I would laugh in the Counts face if I heard him say that it was a "honorable sword duel". The man schemed and murdered his family without remorse purely for his own ambition. Who the fuck is he to demand a "honorable sword duel"? Did he ever give his victims a chance to duel him?
The #7 post in this thread explains it more or less.
So there is this dude whose job is to eliminate the 'corrupted' that turned back to the side of light. The only problem is that R&D doesn't do anything by halves. All the 'corrupted' are much stronger than the dude himself, so he is...