The Sword and The Shadow

Kurdak and Leguna both faced Balor. Annelotte, on the other hand, stared coldly at Farsi, who stood not far away. Daver looked at the scene. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“Hey. were you aware of how it would turn out?” asked Leguna as he suddenly turned to Daver.

Daver shook his head.

“No. I didn’t know that something like this would happen today.”

“Where do you stand?” asked Kurdak.

Balor and Farsi alone could give the three a run for their money, not to say much about the archers that surrounded them. If Daver added oil to the fire, they would be rather hard pressed to escape.

Daver hesitated for a moment. Given his position in the guild, he should be supporting Farsi without the slightest hesitation. But due to his previous experiences, he had developed some fear for Annelotte and Leguna. While Farsi and the rest did seem to hold the absolute -advantage, his intuition told him not to offend Leguna if he could.

In the end, he grit his teeth and said, “Neutral. I choose to be neutral. Since I know you guys from before, I don’t wish to hurt you. But at the same time, I’m a member of the Eye, so I can’t stand with you. I have no choice but to be neutral, I hope you understand.”

“Naturally,” said Kurdak with a relieved sigh.

While Daver wasn’t that powerful, it was just compared to Balor and Farsi. Kurdak felt he probably wasn’t even a match against Daver.

Farsi looked at Daver calmly.

“I’ll have to report you.”

“Only if you’re still alive!” hissed Annelotte coldly.

The girl’s ice-blue hair danced about in the air as she hurriedly dictated a spell. It granted her a fire-resistant defensive barrier. Since she was going to face off against a fire guide, it was incredibly important to erect more defenses against fire-aspect spells.

She made her next move immediately; she dictated an icicle spell.

Fine needles of ice flew towards Farsi, carrying with them bone-chilling cold. However, a magus like Farsi naturally wouldn’t stand there and do nothing. He dictated an ice-resistant defensive barrier as well as stoneskin spell. The icicles crashed against his fat figure without much effect. The low temperature was stopped outside the barrier, and the icicles couldn’t pierce his skin thanks to the heightened defense provided by the stoneskin spell.

After resisting Annelotte’s first strike, he began his own sequence of attacks. He didn’t dictate any spell, though, instead, he took out a jar of oil. In it was fuel made by Eye of Arcana. Not only were the flames it fueled seething, it could also burn for a long time. He tossed the jar into the air and casually created some embers to light the oil. It caught fire quickly. However, the flames moved as if it had its own will. They obediently expanded and formed a gigantic fireball more than two meters across.

As Annelotte squinted her beautiful eyes, she tried hard to recall the information she had seen about her opponent. Farsi’s gift was called Pyrokinetic Hand. He could control the shape of flames. Flames, something normal people could never hope to control, were clay to him. He willed them to be round or square, as if his own hands were shaping them, molding them like a potter his clay. Her face darkened even more. She had already expended nearly half her mana in the earlier battle. Her mana would no doubt drop even further into a fight with him.

Farsi, on the other hand, used fuel to greatly increase the flames he had before using his enthymema to shape and use them to attack. The method greatly lessened his mana consumption. Annelotte would lose in a battle of endurance.

“Annie!”

Leguna could also tell Farsi was no easy foe. As such, he began to worry about his girl’s safety.

“Don’t worry,” said Annelotte calmly.

She took out a bottle of mana potion Daver had given her and initiated Glacial Domain to limit the damage Farsi’s flames did.

“Oh, junior of mine, didn’t our teacher ever tell you, you shouldn’t lose focus in a battle?” Balor’s voice sounded behind Leguna without warning.

Leguna pierced behind him without a thought, but Balor had long predicted the move. He used the longsword in his left hand to block Flameblade. Kurdak acted the moment he approached Leguna. He swung his two-handed sword straight down, but Balor managed to block with only his right hand. It didn’t stop him from turning slightly paler, though. Even though the difference in impetus widened their power gap quite a bit, a speedy assassin would still be at a disadvantage in a head-on clash of strength against a warrior who thrived in brute force.

Kurdak was staggered from the blowback. Just as he was about to regain his balance, Balor’s impetus-infused knee dug into his abdomen, sending the brawny man flying. After he landed, he vomited part of his lunch and some blood.

