I Became the Teacher of the Imperial Family’s Bastard

061. The Night Becomes a Cradle (3)

During the three days he spent learning the spell slash from Yuren, Kallios had been constantly pondering.

What is the essence of the sword?

How should one wield it?

These were questions born not from any deep contemplation, but from pure desire.

Indeed, hadn’t it always been the case from the moment he first got hit by Yuren until now?

Whenever that guy’s sword essence emerged, he couldn’t do anything and just got beaten.

It was a matter of pride.

Kallios hated losing to anyone and hated being judged as inferior to someone.

Acknowledging that Yuren was exceptional was one thing, but admitting that the gap between them was an insurmountable chasm was another.

Thus, Kallios earnestly wished to acquire the sword essence.

He speculated that if he mastered it, he could surpass Yuren. Moreover, knowing that the spell slash was a byproduct of the sword essence, his dedication to learning it was profound.

The reason he never said to stop, even while making dying sounds, was because of that.

To conclude, yes.

Another failure in obtaining the sword technique.

But,

Slaaash!

He succeeded in learning the spell slash.

The fake’s eyes widened as if they were about to tear apart.

Kallios regulated his breathing.

He blocked the attack but couldn’t let his guard down.

‘As expected, it’s not easy.’

The reason he could perform the spell slash without knowing the sword technique was because he perfectly mimicked Yuren’s stance.

He imitated the strength of gripping the sword, the angle of the arm’s movement, the direction in which breath, strength, and mana were transmitted at that moment.

In other words, it was a half-baked spell slash.

Therefore, the success rate was also less than 100%.

The moment the fake noticed that was the moment the superiority was reversed.

Kallios felt mental pressure and charged towards him.

Bang!

The barrier blocked the sword.

The artifact surrounding the fake’s body began to shine and magic started to be emitted.

Should he block each one?

Should he dodge?

Wrong.

Creak!

Kallios cast the spell slash on the barrier.

It was relatively easy to slash a stationary barrier.

Crunch!

Evade with a frontal breakthrough, then a horizontal slash.

The fake gritted his teeth and retreated.

The magic was still changing its trajectory and rushing towards Kallios.

“Not a chance.”

He could have avoided it, but he didn’t.

In the end, battle is a game of wits.

Each reveals their hand one by one, and the one who judges the superiority wins.

According to Yuren, that’s how it was.

―It’s about making them think. If you make the fake recognize that cutting through the spell dispels the magic? If you plant the ‘illusion’ that the success rate is 100%? The fake’s offensive will surely become cautious. Caution, in other words, means passivity. It creates more opportunities to strike.

The fake had to ‘believe’ that he was perfectly dispelling the magic.

Kallios also acknowledged that this would create an opening.

So Kallios held his breath.

He awakened his senses.

Sharpened his five senses to detect every anomaly around him.

Possible scenarios of dispelling it floated in and out of his mind.

Accelerated thoughts completed the task in a moment.

Thus, he made his move.

Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-bang!!!

Kallios moved so quickly that his form seemed to blur as he dispelled the magic.

Of course, he didn’t cut through everything.

There was a small trick hidden.

He cut through the explosive magic to create a mist.

In that mist, he cut what needed to be cut, blocked what couldn’t be cut with a barrier, or altered the trajectory to make it collide with other magic.

What would happen if he did that while his vision was obscured?

Sss―

What the fake saw was only the initial situation of ‘Kallios cutting through the magic’ and the result of ‘Kallios being unscathed.’

Kallios forced a calm smile.

The fake felt a sense of crisis from that smile.

He must not be given time to think.

With that judgment, Kallios charged again.

He didn’t just charge.

He exploded mana around him to hinder movement.

He sent sword energy to restrain the activation of artifacts.

The fake understood all of that.

“`

And then, he made the best move he could.

The master who ruled Igrosia for ten years, even if he were to die soon.

Time had given him what could be called experience.

“…A vicious b*stard.”

His eyes settled coldly.

