Dance With Darkness And Light - Chapter 6 The Difference

As he walked toward the royal shop along with Bram, he already sensed some individuals with malicious intentions lurking in the shadows. As expected, Aran placed some men in front of the shop. The only question left was, were they placed here to scout or to attack?

Though he was interested to have a real fight like back in the days, and even more so in a world so vastly different. Now was not the time.

Even if he was content with his cultivation results, he didn’t really understand the extent of his achievements yet. Plus alone against many in a twelve year old’s body, and the old butler, were too many liabilities to test his results. The only sensible option was to rush into the royal shop first and proceed further from there.

After telling Bram of his intentions, they started rushing toward the shop. This, of course, alerted Aran’s henchmen, so two of them rushed out to block them.

The first one was careless and was avoided in a way that made the henchmen stumble and eventually fall to the ground, the other one was smarter and blocked the young prince’s path ignoring Bram.

Bazuul, on the other hand, didn’t decrease his speed – on the contrary – he accelerated. When he was close enough he motioned his body toward the left. The henchman tried to block his advance when suddenly the prince moved toward the right, he quickly tried to adjust and block the path to the right losing his balance on the way.

Only to realize that this young brat actually faked his motion and was still running toward the left side, this time the henchman couldn’t re-adjust his posture anymore and fell to his left knee. Just as he was about to stand straight again the prince passed him leaving a well-positioned kick in the middle of his leg, breaking his right knee cleanly.

