( Regus Aurelius's POV )
Regus was stomped with work, but while his duties as a monarch were urgent and important, they were forced to take a backseat after Ixtal was drowned in werewolf howls.
Max's antics had put the entire planet on high alert and while the Aurelius clan comprised most of the inhabitants of Ixtal there were still ambassadors of all clans present on the planet who were demanding an answer to what exactly happened.
The news of the event travelled fast and Regus was reluctant to answer.
If news came out that he had kicked Max resulting in him falling into the Sanguis, then the first question would not be as to why Max fell into the river but as to why Regus kicked Max in the first place.
He had been putting off Max's trial for so long and if the news came out that he was free enough to meet with Max but instead of setting him free he bullied the boy, it would paint his picture as the oppressive bully.
Nobody could know that Max was set free from his cell, nobody could be told that the King had offered the primordial vampire a deal to set him free if he just agreed to never come after his throne and hence although Regus wanted to use this incident to try and smear Max's name, he couldn't as it would guarantee his own name being dragged through the mud as well.
For now, the incident was suppressed as being howls of the imprisoned werewolves in the underground prison, but not everyone bought the narrative seriously.
With time till the universal trial running out fast for Regus, the king was drowned in one trouble after another.
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( Meanwhile Rudra )
" Okay, Okay that's enough " Rudra said as he stopped the friendly spar between Jake and Amy.
Rudra had been training the kids for about a month now and this was the first time that he had set-up a spar between Jake and Amy so that the twins could have some actual combat practice against opponents of the same strength.
While Jake stood his ground and fought with the proper stance that Rudra had taught him, Amy had decided to take the approach of trying to catch Jake off-guard by consistently moving as she tried to find an opening in his guard.
It wasn't a bad approach considering Jake was physically stronger than Amy and could always push her back in a direct confrontation, but it was an approach that drained Amy's stamina very highly while Jake had to do nothing but sit-back and not make any mistakes.
Naturally, after 2 minutes of sparring Amy was already breathing heavily while not having landed a single blow on Jake as Rudra had to call the fight off-
" Okay, Amy, answer me, why did you take the approach of trying to fight from a distance? " Rudra asked with a kind fatherly voice
" I can't push him back in fair combat father, so I figured I'd try and attack him where he's weak and build on an advantage in his opening " Amy replied as Rudra was impressed with her line of thinking.
While her approach was not correct, it at least showed that she planned her battles and used her head, which was a promising sign to say the least.
" Okay, but if you did not wish for him to be able to use his strength then why did you not stick as close to him as possible?
Say you remain only 10 inches from his face for the entire duration of the battle, not allowing him to fully move any of his limbs and bring his superior power into play, will you not neutralise his strength? " Rudra asked inquisitively when he already knew the answer to that question.
While everyone believed swordsmanship to be a close combat technique, it wasn't entirely true.
For one to truly display the true power of swordsmanship they needed to be at an arm's length from the enemy, so that their sword thrusts or slashes could be delivered with full strength.
If an enemy was too close, close enough to invalidate any sword swings or thrust as the swordsman would simply not be able to generate enough power behind the attack, then their superior strength would be all for naught.
As Rudra posed his question, Jake immediately frowned as he understood the implications of such a fighting style while Amy looked like a lightbulb just lit up in her head.
" If you are faster than your opponent, then there are more ways of utilising that speed than just trying to find openings in your opponents defence.
You can use a shorter weapon like a dagger or short sword and close down the distance between yourself and the opponent to incapacitate their ability to fight.
If you close up on them, their first reaction will be to create distance between themselves and you and hence they will kick back.
Now you know exactly what move they are going to make and can trip them before they do so to create the opening that you previously were looking for and strike a blow.
Remember my words here well kids - A real fight is not only about strength, speed and techniques. A real fight is about strategy!
If you can convert the opponent's strengths into weaknesses and your weaknesses into your strengths, nobody can defeat you in battle" Rudra said with conviction as he saw little stars light up in the eyes of the kids as they looked upto him in awe.
There was a long road from where they were to where Rudra was, but the God-King wanted to give his children an even better foundation of understanding the art of battle than he himself had so that someday they could surpass him to become even greater warriors.
Whether that day ever came or not would depend on fate, but one thing was for sure which was that the kids after receiving training day in and day out from Rudra would not become normal warriors upon maturity.
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/// A/N - Mass release chapter 4, that's it for the day. Hope you all enjoyed it ///