“Don’t you have to get hit if you don’t know?”
Shin Yeon-ho let out a hollow laugh.
“Yeah, if you don’t know, you gotta get hit. But I can dodge, you know.”
But he couldn’t give up. Yeon-ho clenched his teeth and infused his wand with mana.
“Oh, come on.”
[Cast: Laminar Flow]
[Delayed Cast: Laminar Flow]
Kaboom!
A massive beam of energy shot out.
With a twist, Yeon-ho barely managed to break through the debris.
Moving behind Na-me, Shin Yeon-ho took a breath and finished preparing his casting.
“…!”
Before Na-me could turn her head, the spell she cast was activated belatedly.
“I haven’t even fired yet.”
She had perfectly predicted his escape route.
Blocking was not an option, and it was too late to dodge.
Even belatedly, he rapidly drafted an electromagnetic wave countermeasure that he had naturally become adept at since high school.
The power of habit was frightening.
[Counter: Electromagnetic Wave]
But instinct warned him again.
This couldn’t be blocked.
‘Did I make a mistake in drafting the countermeasure?’
It shouldn’t have been possible, but he trusted his instincts.
If it couldn’t be blocked, then he would cleave through it.
Yeon-ho abandoned the counter spell and thrust his wand forward.
ZZZZT!
The wand was connected to his body.
The fierce scarlet aura burned, splitting the water flow.
“Water…?”
Cold droplets splashed on his cheek.
The barrier had been slightly worn down, but it was still okay. What worried him more was the wand that had taken the direct hit of high energy.
Shin Yeon-ho twitched his eyebrows and said.
“Was that water-type magic just now?”
“You caught on quickly.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Is that wand broken or something?”
Na-me pointed a finger at Yeon-ho’s shabby wand.
Had the destruction of the wand been her goal from the start?
As he gripped with all his might in his right hand, the overloaded circuit formula barely started functioning normally again.
“This is really ridiculous.”
Even with an innate battle sense, this was beyond the pale.
The saying to always predict the opponent’s movements suddenly popped into Yeon-ho’s mind.
‘Easier said than done…’
Just focusing on attack, movement, and defense already made for three aspects, and the derived movements numbered in the hundreds or thousands.
Was it a coincidence?
He shook his head.
No way it could be a coincidence. There are no coincidences in this world.
His eyes blazed.
Surrounded by aura, he dropped into a low stance.
From now on, Yeon-ho had no intention of giving her the initiative.
[Cast: Raon’s Spear I]
There were rumors that students with promising futures were spotted by major clans even before graduating from university.
Shin Yeon-ho was such a person.
FWOOSH!
A long spear, as if mounted with a rocket engine, soared through the air, aimed at Na-me.
Na-me did not block; she deflected it.
But Unique Magic Raon’s Spear wouldn’t end with just one shot.
“Behind…!”
The spear of light, which he thought was firmly planted in the ground, suddenly vanished and shot fiercely from behind.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Na-me pivoted on her right foot, leaning her body to the extreme.
Her right hand touched the ground to support her upper body as her left leg swung in a wide arc, redirecting the spear.
BOOM!
Before her skirt could flutter, the spear was embedded in the wall and exploded.
Shin Yeon-ho couldn’t help but admire her acrobatics.
“Wow… Did you learn Taekwondo? You just deflected that?”
Once cast, Raon’s Spear I would jump out from the opponent’s shadow infinitely until it hit its target.
When Shin Yeon-ho learned this spell from the Raon partner mages, he felt his efforts in spell development shrink to nothing compared to its exquisite design.
The countermeasure itself was simple, but an unexpected spear appearing from behind would inevitably expose gaps.
Yet Na-me’s body, having spun 360 degrees, perfectly regained its balance and solidified her defensive stance.
“Kaizen martial arts. Or you could say it’s sort of Capoeira.”
Na-me gasped as she replied.
That wand had endured the high-output energy.
Na-me had managed to pass the first stage of her test.
But another flaw of that wand was its awkward grip.
The holding part was very thick, and one had to maintain a strong grip just to hold on.
Shin Yeon-ho’s large hands slightly mitigated that disadvantage, but it still didn’t escape Na-me’s scrutiny.
‘Let’s see if you can hold onto it without dropping it.’
Na-me wiped the sweat that was trickling down her forehead.
Clenching her fists, steam began to rise.
“Don’t try to block. It’s better to dodge.”
SWISH!
A sharp punch created a piercing sound as it raced toward his abdomen.
He had no choice but to block.
The punch was only the size of a child’s, but the sheer amount of aura it contained was the problem.
The punch collided with Yeon-ho’s arm, scattering golden aura that enveloped his body.
His hands were slipping.
While he had seen aura being manipulated to be hot or cold, he had never seen it made slippery.
Yeon-ho felt he might drop his wand if he let his guard down even for a moment.
As another punch came flying at him, he pulled his body back as far as he could.
This time, a kick aimed at his knees came flying in to break his balance.
At first, Na-me stumbled a few times, but now she showed off her perfectly loosened body.
The greatest talent was, above all, a lack of “fear.”
Even when he tried to intimidate her with a feint punch, she didn’t flinch.
Because she knew very well that if Yeon-ho hit her directly, he would lose.
The ensuing close battle completely thwarted any magic casting.
Yeon-ho, who was most confident in brawling, now faced the problem of an eight-year-old girl as his opponent.
As the match dragged on, complaints erupted from the team members in the distance.
“You have to experience this to understand…! This is normal… gasp!”
There was no time for other thoughts.
