Lawrence’s sword was pushed back, and his chest was left wide open.
At that moment, Juan’s eyes flashed chillingly.
Because he thought this was the perfect chance to kill Lawrence.
‘It’s over. Farewell, you bastard.’
Without delay, he swung his sword at Lawrence.
His sword drew a small semicircle and dug toward Lawrence’s neck.
But Juan’s attack did not succeed.
Lawrence hurriedly lowered his body as if collapsing into a crouch and avoided Juan’s attack.
A few strands of hair were cut away, but fortunately, he avoided the attack without injury.
He retreated almost as if crawling across the floor and opened the distance from Juan.
Lawrence’s mouth fell open, and he gasped for breath.
It had been a brief exchange, but taking successive instantaneous movements in an extremely tense situation had drained his stamina.
The eyes of the knights watching this fight widened.
Even they were not confident they could have avoided that attack just now.
And Lawrence, who had barely survived after nearly dying and had trained for only a few months, had avoided such an attack.
But the one more surprised than the knights was Juan.
He was so shocked that his whole body shook.
Along with that came bewilderment.
Even when their swords had first met, he had been surprised by Lawrence’s skill.
However, while it was certainly remarkable skill, compared to himself, Lawrence was still clearly several moves below him.
But judging from how he had avoided that attack just now, it meant the gap was much narrower than Juan had thought.
‘That could have been dangerous. If that bastard had grown like this…….’
Since Lawrence had developed that level of skill in just a few months, it would not have been strange if anything happened a month later.
If Lawrence had not challenged him to a duel today…… the person crawling disgracefully across the floor might have been Juan himself.
Along with that, his heart dropped.
As he imagined that, he, the one who had acted personally, knew best just how great a mistake everything he had done until now had been.
If he was punished, not only he but even his family would be finished.
That was how great and heavy the crimes he had committed until now were.
‘Still, it’s fortunate. Compared to his natural talent, he’s still a brat. To think he would do something this childish. Well, considering he became this strong this quickly, it would be stranger if he could see anything before his eyes.’
Lawrence aimed his sword at Juan and sprang to his feet.
He was pretending to be expressionless as if nothing had happened, but his lips felt dry, and his tongue had grown dull as if it had turned to metal.
Moreover, because of his rapidly pounding heart, his chest would not calm down.
And he reflected on his own actions.
Even while being wary of Juan, Lawrence had been looking down on him in one corner of his heart.
His body looked so dull that it was impossible to tell when he had last trained, far from what one would expect of a Knight Commander.
Unlike the other knights who at least occasionally showed their faces while Lawrence was standing duty at the Barrier Wall, Lawrence had never seen Juan at all.
He thought it might have been because he only worked at night, so he asked the soldiers who switched shifts, but they also answered that they had never seen Juan.
He did not participate in training, nor in battles against monsters.
Therefore, Lawrence had naturally thought Juan’s skill would have regressed, and that he would have a sufficient chance of victory.
But Juan was far stronger than Lawrence had expected.
The techniques he had trained all his life and engraved into his body had not betrayed him.
They might have grown slightly dull, but they were in no way lacking enough to make Lawrence’s heart drop.
The reason he had been able to block Juan’s first attack easily was less because Lawrence’s skill was outstanding and more because Juan had let his guard down.
He had underestimated Lawrence, and as a result, had made a simple attack with large movements.
If he had attacked carefully from the beginning, Lawrence would not have found it easy to block.
The gazes of the two grew even more serious and sharp.
Unlike at the beginning, what was at stake in the duel had become enormous.
For Lawrence, it was his life.
He had expected it would be a difficult fight, but he had not thought he would lose.
Yet after opening the lid and looking inside, Juan was far stronger than he had thought.
Now, setting everything else aside, he was in a position where he had to worry about his life.
Meanwhile, Juan had even more at stake than Lawrence.
Not only his own life, but the lives of his family were also placed on this duel.
