The Sword and The Shadow

Defeat

"Is it understanding the laws?" Annelotte said all of a sudden.

"Myr had said you were a magical prodigy of the century, but I didn't believe him back then. Now, I do," Wayerliss said while clapping his hands, "That's right, it's the understanding of the laws."

Leguna seemed rather surprised, but after hearing what they talked about, he felt something flash through his head.

Light, shadow, good, evil. Leguna was different from Alissanda. He had never been an incarnation of light, but he never considered himself a darkness upon the world. While he had high affinity with the shadow aspect and was a shadow dancer, he had never felt that he belonged with the shadows. It was the same with good and evil. He didn't think he was a particularly good person, but he didn't see himself as a villain either. He wouldn't kill the innocent or oppress the weak and didn't ridicule the sanctity of life. He had even wanted to cause a fit for the sake of a little barbarian child he didn't know well to make sure he had a stable life. Yet, Dark Requiem was almost used as a swear word unilaterally throughout the continent.

What were laws? Leguna couldn't figure it out. His existence was a series of contradictions. He yearned for light, but was the embodiment of darkness. He was inherently good, though feared by the world. He even thought his thoughts, beliefs and actions were contradictory. How could he even figure out the laws when he couldn't figure himself out?

The thought of that made him understand why he was growing further and further apart from Annelotte. She was far purer than he was and the understanding she had of the laws focused only on the ice aspect. There were no distractions, no concern paid to good or evil, light or shadow, only ice. It was that purity that allowed her understanding of the laws to supersede him, which was reflected in the great difference of their strengths.

"Laws exist between all matter in this world. Just like you, Annie, someone who comprehends the laws of the six base aspects of the world have infinite potential." Wayerliss discarded his weapon to show that he would stop resisting. "Your father, Marolyt, while being a wind walker, is weighed down too much by his life experiences. He has far too many loose ends to tie up and only understands the laws pertaining to the sword. He's still far from competent when it comes to those of his own element: wind. As for me, your father had said that I only have some minor understanding of the laws of stealth thanks to pulling the strings from behind the scenes the whole time. It's impossible to gain more strength according to him."

"What about Sir Kreighdon?" Leguna couldn't help but ask. Gahrona had said that Kreighdon could perhaps be the most powerful saint in the world. How did he obtain such power?

"Kreighdon?" Wayerliss smiled as if he predicted Leguna would ask something like this. "The thing Kreighdon understands is different from all of us. He has gained insight into the heart.

"Ley, you've interacted with him before. You should know that he's someone who doesn't know compromise," Wayerliss praised, "He has never sold himself short or taken anything silently. All his life, he believes every single decision he makes and step he takes to be the right one. That is the nature of the laws he came to understand. He doesn't understand the world's laws, but rather, his own."

Leguna furrowed his brow. Wayerliss's words did suggest that he knew something about the true power of saints. However, it only served to confuse him further. Why would Wayerliss bother to explain this to them? If Leguna weren't wary of any traps he might have up his sleeve, he would've ended the battle quickly. But now, it seemed that Wayerliss was merely buying time than trying to confuse them.

Seemingly noticing Leguna's expression of doubt, Wayerliss smiled. "You finally realized? That's right. I'm buying time. After all, the medicine needs time to work."

"You…" The moment he spoke, he felt the surging strength coming from the shadow in him fade rapidly and leak out from his body, returning to the shadow essence within him. The black lines on his face began to vanish, replacing his savage look with his fair and pale face.

Annelotte's bluish skin also turned back to normal. Leguna was also shocked to find that both her body temperature and the surrounding area were rising to normal levels. Her Glacial Domain had stopped working.

"You mentioned the secret research on gifted I was carrying out in the guild, right? You guessed correctly." Wayerliss bent down to pick up his weapons. "This is the newest toxin our guild managed to develop."

"How could it be?" Leguna tried to unleash power from his shadow essence, but it didn't react.

"Don't get distracted!" Though she was experiencing similar changes, she seemed much calmer. She scattered glitterdust to locate Wayerliss as she warned him.

"Behind you!" Leguna cried. The two of them had been too reliant on their gifts to sense their environment. Now that Wayerliss rendered them useless, they felt almost blinded for a moment. The moment they lost track of Wayerliss, there were hundreds of ways he could use to deal with them.

The moment he yelled, a large strike came from behind Leguna. He was sent flying and smashed through the huge rock they had agreed to meet up at.

He coughed out a mouthful of blood. A cursory examination revealed that he broke four of his ribs. His left leg had also fractured and he was basically out of commission. Had he not use his impetus to block his head and heart in time, his life might even be in danger.

However, he couldn't care about his wounds now. He turned to look at her hastily and saw her barrier shake from Wayerliss's odd attacks.

Shatter!

Her final barrier broke from the attacks. Right away, she began to burn up insane amounts of mana in an attempt to detonate her diatagi and wipe Wayerliss out with her!

But he held her by the neck and she felt her mana flow slow down. In two short seconds, the mana in her body stopped flowing entirely.

Wayerliss was three quarters elf. While he chose the path of the fighter, that didn't mean he had no clue when it came to magic. In fact, he knew how to effectively subdue a magus. All he had to do was send some of his impetus into the right places.

"Hmph!" He raised her up high and tossed her to Leguna.

"Annie!" He struggled to stand up and attempted to use himself to break her fall. He knew that without her barrier, her constitution was far weaker than his. He was worried that she would be crippled from the throw.

"Ugh…" He spat out another mouthful of blood from the shock.

Wayerliss approached them while toying around with his dagger. "Do you remember back then that Marolyt mocked me for using tricks to reach the saint realm and being unable to obtain true power? What a joke. Now, he's dead, and I'm alive, and the daughter he swore to protect will soon die by my hand…"

"What? What happened to my father? You saw him, didn't you?" she asked as she struggled to stand. While she didn't seem to care for Marolyt much, it couldn't be further from the truth.

"I have no obligation to answer a dead person's questions!" He swung his dagger towards her throat.

"No!" Leguna struggled to stand, but Wayerliss was much faster. There was no way he would make it.

An old sigh rang out, before Wayerliss found himself petrified with shock. His dagger reached the skin of her neck, but it hadn't cut open her artery.

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