Chapter 104: The Black Sheep of the Ryu Family (5)

The day of the decisive duel finally arrived. At the appointed time, Berald and I made our way to Raios’s private training ground. As we approached the facility, Berald kept clenching and unclenching his fists, nervously swallowing his dry spit.

“Whew!”

I slowed my pace a little to walk alongside him. “What’s the matter? Getting cold feet?”

“W-what? Hahaha! M-me? N-nervous? D-don’t be ridiculous!”

He stuttered a little too much for someone claiming not to be nervous. Berald scratched his head with a sheepish smile, clearly aware of it himself. “Haha! Well, since we’re around the same age, people have always compared me to Brother Raios.”

“Compared, huh…”

Raios had been hailed as the prodigy destined to inherit the title of Lionel Ryu, the Thunder God, while Berald was often branded the black sheep of the Ryu family, so there was no need to ask what those comparisons sounded like.

“To me, he was someone I could never hope to match, but now that I’m actually facing him, my mind’s in chaos,” Berald said.

“Didn’t seem that complicated when you were gleefully beating him up last time.”

“T-that was because I lost my temper!”

I let out a chuckle and clapped him on the shoulder. “Relax, man. Just do what I taught you.”

“Ahem! Understood, Big Bro.”

With that, the two of us entered the building housing Raios’s private training ground.

Before going to the door, I said, “Oh, right.”

“Hmm? Did you forget something?”

“You’re wearing your Hero Watch, right?”

Berald lifted his left arm to show the device strapped to his wrist. “Of course.”

“Let me hold onto that for now,” I replied.

“Worried it might get damaged during the fight?”

“Something like that.”

“Hm. Got it.”

After taking his Hero Watch, I entered the training ground. Compared to Berald’s modest setup, Raios’s private training ground was practically a high-tech arena, boasting both vast space and the latest facilities.

Inside, Raios Ryu was already waiting for us. He stood with arms crossed, casually smirking. “Well, well. You showed up instead of running off. You ready to get your ass handed to you?”

Berald grinned boldly and stepped forward with confidence. “Heh. I won’t go down that easily.”

Raios’s expression twisted into a sneer. “Let’s see what you’ve been working on all this time, then.”

He then turned to me. “You know how to set the duel mode, right?”

“I do.”

“Good. Set it to Magic-Only Duel mode.”

The Magic-Only Duel mode, just as the name suggested, automatically ended the match in defeat for any participant who made direct physical contact with their opponent. It was a specialized mode that emphasized spell combat only.

I walked over to the device installed on the wall and applied the settings.

[Duel mode set to Magic-Only Duel.]

[Duel begins in 5 seconds.]

[4, 3, 2, 1.]

As the countdown hit zero, blue lightning exploded with a sharp chant. “Strike down.”

“Hup!” Berald quickly sidestepped the bolt of lightning and thrust his hand forward. His soul stigmata lit up, releasing a surge of mana. With a grunt, he formed a fist-sized orb of condensed mana.

Raios scoffed when he saw the translucent sphere floating in the air. “Is that all you’ve got after all that training? A Mana Bullet? And that thing, you’ve given up controlling it, haven’t you?”

Truly deserving of the “magical genius” label from his youth, Raios had already spotted the flaw. He chuckled at the Mana Bullet floating motionlessly in midair. “What are you gonna do with a spell that doesn’t even move?”

Berald replied, “When your body’s strong, your brain doesn’t have to work as hard.”

“What?”

“Heh. Watch carefully, Senior.” Berald reached out, grabbed the floating Mana Bullet, and threw it. “This is my kind of magic!”

The Mana Bullet roared through the air with a terrifying sonic boom.

Raios’s eyes widened as he twisted his body to dodge. “You crazy bastard!”

The Mana Bullet grazed past him and crashed into the training ground’s wall behind. A massive shockwave rang out like a bomb going off, shaking the entire facility.

Raios looked back at Berald, incredulous. “You… threw your magic?”

Theoretically, it wasn’t impossible, but it was wildly inefficient. Who in their right mind would throw an arrow instead of firing it from a bow?

“I’m not done yet!” Berald shouted, rapidly forming and hurling more Mana Bullets.

Each Mana Bullet blasted forward with deafening force.

Raios clicked his tongue and quickly raised his mana. “What a pathetic trick!”

Bolts of blue lightning tore through the air, striking down the incoming Mana Bullets. Then he chanted, “Call of Thunder!”

A wave of pure thunder surged forward and crashed into Berald. It was a high-level spell, far beyond the simple Mana Bullets. The overwhelming tide of lightning engulfed Berald, black smoke rising from his body.

“Gaaahhh!”

Berald hunched over, groaning in pain.

“Huu! Now do you get it? This is what real magic—”

Before Raios could even finish his sentence, Berald shouted, “Take this!”

