Chapter 26 : Chapter 26
Chapter 26 : Battle
The moment Ryan’s words—“It seems you are already impatient to lose to me again”—left his mouth, the crowd of watching students immediately erupted with a buzzing uproar.
“Lose? What gives him the nerve to say that?”
“Wasn’t he just getting beaten so badly by Senior Eleanor that he couldn’t fight back?”
“He really is stubborn to the end…”
Dissatisfied muttering spread out in ripples.
In the eyes of the overwhelming majority of the students, the situation could not have been clearer. An overconfident young noble from a declining house was facing the tolerant and magnanimous genius daughter of a ducal family, who had been repeatedly offended by him. They were waiting to see the iron fist of justice smash that sarcastic face straight into the floor.
Eleanor herself showed little expression. She merely gripped the sword at her waist and drew it with a sharp shing.
The blade flashed with a cold silver gleam. This was not a blunt practice weapon, but a real, sharpened steel sword. The moment it came out, the air itself seemed to grow several degrees colder.
“Good! That is the spirit!”
Instructor Barton’s booming voice crashed down like thunder, overpowering all other noise.
“Everyone, fall back! Clear the field! Since these two students are in such an eager mood to ‘exchange pointers,’ I will be the judge for this one!”
The students all retreated in a rush to the edges of the field, their eyes wide as saucers, afraid of missing even a moment of the spectacle.
A translucent defensive barrier rose with a low hum. Pale golden magical patterns flashed briefly through the air, sealing off the inside and outside into two separate worlds.
Barton stood beyond the line with his arms crossed, the scar on his face pulling slightly as he grinned.
“The rules are simple! If you go down, admit defeat, or I call a stop, then it is over! Use whatever magic or combat techniques you want, just do not aim to kill! Ready?”
Eleanor let out a long, steady breath and lowered the point of her sword diagonally toward the ground, the tip hovering three inches above the floor.
She bent her body slightly, like a leopard coiled to spring. Wisps of pale green wind began wrapping around her arms and sword, while faint sparks crackled along the blade. The aura of wind and fire quietly spread through the air.
Ryan still looked the same as ever. He stood where he was, rolled one wrist, and looked at his opponent.
If they were going to fight, then fine, he thought. It was a good chance to measure exactly how much he was worth now. If he lost, perhaps things would quiet down. If he won… the trouble would definitely double, but at least his ears might enjoy some temporary peace.
“Begin!” Barton roared like a peal of thunder.
Before the shout had even fully faded, Eleanor moved.
“Wind Bind!”
She gave a low cry, and her entire body seemed to be driven forward by an invisible current of air. Her foot slammed off the ground, and her figure shot forward in a blurred afterimage! Green and red mana intertwined and churned violently along the sword edge, producing a low moaning whistle through the air as she thrust straight ahead—fast and vicious, aiming directly for Ryan’s heart!
Ryan did not meet it head-on. His steps slid diagonally backward, as though he had expected it all along. At the same time, he brought together the index and middle fingers of his right hand like a sword and pointed three feet ahead of Eleanor’s charge path.
“Wind Wall—Rise!”
WHOOOSH—!
A half-transparent, violently spinning miniature wall of wind appeared out of nowhere, barring Eleanor’s sword path. It was not tall, but the rotating currents howled sharply, trying to deflect the fierce thrust.
Eleanor’s gaze sharpened. Not only did her charge fail to slow, it actually accelerated. At the instant her sword tip touched the wind wall, her wrist jolted violently, and green light burst from the blade!
“Breakwind!”
SHRRAAK—!
The rotating wind wall was ripped open by the sharp sword energy, tearing a gap straight through it! Her speed slowed only slightly, and though her line of attack was nudged off course, it still shot toward Ryan like a venomous dragon! But that instant of delay and deviation had already bought Ryan a precious breath of room.
Without stopping his footwork, he slid to the other side like a fish slipping through water. At the same time, he flung out his left hand with fingers spread wide.
