All around them, the sand erupted and his second reason for keeping his abilities hidden emerged. Desert bandits. Greg suspected that they had to have some affinity with the earth element as the figures dressed in ninja-like outfits jumped out of the sand like dolphins jumping out of water. Instead of black, however, their robes were a dirty yellow color that matched the color of the sand almost perfectly. There were about three hundred of them, spread out along the path that the caravan would take. Compared to the almost a thousand people who made up the caravan, one would be tempted to think that the bandits were at a disadvantage. However, only about a quarter of those in the caravan were actual guards, meaning that the bandits had about a fifty-man advantage. Worse yet, their opening salvo had taken about thirty to forty guards off the board further cementing their advantage.
Due to the secrecy that was necessary around the new awakening method his teacher had discovered, they were unable to use it while on the run. Just because he couldn't continue his mana infusions, however, didn't mean that the rest of his training regimen stopped. He continued to learn mana control and the basics of healing magic from his teacher. On the days that he wasn't learning with his teacher, he was subjected to the torture that was learning under his familiar. Greg didn't know if it was because of their connection, but Olivia seemed to always know exactly where his limits lay and would push him right to that very edge and keep him dancing there for hours on end.
Any time Greg flagged, she would up the ante and ensure that he didn't stop until she was satisfied. As unforgiving as she was in training, she was also judicious. Greg was never allowed to push himself in a way that would do more harm than good. Pain and misery during training were perfectly fine as far as she was concerned, but only if it served the purpose of bettering him in the long run. Damaging himself in the name of training was stupidity that she would not tolerate. The familiar would punish him even worse for doing this than for not meeting her training goals. Perhaps this was her goal from the beginning, but Greg found himself being able to let go and just push himself however hard she wished for him to. If she was asking something of him, even if it hurt, he knew it wasn't out of sadism, but because she genuinely believed him capable of it. Months of hellish training under her made what came next that much easier for Greg.
With shrill war cries that only added to the cacophony, the bandits attacked. There was no posturing or tense standoff with them. With daggers at the ready, the second they were out of the sand, they jumped on anyone close to them that wasn't one of them. With a quick step back, Greg evaded the swipe at his throat by the bandit closest to him. The bandit's eyes went wide, reflexively leaning his head to the side to avoid the dagger that Greg had aimed at his head while jumping back. That single pause, however, was all that Greg needed. While he didn't have any formal earth element spells, Greg did have innate spells that he'd gained from assimilating beast-cores of earth element beasts. If anyone had been watching the back foot that Greg used to spring forward, they would have noticed the ground under him bulging upwards and compounding the speed with which he shot forward at the bandit.
All the guards were armed with two standard weapons. The first was a dagger, which Greg had already aimed at the head of the bandit and missed. The second weapon was a double-edged short sword that had a sharp tip, good for slashing and stabbing. While the beige robes that the bandits wore made for good camouflage, the same couldn't be said in terms of armor. Which is why they usually donned a leather cuirass under them for protection. Unfortunately for his assailant, the momentum with which Greg had shot forward was far too great. Like a nail through wood, Greg's sword sunk into the man's chest almost to the hilt before he gave a Savage twist to further exacerbate the damage.
Greg didn't stand around to look his foe in the eye as he died. That cinematic bullshit only looked good in the movies. On a battlefield such as the one he found himself in, it was a good way to die. Forget other enemies, even the one he'd just stabbed could easily launch a desperate attack in an effort to take Greg with him. Not willing to see such an outcome, Greg yanked his blade out of the man's chest even as he used the earth under him to create distance between himself and his first victim.
Another bandit lunged at him with a short sword of his own, looking to cut Greg down. The attack, however, faltered in a rather comical fashion as the foot with which the bandit had made the lunge slipped forward forcing the man to do an involuntary split. The man didn't get to scream or express his discomfort in any way as Greg swung his sword to meet the falling man, sinking it halfway through his neck almost decapitating the man. A third-party observer might have been tempted to think that it was pure luck that handed Greg the victory, but they would be wrong.
One of the perks of human intelligence is the creativity that comes with it. For obsidian earthmovers, the earth step was purely a movement skill. It wasn't long after Greg began to practice using the earth step himself that the question naturally came to him. If I can move myself with this, what stops me from doing the same with someone else? Admittedly, Greg hadn't been thinking about its combat applications at the time. As soon as he suggested it to the one who'd been training him in combat, however, she immediately saw just how deadly this ability could be in a fight. "Unless your opponent has some form of flight, then they'll need stable grounding for any attack or defensive maneuver they wish to make. If you can shift the very ground out from under them, you can become a very deadly force in battle."
