Sertor scowled at his attack’s inability to harm Leon. The lightning he’d ejected from his body would’ve been enough to severely injure even another sixth-tier mage, but Leon had blocked it with seemingly little effort. The magic had been hastily cast, but powerful.

“For such power to dwell within a villain of your caliber…” the Legion knight muttered, his killing intent sharply rising despite his softer tone.

“I take it that negotiations are over with?” Leon asked without a shred of sincerity, eliciting a glare from Sertor. “A shame, your voice is delightful to hear, I could listen to you read genealogical records.”

Leon’s excitement was strong; he’d never fought another lightning mage before—let alone one of relatively equal power—and he was so eager to test himself against one that he couldn’t stop himself from smiling like a madman. In an instant, his sword was in his hand, his helmet was on his head, and lightning crackled around his left arm.

Gratifyingly, there was no pain in his arm at all, despite the magic power coursing through the joint. The pain of losing his left arm more than a year ago was now long gone, though it wasn’t something that Leon would ever soon forget.

“I must DESTROY YOU!” Sertor roared. The knight began to charge at Leon, but he quickly came to a halt when the earth started to shake. The source of the shaking of earth quickly revealed itself as Lapis appeared at Leon’s side, protectively shielding the young man from any further blasts of lightning that Sertor might see fit to hurl at him.

However, Sertor simply frowned at the stone giant, glanced back over his shoulder at his waiting Legion, and shouted, “CHARGE!” then began his assault anew.

Leon didn’t have time to see what was happening with the 2nd Legion behind Sertor as the knight struck with all the speed that Leon had come to take for granted; his sword vanished in a burst of light, replaced with a two-handed war hammer that struck Lapis in the leg before the stone giant could even react. The rock of Lapis’ leg splintered and cracked but remained relatively intact. Before the giant could retaliate, though, Sertor had slipped past him and waved his hand at Leon, sending another burst of lightning his way.

Leon raised his arm again, using all the magic power he could force out of himself to block the blast. Sertor’s practically unrestrained blast was a refreshingly new way to use lightning magic that Leon had never tried before. It lacked the direction of a bolt, and thus lacked power compared to what Leon was used to using, but it clearly required much less time for Sertor to use than Leon needed to conjure a bolt. In fact, the Legion knight seemed—in Leon’s eyes, at least—to have far more in common with a fire mage letting loose with a massive gout of flame than anything Leon had ever used his lightning magic for.

Still, the golden lightning hit Leon’s sphere of power like a stream hitting a boulder, splitting around it and distorting until it hit the ground. A few stray arcs lit up Lapis’ injured leg, but the stone giant barely seemed to register that as it slowly turned to face Sertor again.

“I’m fine, Lapis!” Leon shouted, not wanting the stone giant to interfere in this duel. He’d undeniably have the advantage if the giant joined in, but this was something he wanted to do himself. Sertor was more than a threat, he was an unspoken challenge not just to him as a knight and not even just to him as a lightning mage; it was to the last remaining heir of the Thunderbird that Sertor was making his challenge.

Lapis’ voice of grinding stones indicated reluctance to leave Leon, but when Leon bolted forward, his sword glittering with sparks and small arcs of lightning, the stone giant had little choice left. It was fast for its size, but not nearly as much as a pair of sixth-tier lightning mages. It turned its attention elsewhere.

Leon didn’t take too much notice of Lapis’ subsequent actions. His attention was fixed on Sertor—who quickly swapped his hammer back out for his sword—with only as much attention devoted to his surroundings as he could get away with. Lightning surged through his veins, silver-blue in color until the moment it left his body, taking on a golden hue to match that of Sertor.

This lightning formed a bolt in Leon’s off hand, a long spear of lightning that charged the air and caused Sertor’s hair to stand on end. Accompanied with a tremendous clap of thunder, Leon hurled the bolt with all the power he could muster. In a flash, the bolt exploded upon the breastplate of the Legion knight, charring the bright, shiny metal black and hurling the knight onto his back.

And yet, Sertor rose to his feet, seemingly none the worse for wear, though his armor was significantly more tarnished. The only proper injury Leon could locate on the man was a small burn on his cheek just barely visible on the edge of his visor from an errant arc of lightning.

