The Legend of Carmine

On the first day of the duel. All the officials, Ministers, and even all the soldiers gathered to witness the duel. The rules of the first duel- sword ⚔️ fighting was simple. There were three rounds in which whoever would be able to strike the opponent, would win a point each time, but they were not allowed to kill each other.

So, the fierce round began. In the middle of the training field, Rulean stood against Carmine. When the bell rang for the duel, Rulean ferociously attacked Carmine with all his strength. It appeared as if he was really going to kill her with his ferocious strikes. Immediately, Rulean gained the first point. When he gained the first point, Of course, everyone was happy about it. As Rulean kept launching his attack after attack on her. She noticed that he used mostly his right side of his body. She understood that he had great strength in his right side as she could feel the blow of the strike as she defended them. Then, she also noticed that Rulean's right side was stronger in strength and agile compared to his left side. For most people, it would require a lot of observation and hand on hand combat with him to know it because his skills were so good it almost made it unseeable to other's eyes. So, Carmine who had mostly been able to defend herself with Rulean ferocious attack dodged and launched an attack on his left side. Finally, she was able to strike him and won a point for herself. As she ventured with the same technique. Rulean gave a smirk. As he thought to himself did this girl really think she could defeat him with this. As Rulean is a fast learner, he realized that she had understood his weak point in his sword technique. So, he baited her, as he knew that she has known his weakness. Therefore, he intentionally gave her an opening to attack his left side, when she launched a strike on the same side. Rulean used his right hand to strike it so forcefully that Carmine's sword flew across the field and his sword pointing at her. Therefore, Rulean won the duel and got 2 points whereas Carmine scored only 1 point.

All the officials and Ministers were gleeful that Rulean had won. But, they were also forced to reckon Carmine's ability because they had not thought she would last that long in the duel, but she did not only last in the duel, she also scored a point against Rulean in the duel. Moreover, Rulean had never been defeated by any other Generals in combat.

As the duel ended everyone left the training field. And she could hear people talking that she stands no chance as she was defeated pretty bad. She could also hear people saying, "If I were her, I would have just admitted my defeat. Instead of insulting myself in front of everyone."

All the officials and Ministers were absolutely positive that Rulean was their best choice and Carmine would definitely go downhill.

Cyanx after the duel had a playful smile on his face. It was as if he was expecting this. Cyanx turned to Alor who was standing right beside him and said, "This is just starting to get interesting".

On the second day, all of them had gathered in a big hall instead of archery practice ground. The rules of the archery duel were simple. Both of them had 3 chances to shoot the eye of a fish. (only one eye was present as the fish was laid flat and on one side, which faced towards the shooter). Furthermore, to increase the difficulty of the task the fish would be moving in ⭕️ a circle on the target 🎯 board. This was made even more difficult because the target was located on the ceiling and the contestant would have to see its image on the mirror on the floor to shoot the target. Each of the contestants had 3 chances to hit it. Overall, it was a very difficult task.

Carmine knew that this task must have been suggested by Cyanx himself, seeing the difficulty of the task.

Since Rulean had won the first duel. He went first as he looked in the mirror and aimed at the eye of the fish. The first shot was good but not good enough as it landed between the fish's eye and its's gills. Then, he pulled his second shot and it shot right into the fish's eye.

All the court people were overjoyed. It was such a difficult shooting task, that all of them were 100% sure that Carmine would not be able to hit the target.

Carmine when she positioned herself in the position. She knew it, if she wanted to win these 3 duels she needed to hit this fish's eye in one shot. Otherwise, she will lose; As the third duel had only one round. Since on 1st duel he scored 2 and on this, he scored 1. (because he used 2 chances out of 3 to hit the target). So, to make it a draw she had to get the eye in the 'first shot because then only she could get 2 points in this duel. Having thought all this, deep down she could not help but wonder if Cyanx really knew that she was a good archer and had planned for this beforehand.

Anyways she had no time to get distracted by such things. She cleared her mind of everything. She took a deep breath and looked in the mirror on the floor and shot the arrow just focusing on the eye of the fish. Boom when the arrow left the bow it hit right in the eye of the moving target.

Carmine won the second duel. So, the score of the 2nd duel was Carmine 2 and Rulean 1.

And the total score of 2 duels was 3 for both of them. It was clear that only the 3rd duel would determine the winner.

On the second day, all the court people were less joyous as the idea started to plagued them that even the great General of Norand Rulean can be defeated. But their arrogance was still high which constantly said in their mind that the women would not be able to stand against Rulean.

The 3rd duel was a chess ♟ match. It would clearly showcase their intellectual as well as their military statistical knowledge.

Since Carmine had won the second duel. She got to choose her pieces. Carmine chose white whereas Rulean played the black pieces. As the game advanced. Everyone was on the edge of their seat. It was evident that Rulean was a furious attacker and constantly conducted the frontal attack and was mostly looking for immediate victory. And he had indeed outnumbered a handful of chess pieces of Carmine. However, Carmine made gradual progression throughout the chessboard supporting her strength and defending and slowly building the power. Finally, when Rulean launched his final fatal attack with his pieces set in their place. Carmine, who had just defended herself along the game had developed enough interconnected support powers to outsmart his Queen and ultimately checkmate Rulean's chess game's King. So, Carmine won this game fair and square.

With the result of the game, the winner was evident. All the officials and ministers were speechless. These 3 duels indeed proved why Cyanx wanted this woman as one of his generals. The officials and Ministers started to think that this could be a good idea for the nation because they had to admit that she was an excellent strategist.

However, Rulean could not believe that he had lost to this woman again. His every defeat just made his grudge even deeper against her. And she being assigned the post he wanted so much, added even more layers of anger and hatred towards her.