If he lost… everything would be over.
And not only would everything about him be denied, but he would also be remembered in people’s memories as the worst knight.
Lawrence’s mind grew complicated as he thought about how he should lead this fight.
Now that he knew there was a definite gap in skill, he needed a new strategy.
But Juan had no intention of giving Lawrence time.
Having read Lawrence’s complicated state of mind, he immediately attacked.
Juan stepped his front foot far forward and swallowed the space between them in an instant, then swung his sword horizontally.
Lawrence hurriedly retreated, but Juan’s sword narrowly grazed past his abdomen.
It was an attack dangerous enough to make the back of his neck stiffen for a moment.
But after passing that dangerous moment, he saw an opportunity.
Instinctively sensing that opening, Lawrence aimed for a counterattack.
Objectively speaking, this was a fight in which he was inferior.
In order to bring this fight over to his side, he needed bold decisiveness that did not miss an opportunity.
Thinking that, Lawrence immediately swung his sword, but Juan’s blade, which had changed direction in an instant, surged up toward Lawrence’s face.
“Damn it.”
Startled by the sword surging up from beneath his chin, Lawrence kicked off the ground and hurriedly pulled his body backward.
He thought he had barely avoided the attack, but as if to tell him otherwise, the area above his left eye stung.
The sword had lightly cut past the skin above his eye.
If he had been even a little late in avoiding it, not his skin, but his face would have been split in half.
At the fact that he had nearly died, Lawrence’s face turned pale, and every hair on his body stood on end.
Soon, blood flowed from the wound, and his vision was dyed red.
A fight against a knight was completely different from a fight against monsters.
Monsters were outstanding in strength and speed, but their attacks had a simple side.
If monsters attacked using only the power of their bodies, Juan’s attacks were swordsmanship in which strength and technique were harmonized.
Complicated movements.
With a simple handling of his gaze, he feinted, and the attack Lawrence thought was real was fake.
An attack stabbed in from an angle he had not even imagined.
He thought it was an attack without strength behind it, only to find that it was actually a heavy attack loaded with power.
He simply could not grasp it.
“How is it? It seems you challenged me to a duel because you thought you could handle it, but this is a real fight. You regret picking a fight for no reason, don’t you? But even if you regret it, it’s already too late. The matter has already begun. The world is not as easy as a childish noble brat thinks.”
The attacks Juan aimed at Lawrence were not only made with his sword.
As befitting an experienced knight, he disturbed Lawrence’s mind with his three-inch tongue.
But Lawrence was not someone who would lose his composure from provocation of this level.
Compared to all the unreasonable things he had suffered while growing up as an orphan, this was almost dull.
When Lawrence showed no reaction, the one who instead grew angry was Juan.
His pride was hurt because he thought he had been ignored.
HAAH!
With a shout filled with irritation, Juan stepped his right foot far forward and thrust his sword out as if throwing it.
A thrust, the simplest and fastest attack.
It was the attack he was most confident in.
A technique that had saved his life dozens of times in the countless battles he had fought until now.
Juan intended to completely cut off Lawrence’s breath with this attack.
The worst crisis he had ever experienced came crashing down over Lawrence.
At the tremendous killing intent felt from Juan’s sword, each and every cell screamed a warning of danger.
But even in this desperate situation, Lawrence’s eyes instead grew calm, and his violently pounding heart also settled quietly.
He himself could not hide his surprise at this change.
As he faced a crisis dividing life and death, his true nature awakened.
Lawrence was a born fighter.
The kind of fighter who faced any difficulty head-on.
His brain spun at high speed and analyzed the situation in an instant.
‘This isn’t an attack I can dodge. Then…….’
If he could not dodge it, he had to minimize the damage as much as possible.
Having made that judgment, Lawrence quickly twisted his body.
At that moment, the tip of Juan’s sword cut past his waist.
Blood burst from the long, clear wound, and his pants were dyed with blood in an instant.
