Chapter 360: The Beginning Of The End [XXII]

“Haaahh~”

Selindra’s shoulders rolled back.

Her chest rose as she took a slow breath.

Fwump!

Her authority was fully activated, causing the air to grow heavy with her pink energy.

It was no longer only a mist.

It pressed down on the arena like a giant heartbeat, slow and deep.

The sweet smell grew strong enough to make some students cover their mouths as their faces reddened.

The stone under Selindra’s feet softened and glowed with pink lines that stretched out like blooming roots.

“Haaah… that is better…” she whispered in a soft, trembling voice. “I was getting bored with holding back…”

Her authority spread in a wave, and the world around her pulsed once…

THUMP.

The professor who was supervising the match stood up at once, panic filling his face.

“Stop the fight! Both of you— cease immediately! This level of auth—”

Someone’s hand grabbed his shoulder before he could move forward.

Aestrea.

He stood there without any sign of worry, his eyes sharp yet strangely joyful, as if he was watching something rare and precious unfold right in front of him.

“Let them continue the match,” Aestrea said quietly.

The professor turned sharply toward him. “Aestrea— this is no longer a match, this is— this is dangerous! If they activate more authority—”

Aestrea didn’t even look at him. He kept his gaze on the two girls in the arena.

“Do not interrupt them,” he said.

“I’ll take full responsibility if things go out of scale.”

The professor glared, but the way Aestrea’s eyes gleamed, filled with both excitement and deep analysis, made the man lower his head with a frustrated sigh.

He stepped back and tightened his jaw, resigning himself to the chaos that was about to happen.

Back in the arena, Carliat lifted her hand, making her fingers curl slowly.

Swish…

A long, white thread of pure light formed from her palm, stretching, thickening, and finally snapping into shape like a living ribbon that caught the faint shimmer of bending light inside it.

A glowing whip.

Its movement left a soft trail in the air, as if the space behind it was still adjusting.

Selindra laughed when she saw it.

“Oooh… finally,” she said, and then she reached behind her waist.

Her fingers curled around something that wasn’t there a moment earlier, a thin handle decorated with small metal thorns.

When she pulled it out, the whip appeared with it, spilling downward in a long chain of pink spikes connected by flexible links that moved like a spine.

Carliat and Selindra…

Both of them were whip users.

Selindra spun her weapon once, and the air cracked loudly.

KRR-RAAAACK!!

A pink wave shot upward with the motion, twisting through the pressure of her authority.

Carliat responded calmly, swinging her glowing whip in a slow circle. Each movement bent the space around it as if she were carving soft lines in the world itself.

The two stepped forward at the same time.

CRAAAAACK—!!!

Their whips clashed.

The air exploded with a mix of pink sparks and white light. The shock blew small stones upward like jumping insects.

The ground under their feet shook from the pressure.

Selindra jumped back with a light laugh, turning her body in a smooth spin as she swung her whip toward Carliat’s ankle.

The spikes stretched long, almost doubling in length as they tried to wrap around her.

Carliat slid to the side as her glowing whip bent naturally with the world itself, curving around Selindra’s strike in a perfect arc before snapping forward toward Selindra’s neck.

Selindra ducked, her hair brushing the stone as she twisted under the attack, and flicked her weapon upward with a quick motion that sent the spiked chain climbing like a hungry vine.

Then, Carliat swung her whip downward.

BAAAM!!

The white light smashed into the pink spikes, and a shockwave rolled across the arena. Students in the front row had to shield their eyes.

Selindra pushed forward again, her authority pulsing with every breath.

The arena lights dimmed slightly as her energy pulled the air inward, making her movements faster and more fluid.

Carliat responded by raising her free hand.

She pressed two fingers together, and space bent around her weapon, making its strikes twist at impossible angles, curving sideways or even backward as if the whip had a mind of its own.

Selindra’s smile widened.

“More… show me more…”

She took a bold step and launched herself into a spin, her whip stretching into a long spiral that wrapped the whole area in pink light.

Carliat slid under it, her glowing whip slashing upward in a fast arc.

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!!!

Their weapons clashed three times in a row.

Sparks burst around them every time their weapons met, pink and white scattering together, mixing, fighting, and then fading.

But as the exchange kept going, a change started to appear.

Carliat’s movements slowly grew sharper.

Her steps were no longer slow and effortless; now they were clean, precise, cutting straight through Selindra’s rhythm.

Selindra noticed it too.

Her smile twitched, still playful, but now with a small strain under it. She swung her whip with greater force, trying to break Carliat’s flow and push her back.

Her spiked pink chain hissed in long arcs, twisting and snapping like a venomous serpent.

But every time it moved, Carliat was already there.

Her glowing whip curved around Selindra’s strikes, slipping past them like water slipping through fingers.

The air bent around her weapon, soft and strange, letting her attacks follow angles that shouldn’t exist.

Selindra spun, forcing her pink mist outward to thicken the air again, but the pressure around her chest tightened as Carliat’s calm voice cut through the noise.

