if he tried to escape, so why should I care?
Chapter 18
The next day my mother set up another meeting with another potential bride. Just thinking about having to go through this process once again left me exhausted. A Lord’s daughter, she was dressed in her finest outfit. She was beautiful, of course, rich as hell, naturally, and didn’t have a single thought between her pretty little ears, apparently.
My mother would always meet my future brides first and if they met her expectations then she would allow them to meet me unsupervised. It felt more like a job interview than a date.
Tarous stood by my side, he was being ignored again, but for once I was jealous of him.
My potential future bride was named May and according to the girl her hobbies were singing and dancing. She enjoyed riding her pet Puca, with its flowing black mane and lovely golden eyes that glow in the dark.
Like I hadn’t heard that same line a thousand times