Chapter: Oathbreaker

Erik left the village square and went to the barracks, it was quiet as the sergeants were either asleep, with their families or on patrol of the village walls.

One could hear Rugrat still working away in the smithy.

Erik stretched out before he moved to do squats, burpees and situps. He went through one hundred of each with little to no fatigue.

It felt like more of a warm up as he stood up and started punching and kicking, it had been a long time since he had done a class on close combat fighting techniques.

He took his time through the different movements, going through them again and again, the more he moved the more he remembered, the memories buried deep in his muscles.

After he felt he had a handle on it, he started to incorporate the mana fighting techniques, using mana in concert with his muscles to increase his striking power.

The strain was less on his body than it had been before and he could increase the amount of mana channeled through his body and the duration he could do it for.

Erik then started to incorporate the mana bullet spell into his close quarters fighting, shooting at the archery targets, he limited the power greatly so it wouldn’t make enough noise to wake those sleeping.

“It’s painful just watching you,” Rugrat said from the door of the smithy as he rolled up his sleeves, showing the tattoo sleeves that ran up both of his arms.

A simple bow appeared in one hand as he pulled out a quiver of failed arrows and put them over his shoulder.

“What you thinking?” Erik asked warily, facing Rugrat.

“Bit of arrow skeet, I’ll shoot arrows at you, destroy them or dodge them?” Rugrat said.

“This doesn’t sound like a…” Erik didn’t finish what he was saying as Rugrat strung an arrow and fired at Erik.

Erik advanced towards Rugrat, the arrow hit his shoulder, missing his head, it made him wince, but it would have cut another person, leaving them with a deep bone bruise, maybe even a break.

Erik had no time to stop as Rugrat had already fired his second arrow.

Erik threw out his fist, the rush of air threw the arrow off target slightly as it sailed past, Erik grimace he wanted to destroy the arrow.

He threw out his fists trying to break the arrows that were coming at his body. Erik grunted if they struck his body, opening him up for more attacks, after twenty arrows he had pushed five to the side and he had failed to destroy a single one, the others had all hit him.

Rugrat had another arrow on his bow, ready to fire as he looked at Erik.

“Come on,” Erik said.

Being able to alter the direction of arrows with just the power in his body, it was incredible, certainly not something that was possible back on Earth. Erik was determined to destroy the arrows in flight.

Some karate shit, maybe even catch a fly with chopsticks!

Erik didn’t have anymore time as Rugrat started moving through the barracks, shooting arrows at him.

Erik not only had to fight back and try to hit the arrows so they wouldn’t hit them, he had to keep on moving to adjust to the new attacks.

He was surprised by Rugrat’s ability.

Rugrat paused another twenty arrows later, Erik’s breathing was more forced but he was still filled with energy, his stamina recovering quickly.

“You’re level fifteen,” Erik accused.

“Yeah made a breakthrough a few days ago,” Rugrat smiled unapologetically.

Erik was happy for his friend, but he felt that he was falling behind further and further. Rugrat had been able to find someone to talk about his craft with, he had also been able to find plenty of supplies to work with. Erik needed either wounded people or information manuals and technique books.

He wasn’t going to start hurting people and trying to heal them up. The ten realms system wasn’t stupid and gave little to no experience to people for healing themselves or others that they had hurt on purpose.

If it was someone that they intended to hurt and then healed afterwards it was a different story. The ten realms wasn’t like a video game in that respect, it seemed to read everyone’s intentions instead of making judgements based on its settings.

Right now Erik was increasing his ability in hand to hand, since he didn’t use it against anyone or anything then he didn’t gain any experience.

This was like how Rugrat had studied different smithing manuals and information that they had collected in beast mountain. Once he had access to a smithy and gained a basic understanding his skill had shot upwards.

It was like when someone took a class, they would learn tons of information, but it was only at the end when there was a test would they get a final grade on it.

The test could also show them what they didn’t understand and draw attention to those areas so that they might do better in later tests.

“Alright, let’s see what you’ve got,” Erik said.

Rugrat fired an arrow as Erik fought back, the two of them using the other to hone their skills.

***

Unseen by them both was Glosil and Sergeant Niemm, they had been checking on the different patrols and checking on the village. When they returned to the barracks.

They stood at the entrance of the barracks watching as Erik used his fists to fight against Rugrat’s rain of arrows, they moved almost too fast to be seen with the human eye and Rugrat’s speed at drawing and firing had reached an unreal level.

Glosil and Niemm didn’t say a thing, the two of them staying stock still as they watched the two.

Niemm realized something, his heart shaking.

“Are they smiling?” Niemm asked.

Glosil nodded his head.

“For some people, proving their skill and improving it, there is nothing greater in the ten realms. It looks like Erik and Rugrat are pitting their skills up against one another, using the other to improve while also showing off their abilities. To them there is the threat of damage, but it allows them to get as close to a real fight as possible without a fatal threat.”

“Why do I have the feeling that we haven’t seen their full capabilities yet?” Niemm asked.

The two of them watched as Erik started to hit more and more of the arrows out of the air, his fists actually making contact with them now as the shafts exploded.

Erik let out a laugh, working harder to make the arrows explode.

Rugrat continued to move, making it harder for Erik to dodge or stop the arrows, the two of them started to reveal more of their abilities creating a terrifying display.

Erik started to adjust the amount of power he put out as the fight continued on, Rugrat showing no signs of stopping.

His attacks were concentrated and gauged, looking to use just enough power to destroy the arrows and move his body instead of wasting it all in a few explosive movements.

Glosil watched as Erik’s speed decreased, but his movements flowed from one to the next, turning graceful and making him seem like a tree in the wind instead of a shield turning to face the enemy.

Rugrat’s movements became cleaner and lost wasted effort to increase the speed that he could fire.

He even started firing without aiming, using different techniques to alter the arrow’s path so that they were harder to defend against.

Occasionally an arrow would hit Erik, or Erik would destroy an arrow.

Rugrat paused some time later the two of them breathing heavily now, Rugrat had reached for another arrow but there weren’t any left.

“Again!” Erik said, even as he was breathing heavy there was a fire in his eyes a look of excitement.

“Rugrat pulled out another quiver, he took a second and then started firing at Erik, faster than before, it was like they had surpassed their previous limits! In the face of challenging one another they wanted to fight as much as possible.

Niemm and Glosil looked to one another with bitter expressions, they had thought that their fighting strength wasn’t bad, but seeing these two they felt that they had a long way to go.

Who would be insane enough to fire arrows at their friend? Or try to destroy them in the air and then laugh about it? Is our training methods just not that good? Neimm wondered to himself.

He kept watching, unconsciously moving his hands and altering his stance to try and gain an understanding of their movements and learn from their fight.

***

Blaze felt something was wrong he sat up in his bed as a notification screen appeared in front of his vision.

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Oathbreaker

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Lord Salyn has broken his oath and no longer swears to protect and care for Alva Village

Alva Village is now a free village

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Blaze looked at the information.

“He broke his oath, removing Alva village from his protection, but he sent Erik and Rugrat? That doesn’t make sense.”