Unable to endure the pain, Lawrence staggered.
Juan’s smile deepened.
“Kukuku, you childish Young Master. I will praise you for making me work this hard. Then, farewell.”
Thinking that this was a fight he had already won and there was no need to see the result, Juan leisurely raised his sword and swung it down.
That was when it happened.
He sensed a subtle movement of mana in the air.
His intuition warned him that something was strange, but Juan ignored this feeling, regarding it as nothing important.
By common sense, there was no reason for mana to be felt in midair.
And the greatest reason he ignored that feeling was because there was something more important right now.
Somehow, Lawrence was growing during the duel.
Although this attack had succeeded, this was not the result Juan had intended.
He had meant to kill him in a single move…… but unbelievably, Lawrence had avoided it.
He had wounded him, but that was not enough.
A ridiculous bastard who grew even in a situation like this had to be killed for certain when the opportunity came, or else there would be trouble later.
And so, at the moment Juan, certain of victory, was about to deliver the final sword strike.
His eye suddenly stung.
Along with that, the pain he felt in his eye gradually grew.
Out of nowhere, a thin piece of ice had pierced Juan’s eye.
The water spirit had appeared, frozen the moisture in the air, and thrown it.
“Damn.”
At the unexpected pain he felt in his eye, his movement stopped for an instant.
And soon, a pain that could not even be compared to the pain in his eye wrapped around his entire body.
Lawrence’s sword had accurately pierced into Juan’s mana circuit.
In truth, what had just happened was a hidden move Lawrence had prepared just in case.
Because this was a fight with his life on the line, he had assumed the worst situation and devised a plan to match it.
A spirit was certainly a remarkable fighting force, but it was difficult for a still-young lowest-grade spirit to produce great power.
Moreover, a spirit was a kind of aggregate of mana.
As such, for a knight sensitive to mana, noticing the moment a spirit appeared was not particularly difficult.
So in order to hide the water spirit’s existence, Lawrence attempted not a large attack requiring a great deal of mana, but an extremely small one.
The water spirit, having inherited Lawrence’s will, threw an ice spear as thin as a needle at Juan’s eye.
But because there was still a high possibility that he would notice even that, Lawrence had aimed for the most decisive moment.
The moment Juan became certain of his victory.
Fortunately, the result was a success.
Juan’s arrogance and impatience had made him careless.
He had judged that this was already a fight he had won, and although he had felt the sudden appearance of mana, he had regarded it as nothing important.
And the fact that Lawrence had become this strong was already hard enough to believe, so to think he would have also received a spirit’s blessing…… Juan likely had not imagined it at all.
“Hah.”
Juan’s eyes widened like lanterns.
His eyes were dyed with shock, as if he could not possibly believe this situation.
Juan looked back and forth between Lawrence’s face and his own lower abdomen, where the sword had been driven in.
Several times, at that, with a blank expression.
And soon, a scream burst from his mouth.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”
This was not a scream caused by the pain of being stabbed by a sword.
It was because of despair and loss at the reality of mana gradually disappearing from his body.
Now that his mana circuit had been destroyed, his life as a knight was over.
Death itself seemed as though it would have been more comfortable.
A moment later, when Lawrence put strength into his hand to pull out the sword, Juan shouted urgently.
“Don’t pull it out! Don’t pull it out, I said!”
He pleaded with a desperate face.
Whether the sword was pulled out or not, it was already over, but he still could not accept that fact.
However, there was no way Lawrence would grant his request.
He was the enemy of his father and the enemy of this territory.
In order to give him even greater despair, Lawrence immediately pulled out the sword.
Blood burst from the wound, and Juan felt the mana he had gathered all his life draining out through his torn mana circuit exactly as it was.
And Juan’s massive body collapsed just like that.
The knights watching that scene wore stunned expressions.
They had never imagined Lawrence would win.
And what this meant was clear.
The authority they had relied on had disappeared.
That meant…….
Their lives now depended on Lawrence.