Leguna was far agiler. The moment his strike failed to connect, he left Balor’s side by rolling on the ground and lobbing a smoke bomb at the same time. The moment the smoke dispersed, Leguna had completely vanished. He had once again entered the shadows. Kurdak also stood up and was wiping the blood from his mouth without a single care in the world, acting as if the previous hit was just a scratch.

“At least it’ll be more interesting this way,” said Balor as he twirled his sword in the air a couple of times.

Annelotte moved about with astonishing speed. Every spot on which she stepped was bombarded by a small fireball a moment later. The gigantic fireball above Farsi’s head wasn’t what it used to be. It had already split into thousands of fist-sized fireballs that floated in the air and radiated shocking amounts of heat. Every second, each would fly towards Annelotte.

Farsi was greatly surprised by the girl’s athletic ability. He didn’t think a beautiful and delicate girl would actually have physical ability akin to a low-order warrior. Had she been a normal low-order warrior, she would’ve been turned to minced meat long ago. But she was a mid-order magus, so even the fireballs she couldn’t avoid didn’t harm her thanks to the fire-resistant barrier.

She dictated as she ran. Though the breaths for air decreased her dictation speed, two short seconds after she began, a bolt of lightning shot out of her hand in Farsi’s direction. The bolt shot towards Farsi with immense voltage. But a magical glow enveloped Farsi’s body right before the bolt struck. The veil shuddered, though it didn’t stop the bolt from hitting him. While he screamed in pain, it didn’t seem like the bolt had done much damage.

It was a level four spell: a lesser spell nullification barrier. It formed a ball of light around the user which greatly lowered the efficacy of level three spells and lower. The level three lightning spell had its effect decreased as a result.

Despite the weakened voltage, his face still contorted in pain. As a genius magus pampered from infancy, getting injured and feeling pain were incredibly foreign experiences. But today, a genius was actually hurt by a little girl! It wasn’t only unforgivable, it was intolerable!

“Go to hell!” roared Farsi from the depths of his heart.

His enthymema raged like a storm as he hurled all the fireballs he had at the girl. Even with a hundred fireballs heading her way, the girl’s eyes showed no sign of panic.

A lesser spell nullification barrier and the stoneskin spell… Based on the time he has, he can also dictate another aspect resistance barrier.

First, Annelotte estimated the spells. After that, she began to devise a way to deal with his bombardment. She calmly continued her dictation and redictated the fire resistance defense barrier before she dictated Blink.

Blink enabled magi to shuttle through normal space and vacuum space. Using it, Annelotte had managed to evade most of the fireballs. As for the rest, they were nullified by her barrier. The falling fireballs beat up lots of dust. Nobody could tell how Annelotte was doing.

Farsi looked hatefully at the smokescreen in front of him.

That woman must’ve been reduced to an unrecognizable corpse! What a shame! Such a perfect face, paired with an irresistibly sexy figure, ruined before I could have fun with it!

Just as Farsi was about to check on Balor, the sound of Annelotte’s dictation rang out amidst the smoke. His heart skipped a few beats. He didn’t think the girl would survive and still have enough energy left to fight back! The moment he heard her dictation, he began dictating himself. From the incantation, he could tell she was going to dictate a normal fireball. Even though his lesser spell nullification barrier was still there, to be safe, he felt it safer if he dictated a fire resistance barrier.

A huge fireball emerged from the veil of smoke. Farsi felt not the slightest bit of fear after seeing the fireball approach. It was enhanced with a spellmutation technique. The normal level three fireball spell had been raised to the fourth level as a result and that would render the lesser spell nullification barrier useless. However, it would still be unable to harm Farsi because he still had his fire resistance defense barrier!

Time began to slow and Farsi felt as if he could see the fireball’s trajectory as it arced through the air. He could even observe the small licks of flame on the fireball itself.

As the fireball approached, a weird feeling assailed Farsi. At that moment, his expression changed drastically. That was because the fireball before him didn’t emanate the slightest bit of heat. Instead, it felt incredibly cold like an ice frozen for millennia!