Chapter 98 Tension

Like a toddler who had been robbed of his favorite toy, the young playboy's face flustered as blood rushed from everywhere to his face head, trying to heal his injured ego. Consumed by the thought of being disrespected in such a crude manner, he took over the verbal warfare from his servant and issued his first order;

"What are you waiting for you twerps?!" he screamed like a petulant child.

"ARREST THIS BASTARD!!!"

At the onset, despite how it had seemed at the time, it turned out that the chief servant had actually been handling the situation pretty calmly. Immediately Eadweard roused up from his drunken state, he wasted no time in calling for the worst possible way to handle it.

With the boss man finally conscious, the chief servant had no choice but to relinquish the authority to Eadweard. Like a hype man, he echoed the voice of his lord;

"Get on with it! You heard the master!" he yelled at the other servants.

In an instant, quicker than the most minds can follow, about a dozen servants surged forward at the command of their chief and charged at Xzavier in blind fury. No one even knew they were that much. This particular batch of servants had blended in with the crowd in the background, and only came forward when summoned to handle the transgressor.

Xzavier, (being the experienced combatant that he was) took only one very short look at his assailants, and deduced the fact that they were very unskilled in the art of combat. Their stance was all wrong. Their formation was appalling. The way they even shrieked as they charged into battle was all the evidence that Xzavier really needed. Also, it was more than evident that they were all ordinary people, so, it was safe to say that they didn't know any magic. They probably sensed this about Xzavier too, hence, the reason for their very uncoordinated attack.

As they approached him like a clumsy wave, Xzavier exhaled in exasperation.

"I don't think I'll enjoy this as much as I had thought…"

Eadweard watched with glee as his small army charged headlong at the enemy. He had been so overcome with the desire for revenge that he hadn't even thought to get up from his debasing position. All his heart and mind was centered on teaching the commoner a lesson.

Because Eadweard was still sitting on the floor, the crowd in front of him towered above him. Robbing him of the pleasure of having to watch his goons tear Xzavier apart like a ambush of Tigers. He was about to make effort to stand on his feet when he started hearing the sounds of an alteration.

WHACK! WHACK! BOOM! POW! POW! Crash! Thud!

Satisfied that his orders were being carried out, Eadweard made a move to stand up on his feet, but in that same moment, he was almost crushed by a body that had been flung in his direction with the ease of someone flinging a sack of wheat, or even a new born child. Eadweard somehow managed to duck at the last moment, and narrowly escaped getting rammed by a human torpedo.

He followed the trajectory of the body with his eyes, and was shocked when he saw that it was one of his servants! The leader of the servants who had stayed back to attend to Eadweard, rushed to his master to attend to him.

"Master Eadweard! Are you okay?! Please pardon my negligence!"

He cried as he tried to assist his Master in his getting up. Eadweard angrily pushed the chief servant's hand away as he tried to help him. That wasn't his issue at the moment. As he stood up and rose to his full height, a very sorry sight greeted his eyes.

Like a scene from one those bedtime hero stories, Xzavier singlehandedly repelled the scourge of unskilled, ill-trained, tactless servants foolishly charging at him without any kind of plan whatsoever. Using nothing but brute force, (and skillful maneuvers) Xzavier gave each and every one of them a beating they would never forget in their lives. Anyone he beat, he would fling out of his orbit in the direction of Eadweard and his trusty servant. Before long, all the servants who went together to attack Xzavier in one accord, were the littered bodies on the ground around the surrounding area. As one, in one discordant disturbing tune, they wailed and wailed.

No one was more confounded than Eadweard in that moment. Eyes wide open in disbelief, and with his jaw dropping from the hinges of his mouth, the playboy looked askance at the astounding sight before him. He wondered if he was still drunk, or maybe seeing things. It was one of those sights that one only witnessed once in a blue moon!

While the noble struggled to wrap his head around the fact that a nobody had just repelled his entire band of avenging angels, the astute and observant chief servant took in the situation calmly. It was clear to him that the stranger was no ordinary person. And yet, the most disturbing fact of all was that he couldn't sense a single trace of mana from him. So, the stranger was obviously not a mage as well. This posed to he a very conflicting scenario.

Unlike Eadweard, the chief servant didn't bother to linger on things he could do nothing about. With his other colleagues down, and with him being the last line of defense, he stepped forward to the challenge.

"This is your last warning! If you surrender now and apologize, we will take your prudence into consideration and consider sparing your life!"

Even as he made this last attempt to curtail this situation that was quickly spiraling out of control, the chief servant was under no illusion that this might end up working.

Xzavier on the other hand was exasperated. He was sick and tired of being asked to apologize when it was glaring that the other party was the side in the wrong. No matter how he tried, he just couldn't grasp the logic behind their claim. It was as flawed as it was baseless. Why couldn't they see that the noble man was the one who had made the mistake? Why did they keep insisting he should apologize? Wasn't this the very definition of lunacy?

Xzavier whipped his head around, hoping to see if someone else in the crowd saw reason with him. Xzavier wasn't even surprised when he saw the looks on the faces of the spectators. There wasn't even a single sympathetic soul present. Like a bunch of bloodthirsty Romans at a gladiator duel, this particular crowd also drank in the free entertainment with equal vigor. No one, not even a single soul tried to intervene to break up the fight.

Instead, they all remained on the sidelines, watching Xzavier and the others like they were watching a chicken fight in an animal fight club. Only this time, without the jeering or cheering or the placing of bets.

Even without doing anything, they were all complicit to the perversion of the truth that was being done here. Xzavier remembered what Tacy often repeated in his ears;

"It's just the way things are…."

By this time, it was apparent to the chief servant that Xzavier wasn't going to apologize. So, with his eyes still following Xzavier's every move, he slowly took off his long coat and immediately assumed an attack stance.

The chief servant wasn't the only one who was watching his opponent. Xzavier in like manner also screened his every move, following his every movement with the watchful gaze of a predator. Judging from the other man's stance, anyone with an eye for detail would be able to see that this particular opponent was in a way different league than the other fickle creatures Xzavier had handled.

The chief servant assumed a fighting stance, and with this bold declaration of war, the imaginary battle line was drawn, inadvertently bidding farewell to any more notions of diplomacy. With each side choosing to remain stubborn and unyielding, the gates of discourse closed behind them. And in its stead stood the cackling thunder clouds.

The tension in the air was palpable. No one could deny it.

Behind Xzavier, huddled in one corner stood the contemplating Adalia. The blue eyed maiden had a great nose for sniffing out trouble. She didn't need a soothsayer or seer to predict the forecast over this atmosphere, it was clear enough that this whole things was headed south.

Also, another factor that influenced her analysis was Xzavier. Adalia had been around Xzavier long enough to know that the young man was a walking, breathing, live magnet that drew in the weirdest kinds of trouble. Of course, she wasn't biased enough to think that it was deliberate. But it didn't make it any less true! She couldn't be mad at him, she knew that this wasn't always his intention. And yet, somehow, it almost always ended up this way.