“Your authority is strong,” she said simply.

“But your control over it… It’s still too weak.”

Selindra’s lips curled in frustration.

“OH, JUST SHUT UP AND STAY STILL!!!”

She lunged forward, her whip snapping outward in a brutal horizontal swing that tore a deep line across the arena floor.

The sharp spikes flashed with bright pink light.

Carliat stepped into the blow instead of away from it.

Then, taking the opportunity, she twisted her wrist, changing the direction of her whip.

FWOOOOP!!

Her glowing whip wrapped around Selindra’s weapon like a ribbon made of pure light, squeezing it tight.

The two whips locked, sparks shooting out violently.

Selindra gasped, eyes widening for a second.

“You—”

Carliat pulled the whip hard.

Selindra stumbled forward with a sharp cry as her balance broke. She planted her feet, trying to resist, but Carliat’s strength kept building, steady and merciless.

Selindra swung her free hand and fired a blast of pink energy at Carliat’s face, but she didn’t even blink.

“Empty.”

The blast vanished into nothing.

Selindra froze.

Carliat used that small shock to yank Selindra closer again, their faces almost touching. Her eyes were cold, flat, unreadable.

Selindra grit her teeth.

“Hah… I knew you were cold… but this is almost boring, Carliat…”

Carliat didn’t respond.

SNNAP!!

Instead, her whip tightened, sliding up Selindra’s arm, over her shoulder, around her chest, and then across her waist in several fast loops.

In one fluid motion, the glowing white whip wrapped Selindra from torso to thighs, pinning her arms against her body.

Selindra gasped as the pressure forced her body down.

Thud!

Her knees hit the stone.

She fell into a kneel, her breath trembling, her pink mist flickering weakly around her like dying smoke.

Carliat stepped forward, slow and quiet, her expression cold as always. The light of her whip reflected on her pale face.

“You lose,” she whispered.

Selindra tried to pull free.

Her muscles flexed, her back arched, but the white whip only tightened more, digging in just enough to remind her that strength alone would not break it.

“Hah… damn it…” she breathed out, sweat sliding down her cheek, dripping from her chin onto the cracked stone floor beneath her knees.

“You’re… still too damn strong…”

Carliat didn’t reply. She only lowered her gaze to the spiked pink whip tangled under her own glowing one. Her eyes followed the lines of Selindra’s weapon with a slow, unreadable calm.

Then, without emotion, without hesitation, she spoke again.

“Empty.”

The word slipped from her lips with no emotion.

The result was instant.

Selindra’s whip… vanished from existence.

Erased, as if it had never been created.

Selindra’s eyes widened in shock, her lips parting as she felt the sudden emptiness in her palm.

“No… no, you didn’t—”

This time, she lifted a single finger, her index finger, and pointed it straight at Selindra’s forehead.

The air between them tightened instantly, a cold spear of pressure pushing against Selindra’s skin. Her heartbeat stumbled, skipping once, then twice.

Her whole chest froze.

Carliat’s quiet voice landed like a death sentence.

“Disappear.”

FWIP!!!

A dark aura broke through the air like a blade being drawn, slicing between the two goddesses, and then everything stopped moving.

No sound had warned them.

He had simply appeared, materializing in front of Selindra faster than the eye could track.

His hand was wrapped firmly around Carliat’s extended finger, stopping it a hair’s breadth from Selindra’s skin.

The shockwave of his sudden arrival burst outward only after he had already caught her. The ground trembled under everyone’s feet, dust lifting in a soft ring around the three of them.

“Haaghhh! A-Aestrea?!” Selindra gasped as the pressure around her chest broke.

Her breath returned in a sharp rush.

Aestrea didn’t blink.

His eyes stayed locked on Carliat’s gray ones.

“That’s enough for now.”

Carliat froze at his words. Her eyes widened, not dramatically, but enough to show that his words reached her deeper than any strike in the fight.

She had gone too far… she had completely forgotten that this was simply a duel between students, not a real battle that resulted in the death of either of them.

Aestrea slowly released her finger and turned toward the professor.

“End it.”

The professor, who had been rooted in place with fear stiffening his spine, finally snapped back to life.

His hands shook when he raised his voice.

“Y-Yes! T-The duel is— it’s finished! Stop everything at once! It’s over!”

His shout echoed across the arena as the tension snapped like a wire pulled too tight.

Selindra sagged forward, planting both hands on the fractured floor, her shoulders trembling as she dragged air back into her lungs.

Carliat stepped back one small pace, her breathing steady but her expression shaken in a way she rarely showed.

Every student in the arena stayed silent.

Not a single breath dared to break the air.

Meanwhile, Aestrea’s gaze remained on Carliat, who, surprisingly, was also looking back at him with a curious gaze.

After all, he had nullified her authority in a single instant.

’…Her power seems a bit stronger than before, huh?’

His eyes narrowed slighly.

’Perfect.’

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