The Sword and The Shadow

The Dark Elf's Goodwill

Annelotte narrowed her eyes. While she wasn't a warrior, she paid a great deal of attention to her physical training. After spending some time with her swordsaint father, she had gained some basic understanding of hand-to-hand combat.

She could tell that Angelista knew how to fight.

The dark elf took out an enchanted sword that glowed red from her dimensional pocket. It was something she obtained after defeating a high-order dark elf swordsman and was called Spellbreaker. The design of the blade looked a little similar to Leguna's Lighteater.

However, it wasn't the same thing. It was a mere weapon of a high-order warrior and far from being the divine weapon of Soulscarfer Wellingdon. As its name implied, apart from its basic sharpness, it was able to pierce most magic spells and barriers. Before Angelista obtained the sword, it had been used to fell two high-order magi.

Back then, the dark elf warrior had undertaken a mission to take out Angelista as he had the sword. He was quite confident that he could use its special powers to defeat Angelista.

Little did he know that her soul barrier would render the sword useless. Eventually, the poor swordsman was torn to pieces by Angelista's spells.

There was a snide smile on her face as she wielded and waved the sword around in her hand. "My friend here's called Spellbreaker. Doesn't it look similar to Leguna's Lighteater?"

"Why are you constantly bringing him up?!" She let her mana surge, but didn't lose her temper and lash out at her like before. All she did was send a magic missile her way.

"Because he's your weakness, of course!" The moment Angelista said that, her body glowed with multi-colored magical light. Oxen Might, Leopard's Speed, Feline Agility, Ursal Endurance and many other buff spells activated. That was the effect of her enchanted armor. While those spells weren't too impressive by themselves, their combined effects could effectively increase the might of the user.

She charged at Annelotte, sword in hand. Her speed wasn't quick compared to an assassin like Leguna, but if one were to compare her physical abilities to a normal human magus, she would definitely be the cream of the crap. Naturally, a monster like Saron who trained in both disciplines was a whole different comparison.

Annelotte dictated her spells in a slight panic, spending 1.2 seconds on an oil spell. Usually, she could dictate level-one spells in half a second.

Being a magus like Annelotte, Angelista knew immediately what she was trying to do. She focused her soul powers on her feet and turned the layer of oil back into mana the moment they made contact with the ground.

Annelotte watched her blankly. Perhaps the sword looked too similar to Leguna's, she felt like it really was him charging at her.

She experienced a familiar, yet somehow still foreign feeling, as if she was looking herself in the mirror. Sometimes, one would find one's own reflection to be unfamiliar for some odd reason, and this pretty much encapsulated how she felt.

She didn't know that the feeling actually stemmed from the deepest parts of her psyche. It was her past self. While their personalities were almost identical, there were few minute differences.

"I don't have many friends."

"Boss, Sis Vera, and you… That's why, I don't want to lose you. You are… all I have… I don't want to lose anything anymore… I can't afford to."

"Annie, I'll protect you. trust me."

"Innie's in grave danger! Take her away! Save her! I beg you!"

"No… Annie… It can't be…"

"Do you trust me now?"

"You shouldn't have hurt him. This is one of the few things I can never tolerate. Since you've went and did just that, I'll make you pay the price."

Annelotte felt something burrowing out of her mind. Those things used to belong to her, but she lost her grasp over them due to the incident. Now, they seemed to want to reenter her mind. They were the fragments of her memory.

"Leguna…" she mused.

Angelista's eyes brightened when she saw her expression. She hurriedly closed the distance using that chance, but didn't strike the killing blow like what those of her race would usually do to a defenseless opponent. Instead, she dropped the sword in her hand and pressed her right hand on Annelotte's forehead.

"Seriously," she complained, "I actually did something so boring and pointless! It's not like I gain anything from this! Am I becoming more human from living with the humans?"

As she muttered on, she closed her eyes and extended her enthymema directly into Annelotte's diatagi.

While she could easily cause it great damage with the slightest will, that thought had never crossed her mind. All she did was carefully control her enthymema and search around in her diatagi.

"Ugh… ach…" Annelotte groaned in pain. The feeling of having someone else's enthymema poking around in the diatagi was by no means a painless one.

Angelista began to sweat profusely. She had thought that with her soulgrasper abilities, she would be able to solve this problem easily. But now, it seemed that Annelotte's ailment was worse than she had imagined.

"Forget it, let's go slow then." Angelista sighed and gently retracted her enthymema.

Bam!

Someone bust the door of the arena open roughly. The person who stood outside was none other than Leguna.

"What are you doing?!" he yelled upon seeing Annelotte's helpless and defenseless visage as his mind blanked.

"I--"

Before she could explain herself, Leguna dashed to her and swung his right kick into her chest.

Angelista was struck flying with a loud, pained cry, before her body crashed into a pillar. It cracked.

The boy's eyes nearly burst out of his head when he saw in how much pain his woman was.

He carefully helped her get into a sitting position. After making sure she wasn't in that badly hurt, he drew Ebony and approached Angelista.

The dark elf coughed profusely from the dust, but otherwise, she wasn't that badly hurt.

When Leguna charged at her, she had used her soul barrier to mitigate the brunt of that kick. Otherwise, he could've crushed her heart then and there, even despite the cushioning provided by her ample chest!

He charged at her once more and choked her with his right hand, pinning her against the pillar.

"What did you do?!" he hissed.

Angelista was still breathing fine thanks to a soul barrier. She licked her lips seductively and said, "I didn't think you'd be such a rough man!"

"I'm not in the mood to joke around with you." He pointed Ebony at her right eye. "I'll count to five. Keep quiet and you'll lose your right eye. On ten, you'll lose your left one. After that, it's your nose and mouth."

"One… Two…" He inched the blade closer to her eye as he counted. It was a terrifying interrogation method and most people would collapse in anticipation of the eventual pain.

Yet, she managed to keep her calm.

"Three…"

"I say, you can't be trying to get back at me, are you?" she said lazily, "I was trying to help you."

"Four…" The dagger was only a centimeter away from the eye and closing in.

"Stop," Annelotte finally said; though her voice was soft, he wouldn't miss it.

"Annie?" Leguna turned to her and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her standing. It did seem that she was fine.

"Angelista had no ill intentions. She was only trying to help me recover my memories."

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