Dagger

"Give me it back.", Allen told the man that he was cornering by a tree. The former was holding the longsword-transformed Erchian Dagger and a curved sword [katana] on his other hand.

The man was none other than the devil that Allen made a deal with.

The two of them sustained a lot of wounds from battling each other, even Allen"s regenerative ability had a hard time healing his wounds.

"I don"t have it on me! Hahaha...! Kill me if you want to! I don"t have it! Hahahahaha....!", the devil made a crazed echoing laugh that could get somebody a chill down their spine.

***

Back at the present...

"A devil and I were battling over something. I thought I already cornered him, but he actually had a special tool for escaping.", Allen recalled a short part of what occurred.

"H-he battled a devil?" Edwin was extremely amazed by what Allen told. "He is so powerful!"

A thought then struck a kid and orally said it, "Wait, then why is the devil at the bottom of the pond?"

"It"s because it sealed itself. Me and that lesser devil were fighting in the corners of the Monarch Forest that time, so when it tried to escape with a special tool at the last minute, I wasn"t able to react on time and so, it almost escaped."

"Then, why is it here now?"

"When it used that special tool, the false devil just rushed to a random direction, which was actually towards the Eastern Horizon City. As it was about to escape from my sight, I think it sensed a powerful person from the city and immediately changed direction and went here and sealed itself. Maybe it was a sudden move, because that false devil thought that that person, who was the holy priest in the Eastern Horizon City, sensed him too.", Allen finished recalling the story.

"It was called "Snuffed Pond" by a cartographer who recently re-explored here and saw the fireless sun. However, that cartographer didn"t know that it was due to the effect of devilish magic, which was to show what is one"s real being; any kind of things, living or magical will be affected by it.", Allen added. "Lifeless objects too could be affected, but it would only show their more "essential" appearance."

After a pause, he said, "And so, there were also some magicians who found out about this place and investigated it, they found out that this place was filled with dense mana. I think they wanted to build a training grounds for other mana users here. However, they suddenly left, most likely is that they sensed the sealed false devil."

Hearing the whole story, Edwin couldn"t help but voice out, "You"re so powerful."

"No, in fact, I couldn"t even killed it with my strength."

"Umm... is it safe to look at my reflection?", Edwin asked. He was a bit curious about this pond.

"It"s safe.", Allen nodded.

Hearing the a.s.surance, Edwin approached the pond and looked at his reflection. He saw himself, still the same, but without any emotion and there are even hints of blood on his cheeks.

"What the!? What does this mean?", Edwin stumbled back.

"Probably means that you want to kill somebody, who you really hate.", Allen answered.

"Is this... the outcome?", Edwin asked again.

"Maybe it shows the outcome, maybe it doesn"t, maybe the past self, I conjectured it could show many things.", Allen replied. "Nevertheless, do not always believe in everything that is shown. The outside appearance is deceitful, and even more so your reflections."

"If it shows the outcome, why am I not looking happy?", Edwin muttered to himself.

Allen didn"t answer more questions and just told him to keep practicing, which he immediately followed.

Afterwards, Allen looked back to the pond to see his reflection and muttered, "But I know showing the future isn"t your forte, as there"s no such thing as "future-telling"; be it be through stars, through cards, even through magic... I am certain that even most powerful magician won"t be able to do that."

"So what was really shown?", Allen remembered what was Edwin"s reflection and looked to the direction where the latter left.

"Is it a lie or a truth?"

...

Hours pa.s.sed and it was already time to go back. On the way back, gray clouds started to cover the sky again, and the snowfall continued.

Under the cover of the snowfall, Allen and Edwin weren"t spotted by the sentry posts on the mountain, and the both of them safely made it back to the shop.

***

The next day, Allen and Edwin left for Snuffed Pond to train again.

This time, Allen was going to teach him how to battle with daggers.

"Do you know how to use the dagger techniques I let you read with internal energy?", Allen asked.

"I can only make dagger flashes, but they are too small.", Edwin sighed in disappointment.

"At least you"ve learned it, others would only be able to learn it by a day.", Allen said. Actually, the Dagger Flash that he wrote in the notebook was the same technique that he got from the Erchian Dagger, which was almost or already perfected, and was also the reason why Edwin could learn it so fast.

"We"re not going to use dagger skills yet.", Allen took out a dagger from his satchel and put his satchel to the ground while Edwin unsheated his double daggers.

The first to attack was Edwin, he has already been taught the basics on how to attack with daggers last night by Allen.

-clang-

The boy slashed down with the first dagger. On the other side, Allen easily blocked them, and at the same time the other dagger on Edwin"s hand stabbed forward, however, Allen easily blocked it again without moving from his original position!