“You are strong,” Sertor stated, locking eyes with Leon. His anger had cooled from the pain of Leon’s retaliatory strike, but it hadn’t completely dissipated. “Stop this, there is still time to salvage your honor and show the proper respect to Prince Trajan’s memory by upholding his ideals. I don’t want to kill anyone today…”

“I could do that,” Leon replied, his smile not faltering in the slightest. “However, I don’t think I will.”

With that admission, he raised his stance again and lunged at Sertor.

Their blades met between them with the titanic roar of thunder. Again and again they struck at each other, neither able to decisively seize the advantage. Leon’s aggressive style was mitigated by Sertor’s thick armor, while Sertor’s own counter-strikes either glanced off Leon’s armor, were deflected by his blade, or were dodged completely.

It was like a bright dance, both combatants weaving in and around each other, each sparking and practically glowing as lightning magic filled their bodies and uncontrollably lanced out at their opponent when they drew close enough.

Sertor was clearly growing more and more infuriated, while Leon only smiled wider and wider, his glee visible even from behind his helmet at such a fight too much for his stoicism to bear. In fact, Leon’s obvious, unabashed joy only added to Sertor’s anger and frustration.

“VILLAIN! I WILL NOT LOSE!” the Legion knight bellowed as he parried another of Leon’s blows and took that most brief of moments to lunge backward and create some distance. Leon closed that distance as quickly as he could, but Sertor’s aura already indicated an imminent blast of lightning was coming his way.

Sure enough, Sertor pointed a palm at Leon and a bolt of golden lightning erupted from his skin. It glowed brighter than anything else he’d thrown Leon’s way, indicating a much greater amount of power packed into it. Still, Leon didn’t hesitate to reach out with his own power, attempting to seize control of the lightning.

The bolt burst forth, but upon coming into contact with Leon’s power, it slowed to a spectacular crawl. Sertor pushed harder, determined as he was to force it to connect with Leon. Leon pushed back, not willing to try and divert its path. Once again, the two men locked eyes, their eyes clearly visible in the visors of their helmets in the golden light generated by the lightning bolt trapped between them.

The lightning itself seemed almost a liquid substance suspended between them. It twitched one way, then the other as Leon and Sertor fought for its domination. Its surface roiled and crackled, angrily twitching as each momentarily gained tiny advantages that were quickly quashed by the other. Tiny arcs of lightning began to be ejected from the larger bolt as power it couldn’t contain flowed into it from both sides, turning the air between both men hot and filling it with the smell of ozone. None of the arcs reached Leon or Sertor, though, with all that came close bending around them like they were magnetically repulsed.

Neither gave in. A minute passed like an eternity as they struggled for control, neither willing to give so much as an inch. It was a game of strength, and to lose would be to humiliate themselves before all who were bearing witness to their duel.

And nearly every person on both sides could see it, for after Sertor’s order to charge, the Legion hadn’t. Not a single soldier had moved, and even the knights hadn’t fired a single arrow into their ranks. They simply stood and stared at each other, no one willing to break the tenuous peace even as shouting and the sounds of battle began to be heard from the north.

The only two who were fighting in the south were Leon and Sertor. Even Lapis, after deeming Leon to be relatively safe from outside interference, stood aside and observed the fighting, the cracks in its leg inflicted by Sertor slowly closing up.

Two minutes passed. Two minutes that seemed like an eternity, and both Leon and Sertor were covered in sweat. They began roaring in exertion so close together that it was practically in unison, yet the lightning bolt between them didn’t move much, though Leon could swear that it was just a little bit closer to Sertor than it had started—or maybe that was just wishful thinking, for even if it was closer to Sertor, it was only by a marginal distance.

Sertor broke first. He was fighting to bring Leon and the rest of the knights to justice, not to show his strength. With as much strength as he could spare, he pressed down upon the bolt, slowly bending it until it resembled a shallow U shape. The shape became more and more pronounced as Sertor pressed further—the bolt couldn’t be moved forward or backward with its points stuck in Sertor’s and Leon’s clashing magical ‘fields’, so there was only one way he could end this stalemate that he could see.

The middle of the U touched the ground, and the bolt exploded with immense force. A tremendous shockwave hurled Sertor and Leon back dozens of feet, with both landing so hard that they rolled even farther. The crater that the bolt left behind was deep, and the thunder that had resounded over the entire battlefield caused some of the weakest members of both groups to clutch their ears in pain.

