CHAPTER 487: SPARRING TECHNIQUES

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"Let’s start then," Esme declared, her voice ringing through the air. She lifted a red flag in front of her and stepped into the middle of the training ground, the start of the most exciting spar of the century for all the sorcerers who had always wondered whether Arabella or Morpheus would be stronger than the other.

Both of them stood at a distance between each other, framed by the circle of watching sorcerers.

"How do we determine if one of us win?" Morpheus asked before the start of the spar.

Arabella hummed and looked at the ground, "If one of us touch the other."

"Fair," answered Morpheus, smiling as if he had won the spar and was simply watching a foolish girl trying to defy the triumph he had imagined.

The wind caught the flag’s fabric, flicking it once before Esme flipped it upward, a swift motion that signaled the beginning of the spar. Then she stepped back, clicking her boots at the sand ground with the widest smile as she believe her master had already won.

At first, neither of the two moved.

For a long full ten minutes, none of them had moved, not even for a second which thickened the tension stretched in the training ground.

Everyone watched the scene with their nerves taut, questioning why they hadn’t moved at all and had instead stood like they were just admiring each other’s features.

Morpheus regarded Arabella carefully, his eyes narrowing in curiosity. He wanted to know what she would do, what she could do.

Though he had tampered with her memories, he hadn’t touched her ability to think or strategize. He couldn’t afford to. She was his creation and his experiment, and dulling her intellect would have been like breaking his own tool.

He still needed her power, needed her growth. So the idea of breaking her clever head was just foolish.

He folded his hands behind his back, his expression turned into a grin as he watched her.

The only last witch he had fought had been Alice. But Alice was dead now. Killed by Arabella’s hands.

Although Alice was so proud of her own power, was it a pure luck that Arabella had won or was it truly the rawness of her power which was what truly saved her?

But then again to him, winning against Alice wasn’t as impressive. After all during a spar with Alice, Morpheus had found numerous ways of killing Alice on the spot. He just pretended he couldn’t as if he managed to hurt Alice the slightest, that witch wouldn’t let it aside due to her greed for power.

This would mean that by experience, both him and her could take care of Alice.

So he wondered, almost idly, how she would compare to Circe. Would Arabella’s strength meet eye to eye when compared against the blood of the witch used to create her? Or would she fall just as easily, and was all her triumph was just a raw luck?

A dull ache rippled through his shoulder. Right at the center of his shoulders, that same old wound, buried deep in the muscle, where Circe’s power had once torn his arm apart.

He pressed a palm over it absently, the memory flashing sharp and vivid: the unforgiving eyes from Circe accompanied by the sound of tearing flesh, and blood that had poured hot down his arm. He had healed himself, of course, but the phantom pain had never truly gone.

His eyes flicked back to Arabella. Would she be capable of wounding him too?

Could she make him feel something again, pain, fear, anything?

He doubted it.

While Arabella’s raw magic was comparable to Circe, her experience in battles were barely a handful.

Still, he stepped back, choosing not to strike first. He wanted to see what she would do, how she would move and what her first instinct would be when placed against him.

Yet almost foolishly, Arabella didn’t move.

She stood perfectly still, her back straight, her fingers relaxed at her sides. Her green eyes locked on him with an unnerving calmness, firm and silent, as if she were seeing right through him, through his soul.

Morpheus tilted his head, a small smirk tugging at his lips.

"You do know nothing will happen if you don’t move?" he said, his tone mocking, like he was teaching her how a spar would work.

No answer. Not even a flicker of reaction. It’s as if she had fallen asleep while standing.

He exhaled, an amused sigh leaving his lips, and started walking toward her. Not in such a fast pace, just a steady, confident pace, as if he was a cat playing with his prey mouse before gulping it down his throat.

"If I touch you, that’s the end of the second test," he reminded her, his voice carrying a faint trace of doubt beside his overflowing confidence. "At this speed, it won’t take long. Are you just going to stand there and let me win?"