Of course, it had taken him months of training before Greg was confident enough to try it in battle. His practice target had been his familiar Olivia, someone who was light as a feather on her feet. If he could get her to misstep during one of their training sessions even once, Greg would have gotten all the confirmation he needed that he was ready. Four months was how long it had taken to get the familiar to stumble a little and for the rest of that training session, Greg had been unable to keep a grin off his face even as Olivia tenderized him from the beating she delivered in their sparring session.
Greg didn't have eyes on the back of his head, but with the ground under his feet whispering to him whenever someone got within a certain distance of him, he might as well have. Wasting no time, Greg immediately jumped to the side to evade whatever attack, if any, that came his way. With a quick pivot, Greg used the momentum of his turning body to swing at the bandit who had thought to get him from behind. His gladius, however, fell short as his assailant had already jumped backward after his failed attack. Given his quick reaction, Greg could tell he wasn't dealing with an amateur. Even the simple way the man held his dual daggers left him with the feeling of a viper baring its fangs, ready to strike.
Rather than just look at his opponent's eyes, Greg did his best to take in everything about him. From his posture, which foot he had toward, the angle at which he held the daggers in his hands, and so on. Greg even looked to see if the man was injured in some way that he could exploit. The pause in the battle was only about a second long which was about twice as long as Olivia usually allowed Greg in their sparring sessions so when they once again lunged at each other, Greg had a measure of the one before him. Even if someone remained completely still, some things were impossible to hide unless you were completely invisible.
The first was reach. The length of the man's arms along with the length of their weapon was all too clear to see. Greg was just an inch or two taller than his attack, with equally longer arms, not to mention that he had a short sword instead of a dagger. The advantage in reach was firmly on his side. No matter how hard the man swung or attacked, so long as Greg stayed outside of this man's reach, then short of throwing his weapons at Greg, he had no hope of touching, let alone harming him. Second was the state of the man's robes. The battle had only been going on for about half a minute this far. Still, many on both sides had already suffered several injuries, some fatal. And yet, this man's robes remained completely intact. Either he was exceedingly good at blocking, or, more likely, he was elusive as a ghost when fighting, preferring to evade rather than take an attack and counter with one of his own. Lastly was the fact that the man's blades were already red and dripping with blood. This wasn't someone who'd been slinking around the battle looking for someone to backstab. No, this man had come up against other guards already and had reaped their lives without coming to any harm. This was no greenhorn, Greg was looking at a veteran of the battlefield.
Greg could have easily tripped the man using the earth under him. Becoming too one-dimensional in combat, however, was also a danger in itself as it would render him predictable. Predictability in combat was just as bad as telling your enemy outright what you planned to do next. An elaborate form of suicide as far as Olivia was concerned. This was why Greg went for a head-on clash this time, relying on the longer reach of his gladius as opposed to the daggers his attacker held to gain an advantage.
Greg's assumption about the man being good at evasion proved to be the case as the man twisted out of the way of his strike. What Greg hadn't anticipated was that rather than pulling away as was the natural instinct for most, the man evaded by stepping forward inside of Greg's swing while pressing his attack. Had this been months before, Greg would probably have panicked at this turn of events. Months of being pitted against the fiend that was Olivia, however, left Greg calm even as his free hand rose to knock the bandit's first attack off course. He then turned his body sideways, narrowly missing the follow-up attack before sending a quick thrust of his own directly at the man's chest. Although more armored than the rest, Greg knew that center mass was the easiest target to reliably hit in a fight. Besides, with the ground under him as support, there was enough force behind each of his attacks that if any met their mark they would more than likely cause crippling damage.
This was a fight of two extremes. Like two berserkers, both of them remained in the infighting range, both sending and receiving attacks head-on without backing down. And yet, at the same time, both of them were like phantoms, as so far, neither had managed to land a solid hit on the other. A swipe to the throat, a punch aimed at the liver, a feint to the left only to go right, a jump back to avoid a stab before sending a quick repost at the bandit. Greg used every trick in his repertoire trying to gain an advantage. The bandit, however, seemed to have a preternatural instinct for how to avoid attacks. Even when Greg was certain that he'd finally gotten the man, he would find an unexpected way to evade the attack.
