"Father! This is how you wield a club, right?"
Memories could sting sometimes. The older and more distant they were like a faded antique painting, the more effort it took to recollect them. And the pain in your heart would reflect the amount of effort you put in. It was a sharp, throbbing pain on one side of your chest that made you unconsciously let out a stifled sigh. In a state of daze, you would wake up from your sleep and realize the voice you heard a moment ago was a mere fragment of a memory inside your dream, not reality.
Count Frontera sighed. His gaze remained vacant and lifeless as he contemplated the voice he had just heard. It seemed too alive, too real. His eyes scanned his room, but he could not find his son.
It was a... dream.
He let out another sigh, fearing the lump in his throat would choke him otherwise. The count felt a developing urge to fall into an eternal slumber just so he could hear his son's voice and lively shouts as a child in his dreams again.
Yes. That's how he was then.
Count Frontera grinned bitterly as he remembered. Lloyd badly wanted to learn how to sword fight from his father as a child. He would beg him for a lesson every time he saw a stick, club, or anything resembling a sword with whatever he found in his hand. But Count Frontera was afraid that Lloyd would not develop a strong foundation for swordsmanship if he tried to teach him with his lacking skills. Rather, he vowed to himself that he would find a qualified teacher for his son in the future, even if that would cost him money. But he missed his timing to do so.
He lost interest after two years.
When he finally found a teacher, Lloyd became apathetic toward sword fighting. Count Frontera initially believed his son had lost interest in it. But he soon discovered the truth, long after the teacher had left.
It wasn't that Lloyd wanted to learn sword fighting. He just wanted to spend time with me.
Count Frontera felt a pang of guilt at the realization. But by that time, Lloyd had already gone astray. He was causing chaos and getting into trouble daily. The count didn't know whether puberty had just hit him hard or it was in the boy's nature.
"I'm sorry, my son..." He regretted not showing enough love to Lloyd then and not knowing that they didn't have much time left together. And now, he had become a failure of a father who could do nothing but sigh in regret as he was doing this morning. Just then...
Clack. Someone gently opened the door.
"Are you awake?"
It was his wife, Countess Frontera, who must have woken up before him and gone out for a short stroll. But her eyes were red. He smiled bitterly. "I suppose you feel the same as me."
"Yes..." The couple, thinking alike, silently sat on the edge of the bed. After staring at the wall for a while, Count Marbella said, "Our Lloyd... Where do you think he is?"
"I... I do not know." Another sigh. Count Frontera was curious. He wanted to know. "But I would like to believe that he is doing fine no matter what or where he is..."
"I feel the same. That is why I just came back from speaking with an angel." The count quietly wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She leaned against him.
And in a soft tone, struggling hard to speak, she said, "I was curious. I felt suffocated as it was. So, I wanted to ask if Lloyd was doing well. You know, since an angel cannot lie." She felt him tighten her hand. "But I could not dare say my question out loud.
It seemed like I would be wronging the current Lloyd. I feel too indebted to that child to do so."
"You made the right choice..." His voice cracked.
"I did, right?"
"Yes..." he said, lacking certainty.
This time, she wrapped his hand. "He will tell us when the time comes, right? The boy has a kind heart."
"Yes... I believe he will."
"I know it. He is a good kid."
Her eyes grew red and teary again while his nose reddened. Clutching each other, the two decided to put their trust in Lloyd and wait for him to eventually tell the truth. They hoped for the best while trying to put on a smile.
He is a kind... dutiful... and hardworking kid...
♣
I'm proud of you! My faithful knight! Hurray to Javier!
At the same hour, in the mountain range distant from the Frontera fiefdom, on the cliff spot, Lloyd gave a wide, contented smile. He couldn't help it as he heard a clear, vivid clamor ring across the area.
Boom! The noise came from Javier's aura, creating a crisp sound as it hit the Elemental King's head.
"Ack…!"
Pantalasa, the Elemental King, was thrown to the ground in shock.
Wh-What in the world?
He was unable to wake up from his daze. His head was sore and throbbing. This was the first time he felt this kind of pain.
Did he just hit me? That silver-haired human?
He then jumped right back to his feet as soon as he touched the ground.
No! That's impossible!
It really was impossible. That was the only rational conclusion. Ever since he was born into existence, this was what he believed to be the constant, undeniable, and unchanging truth. His belief had been proven to be correct several times in real life.
Humans can't physically touch me. Although I had fought against a swordmaster on three different occasions before now, their auras never hurt this much...
Panatalasa's mind flew back to the time he fought three other swordmasters on this very range.
The first swordmaster came about 1,200 years ago. He was a brawny warrior. I met the one after him about 980 years ago. The most recent incident was about 110 years ago. It was with a knight of a king who was trying to make a plank road over here.
Every single one of them was easily defeated with a simple method.
They all used their aura against me, but it never worked. I was basically untouchable, so their attacks didn't hurt me at all. Regardless of how hard they swung their swords, it just felt like I was being patted.
In short, a swordmaster's aura was completely ineffective against him.
