The Amber Sword

Chapter 53 – Planeswalker

The undead monster took a giant stride and raised its axe. Even though there was a wall behind Brendel and the monster, he was experienced enough to know that he was within attacking distance, and his heart raced quickly. He was unable to think of any solution and the only way he could think of was to sacrifice an arm to save his life.

He was already prepared to make a decision like that.

But at this moment, he clashed into an impossibly attractive young man who was about the age of twenty five who came from the corner. He had silver hair and purple eyes, and his lips were pursed tightly together in an gloomy expression. Behind him were two men wearing a uniform that was deep blue in color, complete with silver colored armor, a long sword attached to the belt, and the pauldrons had silver scales on them.

They wore the formal uniform of the Silver-winged Cavalry.

The young man was the illegitimate son of the Grinores duke, Lord Tirste, who worked directly for the commander of the Silver-winged Cavalry, with the rank of Master Sergeant. He was slightly surprised when he saw Brendel, as if he remembered something, but his expression quickly darkened. He did not say anything and immediately thrust the rapier into Brendel’s heart.

His movements was blindingly fast; his hand did not shake and was accurate. It was something akin to drawing a very fine line with a silver thread, and anyone would have found it difficult to perceive it.

Brendel was particularly alert from the battle with the undead monster. He immediately realized that the person in front of him was hostile and not friendly. As he did not know how strong the person was, he could only try to cover his vitals and turn to one side.

Tirste was slightly taken aback. He did not expect for a normal Iron-ranked mercenary to be so alert. As the adjustment to the blade’s trajectory was late, it only streaked across Brendel’s shoulder like a venomous snake, bringing a spurt of blood into the air.

Brendel uttered a guttural noise and fell backwards together with the sword’s thrust. He saw Tirste’s attack clearly.

[Mid-rank Knight’s swordsmanship. This person is at least a Gold-ranked fighter. If he wasn’t a little distracted in his attack, I would have been a corpse. When did I offend a high ranking Third-tier fighter? And for someone like his age, he must be a ‘Blessed’ person.]

Brendel was not wrong. His opponent was not only a ‘Blessed’ person, he was also one of the bishop within The Unifying Guild (A candidate for the Unifying Guild’s elder.). He was prouder than most people his age because of his achievements.

But this pride had been wounded for the second time when it came to Brendel. Tirste had never failed before, but it was a fact that his plan went awry when Amandina went missing, and he had been in a foul mood ever since.

The Unifying Guild had received news that Amandina’s lineage could have been related to the Seifer’s dynasty one hundred years ago. There was the concern of a great secret, but he thought that the young noble lady was not going to escape and it would not matter, until she disappeared before his eyes. He might have a frivolous expression when he did things, but he was very thorough internally.

It was the first time he tasted failure.

This young man in front of him. The recent information they gathered pointed that the information they had a while ago was wrong. Based on the information from various locations, the Unifying Guild in Bruglas was certain that there was a leader above Leto. Tirste had suspected Brendel ever since he appeared with Batum for the first time.

Though it was merely a suspicion, he did not keep it to heart, and he certainly did not expect to meet Brendel in this place. The instant he saw him he decided to test him out.

His method of testing was killing the person.

Even he killed wrongly, it was fine. After all, Brendel was just a nameless mercenary.

But Tirste did not expect Brendel to give him a surprise. A monstrous surprise.

Brendel’s fall was in between the two soldiers and Tirste. With a roll, he was behind the three men. Tirste was still puzzled over Brendel’s actions and wanted to stab Brendel again, but the wall in front of him suddenly broke apart, with the Crusader Executioner red helmet peeking out from the crevice. The axe came next as it smashed through the crumbling wall and onto Tirste.

Tirste was astonished and he immediately parried the axe with his sword. The blast of wind from the sword made the crumbling rocks fly backwards, but his voice was hoarse.

“Executioner!”

The undead monster realized that Tirste had managed to block its axe with the slender sword, and the Soul Fire within his eyes flickered. It formed its right fingers into claws and went straight for his chest.

Any normal human behind would have his body ruptured by the attack, but Tirste calmly used his left hand and stopped the undead monster’s attack. He did not move much, but under the grasp of his left hand, the skeleton’s fingers could not move.

“Catch that young man!” Tirste did not dare to underestimate his opponent even if he was a Gold-ranked fighter, and he could only order his subordinates capture Brendel at this moment.

But Brendel was far more capable than he thought. He had already considered the possibility of having the Crusader Executioner fight with the bastard. Even before the undead monster’s attack, he had already slipped away to find the scroll.

