Lewd King's Bucket List-Chapter 70: Blade Waltz

With precision and grace, Ixion (Veritas) stepped around as if hovering a half step off the ground.

Well, that's because he was.

Beneath his feet, a second pool of Aether formed an invisible platform, perfectly balanced.

That was the first step of the Blade Waltz.

The fighting style of the Artoris family, which combined the finesse of ballroom dancing and the brutality of savagery.

Reina charged and sent another cross swipe at Ixion. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

'This is gonna be one nasty headache.'

Ixion batted the pipe away. Then, like flowing water, his pipe carried through the air and found its way to her side.

Naturally, he'd withheld the blow from anywhere close to his full power, as he'd simply eviscerate her if he didn't. But the force was still enough to knock Reina off her feet and probably crack a few ribs.

Ixion steadied his stance as he looked down at Reina, who was staggering to her feet.

"Where's the eloquence?"

Ixion struck downward, the pipe seeming to wave as it fell, making its path incredibly hard to predict given its speed. The motion distorted the strike's path without sacrificing even a hint of speed.

Reina swung up to counter the blow, but it was such a crushing and overpowering strike that her own pipe knocked back and hit her square in the forehead.

A trickle of blood leaked from her brow.

Ixion bit his lip at the sight.

"Ouch, sorry."

Reina shook her head as she stood up.

"No matter. Continue."

'I guess I'll show the next step.'

There were thirteen steps to the Blade waltz.

The first five were all preparatory, with the remaining eight being the true battle art.

Those first five being the even distribution of Aether, cloaking the body, enhancing the blade, enhancing vision, and creating an Aether platform underneath the feet.

Ixion began the true dance.

It was something of utter beauty, especially when considering his supreme control over Aether.

Slashing downward toward Reina, a slight wave of Aether slit off from the blade and toward her. Then, Ixion added a cross swipe at a much faster pace that would reach her at the same time as the first.

As Reina prepared her defense against the Aether strikes, Ixion exploded a bubble of aether under his heel and propelled himself forth.

He'd moved so fast that he'd nearly caught up to his own strikes which Reina had just barely batted down.

Ixion stopped when Reina was just out of his range, then struck the air. But, unlike his last strike, the Aether that was dispelled from his blade remained stationary in the air as if utterly frozen.

With another explosion of Aether under his foot, Ixion stepped in the blink of an eye to where Reina's back was to him.

As the woman with blood leaking down from her head spun, Ixion kicked her into the stationary Aether strike.

"Ah!"

When she collided with it, the strike came alive as if Ixion had just let off the attack.

Her body pin balled back toward Ixion, who held up his pipe to her throat.

That was the first of eight combat steps of the terrifying battle art.

Illium shouted from above, a clear look of indignation on his face.

"H-how?"

Reina drew a few labored breaths, then muttered.

"Beautiful."

Then she fell to her knees and coughed up a bit of blood.

Porter had a wide-eyed look on his face as he studied the recent addition to their cause, then he said:

"Veritas, fight me next."

***

The rest of the duels went as expected with 'Veritas' easily winning.

However…

'These three showed some promise!'

Reina's foundation of the sword art was almost there; once tweaked a little, she should be able to learn the full dance.

And once she did, who knows how strong she could become.

By Ixion's estimate. She was only an Emergent at the moment, but her Aspect appeared to be of a high rank. Though she hadn't used it during their duels, so he only had mana reserves to go off of.

Perhaps she still held an inkling of doubt as to his true intentions.

However, the fact that she'd brought him to that place at all showed she was definitely coming around to him, even if he was enigmatic and weird.

Next was Porter…

He was quite the tactical fellow.

Unlike with Reina, when Porter fought 'Veritas,' his only goal was to draw out more of his hidden tricks.

'Who is he to think he may assess me!'

Though, despite being a little weaker than Reina, the man showed calm battle intelligence that one wouldn't assume after witnessing his hotheaded arguments at the Oathsworn meeting.

Finally, there was the spearman, Illium.

Ixion didn't know what to expect from a man nearly sharing the same name as the pelvic bone, but he was also quite impressive.

After witnessing him fight, Ixion learned just why it was he who was the one to greet him with a spear at his throat.

The man possessed not only a sixth sense like ability of detection, but was deft and lithe.

'He'd be a perfect candidate to learn Blade Waltz…'

Too bad he wielded a spear and had no mind to change his profession.

After all fighting him, the three began sparring with each other, and Ixion watched, giving out helpful tips. Of course, he did so with his usual smug arrogance.

But as he watched the fights, he couldn't help but wonder…

'Where did those two come from?'

Ixion didn't recognize them as soldiers or nobles.

He'd only known of Porter from a few incidents at taverns and learned of 'Illy' for the first time at the Oathsworn meeting.

Yet, the two were talents that made no sense coming from common lineage. But it also seemed illogical for them to originate from a disgraced noble family like Reina.

'Or perhaps I am truly too full of myself with how much I actually know.'

He hadn't known his best friend had a daughter after all.