The dust was still clearing as Lucian propped himself up with his sword, his other hand pressed against his ribs. His green eyes burned with pure focus, sweat trailing down his brow as he sharpened his stance.

Miranda beside him was also not in the greatest state, one of her sleeves was torn to shreds, and blood was trailing from a small cut on her leg.

Yet, she remained calm and looked at Lucian, nodding at him.

Across from them, Darius lowered his glaive, steam rising from the glowing runes on his forearms. The cyclone of wind mana he had summoned slowly dispersed, revealing his smirk.

On the other side, Reid’s blades were still humming with mana as he stalked Lucian and Miranda for the final opening needed to put an end to the duel.

The announcer’s magically amplified voice cut in once more.

“It looks like the prodigies are staggering! What a showcase of might from our esteemed Second-Years! Can the freshmen survive even another clash?!”

The crowd roared again, deafening and divided. some cheering for the upperclassmen, others calling out Lucian and Miranda’s names in desperation or awe.

Darius cracked his neck, lazily twirling his glaive, “If that’s all you’ve got, this is going to end quicker than I hoped.”

“Agreed,” Lucian said softly, and then vanished.

It wasn’t teleportation. Not magic. Just pure, raw speed. His Transcendence had sharpened again. The initial clash, the pain, the pressure, they had all fed it.

Lucian had once again evolved due to his ‘Transcendence’ Gift.

He reappeared an instant later, not behind Darius this time, but directly beneath his guard, his blade surging upward like a comet.

~CLAAAAANG!~

Darius blocked, barely, but the strength had changed.

“What?”

Lucian spun mid-air, kicked off Darius’s shoulder, and landed ten paces back with uncanny grace. His blade glowed, mana flowing like a tide through it.

His movements were tighter, sharper. He was faster. Stronger. Smarter.

“Let’s even the odds,” Lucian whispered to himself, and attacked Darius once again, their blades clanging against each-other as they matched blow for block.

On the other end of the battlefield, Reid lunged for Miranda, trying once more to blink past her defenses with his spatial flicker technique. But this time, the moment his body shimmered.

~TWANG!~

A strand of spatial thread, impossibly thin, wrapped tightly around his ankle and yanked him out of his blink.

“What the? “

“You’re repeating patterns,” Miranda said calmly, her fingers moving in slow, deliberate gestures as golden loops and lines formed a structure of spatial threads around her, “I only needed to see them twice.”

She was weaving her battlefield now. Every time Reid tried to lunge at her for an attack, she created a distortion.

A slide or a snag, his body was subtly but importantly redirected with every movement, causing his momentum to be thrown off.

Miranda paired this with slight slashes of her chakrams, which firmly put Reid on the backfoot.

“Do you even know how irritating you are?” he spat, trying to swing, but Miranda stepped sideways, not left, not right, but sideways, in a literal sense of space.

She phased a few feet through reality, reappearing in a shimmer of light behind him and then,

~BOOM!~

A surge of stellar mana exploded from her palm, sending Reid sprawling across the field in a crash of sparks and stone.

Darius noticed, “Reid?! Damn it,” He said.

“FOCUS UP,” Lucian roared as he struck again, clashing with Darius. As the battle moved on, he had quickly learned & adapted to Darius’ style, growing more and more dominant as the battle continued.

Lucian struck again, this time sidestepping a wind blade and ducking under a horizontal slash, before stabbing upward into a small gap beneath Darius’ elbow armor.

Lucian didn’t reply. He sidestepped a wind blade, then ducked under a horizontal slash, stabbing upward into the small gap beneath Darius’s elbow armor.

Darius grunted and leapt backwards, touching his arm and noticing the blood seeping out.

“You think just getting faster is enough to beat me!?”

Lucian didn’t answer with words, instead swung his sword, a crescent slash filled with compressed mana arced forward like a wave.

Darius slammed his glaive into the ground, summoning a burst of wind that deflected the arc, but the moment it dissipated, Lucian was already there.

He had used his own pressure wave as a smokescreen.

His blade thrust toward Darius’s chest, but at the last moment, Darius twisted, letting the blade slash across his side rather than skewer him.

Even then, blood poured from the gash.

“DAMN YOU!” Darius shouted, wind exploding from his back in a tempest, kicking up shards of stone and dust in a violent shockwave that sent Lucian skidding back across the arena’s shattered floor.

“The Second-Year is bleeding now! He’s bleeding!” the commentator’s magically-enhanced voice rang out, barely audible over the storm.

“Lucian Arclight has drawn blood! And what a sequence, he used his own attack as cover to get close! This boy is terrifying!”

“Don’t forget Miranda Starwind! She’s got Reid Malkor dancing like a puppet on a spatial web! That’s Starwind Grace right there!” another student caster added with excitement, “How are First Years even DOING this?!”