It was right after.

“Can you block this too?”

The fake ring shone.

The ground rippled, and immediately after, it transformed and a spear shot up.

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From right beneath Kallios’ feet.

“Ugh!”

Clang!

Kallios blocked the attack with a mana shield.

In other words, his offensive momentarily halted.

‘A gap…!’

Kallios recognized him.

A hollow laugh escaped.

‘So this is how it’s going to be.’

Ah, it’s because of Beatrice.

Magic, of course, includes not only elemental magic or projectile magic but also debuffs and physical magic, which he had overlooked.

The cause could only be that woman.

Blocking only elemental magic for three days straight had narrowed his vision.

But, it wasn’t a crisis.

Not yet.

“What do you plan to do with this?”

Thud!

Using the risen ground as a foothold, he kicked off.

Kallios’ speed was such that it was hard to follow with the eyes.

The tip of his sword aimed at the fake.

A rushing thrust, blocked by a barrier.

“`

The imposter added magic with a grimly twisted expression.

Debuff.

It was the moment it activated.

Kallios made a mistake.

‘Hit and stab.’

Lack of combat experience.

Except for the Orc Champion, a life without much experience in duels with strong opponents.

Kallios, who was not sensitive enough to being damaged, took the debuff with his body.

Without even knowing what kind of debuff it was, he made a shallow calculation that he could end the battle with this one move.

The debuff was a magic that restricted speed.

The imposter succeeded in evading.

Moreover, the phenomenon that occurred rewrote a concept in the imposter’s perception.

Kallios cannot nullify all magic.

His magic nullification is limited.

As the perception he had painstakingly built crumbled, the imposter’s offensive became rougher.

Kallios had no choice but to acknowledge his mistake belatedly.

* * *

The fundamental cause of the crisis was the difference in perception.

Kallios was a strong man.

He had lived and would continue to live as a strong man all his life.

He was the type to face crises head-on.

Rather than dealing with something, he preferred to break the opponent’s response.

But the imposter was different.

He knew he was an imposter.

He knew his talent was meager.

So he had spent his whole life devising ways to compensate for it.

In other words, his greatest weapon was ‘caution.’

Why did he leave an opponent he wanted to tear apart immediately alone?

It was partly to save her, but also to gather enough forces to make the battle feasible.

That means he had assessed the situation cautiously.

Such tendencies were no different now, with the plan having failed and the situation turning into a battle.

The impostor keenly felt that he could not defeat Kallios head-on.

Thus, he mobilized all the artifacts he had and made only thoroughly calculated attacks.

The analysis never ceased.

In moments of being cornered, the survival instinct accelerated his thoughts, and his perception reached the point of grasping every single action of Kallios.

He assembled the clues.

After cutting through the initial magic, Kallios rarely showed the act of cutting through magic head-on.

After breaking the barrier, he avoided other magic, and handled the magic poured out in bundles within the mist.

Had he really cut through all the magic?

Along with the doubt, he realized that physical magic could pose a threat to Kallios.

He tested it with that.

If the complete destruction of magic was not achieved, the number of usable moves would increase.

The guess was correct.

Kallios was hit directly by the slowing debuff.

Another opportunity was given, and the impostor activated more diverse magic in various forms.

What is the greatest advantage of artifacts?

It was that they did not consume costs.

If there were dozens of artifacts, dozens of magic would be activated simultaneously.

In this case, each of those artifacts was a rare item.

The most precious magics in all of Igrosia, the heritage of the ancients, the crystallization of the new era, surged towards Kallios.

Kallios was busy blocking them.

He cut through debuffs of a different curse level than before.

But if he did so, he had to fend off elemental attacks with mana.

Then, the gap, physical magic, would grab Kallios by the ankle and try to strike his head.

If he seized the victory, he would not let go.

If he gained momentum, he would carry it to the end.

If the prey was wounded, it was the battle of Igrosia to bite and hold on to the end without giving a chance to recover.

The impostor also used the artifact he had saved until then.

