The duels were nearing their end, and Elijah sat through it all, wondering if he should go get something from the canteen. Henry had returned to his seat, bearing an innocent expression.
…”
Elijah didn’t know how his friend could be so heartless, he knew Lucas would not leave Walter alone, he knew that kid was ruined. If he wanted the best outcome of his life and his balls being intact, he had to start begging for forgiveness from the moment that duel started.
Well, he had time to reflect until Lucas was back from his ‘business’. Elijah was still curious as to what it was, but he left it alone. He himself had to request a leave for the special mission in Gigantia as well.
He wondered how the first human city on that planet looked like, it was a collaborative effort of all the top ten guilds, association, and world government, so it had to be a sight for eyes. Well, except for Twilight, he heard that they were making their own base somewhere else. Gigantia, whilst known all throughout Earth as the second home of humanity now, was still a hard place to get into. Not only could normal humans not enter it without extensive amount of training and gear due to the gravity, but they also couldn’t stay for long without any permanent damages. Even lower ranked awakened couldn’t get near the portal at all.
That portal was guarded by multiple S-ranked hunters, the best from each organization. That precaution was put in place because of the demons, humanity could not risk the spatial coordinates of Gigantia being leaked, that would spell disaster.
Even if a demon managed to get inside the portal, time was required to figure out the spatial coordinates on the other side, and Elijah knew the entire city filled with the best awakened humanity had to offer would not let it happen.
“Next up, Gary Adman against Eric Lopez!”
It was finally Gary’s turn to duel, Elijah and Henry could see he was extremely nervous, so they cheered the boy up a bit.
“Don’t worry, you got this.”
“Space attribute for the win!”
It did ease his nerves a little, but they were still skeptical if the boy was truly all right. The opponent this time was a second year with the affinity of earth element. Unlike the other first years who were ready to duel against the Second years and had done their extensive research about them before dueling them, Gary was simply caught in the trend and picked a random person.
He didn’t even want to fight in the first place, but since he was a spatial mage… the first years wouldn’t let him off if he decided to sit back. To avoid all that, Gary had to participate, albeit reluctantly.
‘Electricity is at a disadvantage with Earth…but let’s hope for the best.’
Gary may possess two elemental affinities, but since space was still a relatively new affinity, there wasn’t much to know about what it could do… since the only other person who had it wasn’t the type to share much about his findings.
Well, even if Alan did share what the affinity could do, Elijah was sure Gary wouldn’t be able to replicate it. The difference in mana pool was simply too vast. He was sure Alan wouldn’t have cared for the large mana consumption of his skills since he had a near infinite amount of mana… but Gary was a different story.
He remembered what happened when the poor kid tried to replicate Alan once. He was watching the recording of the fight Alan had with Ezra, and tried to replicate opening dozens of portals at once to both defend and attack… that ended terribly wrong.
Gary was coughing up blood and was in bed for almost two weeks.
“Ready?”
The teacher’s words rang out, and it seemed both Eric and Gary were incredibly nervous. Both of them were sweating buckets, and the audience had a good laugh.
“Eric shouldn’t be sweating that much, though…”
Henry was a bit confused, Elijah may not have a lot of knowledge of his classmates, but Henry did. Although Eric couldn’t compare to the top ten, he was still a great combatant Gary didn’t have a chance against.
… So why was the man that nervous? One would think he had a water affinity instead of an Earth one!
The stance he had was especially different from his normal ones, he had left his axe and had instead opted for a comically large shield… that definitely wasn’t normal.
Henry was confused as to what had gotten to Eric. Suddenly, his eyes widened at the realization.
“Begin!”
The match began, and as Gary started to cast his skill, [Lightning Bolt], the audience was in shock as Eric had immediately cast as many defensive skills he could, and used almost all his mana left to reinforce his body, putting his shield upfront.
Walls of Earth rose, each a meter thick, and focused solely on protecting Eric at the center from all sides… though the defense from the front was especially rigid.
Gary’s [Lightning Bolt] struck the first wall of many… but he didn’t cast any more skills, perplexed as to what was happening. The audience was the same.
Henry knew what Eric was doing…and he sympathized with the poor fellow. Elijah also realized quickly, since he had a certain ‘experience’.
Eric curled up into a ball and let out a whelp, as the sound of the [Lightning Bolt] hitting his [Earth Wall] rang out, he focused all of his mana into erecting more walls.
“… I don’t even blame him.”
Elijah said, his face struck with horror as he protected his chest, an uncomfortable memory bloomed in his mind. The teacher in charge started to laugh, he too realized what was going
on.
Henry started to laugh too… He couldn’t help it. The second years followed, nodding in approval and sympathizing with Eric. Only Elijah remained silent, cursing at his fellow
students.
“Damn you all!”
“Haha!”
The confused first years just looked at the stage, trying to understand what was going on. Gary stood silently, doing the same.
The sound of laughter reached Eric’s ears, as he opened his eyes and checked on the state of his defenses, and at Gary. He stood up, since he used almost all of his mana, he was shaking a little bit but managed to release a sigh of relief.
“Haha…”
The roar of laughter from the second years reached it’s peak, as Eric joined in, raising his
hands in victory!
“Haha! You’re not him at all! My chest is still okay!”
The smile on his face was so vibrant, one wouldn’t believe he was sweating buckets a few moments prior.
The scene of Elijah and Alan’s first duel was stuck in the mind of every student who had witnessed it, and they all knew how quick Alan had ended it by using his teleportation to cave Elijah’s chest in. Eric had thought Gary would do the same, thankfully, his chest was okay.
|| ||
Elijah could only grimace, as the laughter of the students reached its peak. The first years
screamed at Gary.
“What are you doing? Finish this!”
The shout’s knocked Gary out of his confusion, as he began to use another lightning bolt, Eric caught on, and threw his shield aside, rushing in towards Gary as quick as he could.
He simply tanked the lightning bolt, and closed in on Gary, delivering a punch to his chin, Gary was able to block the punch, all the training he received from the best instructors was put
to good use.
But Eric was simply more experienced, and besides all that, he was taller and heavier than Gary. Weight trumped willpower, and skill was often useless in front of long reach.
Eric managed to throw Gary off the platform, and secured his win with a loud roar, tanking another lightning bolt to the chest, Gary’s final attempt.
“I win!”
The smile of relief on his face was as vibrant as ever as the teacher announced his victory. Gary
stood up from the ground, in shock.
“… What was I even supposed to do?
********
In the middle of the gigantic bridge that lead to Lanesha’s castle on Lanekia, there stood Alan
Peccator, facing a large Draconian.
“Why won’t this damn thing come out?!”
Alan was using all of his strength to pull [Gáe Bolg] out, to the point his body was as red as
blood… but the damn spear wouldn’t budge at all. Using all of his strength, reinforced with
mana brought a bitter
result.
Still, he kept trying, refusing to give up as he believed that the spear would come out eventually! The trust he had in his strength was beyond ordinary.
Azmakul, meanwhile, was still in the process of doing something Alan had no idea about,
undisturbed about the spear lodged in his right eye.
“How stuck is this damn thing?!”
If Lanesha was seeing this… which she probably was, she was sure to have a good laugh about
it.