It took a moment for the dust to clear and both combatants to rise to their feet. Leon was a little faster, but his face burned in humiliation behind his helmet. He was the last heir of the Thunderbird’s awesome power, and yet he hadn’t been able to defeat another ‘common’ lightning mage in a contest of strength.

His smile was gone. His joy in such a challenge was rapidly replaced with killing intent.

“You’ve done well, traitor…” Sertor growled as he struggled to his feet.

Leon was gratified a bit to see that the knight was in a much worse state of affairs than he; Leon’s black Magmic Steel armor hadn’t been meaningfully damaged in the blast, with the defensive enchantments woven into the metal and the Skyflax padding absorbing most of the magic. Sertor’s plate armor was clearly of inferior magical defense, as its shiny gray exterior hadn’t just been tarnished and burned black, but it had even melted in places.

“… but peace must be maintained! I cannot allow you to continue!” Sertor took a few staggering steps toward Leon, while Leon began to run forward, both circling around the crater to reach the other.

However, Sertor stopped as he finally noticed that his Legion hadn’t followed his order to charge. Even Leon stopped as this fact finally dawned on him. Neither side was fighting right now—at least, on their side. The sounds of battle coming from the north indicated that the 1st Legion hadn’t had the same reluctance to kill their fellow Bull Kingdom citizens as the 2nd seemed to.

Or maybe they were just more disciplined, or they bought into Octavius’ version of events more. To Leon, it didn’t matter that much why they were fighting, only that right now, they were.

“It seems your people are hesitant to spill their countrymen’s blood, Sir Knight,” Leon said as he and Sertor closed with each other, both a little wary but not quite going at the same level they had just been. Seeing their fellow’s watching their actions without fighting themselves was a sobering sight, and it cooled their boiling killing intent substantially.

“It’s a feeling I can understand,” Sertor responded, his blackened sword at the ready even as his tone softened and his body language relaxed just a little.

“As can I,” Leon agreed, his actions somewhat mirroring Sertor’s. “I don’t want to kill you, if possible. You’re the first lightning mage I’ve ever truly fought, and I’ve learned quite a bit.”

“The same is true for me…” Sertor replied.

The two stood in silence, staring at each other, neither willing to make the next move but not quite trusting the other not to take advantage of a lapse in attention.

“My duty is clear…” Sertor slowly said as he took a few hesitant steps in Leon’s direction. “I must bring traitors to justice. This is a rebellion. I must put it down.”

“We are not rebels, Sir Sertor, we only want justice for Prince Trajan,” Leon responded, standing firm as Sertor approached but taking no steps forward of his own. He could see the uncertainty in Sertor’s blade as it quivered in the other man’s grasp, and he meant it when he said that he didn’t particularly want to kill him if he didn’t have to.

Of course, that wouldn’t stop Leon from doing so if Sertor forced the issue, but Leon’s reluctance remained. Fortunately, it seemed like he wouldn’t have to, as the surety and conviction in his short statement gave the other knight pause. Leon hoped it meant that Sertor was doubting his stance, but there was no way for him to be sure.

A horn sounded over the chaos of the battle. Leon recognized it as the one that was to be sounded when the bridge had been completed. He was a little surprised, since he knew that the bridge hadn’t been that close to completion before he and Roland had seen the first ranks of the 1st and 2nd Legions, and it had only been maybe half an hour since. Still, he was forced to accept it as the knightly lines rippled in retreat. The knights were moving from their elevated positions and trenches toward the bridge, and if Leon didn’t want to be left behind, he’d have to follow.

“Let’s go!” Leon shouted to Lapis, and he and the stone giant took off running for their comrades.

Sertor gave chase, not quite willing to let them go just yet, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore. Leon and Lapis quickly outpaced him, and Sertor had to stop at the trenches in front of the earthen fortifications or he would be cut off from the support of his own Legion, which was only just now starting to slowly advance.

He could see the knights of Trajan’s retinue falling back in orderly lines, Leon, Lapis, and the rest of the sixth-tier mages on the south side watching him with mistrust. They were right there, but for all intents and purposes, they had escaped him.