“Flame Shots—Chain!”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three fist-sized projectiles wreathed in orange-red flames did not fly in a straight line. Instead, they traced three vicious arcs through the air, attacking Eleanor from different angles and sealing off both her left and right avenues of evasion!
Eleanor let out a cold snort, and her sword danced, sweeping up a brilliant curtain of green-and-red light.
“Whirling Flame Slash!”
Her sword light spun like a wheel, wind and fire intertwined! The three flame shots slammed into the spinning sword light and exploded one after another, turning into scattered sparks and waves of heat that illuminated her tense profile and flying red hair.
Her offensive came like a rising tide.
At times her sword style was broad and forceful, sweeping out scorching waves of heat. At other times it was sly and vicious as a serpent, producing razor-sharp wind blades.
Wind-element mana made her movements nimble and ghostlike, while fire-element mana turned every slash into an explosive burst of searing heat.
She had clearly learned from the lessons of her previous defeats to Ryan. She no longer attacked in a single direct line. Her footwork had become strange and ever-shifting, and the transitions between her sword moves flowed like water, layering one wave of pressure atop another.
For a time, the center of the field became a chaos of flashing light, shrieking wind, and burning flame!
Eleanor’s sword edge wove a dangerous and dazzling net, continuously compressing Ryan’s space to dodge and maneuver.
Ryan, meanwhile, was like a leaf caught in a storm. He looked as though he might be torn apart at any instant, yet at the final hair’s breadth he always managed to avoid fatal strikes—sometimes through the afterimages produced by Gale Step, sometimes by snapping out instant icicles to interfere, and sometimes by forcing stone spikes to jut up from the ground to obstruct her path. He hovered at the edge of that sword net the whole time, escaping danger by the narrowest of margins.
“So he really cannot handle close combat…”
“Just dodging around—what kind of skill is that?”
“Senior Eleanor is amazing!” The comments from the sidelines were filled with awe and excitement.
Most people already felt the outcome was decided. It was only a matter of time.
Even Barton stroked the stubble on his chin and nodded slightly, clearly approving of the solid foundation and intensely oppressive magic-and-martial coordination Eleanor was displaying.
The more Eleanor fought, the more her momentum surged. That long-lost feeling of controlling the rhythm of battle was reviving in her blood. The sharpness in her eyes flared brighter and brighter, and in the instant she caught the slight disorder in Ryan’s breathing during one retreat, mana burst out from within her body in a powerful surge!
“Blazing Wheel—Gale Slash!”
Her graceful body spun at high speed, and the fire mana on her sword erupted explosively, transforming into a blazing red wheel of sword light nearly two meters across. With a shriek that tore through the air, it swept outward!
Its range was enormous. The scorching temperature twisted the very air, almost sealing off all of Ryan’s routes to the left, right, and above! At the same time, a green wind vortex flashed beneath Eleanor’s feet—she was clearly already prepared to launch the true decisive follow-up the instant Ryan tried to block it head-on or leap upward!
At the very moment the flaming sword wheel was about to swallow Ryan, a pale ice-blue glint suddenly flashed through the eyes of the Ryan who had remained on the defensive the whole time and appeared so pressured.
He did not try to block that terrifying wheel of fire.
Neither did he jump upward—which would have been little better than suicide.
Instead, he made a move that left everyone stunned.
His feet slammed off the ground, and rather than retreating, he charged straight forward—crashing directly toward the edge of the fire wheel, at the section where its spinning made it slightly thinner and its temperature slightly lower!
At the same time, the hands he had been quietly holding together before his chest suddenly spread apart, and a short syllable left his mouth:
“Earth Bind—Quagmire! Heaven Press—Wind Hammer!”
The area beneath Eleanor’s feet—one that Ryan had secretly targeted long ago, as she had repeatedly sprinted, stepped, and driven her force into the ground, using what had looked like useless earth magic that raised only a little dust and vibration to loosen and saturate several specific points with mana—suddenly collapsed.
It transformed into a thick, pitch-black swamp of mana!
Its range was precise, enveloping exactly both of her feet at the point where she was exerting the greatest force.