Flame and radiance collided, cleaving the air and tearing apart the earth. Within the barrier Sovell had erected, the scene had become a living hell.
A long while later, the barrier dissolved and the smoke and dust dispersed. The two emerged from the fissures in the ground.
The armor over Gawain's chest had been partly deformed, and the cloak on his back was gone, most likely burned away by the intense heat from the collision of the two slashes.
His handsome, well-formed face was covered in dust, too, but he seemed completely unharmed, still brimming with energy.
Sovell beside him was even more remarkable. His white robe and silver armor had both survived without so much as a stain.
Apart from a little dust clinging to his silvery-white hair, he looked no different from how he had at the morning court session.
"It really is a genuine Star Holy Sword. Congratulations, Gawain.
The Blessing Under the Sun and a Star Holy Sword. Anyone would envy you.
In a few years, I'm sure the name 'Gawain' will resound throughout Britain."
"Why say that, Brother Stam? Even with my strength tripled, I ended up covered in dust while you came out without a scratch. Which of us is really the one to envy?"
Gawain sighed and returned Carnwennan to its sheath.
Sovell likewise restored Invisible Air, forming it into a sheath, and put away Rhongomyniad.
Whew. That was close.
If he hadn't transformed his heart and torso into those of a dragon at the last moment, instantly boosting his magical output and physical resilience, he would probably have been left sprawled on the ground.
"All right, I should go. Gawain, when my king begins to make a mark on Britain, I hope you'll still remember our wager."
"Heh, of course. I, Gawain, swear as the eldest son of the King of Orkney that I shall remember this wager."
Seeing this, Sovell naturally answered in kind:
"I, Sovell, swear as the disciple of Merlin, mage of King Uther's Royal Court, that I shall remember this wager."
The two drew their swords again.
"Should I break this oath, may heaven and mankind strike me down."
"Should I break this oath, may heaven and mankind strike me down."
Clang!
Their sword tips met, sealing the oath.
The two returned their swords to their sheaths.
"So you really did give me a false name, Brother Stam."
"It's best to be careful when you're away from home. Gawain, I won't escort you back to the city. I'd also appreciate it if you kept my real name to yourself. Otherwise, things will get troublesome for me."
Sovell spread his hands as though something truly was troubling him.
"No problem.
Say, Brother Stam, is someone pestering you?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
Before Gawain could ponder it further, Sovell took a packet of dried bear meat from the Compressed Space Pack Merlin had given him, which was on the horse's back. He handed it to Gawain with a smile, then rose on the wind.
"All right, enough of that. I'll be going now. Until we meet again, Gawain."
Gawain accepted the dried bear meat and replied.
"Until we meet again."
And at that moment, besides Gawain, who was chewing on the dried bear meat, a certain lecherous old incubus with a shameless grin was also watching the white-robed youth depart on the wind.
"Aite, Joanie, time to eat.
Let me tell you, Brother Kay got caught by the girls again today..."
The lily-like girl poured fodder for her foster father's beloved horses in his stable, sharing the day's amusing incidents with them.
Moonlight streamed through the stable roof, spilling onto the girl's golden hair, as beautiful as the goddess Sif's. The strands stirred in the wind, rippling with a gentle glow.
Meanwhile, Sovell had already reached the border between Scotland and England, on the northern side of Hadrian's Wall.
"Once I'm over the wall, I should be able to shake off those bastards."
The "bastards" Sovell spoke of were none other than the Picts who lived in Scotland.
To be precise, those creatures could no longer be called human.
Eight feet tall, with blue faces and fangs, bloody and savage, they were practically humanoid Demon Creatures.
Sovell shook his head, trying to shake those disturbing faces out of his mind, but he couldn't.
So he used magecraft to conceal his figure and presence, crossed the wall, and entered England. He wanted to find an inn where he could spend the night and wash away some of the bloody stench clinging to him.
Indeed, Sovell had killed his way here.
Picts, demonic beasts, isolated encampments of foreign troops-all had been reduced to scraps at Sovell's hands and returned to the earth.
They had "volunteered" their strength to the struggle of Britain's Age of Gods. How selfless, how noble!
Before long, Sovell found a suitable inn. He paid and settled into a room at the far end.
After washing away the bloody smell and grime, Sovell sat on the bed and began his daily deconstruction of the magecraft foundation.
The magecraft Sovell currently used came from the wind magecraft foundation used by the fairies in Avalon.
Fairies were long-lived phantasmal beings, so the knowledge accumulated in their magecraft foundation naturally exceeded humanity's many times over.
However, because fairies and humans had different physiologies, ordinary humans found it extremely difficult to learn. Sovell's Dragon Kind bloodline allowed him to circumvent that problem.
An ordinary person would surely have been satisfied to learn such precious magecraft knowledge, but Sovell was not.
Sovell knew that he was not merely Merlin's disciple, but also a warrior of the future Red Dragon Royal Court.
A battlefield changed from one instant to the next. If he relied solely on fixed magecraft processes and incantations, any unexpected development would be difficult to handle.
Thus, while in Avalon, Sovell had asked Merlin how to shorten magecraft incantations. He had even sought a way to cast magecraft in a single step, without any incantation at all.
Merlin had proposed the subject of "deconstructing a magecraft foundation," though Merlin himself did not know how to go about it.
Merlin's own origin and affinity aligned perfectly with his magecraft. Moreover, he was the only person in the world who used flower magecraft, making him practically bound to its magecraft foundation. Naturally, he had no need to deconstruct it.
Unless it was an immense field magecraft that required precious materials and a Magic Formation, or a powerful spell that demanded considerable magical energy and an exceptionally long incantation, he could use ordinary, simple incantation-based and process-based magecraft however he pleased.
But Sovell could not bind himself to the wind magecraft foundation the way Merlin had.
So Merlin devised another method.
Drawing on his experience constructing a magecraft foundation with his teacher, he worked backward to derive a method for deconstructing one. This would allow the incantations to be altered without weakening the magecraft.
Sovell tried it and found that it really worked, so he began deconstructing the fairies' magecraft foundation with Merlin's help.
He also tried to modify it, developing from that foundation a different, specialized form of wind magecraft suited to Sovel's own Human-Dragon Hybrid constitution.
Before you continue