"Add a few complex attacks with the daggers.", Allen said. "Your attacks are more predictable than a baby"s goal."

Hearing Allen"s tip, Edwin charged forward again and made several attacks with his daggers.

"Don"t just use the same pattern of attacking again and again.", Allen added as he blocked, parried, and even disarmed Edwin from time to time.

When the sparring session ended, it was time to learn how to use dagger skills, unlike yesterday, Allen was now teaching Edwin and the latter learned how to create a dagger flash. After the same amount of time spent yesterday pa.s.sed, the both of them went back.

The process above changed from time to time as Allen kept training the boy everyday until it was already a month later.

...

-clang- -clang- -clang-

Edwin and Allen were sparring while moving everywhere in the woods. This time, Allen was dodging some of the boy"s attacks while moving from his position unlike a month ago.

As their distance shortened a bit, Edwin sent out two flashes, each one from his two daggers. However, those dagger flashes suddenly split into more yet smaller ones, which was Multi-Flash.
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Rather than backing off, Allen dodged every single flash at close quarter, without his robes getting a cut and without using a skill!

Afterwards, Allen sent out dagger flashes, which was even faster than Edwin"s multi-flash, the latter initiated (Shadow Steps) but still had a hard time dodging, but he still successfully avoided them all.

Meanwhile, the trees behind him got a deep cut due to the flashes that Allen sent.

After which, the boy executed Burst Steps and stopped when he was nearly right in front of Allen.

Edwin semt out a flurry of attacks afterwards, but the other wasn"t seem to be bothered by them and was even blocking and parrying all the numerous attacks!

After Edwin"s attacks, Allen started to counterattack with stabs and slashes. Even though it was only normal attacks, Edwin still had trouble blocking, dodging, or even parrying them.

Seeing that he was going to be overwhelmed, the boy unhestatingly backed off and flickered away.

Edwin reappeared somewhere in the woods, but he didn"t waste any time and rushed away.

"d.a.m.n it, I used my only one of flicker for today!"

When the boy was already away from where he reappeared, Allen easily arrived there, and looked to the direction where Edwin went.

...

Edwin was still running and hopping from the branches from the trees, when he suddenly felt that something was coming!

He immediately went back down to the ground, but his action was a mistake because Allen reappeared right behind him and got a hold him while pointing the dagger towards his neck.

"You lose.", Allen said. However, Edwin slowly became transparent and disappeared!

"Hm?", Allen only held thin air and he muttered. "A clone."

-whoosh-

Edwin used Burst Steps from behind Allen and placed his dagger by the latter"s nape!

"You lose.", Edwin smirked.

"It"s an improvement." Allen said, "And you now know how to create a clone."

"Thanks.", Edwin sheated back all of his daggers, making a short chuckle due to the comment.

Allen: "Even with my reflexes, I wasn"t able to avoid it."

"You weren"t really being serious at me.", Edwin scratched the back of his head and humbly replied.

...

The both of them went back to the Snuffed Pond to get back all of their things that they left there and travelled back towards the Horizon Mountain.

"What am I going to do next, Allen?", Edwin asked.

"You are going to travel into the Monarch Forest and kill a bear.", Allen said.

"A bear?"

"Not just a bear, but a demonic bear. That bear has been a thorn inside the forest that even the pack of winter wolves wanted to finish it off, but I couldn"t finish it off yet because I"m too busy. Now, I think that"s the first task I"m going to give you.", Allen said.

"Alright.", Edwin nodded in response.

"Of course, you"re going in alone, I"m not going to help you.", Allen added.

"If you say so." Edwin sternly replied, but inwardly, he was feeling both nervousness and excitement.

Silence prevailed for a while on their walk until Edwin asked, "Do you think this strength enough?"

Allen made a short glance at the other, then answered, "To kill the person who killed your father?"

"How"d you know?" The boy was startled about Allen"s sentence.

"I can hear what you say from the bedroom."

"Oh, err... then yes.", he nodded.

"No, your strength isn"t enough." Allen replied as they proceeded through the woods, "In this world, there is nothing truly enough. It"s only because of intertwining imagination and man-made limits we thought that it is."

"How?"

"If you want something, then you obtain it, won"t you feel you yearn for more?" Allen said, "I saw a lot of people who are like that, they knew to themselves they wanted more, only never to openly tell it."

Edwin internally agreed with Allen"s sentence and mumbled, "There is nothing truly enough?"

"Then what am I doing isn"t enough too?"

[End of Volume 4: The New Horizon]