The moment the spatial barrier had formed, Jerigh had instantly reappeared in front of Daniel. As he had approached his opponent, he had put one of his swords in between Daniel's legs, and one next to his throat. Both sharp edges of the blade were pointed at Daniel's femoral artery, and his carotid artery, and were both ready to slash at Daniel's main blood vessels in a moment's notice.
Of course, Daniel did not wait to respond, and instead, with a twist of his wrist, he defended himself from the sword Jerigh was holding in his left hand, and forced him to move his sword back to defend from Daniel's second weapon, which was pointed at Jerigh's heart, and was traveling at an absurd speed.
Unable to react on time, Jerigh gave up the hold of the sword which he was pointing at Daniel's neck, and with a hit of his palm, he deflected it by hitting the flat part of the sword. He then moved his hand with terrifying speed, and grabbed the sword which he had let go of a moment ago, and had yet to touch the floor.
Daniel decided to use Jerigh's tactic, and let go of his own sword in order to grab his clothes, but the moment before he managed to put his fingers on it, a slashing motion which threatened to cut his whole arm arrived with the speed of lightning.
*Ding*
Instead of avoiding, Daniel took the attack head on by using spatial essence to deflect it.
"Spatial essence.." muttered Jerigh with curiosity. Their fight was supposed to be a competition of swordsmanship, and yet, Daniel had just used spatial essence to defend. He was more than sure that if Daniel had wanted to, he would have been able to avoid his attack and counter with one that was just as deadly.
With a big smile on his face, Daniel said "Come on Jerigh.. We have grown out of simple swordplay.. Let's fight like adults.." His meaning was clear.. a simple spar with swords was pointless. Both of their repertory was immensely more vast than that, and if they had to compete, they should go all out.
After hearing Daniel's words, for the first time since he had met him, Jerigh showed what was the semblance of a smile, but instead of responding, he assumed his battle stance, and ignited his swords with fire and lightning essence, which quickly became scorching hot like solid plasma.
"Yes.. No point in doing this if we don't have fun.." said Daniel as the smile slowly disappeared from his face, followed by his entire body. When he reappeared, he was standing in front of Jerigh with empty hands. His two fists were flowing through the wind at supersonic speed, and approaching Jerigh's face.
Instead of defending against these two punches, Jerigh moved closer to Daniel, managing to barely avoid the two swords that had inconspicuously come out of the ground, and were trying to pierce his back.
Unable to use the full length of his swords at such high proximity, Jerigh once again let go of the hold he had on his two swords, and after they twisted in his hands, he tried to use the pommels of the handles to hit Daniel's armpits, and disable, or at the very least damage his arms.
Daniel quickly interrupted the motion of his arms, and rapidly grabbed the incoming pommels, then, tried to hit Jerigh's stomach with his knee without letting go of his swords.
Jerigh immediately teleported away, but when he reappeared, he was not holding his swords anymore. His swords were now in Daniel's hands, who had prevented him to take them with him when Jerigh had teleported away.
Daniel quickly let go of the two swords, and used his control of the metal essence of which they were formed to make them orbit around him.
The four swords kept floating for a couple of seconds, until finally, when they stopped, they pointed at the same exact point.. Jerigh.
Daniel opened his palms, making a small storm charged with lightning essence, water essence, and wind essence to appear. He then condensed it more and more, until it turned into a temporary storm sphere.
Teleporting at short distances was not Jerigh's forte, so, in order to avoid the incoming attacks, he opted on ejecting a massive amount of immortal essence out of his body, which spread over the ring as a carpet. Then, he turned it into water essence just in time to use it to slid past Daniel's attack.
One of the swords slashed the air right next to his ear, then again in between his arm and chest, and one where his heart was. He was able to get a hold of the third swords that passed by him, and use it to deflect the last one, the used it to send a wind blade towards Daniel.
The wind blade was extremely powerful, and if not deflected, could cut through Daniel's body.
Unfortunately, Daniel's attention was focused on maintaining the storm sphere, so instead of avoiding it, he commanded the swords floating in the air to move in front of him, and split the wind blade in pieces.
When the two halves of the wind blade passed by Daniel's sides, thousands of ice spikes emerged from the water and sprinted towards him, showing that the wind blade was only a decoy.
Unable to find an occasion to use his temporary storm sphere, Daniel was forced to let it dissipate. At the same time, he released dense immortal essence through his entire body, and turned it into a mixture of fire, metal, and rock essence.. Mixing together into magma and covering his body with a thick layer of white-hot liquid.
But alas, the shards were too thick to melt immediately, and managed to pierce the magma-covered humanoid from one side to the other.
The spectators stood up in shock, thinking that Daniel had died.. But then, the figure which was supposed to contain Daniel's body quickly started to melt, and turned into a mixture of hardened rock and metal.
