******
“Mister Hero,” a soft voice called out to him. “Please open your eyes.”
Aria was struggling to awaken the fallen mage. Despite the risks involved, she left the safety of the barrier to drag his heavy body and sword away from the pile of black sand before the roving creatures found him.
Yet, nearly an hour had passed and he still didn’t wake up. She hated herself for being powerless to do anything. She was a precocious child, but in the end she was still nothing more than a child. She had no choice but to rely on him to survive.
She wondered silently if he wouldn’t had been so hurt if she had died earlier. The injuries he sustained to this point were to protect her. And she couldn’t do anything for him in returned.
Without knowing his past, or the fact that they were both saved by the simple factors of timing and luck, both felt what it was to be truly powerless to save themselves or others.
It had been said that people only understood what they needed to do when they’ve hit rock bottom. For Leidolf, all he could do was train to become strong enough to survive whatever came his way. For Aria, who was too young to understand what she could do, she cried.
As tears of sorrow trickled down her face, he felt the warm drops and woke slowly to see the girl covered in dirt and weeping for him.
Staring past his barrier, he saw the spreading cracks that made the sky seem like glass; as if a single stone could shatter it. He raised his hand, hoping to reach it and end this nightmare. His arms couldn’t stretch that far, of course—he was only one man with a little power.
But what he could reach was the hand of the child next to him crying. She was living proof that this whole struggle had meaning. That the life his master saved was one that saved another.
Chapter 7: The Seventh Hour
The hour of sleep had done Leidolf some good. He could at least run again without any problems. Taking as few breaks as possible without the bracelet taufr, he paced himself to get back to the only safe haven left in the city; his home.
Riding on his back, the little girl asked him a question. “Mister Hero, why did this happen?”
His heart skipped a beat when she asked him. All he had was a simple theory, but considering the circumstances, he told her what he knew. “If I had to guess, this was done by another mage.”
Leidolf noticed the blank look on her face and went into further detail. “A mage is someone who does magick like me.”
“Why is someone like you hurting people? Aren’t people with powers supposed to be heroes?”
The ignorance of youth, Leidolf thought. It’s good for a child to be clueless sometimes, but now isn’t one of them. While he would hate to rob her of that innocent ignorance, it would probably save her life. “For starters, my name is Leid. Please don’t call me a hero. A hero wouldn’t have let something like this have happened.”
To Leidolf, a hero had to be someone who could stop all tragedies from occurring and could save everyone, just because it was the right thing to do. A hero was a person who did as much as they could, even putting their own life on the line, and asking for nothing in return. His standards were too high for someone to be called a hero—including himself.
It was an illogical ideal to him since people are born with the notion of self-preservation. Even if someone like that existed, people would never accept them. Doing so much and asking for nothing in return brings suspicions, which turns into fear. Fear eventually breeds hate.
Even policemen and firemen are trained to do heroic things out of duty and are compensated. Not to mention that if they failed to save someone, they would lose all their admiration and trust. Leidolf saved the child because he wanted to help someone out of his own personal wish to be useful, not because it was the right thing to do. His master saved him out of curiosity and a sense of guilt seeing him cornered by undead.
While they may have done heroic things, they weren’t true heroes to Leidolf.
“And in the end, power is power. What someone does with it is their own business. At the end of the day, the only person you truly have to answer to is yourself.”
He didn’t know if she understood what he was trying to say, but he said it with conviction. The mage responsible for this had carried out this massacre and would follow through with it until their goal was accomplished. Right or wrong was not an issue here.
Leidolf didn’t know who the mage responsible for this was, but for committing a horrendous act in his eyes, the mage was nothing better than a mad dog. Leidolf was going to put him down.
Noticing he was radiating killing intent at the thought of the unknown enemy, he calmed himself down. The barrier holding up the crimson moon was breaking with each Guardian he killed. He estimated about two more remained, and one of them he met already, so it wouldn’t be long now.
But before anything could happen, he needed to regain his strength. If he had two hours of rest and recuperation at his home, he’d be able to fight effectively again. Otherwise, he ran the risk of using his own life force to fuel his magick and killing himself.
“As for why he’s doing it...I have no idea. If you take into account the number of people killed and eaten, I’d say he’s collecting it all for some ritual. My Runic Arts follow the principle of sacrifice, although I only sacrifice my blood for empowering my runestones or equipment. I think—”
Leidolf was cut off when a wave of energy washed over him. Pure malice and hatred stopped him in his tracks. Something else was in this city—besides the mage and his creatures. Something that was really mad at him.
“Mister Leid?” Aria noticed the sweat covering his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing…I hope.”
When the feeling died down, he started running again. Whatever gave off that negativity was secondary to ending this incident. Getting back to where he left off, he started telling Aria more about his magick.
“As I was saying before, my magick primarily consists of using runes and empowering ordinary equipment and taufr for combat, using my blood and creating a link between me and the objects. Since the runes are already aligned to their own element, all I have to do is pour in the energy necessary to get the results I desire…most times. I’m not really familiar with other systems of magick.”