I let them occasionally hit me with their auras while making them withstand harsh blizzards and breathe in unbearably cold air. It was a real success. No matter how strong the knights and warriors were, they eventually couldn't continue after their body temperature began to drop... So, why am I in so much pain right now?
A swordmaster's aura couldn't hurt him. As far as he knew, this was the highest level of skill a human could reach. As such, they didn't have the ability to physically hurt him, the Elemental King. That was the undeniable and unchanging truth of the matter.
Why?
Clang! Bam! Javier raised his aura-charged sword and began hitting both sides of Pantalasa's face in quick, multi-directional movements.
Ack! Ack!!
It hurt. It was so painful that it made him cry. This confused Pantalasa more.
What the heck? Is an aura... supposed to be this painful? Is he using dark magic or something?
But Pantalasa couldn't detect any dark energy coming from the human. That only threw him into greater confusion.
Who is this human?! Ouch! Arggh!
Just then, a thought crossed his mind. What if this man was a grandmaster, something he thought was only possible in theory?
Seriously? Really?
If that wasn't the case, his aura wouldn't be this painful. The attacks from this human were incomparable to what he had experienced before. Thwack! Thwack!
Ah!! Ouch!
The knight now began to attack his ribs and neck. It occurred to him that he might experience a sore neck for the first time since he came into existence. Every time the knight punched his ribs, his stomach tightly knotted up. He finally had a realization.
This knight is a grandmaster.
A sense of dismay and crisis. Countless emotions swirled inside him. However, the elemental did not easily give up. He remembered that the range needed his protection, even while enduring the most intense fight and pain in his life. Instead, his wrath grew stronger than ever.
How dare you?
Fwoosh! Pantalasa, enraged, began to conjure up sharp gusts of wind all around him. With that, freezing cold air swept the area while hailstones larger than a human's fist flew around in the air at 120 miles per hour.
To the human who dares to attack me, get a taste of nature's wrath!
Pantalasa was determined. He would freeze the knight solid and make an example out of him for anyone who dared to enter the range in the future.
I don't care if you're a grandmaster or not! There are no exceptions!
Fwoosh! The strong snowstorm was terrorizing. Its sweeping winds would make any form of life caught in the middle of it meet its demise. However, Javier was the exception.
Javier's eyes shone sharply, and he proceeded to his next step, which was dislocating Pantalasa's jaw.
Zip! Swoosh! Swish! He gently moved forward, taking two more steps before briefly pausing. At that moment, a fist-sized hail brushed past the tip of his nose at a speed of 168 miles per hour. He was able to detect, no, predict all the movements of the 471 pieces of hail from when they began to fly in his direction until they passed by him.
Clang! Clang! With a flash of his blade, countless fist-sized hailstones shattered into glittering fragments of ice that scattered across the air. Amidst it, Javier acted as if the violent blizzard heralding a temperature well below zero was a gentle spring breeze. He held his sword high, aiming for Pantalasa's head. Thwack!
Ouch!
Pantalasa teared up a little and felt a sense of abysmal doom.
How? How did he break through the blizzard?
Pantalasa was unable to understand what was happening. Even if he was a grandmaster, he shouldn't have been able to neutralize the blast of snow he just summoned so easily. The chilly air alone was easily below freezing at -182 degrees Fahrenheit. Moreover, there were hundreds of hailstones flying in every direction at above 124 miles per hour within a few feet of each other. In other words, it should have been impossible to predict all of their movements.
His muscles should have frozen in the air as he was hit with deadly and unpredictable attacks from all directions. Even if his senses are above that of a swordmaster's, he should not be able to properly fight. So, how? How did he do it?
Pantalasa felt wronged. He couldn't process this whole situation. What he didn't know was that the Asrahan Core Technique gave Javier the ability to track every movement of mana as if he were a high-performance radar. Furthermore, Pantalasa was unable to comprehend something else, such as how Javier managed to hit only his weak points.
Thwack! Thump! Thwack!
Ack! Eek! Ouch!
Crack! Thump! Thwack!
Ouch! Eek! Heek!
Every time Pantalasa floated away to dodge his attack, Javier came first and struck him in the crown of his head. And when he retreated back, Javier zoomed in and threw several punches to his side. Since he was composed of pure mana, he was an open book to Javier.
In short, the Asrahan Core Technique made Javier Pantalasa's natural enemy. Javier's oppression soon grew more systematic. Thrash here. And again. Only the painful spots. The same spot over and over. Any resistance invited more force. At last, gripped with hopelessness, Pantalasa came to a decision.
I-I have to run away.
This wasn't going to work. For some mysterious reason, this knight had an impressive ability to make fun of him. Any further opposition or combat could be his final demise. That was not the kind of ending he was hoping for.
Hmph!
Squeezing every ounce of strength he had, Pantalasa conjured up another blizzard and sent it toward Javier before swiveling around to flee the scene. But when he did, he faced another human he had forgotten about for a moment. Fwick! Grab!
Eh?
"Hello?" Pantalasa heard the human say as the latter dared to grab his shoulder with an aura-charged grip. He saw the man flash a brazen smile. "My name is Lloyd, and I plan on capturing you."
What? The moment Pantalasa flinched, Lloyd activated his Supercharge Skill.