It was… an artifact that required a price.

“An eye as a sacrifice.”

Kiiiiing―!

The fake’s left eyeball lost its light.

Blood tears seeped out.

But the price of one-sided vision was certain.

Blood droplets floated up and gathered.

They became a weapon and rushed towards Kallios.

It was an artifact containing the forbidden art of the night race, vampires, temporarily allowed at the cost of the body.

Sssshaaak―!

Each one became a sharp dagger and began to slash Kallios’s entire body.

At that moment, the fake felt a burning thirst.

It wasn’t just because he was using the power of a vampire.

‘Revenge…!’

Revenge on that wicked human who tore her apart.

Punishment for the one who took away his only light.

The thirst soon turned into pain, but he couldn’t stop.

To the fake, she was the meaning of life.

She was the sunlight that shone on the life that licked the filth at the bottom of the sewer.

Since she left, there was always a dream he longed for.

The dream that the boy you saved grew up like this and brought sunlight to Igrosia.

That was the dream.

But that dream collapsed.

Even though he barely got a chance to save her, the foundation was crumbling due to the tyrant’s oppression.

He had to get his due.

They couldn’t live under the same sky.

The burning hatred was contained in the blood droplets and began to crush him along with the magic.

“Die. Miserably. With regret.”

It was the moment he ended it.

“Kuh…!”

Kallios vomited blood.

Kallios looked even more wretched than when he faced the Orc Champion.

It wasn’t about his physical state.

No, it was the emotional wounds that were far worse.

The Orc Champion was an opponent he knew he couldn’t defeat, so he could accept the loss.

But now, look at this, an opponent he was confident he could beat.

He had even been trained on how to defeat him.

Yet here he was, on the brink of collapse due to a mere error in judgment.

This was crushing Kallios’s pride, which was almost synonymous with his identity.

‘Lose? Here? Me?’

The more that thought filled his mind, the hotter his head became.

Being crushed by magic was of no importance; his entire being was focused on the possibility of that event happening.

His breath caught.

His body trembled.

His expression twisted.

The trembling of his heart hurt more than the wounds on his body.

That was the moment he crossed the threshold.

‘…Don’t make me laugh.’

Something snapped in Kallios’s mind.

“You damn b*stard.”

Boom―!

Suddenly, Kallios’s mana changed its nature.

His eyes turned bloodshot as he glared at the fake.

Flinch―!

The fake’s body trembled.

It was a purely instinctive reaction.

A sense of crisis surged madly.

Even amidst that, the transformation accelerated.

Rumble―!

The spells began to waver.

The moment he revealed his emotions, covered in blood, the phenomenon intensified even more.

Eventually,

Jjae-aeng―!

The magic broke one by one.

Kallios staggered to his feet and gripped his sword so tightly that the veins on the back of his hand bulged.

“Enough is enough. You don’t know your place. You don’t know your limits. You worm-like b*stard.”

He should be called a wounded lion.

A lion bitten by a small beast he had ignored.

There was no better expression than that.

After all, wasn’t his pride and belief in his own greatness shaken?

His anger towards that fake who created such a situation was immense, and the only way to resolve it was through overwhelming victory.

So,

“…I’ll kill you. Thoroughly enough to erase the meaning of your struggle.”

That thing had to die miserably.

It was a phenomenon and result calculated only by Yuren.

Why did Yuren not come here together and act separately?

It was necessary to reconsider the answer.

No matter how many times it was said, it was not enough.

Kallios van Orteer.

At this point, he was a man born with the most brilliant talent on the continent, and another name for the word talent, lacking only experience.

The threat of death was merely nourishment that made him grow steeply.

Tsu-tsu-tsu―!

The mana of the space was suppressed.

All the control of the magic remaining around Kallios was transferred to him.

The reason was that in the unexpected disadvantage, Kallios’s anger forcibly broke through his own level for the purpose of survival and restoration of pride.

In an abnormal form, his nature of ‘domination’ awakened in the expert state.