[It’s just outside this room! … If the Wind Spider Spirit did not get it wrong this time.]

Brendel smashed the door open. The first thing that he saw were the medicine on the table. He recognized it easily because this medicine was the same one that Tamar and he had made.

[It found the wrong item…]

Then he stopped. He went to the table and picked up the box, and he stopped breathing for a moment. In it was the familiar yellow goatskin parchment lying quietly int he box.

[This is it. This scroll can save my life. With the Holy Sword Card, I can use a Tier two attack, even if it’s just for a while, I can face even a Gold-ranked fighter and escape from him!]

He bit his thumb to open a wound on it, and rubbed the blood in the center of the parchment.

It was that simple to form a contract with the Elements—

The parchment glowed and started burning from the corners. It was a fire from another world, from the Element Flames within the abyss Barborda, and it was also know as the Contract Flame. The Element Flame was first used when Mother Marsha established the first contract with the Fire Spirit King.

Once the contract was established, the patterns on the scroll would randomly appear on the back of Brendel’s hand, and it was known as the Element Emblem, and also known as the symbol of Elementalists.

Brendel checked his emblem, and found that it was the most common Fire Emblem. He sighed as he had hoped to have gotten something special. He did not hope for Tulman’s saintly emblems that had all six elements, but he at least hoped to get three or four on his hand. A single emblem meant that he did not really have a future as an Elementalist.

[It’s fortunate that I’m not going to become an Elementalist…]

The contract establishment was reflected in his retina. The green color words indicated that his Elemental Pool was formed. There were six cells for all his Elements, with the exception of the Fire Element, which had seven. With that, Brendel knew that he did not have the potential to become an Elementalist.

A player in the game had seventeen cells for every element, as well as a usable Light and Dark pool. It was the same as a ‘Blessed’ person.

To describe Brendel’s status, he was like the most unsuitable common man to become a wizard or Elementlist, and had the unbelievable luck to use a scroll.

[Let’s see… If I remember correctly, casting one Flame arrow requires three cells of that Flame EP, which kind of means I can cast two basic magic spells every week. Something like Ciel’s basic magic arrow.]

Even though he did not intend to become an Elementalist, Brendel felt like he was going to cry over his horrible Elemental Pool.

He called out the system as he heard footsteps outside the door. He did not know if it’s the young man who was a Gold-ranked fighter, and he wanted to grab the medicine on the table. But he failed to grab on to anything, and he suddenly realized that he was somehow not inside the auction site anymore.

He was in a place with the surroundings in infinite darkness—

[What? All the things in the room are gone… What’s with this darkness, I have never seen this before…. Wait, the only time this darkness happened was when I died. Shit! Did I die already? But this isn’t a game! What the hell is going on?!]

He surveyed his surroundings and wondered if was under an illusion spell.

[But that’s pointless to cast a spell like this. In fact there’s no illusion spell that functions like this. If it affects my soul, then my Unyielding talent will activate. There’s no way I don’t feel anything.]

Brendel found himself at a loss for words in the next moment.

He saw a young man walking out from the darkness. He had blood-red eyes and long black hair that reached his shoulders. He smiled at Brendel, with his long slender hand that looked like it belonged to a woman brushing across his robes.

“It looks like you’re very confused?”The young man said.

Brendel recognized the robe on the young man. But the crimson emblems that intersected each other in four directions on the sleeves made him pause.

A high level Elementalist who held a Twelve-circle spell was able to become a Spirit user, and an envoy for the Spirit King, and would have one flower emblem on his sleeve.

Two flower emblems meant he was a Grandmaster.

Three flower emblems are considered Sages.

[Four flower emblems? Elemental Emperor, Tulman? This young man looks like he fits the legendary description from Mirrna’s records. Black hair with blood red irides, a follower of the Dark Dragon.]

He hesitated for a long, and did not dare to confirm if he was the legendary figure.

[Didn’t he die a few thousand years ago?]

But the young man seemed to see past his questions and nodded.

“Indeed, I am Tulman.”

“You’re Tulman?” Brendel was so shocked that he forgot his surroundings. “How is that possible?”

“That is not important, Brendel,” He replied. “My last contractor had perished three hundred years ago, and the previous person who brought the cards here did not wish to give up on his path as a knight. What I did not expect was to find a new successor just after a few decades.”

He stopped and gave a smile. “What I mean is, would you like to stop here for a while and listen about the tale of the Planeswalker?”

“Planeswalker?”

Brendel was stunned.