An unrelenting barrage of strikes fell upon Yeon-ho, who was struggling to maintain his stance.
While trying to resist the foot aimed at his heel, he felt his strength drain away as his shoulder was gently pushed.
‘This is dangerous…!’
Na-me’s flexible waist quickly twisted.
With her other hand gripping her right wrist, Na-me unleashed a powerful punch.
The special martial arts of the Kaizen Knights were awkwardly reproduced.
BAM!
In an instant, an explosion echoed from Yeon-ho’s side.
Half of his particle barrier was stripped away in one go.
“What kind of power is this?!”
Could that little punch, like a cat’s paw, really break through steel?
As Yeon-ho lay on the ground, another punch came crashing toward his head.
He felt every hair on his body stand on end as he desperately ducked.
‘I dodged…!’
This was his chance.
[Cast: Friction Coefficient Adjustment]
Na-me’s body swayed.
Regaining the initiative from her was urgent. The bizarre martial arts moves she executed were making his head throb.
First, he had to put some distance between them, wipe off the slick aura from his wand, and end it with a single strike.
Yeon-ho bit down hard and sprang to his feet.
But maybe because he had narrowed his field of view too much.
Focusing only on the ground, Yeon-ho failed to notice a large magic circle had been cast above him.
[General Casting: Eye of the Typhoon]
Strong winds whipped through the entire designated arena space except for the center.
It was a method to hinder the casting of magic.
“You…”
“You have to play with me. Where do you think you’re going?”
Regretting the fact that he had sealed his own hits couldn’t be worse than this.
Whenever he tried to create distance, she would come after him, and now she was using magic to interfere, leaving him with no counter-strategy at all.
‘What if I try casting magic at close range?’
He had never attempted it before.
But he recalled the blind girl who stubbornly relied only on her aura during the national martial arts competition and used powerful magic at the last moment.
‘I remembered!’
[Cast: Magnetic Levitation]
POW!
He thrust his palm forward energetically.
After a slight delay, Na-me’s body flew back a few meters.
At the same time, her body entered the range of the magic she had cast, thus naturally dissipating the Eye of the Typhoon.
He thought so…
“Since it’s getting dull watching, let’s wrap it up soon.”
Na-me hid in a mist of gray and shot a sharp blade toward Shin Yeon-ho.
Startled, his body instinctively flinched.
The particle barrier was again chipped away in chunks.
The identity of the blade was Na-me’s Light Transmutation Circle Inscriber.
The moment a small magic circle at the tip of her wand launched a blade as tall as herself.
Before he could protest, ‘What the hell kind of feature is that on a wand!’ she drew the blade diagonally.
SHHHA!
Slicing, cleaving, and finally stabbing.
Na-me aimed for Shin Yeon-ho’s wand, a masterpiece crafted by his team over two weeks.
“Not that!”
That absolutely couldn’t happen!
The aura that had surrounded Shin Yeon-ho turned as hard as steel.
PING!
With a fierce determination to protect his wand, he managed to block Na-me’s blade.
Na-me immediately recalled the blade and wrapped all her remaining aura around her legs, swiftly crashing into him.
That fierce punch from earlier shot toward his chin.
‘I have to block…!’
And then, as if by magic, she altered her trajectory.
The hand that had held the fist. Na-me’s five fingers spread wide, targeting his wrist.
THWACK!
A single wand held both of their hands.
Due to the oil that had smudged earlier, Yeon-ho’s side was comparatively slippery.
The ownership of the group project was hanging by a thread.
He swung his left hand reflexively to shake her off.
A mere trivial struggle.
Anyone could see and block such punching.
But Na-me kept her eyes wide open, not evading his incoming punch at all.
Instead, she cast a penetrating spell toward his abdomen.
Na-me’s eyes, staring at Shin Yeon-ho until the very end, were unwavering.
Her gaze seemed to convey,
‘Just now, you hit me, didn’t you?’
BOOM!
The punch swung with full power from an adult male, infused with aura, was more than enough to send a girl flying to the corner of the arena.
Na-me’s back crashed against the mana wall, and her body slowly fell to the ground.
“Na-me!”
Seeing the duel reaching its climax, the students watching rushed down to the 1st Floor Training Arena.
“Why… why didn’t you dodge?!”
Shin Yeon-ho, surprised by his own hit, lost strength in his legs and knelt on the spot.
Leaning against the wall, Na-me coughed a few times before finally smiling.
Then she gestured toward the scoreboard, giving Yeon-ho the answer.
[A(NoName): 57%, 64%]
[B(Shin Yeon-ho): 21%, 45%]
[B Team: Wand Destruction, Particle Barrier Destruction (Current: 21%), Custom Rule Violation (Direct Hit)]
Any one of those three conditions would mean Na-me’s victory.
It felt like some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder; it was an indisputable perfect victory.
Additionally, the broadcast was on fire.
-Na-me~!
-Is she really hitting? Is she really hitting? Is she really hitting?
-How is she okay?!
-You’re done. You’re done. You’re done. You’re done.
-A person flew like 10m, so how is that okay?
-You should at least take it easy.
-This clueless drone, hurry up and go check on Na-me!
-That sound just now didn’t mean someone got wrecked, right…?
-If you’re going to spar with a kid, shouldn’t you take it easy and not hit her in the face?
-He just punched like a desperate uncle on a holiday.
-I don’t know who it is, but it seems like that guy is in trouble… upvote.
-I see a Trinity victory from there ㄷㄷ
-Na-me’s physical barrier was new, so she should be fine, right?
-If not, there’s one more person who won’t be fine.