“Was it hard to learn to do magick?”
Leidolf laughed a little. “Yeah, I learned how to do the basics from ‘a man who committed an unforgivable sin’ so to speak. He taught me over the course of nine months and then I kept studying by myself since he left. I’m twenty-one years old now, so it’s been roughly two years since I learned magick.”
“Why did the man leave?”
“He…left a note shortly after I inherited the cursed blades by completing the trial installed in the first one,” Leidolf told her while sadly looking ahead. “To put it bluntly, it said that he couldn’t risk hanging around too long, or his pursuer would find him.”
Leidolf recalled the many hours of meditation, concentration, and effort he put forward into training because of that man. In order to become strong enough to never find himself in a position of helplessness again, he worked relentlessly. His master—in turn—found somewhere to hide from his pursuer and found happiness in training a new apprentice.
The man, who never told Leidolf his true name, said that one day his pursuer would eventually search for the three cursed blades he passed down to Leidolf. It may have been inevitable, but Leidolf decided to burn that bridge if he ever came to it.
“Are there a lot of other types of magick?” Aria asked him, doing her best to change what felt like an awkward subject.
“Um, he mentioned a few. I know Japanese Shinto, Chinese Daoism, and a few scriptures from the Church that work on spirits and specters. But I’m not—”
His voice was cut off again by the sound of crashing earth. Coming from underneath the ground—several hundred meters ahead of the duo—was the towering giant made of solid earth.
With a shock
ed and terrified look on his face, Leidolf stood still with the child on his back. When the Guardian released a howl that penetrated deep inside and brought out the hidden despair that was buried inside Leidolf, he fell to his knees.
I can’t beat that thing with so little energy left, Leidolf panicked mentally. No single spell he had could break through that creature’s tough exterior. Of all the Guardians he faced so far, this one was clearly the most powerful.
Leidolf couldn’t destroy it on his own power. If he used his own power, he would die without accomplishing anything. But, what if he could borrow the power of something stronger?
There was one thing left that could bring down the giant. The inheritance his master left him. The first cursed blade—designed to cut through any defense with overwhelming power. Its title was the Bane of Shields.
Its true name was one of legend: Tyrfing.
Putting the girl back within the safety of the barrier created by a runestone, he drew his sword and went to confront the enemy.
******
Standing once again on the flaming battlefield, Leidolf found himself undergoing the trial for the cursed blade once again. No longer hiding in the shadows, the fire giant confronted the apprentice mage.
The fire giant was a tall, red, and muscular humanoid figure with white eyes. Its wild, black hair fell down its back, its fangs protruding from its mouth, and battle scars that riddled its body made it seem like little more than a beast of battle that slew its enemies. No mortal who laid eyes on it would assume anything else.
“An excellent strategy,” the fire giant—bleeding from over a dozen moderate cuts—told the mage, who was grasping at his chest in pain. “You cannot over power me, so you seek to weaken me and wait me out.”
Leidolf couldn’t hear the giant’s compliment. He had lost his hearing as a result of the collateral damage from the assault. He couldn’t afford to waste energy trying to compensate for his ears, everything had to go into his arms and legs. Charging forward, he pushed his legs to the limit and became a blur that flew towards the powerful being.
Dashing at his target at high speeds, Leidolf threw himself into an attempt to claim the giant’s head. Seeing the incoming strike, the fire giant raised his club to smash the mage like a fly and the club met with the earth, where the mage had once crossed.
Leidolf avoided the strike by kicking out with one of his legs—moving to the side and renewing his assault from a different direction, at a different speed. This time his blade cut lightly into the flesh of the giant, allowing its blood to pour down its side.
Moving at speeds that would tear his body apart in reality, Leidolf went all out using hit-and-run tactics to overtake the fire giant. It was a strategy where he abandoned all defense for the sake of speed, where one blow would be fatal. Against a foe that was strong, but slow, it was a brilliant but simple technique.
The main downside was that his cuts were too light. He wouldn’t be able to inflict any fatal wounds on the fire giant, just small scratches that trickled out blood. It was a seemingly suicidal plan.
But that was enough.
If a body lost too much blood, it would shut down. Exchanging the chance of an instant kill by a powerful blow, he instead opted for a slow death by light, fast blows. The mage fought to the extent that his body was screaming for mercy again.
Fighting at such speeds for extended periods of time was impossible. Every time he charged, he’d move slower. Eventually, he would get tired, his power and concentration would drop, and his strikes would get weaker—to the point that he couldn’t even scratch the giant anymore.
Once that happened, all chances of victory would be lost.
The fire giant was smiling at the challenge. Even while his movements and awareness were slowly failing, he was thrilled. For the first time since his essence was sealed inside the spellcraft for Tyrfing, he could fight against an opponent that constantly surpassed expectation.
The process of making a spellcraft was to install it into an item, like installing software into a computer. When the program—the spell—activated, the object changed to match it. That was a normal spellcraft, but the cursed blades were different.