He suddenly flung the Mana Bullet he had been gripping tightly in his hand. The Mana Bullet struck Raios mid-sentence, drawing a choked cry of pain from his lips.

With a savage scowl twisting his face, Raios spread both arms wide. “Y-you useless little bastard!”

Electric-blue lightning erupted around him, surging with raw mana, and he said, “O thunder!”

With a deafening roar, a massive wall of thunder formed around Raios, shielding him completely. Watching from a distance, I frowned at that stormy wall. That was Thunder Wall, the very spell that had earned Raios the moniker Thunder Emperor.

Back in my past life, the Thunder Emperor was known more for his defensive magic than his offensive power. Among all his spells, the Thunder Wall, a barrier made entirely of thunder, was considered his signature move. It was an impenetrable force of nature. Though, this one was smaller and noticeably thinner than the one I saw before.

Berald’s Mana Bullets burst uselessly against the wall of thunder, unable to penetrate it. I could tell that Berald wouldn’t be able to break through with that.

I kept my eyes on him. He was breathing heavily, throwing everything he had into those attacks, but I couldn’t step in to help. All I could do was watch and trust.

Raios watched Berald struggle to catch his breath and said, “Still don’t get it?”

He casually snapped his fingers. From the Thunder Wall, a bolt of lightning shot toward Berald.

“Urgh!” Berald gritted his teeth and leaped backward to avoid it.

This wasn’t working. Those small Mana Bullets would never be enough to shatter that wall.

***

The fight between Berald and Raios intensified. Berald thrust both arms forward, drawing on every ounce of mana in his body. More mana than even Raios had used began to surge violently around him. “Haaaaaaah!”

What he formed next was a massive Mana Bullet, the size of a person’s torso. It was the biggest spell Berald could currently produce.

Raios’s gaze sharpened coldly as he glared at the glowing orb. “That’s it? After all that noise and fuss, it’s still just a damn Mana Bullet? You’ve been learning magic for over ten years, and that’s still all you’ve got? Mana Bullets?”

“It’s not worthy of comparison with your spells, Brother Raios— no, Senior. But I poured my heart into this.”

Raios sneered, his lips twisting with mockery. “Heart, my ass! Well, I’ll give you this much. You did try. You’ve always been stupidly obsessed with training.”

Having known Berald since childhood, Raios understood all too well the blood, sweat, and effort Berald had poured into his craft. He even knew how the Thunder God Lionel Ryu held Berald in special regard because of that tireless dedication.

“But still, effort doesn’t matter if it gets you nowhere.”

Berald remained silent.

Raios clicked his tongue in disgust and scoffed. “You know what they call people like you, huh? A waste of time. All those years of effort you put in were meaningless.”

With that one cruel sentence, Raios trampled over more than a decade of Berald’s hard work and laughed.

Berald murmured the words back with a faint smile. “Wasted effort, huh. You’re right. After all those years, all I have to show is a single oversized Mana Bullet spell.”

Even that spell was flawed. Unless he threw it himself, it wouldn’t even move. It was a spell that Raios had mastered in just three days, but Berald couldn’t properly control it even after more than ten years. And this didn’t apply to just the Mana Bullet. Every single spell was like that. Raios had breezed through what was for Berald an unreachable dream, a fruit hanging forever out of reach.

All that effort, in the end, was nothing more than time thrown away. Berald’s sweat was just wasted bodily waste. But even so, even if there was no reward, even if no one recognized him, he didn’t regret it.

“I don’t regret the time I put in.” Berald turned to Dale and flashed a wide grin. “Because someone… didn’t give up on me. Even when I was this pathetic and useless.”

Raios laughed bitterly, clearly amused. “And so what if you don’t regret it? What now? What the hell do you think you can do?”

Berald looked at the massive orb of mana hovering before him. “I’ll show you. I’ll prove that my efforts weren’t in vain.”

It was far too large to throw by hand. He could lift it with both arms, sure, but that wouldn’t give it nearly enough force. Since that was the case, he decided to muster up more mana. Then, he drew back his fist like a bowstring and lowered his stance. His elbows tilted slightly upward. A strange euphoria spread through his body.

“Haaah!”

An indescribable thrill shot through his veins. In that moment, a memory flickered across his mind, his very first hand-to-hand combat lesson with Dale.

“Huh! So, what’s the name of this combat style, in the end?”

“The name. There isn’t one.”

“What? A combat style that powerful doesn’t even have a name?”

At Berald’s disappointed expression, Dale had smiled and said, “Then how about this?”

“Hm? What?”

“If you fully master this combat style someday, we’ll name it after you.”

Berald had never understood why Dale wanted his name on it instead of his own. He thought, But still, if that’s what you wanted, then I’ll do it.

Berald exhaled and stepped forward powerfully, driving his fist forward with explosive force. “Berald Combat Style: Mountain Breaker.”

With a cataclysmic blast, the massive Mana Bullet pierced through the Thunder Wall and slammed straight into Raios.

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