Daniel had disappeared.
The crowd looked at Jerigh's attentive expression in an attempt to understand what was truly happening, but their doubts found an answer as a couple hands appeared from underneath Jerigh's feet, and grabbed his ankles.
A powerful electric discharge formed on Daniel's hands, but before he could release it into Jerigh's body, the tip of a sword penetrated through the surface of the stage, and towards he point where, according to the position of Daniel's hands, his head was supposed to be.
The lightning essence that had accumulated in Daniel's hands quickly turned into metal essence the moment before the sword penetrated through his head.
Just as it appeared that Jerigh had finally managed to hit him, he was forced to bend his body backwards to barely avoid a kick which Daniel had sent towards his face, right after reappearing in the mid air in front of him.
For the next few moments, the two exchanged blow after blow in hand to hand combat, and despite Jerigh had his legs stuck in two metallic hands, he appeared to have the upper hand. Unfortunately for him.. Daniel had the karmic system.
For as talented as Jerigh was, Daniel's experience was enhanced by his system. While Jerigh had grown fighting, Daniel had received hundreds of years of experience by simply practicing a few months.. So, after a few long minutes, the disparity between the two started to shift, and Daniel became closer and closer to actually landing a hit on Jerigh.
There was one thing which nobody could deny.. Jerigh was a monster. He, just like Daniel, was learning from his mistakes in the very fight.. So, while he appeared to be in a disadvantage, he was actually forcing himself over his limits.
It was at this moment that the two came to a tacit agreement, and Daniel let go of the morse on Jerigh's legs. The two separated for a moment, and after taking a break, they assumed their battle stances for unarmed combat, and the very next moment, became a blur.
*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*
One hit after the other sent soundwaves which felt like the rumbling of an ancient beast.
Five minutes passed before the two finally separated.
They were both breathing heavily, and were visibly tired. Their immortal essence had decreased greatly, and had been consumed faster than it was produced. Their clothes were in a mess, and showed a few rips here and there.
On their bodies, a few injuries had appeared.
Daniel's lower lip had a small injury from which a droplet of blood kept reforming no matter how many times Daniel removed it with his tongue, the left side of his ribcage was uncovered, and a fist-sized bruise could be seen, and lastly, he had difficulties with putting his weight on his left leg due to the powerful hit he had received just underneath the knee.
Jerigh was in no better shape. His cheekbone was swollen and red, his right thigh had four small cuts on one side and a slightly bigger one on the other, showing that Daniel had managed to tightly grip his leg with great strength, and finally, one of the fingers of his left hand was dislocated.
The two seemed to have suffered from the same amount of injuries, and that the duel had ended in a draw.. But then.. Jerigh's non-injured hand moved on his stomach, and his body bent slightly forward to allow him to spit a big mouthful of blood.
"Hija J krigh nieba phinnua.." muttered Jerigh in the asum language after brushing the back of his hand against his mouth.
Daniel slowly shook his head "No.. Nobody deserves to have your service.. Not even me.." He said with a matter-of-fact tone. He then added after a small pause "But I am honored to have you fight by my side."
For the second time in six years, Jerigh smiled.
After their fight, the event went on with a few more demonstrations, and a speech from the master-at-arms, and the Silver Alchemist which put an end to it.
The opening of the school was a big success. The excitement of the thousands of students had only grown the more they saw, and in the end, they couldn't wait to be able to pick a teacher, and train to become experts in their fields.
At the end of the event, each of the few hundred members of Daniel's group had received a more or less even amount of requests at about ten per person.. The only one which had received a larger amount, was Jerigh, which after showing his absurd battle prowess in the duel with Daniel, had managed to shock his fans once again.
Just as many people had hoped to become Daniel's students, but their hopes were soon killed by the revelation that Daniel would not be teaching, and that he was, in fact, the owner of the academy, and entire pocket dimension.
—–
Two days later, Planet's orbit.
In a place where before was only empty space, now was a bean-shaped shuttle, and next to it, two people floated in place. A man dressed in an orange-colored attire, and a man covered in black bandages with spikes that came out of his body.
These men were, of course, Vin the killer, and the Orange Thorn.. which had managed to reach Daniel's planet after weeks of travel.
"Are you sure that it will work?" Asked the orange dressed man with doubt. For once his apathetic behaviour had disappeared, and in its place, a genuine amount of worry had appeared.
Of course, his worry was not directed towards the well being of the assassin he had traveled with, but towards the heavy consequences that they would suffer if the scanners left by the universal government discovered Vin during his infiltration into the isolated planet.
The experienced assassin nodded confidently in response before turning towards the planet, but just before he could approach the atmosphere.. A man with black hair and red eyes, had quietly appeared next to them.