Each was installed into the mind of the mage. They were imitations and replicas of famous Norse weapons, but they were crafted with the help of a dwarf, and the essence of other beings. They were irreplaceable.
Because of this, a safety program that doubled as a trial was put into place to prevent theft and determine who was worthy enough to use them. First there was Leidolf’s master, the one who defeated and sealed the fire giant into the blade when he created it. That time, he had been killed by a Valkyrie working with the man.
The second time was when someone tried to steal the blade and tripped the defensive programming. The opponent then was not a warrior, but a thief who met their end. Painfully.
And now, it was Leidolf. He challenged the giant many times, each time in a different method. Some worked better than others; some brought him closer to earning Tyrfing. But none before today were ever this close.
The young mage went from trying to rely on brute strength to solve his problem, to clever strategy. In a fair fight, this probably would have been considered a dirty trick—but on the battlefield it was valid.
The fire giant was one who had fought against Einherjar, Valkyries, and Vitki alike in the past. He knew of various types that would run across on the battlefield. But this was the first time he was impressed by the sheer tenacity of a mere mortal.
Leidolf had no enemies yet that would require the power of the cursed blade. The mental strain and damage he underwent in the training felt every bit as real as if his real body was under attack. Despite this, he kept coming back and pushing forward.
He would definitely grow to become an excellent warrior.
“Come!” The fire giant yelled. Both were reaching their limits.
Unable to maintain speed anymore, Leidolf traded the energy in his legs for one last blow that could penetrate the giant.
The fire giant was losing consciousness, and raised the club for one final blow to crush him.
The two figures clashed, and the outcome had been decided as the dust cleared. The giant was still standing with its two legs, while Leidolf was on his knees—using his arm for balance. The fire giant let out a snort.
“...Magnificent…” A large pool of blood had formed. While the fire giant had avoided an instantly fatal wound, the right side of his torso—from his shoulder to his waist—had been blown away.
At the last second, Leidolf twisted his body with everything he had to avoid the strike, and had thrust the sword into the giant. Using the same overload principle that he developed for his Algis spell, he had turned the blade into a bomb and taken away the giant’s right side. The technique cost him his right hand and eye, but he wouldn’t die from those injuries in this mindscape.
The fire giant planted a blade into the ground. It was a black sword that was outlined with a glowing red hue, and the blade was at least four feet in length—with one foot in width—and had three rifts where scarlet energy pooled. It was a sword that radiated power with its very presence, and possessed something that akin to awareness, acknowledging Leidolf as its master for now.
“This blade was born of my very essence,” the fire giant spoke in a tired tone. “My power comes at a heavy price. You may wield this blade, but beware: The blade will drink from your life deeply with each use. If you use it while near death, it will claim your life…as its own…”
The fire giant faded—his corporeal body vanished, while his soul became one with the blade. The proud warrior of Musphelheim had chosen a suitor for his power.
Reaching over to the blade, Leidolf grabbed the handle with his left hand and pulled as hard as he could, to uproot the blade from the scorched earth. With an explosion of scarlet streamers, he brandished the blade and his body transformed.
He gained lean muscle, and his skin became charcoal black. The
hair he kept short was now as long and wild as the fire giant’s own. His fingers were more claw-like, and his eyes were pure white.
By taking up the blade, he took on a form similar to the fire giant’s in order to use it. Raising Tyrfing towards the sky, fire erupted all around Leidolf in celebration of his success.
******
The Guardian of Earth roared. Slamming its arm into the ground, stone spires shot out of the ground to impale the stray mage. Mere inches separated Leidolf from death, as he worked to close the distance between himself and the Guardian to trap it with an Isa runestone—so he would have enough time to summon Tyrfing.
As he ran down the main street, windows shattered and rained glass down on the unsuspecting mage. Wolves came from inside the buildings and began assaulting him. Black steel flashed as the blade cut through one of them with more resistance than he expected.
The Guardian didn’t hesitate to throw gigantic pieces of former buildings at Leidolf, even when it crushed its own allies, forcing him to divide his attention. He would fall to the constant attacks eventually.
Okay, this is getting me nowhere, Leidolf thought, dropping his head to the side in order to avoid taking a set of claws to the face. He kicked small rocks from the ground into one of the wolves’ face. When it shook its head in distraught, he grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and threw it at the other wolf.
A large Cen spell to incinerate the pair before he took to the rooftops.
A downpour of stone fell from the sky, and he shielded himself with Algis as best he could before throwing and detonating the Isa runestone. Ice broke through the asphalt and buildings, creeping up the Guardian and encasing its limbs in cold shackles roughly half its size.
“Alright!” Leidolf cut his arm on the sword and let the blood coat the blade. The black steel drank it to quench its great thirst, and became blood red.
“In the name of the Dvalin and Durin, answer the call of Svafrlami. Reform the blade with the flames of the children of Musphelheim!” The blade combusted and burned red. “Gleam like crimson flame. Shine a furious gold. Defy the gods, and slay any shield!”