Still nothing.

His smile grew, stretching lazily across his face. "Or perhaps," he murmured, pretending to be shocked as he drew closer, "you simply want this test to end quickly. Is that it, Arabella?"

He raised his hand, almost touching distance now. "If that’s the case," he added triumphantly, "was there even a point in starting the second test at all?"

From the sidelines, Isaac suddenly let out a horrified gasp, clutching his chest. "Why isn’t the lady moving?!" he wailed. "I can’t bear to watch this! My poor heart can’t handle it!"

Cassius, standing a few paces away, rolled his eyes so hard it could’ve been heard.

When Isaac nearly launched himself at him in panic, Cassius’s hand shot out instantly, pushing him back by the face before the man could cling to him like a koala.

"Then gouge your eyes out," Cassius said dryly.

Isaac gaped at him, scandalized. "Who even says that to a friend?!"

...

When have they turned into friends?

Cassius didn’t answer. His crimson eyes stayed locked on Arabella, his expression was still firm without a flicker of doubt and when he noticed a single fingertips twitch from her hand, there was a faint curve to his lips, something knowing, something confident.

"Aren’t you worried?" Isaac pressed, wringing his hands.

Cassius gave a low chuckle, his shoulders shrugged with such ease as if he had already seen the outcome, "I’ve never once been worried when it comes to her," he said with brimming proud. "You just haven’t seen what she can do yet."

Back to watching the spar, Cassius saw Morpheus whose face flickered from the sense of confidence into one of doubt.

"Fine, don’t blame me for being unfair," his fingers were about to touch her when suddenly a gust of wind blew sharp enough to push Morpheus backward.

His head flung to the side, a cut suddenly spreading over his cheek as if it had just been carved by a dagger.

Morpheus’s eyes snapped forward. With a sharp, practiced motion, he lifted his hands, thumb grazing the ring on his index finger until its edge bit into his flesh. Blood welled instantly, and he smeared it across one of the sigils inked beneath his sleeve.

The mark flared. In the next breath, his arms swept outward and a gust of searing fire erupted from his palms, rushing toward Arabella with a roar that rippled through the air.

It was meant to be a spar, but everyone knew: no duel between a witch and Morpheus ever ended without blood. Still, several sorceresses watching from the sidelines tensed in unease as they don’t want to see their precious witch be harmed but didn’t want to believe that their sorcerer could lose either.

Everyone except one, who wore the faintest smile, already knowing who the victor would be.

The fire struck the ground, bursting into a cloud of dust and smoke that swallowed the field. Morpheus narrowed his eyes, twisting his head from side to side, searching for her silhouette but the haze concealed everything. Not even a trace of her shadow remained.

What he failed to see was that a witch’s shadow had formed, silently appearing behind him. And by the time his eyes snapped backward, it had already vanished.

Morpheus began to flick his thumb again, this time smearing a different sigil as instead of fire, a strong vortex of wind swirl from his thumb, dispersing the traces of sands that had blocked his view and at once he found Arabella again, now standing at the far end of the field.

"Are you trying to make me use all my sigils?"

Arabella didn’t respond but she smiled and she could tell how Morpheus had took that smile as her confirmation.

"That is a very interesting plan, Arabella," said Morpheus but he shook his head, "Though I don’t think it will work, unfortunately. I have plenty of works under my sleeve. If you think the longer the fight will take, the more I would lose all my tricks, you are wrong."

Arabella shrugged her shoulders, finally removing her eyes from her boots as if she was bored.

"Fine," Morpheus narrowed at her confidence, "Let’s watch then what you could do."

In the next second both of his thumb had been cut. He smeared the blood all over his left and right sleeve, long enough to activate numerous magic that began to appear from his hands.

First it was a magic that caused for the ground underneath to shake and crack, caving in at the place where she had stood.

Then his shadow from underneath his shoes had moved, spreading over the ground as if it was alive and touched Arabella’s own shadows, tightening around it which had also stopped her body from moving.