Lewd King's Bucket List-Chapter 80: Dusk Till Dawn

’Quite a thorough bastard.’

Three days had passed since Ixion attended Se’van’s history lecture.

Since there were no duels scheduled, he spent his time in his soul form monitoring the enthralled patrols that loitered around Despair’s houses.

Ixion had quite an easy time spotting those who were hexed, since their motions were one-dimensional and their souls were present but lacking will. It was difficult to describe exactly what that meant, but Ixion could sense when a soul made moves without emotion.

’However...’

Despair kept cycling the guards, and none had been called into the Memory Realm.

While that wasn’t odd in itself, Ixion couldn’t help but feel that Despair was aware that the only way Ixion could reach him undetected was through his thralls.

Then there were the weird coded messages they sent at random intervals.

Something that would make it harder for Ixion to take over a thrall unnoticed — which seemed to be his only option. Assuming the thralls could enter on their own.

But that would be tomorrow’s task.

Today?

Today was the day of duels.

The day when 113 duels had been scheduled in succession — Ixion would be engaging in duels from dusk till dawn.

Ixion did his morning routine, then immediately left for the courtyard.

When Ixion reached the palace entrance, he didn’t even let Sebastian open the door for him. Instead, he kicked the enormous door, nearly sending it off its hinges, then stepped out into the courtyard.

"Ah, what a glorious day!"

The clouds were gray, a promise of rain.

Nobles had bought up all the seats, making it impossible for peasants to watch.

There was a slight breeze that made Ixion’s thick hair and cape billow behind him.

Ixion looked at the faces staring at him with irreverent disgust, then screamed:

"Welcome! By writ, Catatran endures!"

He threw his hands up and sauntered forward until he stepped into the designated dueling arena.

Sebastian ran after Ixion, then knelt and held out a sword.

"Your Grace."

"Ah! Thank you, Lord Chamberlain."

Ixion took the sword from his hands. A sword with a weight that was ever so slightly wrong. But it was just barely. However, ’just barely’ was enough that anyone experienced with the sword would be critically weakened.

’Sebastian wouldn’t be so bold...’

Meaning someone else was responsible for the ploy of having him wield a shoddy blade.

Sadly, that someone was probably Se’van, directed by Marlowe. She was the only one who had the influence to cause this.

’Those fools...’

Ixion could beat them all with his bare hands... if he so wished. Therefore unbalancing his blade was useless. All it did was force him to use a modicum of more strength to counterbalance.

Ixion sighed as he waited for his first challenger to be inspected for any unsanctioned items before being permitted to step before him.

The first challenger was a young knight, one Ixion knew of. He was a knight employed by Marlowe, one who’d awakened a particularly strong Aspect.

Julius, the Light Knight, bowed.

"I greet you, Your Majesty. I am Julius Reinhafen, Knight of House Marlowe."

"How noble! To uphold etiquette as you point your blade at your king... Truly, there is no greater show of knighthood in the world."

The knight lifted his head and stared at Ixion, then slowly unsheathed his blade.

"Straight to business! As expected of Marlowe’s knight."

Julius remained quiet as he steadied his stance.

’And proportionally boring...’

"Ah, very well. They finished setting up the barrier, so let’s begin, shall we? There’s a long queue of you to get through."

Ixion steadied his blade and then started sauntering toward Julius.

Julius held the hilt of his sword to his chest, then muttered:

"A guiding light sees all in darkness."

A moment later, his blade began to sparkle and shine as he lowered it toward Ixion.

Ixion sensed Aether pooling in the blade’s tip, then a beam of light shot toward him like an arrow.

Ixion pivoted his body before it struck, causing the light beam to shoot off into the barrier and dissipate.

Looking away toward where the light faded, Ixion laughed.

"Neat trick."

Julius sneered, then began to unleash a barrage of light.

Ixion dodged the first few, continuing his measured walk. When he got too close to where the beams were too fast to evade, he cloaked his hand in Aether and began swatting them away like flies.

"Noble Julius! Don’t you have another attack?"

The knight gritted his teeth, then jumped away. When he landed, he shifted his stance.

’Holding his sword behind him?’

Ixion did not bother to walk any faster — no sense of urgency in his gait.

With a deep grunt, the knight swung his sword down like one would an axe, letting loose a wall of light that looked like a fin in the ground swimming toward Ixion, biting into the stone as it moved.

"Pathetic!"

Ixion raised his foot, then stomped on the wave of light just as it reached him, exploding the attack into a blinding scatter of light that blinded all the spectators.

In this moment, Ixion engaged the first steps of Blade Waltz, then propelled himself forward at an inhuman speed.

Julius, immune to his own light, tried to defend himself, but Ixion held out his hand and gripped him by the neck. Then Ixion held him aloft.

The knight tried to swing his sword down, but Ixion shook him, and he lost grip on his blade. The blade fell from his grasp and clanged on the stone floor as the light faded from the metal.

When the spectators’ eyes adjusted, Ixion heard their murmurs.

"Huh?"

"What happened?"

Julius grunted.

"Argh. Ack!" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"I declare this duel finished."

Ixion, holding his blade in his left and Julius’ neck in his right, threw the knight into the barrier. Julius smacked into it, causing a ripple of blue hexagonal tessellations to spread across its surface.

The knight gritted his teeth and tried to stand back up.

"N-no—"

Julius began stumbling around, as if his limbs were unaware of their functions.

Then he fell over and fainted, his soul having been ever so slightly rattled.

Ixion walked over to his original position, then called out:

"Bring the next challenger."