Chapter 17 The Magistrate

The Magistrate waited for Josiah to come at him with both arms crossed. The mocking smile on his face exposed his confidence. He hadn’t even begun making it easier to draw his weapons out of the huge number of belts and chains they were being held with among the heavy armory the man carried with him.

‘Did I really uttered all cockily I’m going to give this guy hell? What the f*ck is wrong with me?’ Josiah realized internally.

The Magistrate didn’t move an inch, even with Josiah stepping closer.

‘Forget it. Focus. If this dumbass won’t start fighting, I will.’

He charged trying to reproduce what he learned, but the small worries in the back of his mind may have turned it into a slower assault than he was accustomed to.

As soon as Josiah got close, he felt his left shoulder tearing up. When he looked to his left a huge jet of blood splashed on his face. Where did that come from? Josiah didn’t see anything until he was cut. All of that happened in mid-air, during his attack.

Josiah had to recompose himself and stop with his plan of unleashing a wave of attacks. If he was to be stroked down from unknown sources during the confusion it was better to stop and reconsider instead.

“What…?”

Josiah grinned his teeth as hew withstood the burning pain on his newly opened injury.

‘This guy clearly is using some bloodbound power. What is it? He didn’t touch his weapon at all. Which means the weapon he is carrying does the job for him, as my sword does. If I can figure it out…’

“Tell me…” The Magistrate interrupted his train of thought, “did you know the soldier you just beat up was a level 13?”

Josiah was caught by surprise. He stopped to look at the cable of the fallen broadsword aside from the fainted body of the man who lost to him. The glowing stone was indeed marking thirteen. Josiah then turned back to the man in the dark red armor with the face of someone who doesn’t care.

“You did?” The Magistrate conclude wrongly. “Well… In this case, you are aware that level cannot compensate for the lack of skill. As a mere level 6 yourself you know that better than anyone else. Listen…” The Magistrate finally moved from his spot, approaching slowly Josiah while he spoke. “You are seriously quite skilled… For your age, I mean… But…”

At the mention of level, Josiah got curious to check the level on The Magistrate’s weapon. He concentrated on them being held together with his armor, but he noticed the cables were covered in a strange black striped material, similar to something called ‘insulating tape’ of his homeworld.

‘He is hiding his level on purpose…’

“…But you are still years short of taking me on.” The Magistrate unleashed a wave of swings with his sword. Or more precisely… The sword itself started swinging on its own. Literally flying in the air. The blade would yield itself out of the holster, swing at Josiah on its own, and then move back to the original spot. It was made on automated, mechanical movements, painting a beautiful scene of sword wielding perfection.

Though not as beautiful for Josiah, who had to deal with it.

‘Sh*t. It’s like trying to play chess against a computer. I barely have the time to block the things’ attempts. Let alone find a gap to thrown in attacks on my own. At this point, I’m stuck in a defensive state.’

It reminded of whenever he would train against Thomas and try to endure his continuous wave of attacks. He could keep the pace at first but then he started getting tired. At least in the training, he knew Thomas was tiring his own body and wasting his own strength by fighting back. But seeing The Magistrate standing in the middle of the clashes with his arms crossed left everything far too uncertain.

‘I need to figure out some weakness, otherwise…’ Josiah had to jump his body back to try and catch a breath. The flying sword apparently had a fixed range with which it could fight by itself, since it stopped moving. But The Magistrate simply started walking to Josiah again to fix that.

Thanks to the training, just a brief moment of resting was enough to make Josiah withstand another wave of attacks like those. He resumed fighting the flying sword, and while he did so, for some reason Josiah remembered the old man’s words, during a rainy day they were training in the forest glade:

“Young master. It’s not all about your blood. The strength you have within is the ability to get the grasp of things quickly. You wouldn’t believe how long other children take to master the simple ability of handling their weapons. But you did it in only a mere eight months.”

“But doesn’t that come from my blood as well?”

“Some believe it does. I do not. I think there is the blood's strength… And there is your strength. The first makes the sword ability increase faster, the second makes your ability with the sword increase faster…”

‘Get the grasp of the things quickly, heh?’ Josiah came to himself as he was almost being thrown back by the torrent of slices. He started paying attention to the way the blade moved.

‘Because it is an ability guided by blood it should depend solely on the sword and not on the ability of the wielder. Which means its ability is dictated by the sword level… I can tell the level cannot be too high, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to endure. With my five-year-old skills, I am able to hold down because it carries a lot of unnecessary moving every time the sword goes back in and out of the holster. Can’t I take advantage of this somehow?’

As his physique got tired, Josiah started noticing a pattern.

“This flying blade uses a fixed amount of combinations. I can wait for it to strike laterally like it did the other times, and when it’s going back in and out of the holster I can jump and charge to The Magistrate. I should swing my dagger instead of the sword, since the blood power apparently has a longer range…’

Josiah withstood just a bit more, waiting for the perfect opportunity.

‘Now!’ Josiah thought inside his head.

He charged fro, together with the sword, trying to strike the enemy before the blade would wield itself again.

It would have worked, had The Magistrate not been anticipating it.

In an atypical fashion, the blade stopped in the air for the first time in the fight before going back to the holster. It waited for Josiah to pass exactly down it while jumping and knocked the back of his head with the hilt.

Josiah felt the pain as his body got thrown on the grass, falling next to The Magistrate.

“You..!”

“You are really good at analyzing your enemies and establishing patterns. Did you learn that by fighting wild creatures? Unfortunately, there is a big difference between fighting a wild creature and a thinking one, my little one.”

The Magistrate got closer to him once again, but this time his sword was flying in front of him and Josiah was tired and stretched on the floor.

The Magistrate caressed his chin mockingly:

“What’s the matter, boy? Weren’t you going to give me hell or something?”