Speed of light

“I’m glad you could make it.”

The low voice made Nolt’s whole body stiffen. Just for an instant, though.
His hexagonal staff ripped through the air behind him— in the direction of
the voice. It was as if his right hand had become
a flash of brown. The strange thing was, the arc his weapon painted with the
speed of light was a full circle. Surely enough, the hexagonal staff had
grown to nearly twice its former length, stretching toward the spot from
which the voice had issued.

However, when Nolt spun around dumbstruck by the lack of contact, the
pole in his hands was no longer than normal.
“That’s quite an unusual skill you have, sir,” the youth of hair-raising
beauty said in a voice of steel from atop a cyclopean block of stone that
loomed by the side of the road.

No reply was given, but a flash of brown shot out. The spot it touched
blasted apart, and in the midst of the scattered chips of stone D flew through
the air like a mystic bird. Had his gelid gaze caught the mark the pole left
on the rocky surface?

In Nolt’s hands, the staff that plowed through almost diamond-hard stone
like it was clay changed direction easily and raced for the airborne D.
There was a glimmer in D’s right hand. The arc of brown was countered by
a flash of silver, and there was a dull thud. Not giving Nolt time for a
second attack, as soon as he landed right in front of the Marcus brother, D
swung his blade down.

Tasting the blood-freezing fear of that blade all the while, Nolt leapt
backward. The attack he unleashed as he leapt was not a swing but rather a
jab, and his staff seemed to grow without end as it struck for D’s face.
Though he didn’t seem to move a muscle, the pole missed D by a fraction
of an inch as he launched himself into the air.

A flashing sideways slash. The blade that would’ve put a diagonal split
down the middle of Nolt’s face bit instead into the pole that shot up, and the
two figures broke to opposite sides.

2 - 3