***

Darius panted, his shirt half-shredded, golden aura flaring violently as he gripped his glaive tighter. Wind spun around him like a typhoon, creating a wide radius that cut the air like blades.

“You think this is enough to take me down?” he growled. “I’m not just some Upperclassman, I’m LOW GOLD! That’s an entire realm above you!”

“And yet… you’re the one bleeding.” Lucian said.

“Cocky bastard!”

Darius stomped and rushed forward in a blur, glaive raised high. The wind screamed around him, gathering at the tip of his weapon into a spear of compressed air.

The weapon extended unnaturally long, turning his already fearsome range into a death zone.

He brought it down like a guillotine, ready to put an end to this battle.

~BOOOOM!~

Lucian stepped aside at the last second, letting the glaive slam into the ground beside him, sending stone spikes flying. The instant it hit, Lucian retaliated, striking the flat of his blade against the shaft of the glaive, knocking it wide.

He immediately surged forward and attacked.

One strike, Two, Three.

Lucian became a blur of motion, sword dancing as he lay the pressure onto Darius.

“DARIUS IS ON THE BACKFOOT! I REPEAT, THE GOLD RANK IS ON THE BACKFOOT!” the announcer screamed, his voice cracked with disbelief. “WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS ARENA?!”

***

Meanwhile, Reid was in hell battling against Miranda.

No matter how fast he moved, or how often he flickered, blinked and twisted, Miranda was already there.

Or worse, her echoes were. Dozens of translucent afterimages trailed her, shimmering illusions of movements she hadn’t yet made, or had just undone.

“DAMN YOU!” Reid roared, his face twisted in frustration as he slashed through another illusion that simply melted into starlight. His frustrations kept growing as the embarrassment also grew from being toyed with by a First Year.

Miranda didn’t flinch.

“You talk too much,” she said softly.

She extended her hand and the space beneath Reid collapsed, his eyes widening as he fell into a localized gravity sink.

“WHAT THE FU~!”

~BOOM!~

A burst of spatial energy erupted from the point of impact, launching him skyward like a ragdoll.

Miranda didn’t stop, immediately channeling dozens of celestial folds to bloom around her, rippling with stellar energy. She looked like a goddess as she raised both hands, drawing constellations in the air.

“Starfall – Binding Orbit.”

Above, six orbiting halos of starlight formed and converged on Reid’s airborne body.

~KRSH-KRSH-KRSH!~

Each one slammed into him from a different direction, pinning him midair, suspending him like a trapped insect in amber.

He screamed, but .Miranda showed absolutely no mercy, flicking her wrist, and causing the final, gigantic halo to strike him down from above.

~BOOOOOOM!~

Reid crashed into the arena floor with a seismic impact, creating a crater of cracked stone. His twin blades flew from his hands, landing meters away.

He didn’t rise…..

The arena fell silent for half a breath.

Then erupted.

“REID IS DOWN! REID IS DOWN!” the caster bellowed, “PRINCESS MIRANDA STARWIND HAS KNOCKED OUT ONE OF THE SECOND-YEAR DUELISTS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”

The entire upper decks were standing. Even some professors leaned forward. Some were murmuring. Some… were stunned.

In the arena, Darius froze when he saw Reid unconscious body slammed down onto the floor, turning back just in time to catch Miranda walking up beside Lucian, her body glowing faintly with stardust.

“I said you’d regret underestimating us,” she said coolly.

Lucian pointed his blade at Darius.

“Your teammate is down. You can still surrender.”

Darius’s eyes burned with fury, “Like hell I will!”

Wind flared again. His glaive rose.

“I’ll take you both down with me!”

He thrust his hand forward, but his feet wouldn’t move.

“Huh?” he looked down.

Thread.

Spatial thread.

Miranda had laid it beneath the dust. Dozens of them. All anchored into the arena floor.

His body was paralyzed, held in place by the subtle forces of warped gravity and interwoven spatial pressure.

“Checkmate,” Miranda whispered.

Lucian stepped forward.

One final slash.

His blade glowed faint green, the essence of combat honed to its limit.

Darius raised his glaive in desperation, but it wasn’t enough.

~CRACK!~

The glaive was knocked from his hands.

Lucian’s blade stopped just short of Darius’s throat.

Darius stared at him, wide-eyed.

Then,

He dropped to his knees.

“I concede,” he whispered hoarsely.

***

There was a moment of silence…and then,

The arena erupted.

The crystalline screens flashed the moment in slow motion. From Reid being crumpled to Darius kneeling and Lucian standing victorious with Miranda beside him, her hair alight with starlight.

“THE WINNERS – LUCIAN ARCLIGHT AND MIRANDA STARWIND!”

“FIRST-YEAR PRODIGIES HAVE DEFEATED TWO HANDPICKED SECOND-YEAR DUELISTS! THIS IS A HISTORIC MOMENT AT ZEPHYR ACADEMY!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep