The Broken Halo

The conversation between him and Sunless continued for some minutes before it came to an end.

Unfortunately for him, Sunless knew close to nothing about Blackblade’s master, The First Blade.

Information about Blackblade’s master cost a lot of money, and Sunless was not going to spend that much money on something that was of no use to her and quite possibly to Simon.

What would the information do for Simon in the face of a Supreme Greater Demon’s wrath?

And this was Simon’s main concern right now.

The wrath of Blackblade’s master.

Simon could finally see what the plan of the factions was, and it was something that bothered him for two reasons.

The first is that if he killed Blackblade, he would most likely incur the wrath of his master.

Though he would not be punished by the academy and there are rules in place to prevent such a scenario of the backers of both participants choosing to take revenge, Simon had zero belief in the power of the law.

And mainly because he was a slave.

The law barely protected him, and if he was killed by Blackblade’s master, the clan would only give him a slap on the wrist and nothing more.

Severe punishment?

As if.

Why would the clan choose a slave over a clan member?

Why would the clan choose a Fiend over a Greater Demon?

No matter what, he was at the losing end.

If he won the duel, he could die.

If he lost the duel, he would die.

And unfortunately, the only way a life and death duel ends is if one of the participants dies or if both of the participants willingly choose to cancel the duel, refusing to die.

The thought of forcing Blackblade and torturing him to cancel the duel appeared in Simon’s mind, but he knew that this was not possible.

In the rules of the academy, the academy placed a huge emphasis on the word- Willingly.

Meaning that if he forced or tortured Blackblade to forfeit the duel, then it would not be applied.

’I might still be able to make Blackblade willingly cancel the duel, but his master is the problem. I don’t feel comfortable knowing that his master might be watching the duel.’

’I need to have a method of dealing with him.’

Simon’s eyes flashed, then he thought of something and he mumbled softly as he ate the plate of food in front of him.

“Hopefully I’m able to convince him.”

Some minutes later, it was time for Simon’s match with Blackblade, and Simon stood at the center of the Death Arena with a slightly surprised expression behind his mask.

He was looking at the massively packed seats, and he could even see that some demons were standing after not being able to find a place to sit.

’Seriously? So many demons are interested in watching this battle? A battle between a Fiend and an Archfiend?’

’And some don’t even seem to be students or instructors of the academy. Who are they?’

The Death Arena was like a colosseum, only that the ground was not made out of sand.

The Death Arena was located in the lower floors of the academy, and it was called the Death Arena for very obvious reasons.

As Simon stood in front of the northern entrance of the Death Arena, he saw another figure appear from the southern entrance.

His eyes glowed as he used Hollow Sky Eye to see the figure clearly, and just as he expected, it was Blackblade.

Blackblade was wearing the robes of the academy, but his appearance was rather strange.

The first thing anybody would would look at was Blackblade’s head and hair.

Blackblade was wearing a black mask with the design of flames roaring at the sky on it. Two eye holes could be seen on the mask, exposing his red-orange eyes that seemed to be filled with flames.

As for his hair, his hair was made out of black smoke filled with ashes.

And on his waist was a sword with a black hilt in a black scabbard.

’He is really a Soryn. A demon with a Supreme Noble Bloodline. I fought some of them in my past life all because they believed themselves to be superior than me when it comes to swords.’

’How amusing.’

Seeing that Blackblade was walking closer to the center of the arena, he decided to do the same.

As he walked forward, he held his right wrist, rotated it, then he did the same for his left wrist and his neck too.

Some seconds later, both of them stood no more than twenty meters apart, and both of them stared at the other with completely indifferent expressions.

One had his white hair blown by the wind while the other had his smoke-ash hair blown by the wind.

One had nothing but his fists and claws, while the other had a sword hanging on his waist.

There was no instructor, no referee, and no overseer to observe this fight.

In a life and death match, there were no rules.

Both contestants would fight till one of them or both of them dropped dead.

They would begin the match themselves, and they would end it themselves.

Simon looked at Blackblade from top to bottom, and he nodded as he was a little bit impressed with his stance.

“About three to four openings. How impressive.”

Blackblade narrowed his eyes at Simon’s. He had not been planning on talking, but Simon’s words triggered something in him.

His master had said something similar, criticizing how he usually left an opening or two in his stance.

However, he refused to believe that Simon could see what his master could for two reasons.

The first is that his master only told him that he was always leaving a single opening or two on a bad day. But Simon mentioned three and four.

He believed that Simon was just bluffing and saying nonsense to get under his skin.

Shiiing

He unsheathed his sword and pointed at Simon, revealing why he was called Blackblade.

The blade of his sword was completely black.

“And what do you know about sword stances?”

The second reason he could not believe Simon is that Simon was not a swordsman and he believed that Simon had never wielded a sword in his life.