The henchmen growled in pain, as the others – hidden in the shadows – rushed out toward the prince. Too late though, the prince and his servant already entered the royal shop.

~~~

Inside the shop Bazuul felt excited, the rush he felt was electric, and his kick, it went through that fellow’s knee as if butter. Admittedly, the timing was perfect, because after repositioning himself the henchmen’s knee wasn’t yet fully balanced, thus making it rather easy anyway.

Still, he was just a kid and even considering the strange pool of darkness and light, and although the body strengthening manual had helped, his life-vein had yet to completely recuperate.

Before the shopkeeper could even greet the young prince two familiar faces blocked his sight and stood in front of Bazuul. It was the guards he previously left handling those thugs in the tavern. They were mostly unharmed, only a couple of dents in their armor was noticeable.

“Gentleman, you’ve made it! Good!” Bazuul said with a happy expression. “Prepare yourselves for another battle, after I’ve looked around the shop, we’ll start our” The little prince chuckled “little game.”

The two guards that were about to complain were a bit puzzled. Also, a breath of icy air went down their spine, but they weren’t particularly scared of a battle – on the contrary – but the way the prince spoke and his bearing. What kind of game would this foppish young lord have in mind? From that, slight ripples could be felt that gave a foreboding feeling of something…at least to them, unpleasant.

After passing the two guards he saw the shopkeeper and his assistant, they bowed before the prince and were about to greet when the latter beckoned and asked for a multitude of things. For example, arcane codex’s, since he had yet to see one, or really understand what they were. Even though he could imagine.

After rummaging through the shop for about two hours he chose two things. Although not ecstatic, he was quite content. He did at least acquire one chapter of an arcane codex – even if it was not a complete compendium – it was enough to feed his curiosity for the moment. What intrigued him right from the start was other than the yellow-ish tone it held from the passage of time, was a slight, almost indistinct, golden hue. The chapter’s name was.

[Chapter 3: Cascading Light]

The other thing he picked was also something mystical to him, a spatial ring. Something he only heard of in asian literature. Since he read a lot of it back on earth he also felt quite familiar with it, so immediately bound the ring by blood.

Now as a prince such things might be nothing special, but Bazuul would not unnecessarily freeload in the royal court. On the other hand, he also wouldn’t even think to pay for the goods in the royal shops. A tip for the service, and that’s it. First of all, all the goods were practically already his. Second, who could afford to buy – what he “bought” – in the eastern city. In the end, the arcane codex and the spatial ring would only collect dust, or though unlikely, be stolen.
for visiting.

He checked the spatial ring and was quite astounded by the storage size, it had about three acres. That was an unusual size he recalled, he struck it rich it seemed, in a sense.

He suddenly felt that Velamar was wrong, and even though the lord of the underworld meant for him to be in another world, he felt he was quite right where he was.

“Hmph, what a coincidence, I have a pool of light and darkness inside of me and the first chapter of an arcane codex I find is about the light. Plus I find a spatial ring so huge, not even supreme beings in these chinese novels came to possess.” He thought sarcastically.

“Plot armor much?! I wonder what this so-called destiny is about? He then mumbled.

After he put the chapter of the arcane codex into his ring he went to Bram and his guards to formulate a plan with them.

“It’s pretty easy, you make sure that nobody comes close to me, while I capture that Aran fellow, then we’ll flee with him as a hostage. Haha!” He said nonchalantly.

Kadi and Hanzu looked at each other as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. They were high ranked knights in the kingdom, so fighting off a couple of thugs wasn’t the issue, especially in a wide and open space. The problem was taking a hostage and then fleeing, it was shameless and disgraceful, even if it was a scumbag. What about the face of the royal family?

Nonetheless, they were obliged to heed the prince’s words as long as it would not put his life in danger.

Kadi still felt this was wrong and asked why they couldn’t just defeat them or directly kill them since this attack on the prince would, in fact, be treason.

“Sure, if you can, then I won’t stop you.” He answered with an innocent smile on his face.

Bazuul pushed the door open and leisurely walked out of the shop with his two guards and Bram behind them, seeing the guards Arans henchmen were a bit set aback but soon recovered and launched an attack.

Meanwhile, Bazuul chuckled with his arms crossed and then shouted. “How idiotic can someone be to attack a prince in his own kingdom? Even worse, your “business” is based here…hahaha. Guards attack!”

On the other side, Aran stood on a porch observing the scene and as he heard the prince’s words he yelled in anger. “Do as you wish with the guards, but keep the prince alive. I will enjoy myself with him personally.”

Kadi and Hanzu snorted, who were they, what about our face? They think WE can be disregarded?!

They unsheathed their swords and met the other parties offensive with an attack, a second later one could hear steel hit the ground followed by two bodies.

One had a very deep cut mark across his chest and the other lost his right arm. Whilst the latter wept and struggled the other one only struggled for a moment before his body lie there listless.

Aran frowned for a moment, taken aback by the power and decisiveness with which these guards attacked, but before he could react another five henchmen hit the ground. Within twenty seconds he lost seven henchmen and had thirteen left, worry bloomed in his heart and cold sweat formed at his temples. He roared “What are you idiots doing?! Capture the prince and these so-called honorable knights can’t do shit! FUCK!”

Bazuul snorted and smiled wryly at the same time and started to move toward Aran at a normal pace. “Now now watch your words old man, or is that your true face? I have to say, you look like a pig.”

Ten steps, ten henchmen left. Aran’s pupils contracted.

Twenty steps, seven henchmen to go and Aran, out of fear, took a couple of steps back.

Thirty steps and only four henchmen left. Aran, dazed, felt a grip on his left hand’s wrist.

“Got you!” Bazuul stood there looking at Aran with a smile on his face as if he was playing catch. At this moment he suddenly felt as if the heavens had given him a chance.

“Take the prince hostage while his guards handle the rest of the henchman,” the heavens said, “this way you can escape, this way, you can survive.” they said.

He shook his arm free and intended to use the momentum to strike the prince’s neck so he could take him hostage without the other party struggling.

“Ouuh what a great idea, you must be a genius.” The prince said in a calm voice.

Which only enraged Aran more, but before his hand connected with the young prince’s neck he saw a tiny black essence forming in front of the other parties neck.

Bang!

“GA-AAAAAH!” Aran screamed, groaned and wept out of pain as his arm hung there like a wet towel. His mind befuddled. “What had happened?”

But Bazuul saw it clearly, once again – as if he knew – the dark shield formed again and protected him from danger, breaking the bones in Arans arm in the process. As he perceived in his mind’s eye, turning them into dust and shattering his blood-vessels.

“My, my”