Fwoop! The greatsword left his shoulder in a smooth, powerful arc.
Crimson-red energy flared along the massive blade as Vaelor stepped forward, his aura rising to its full combat level.
The layered weakening barriers, gravity fields, mana-damping mist, sealing threads, and recovery-limiting seals remained fully active around Gray, pressing against him from every direction.
Gray felt every one of them.
Vaelor did not waste the advantage.
He closed the distance with a powerful step and swung the greatsword in a heavy horizontal arc meant to force Gray into the densest part of the sticky mana net behind him.
"Dragon’s Blade: Crimson Sweep!"
The blade howled as it cut through the air, carrying enough force to split the rocky ground.
Gray’s Eyes tracked the trajectory and the accompanying shockwave.
He shifted his weight at the last possible moment, angling his body so the heavy blade passed just in front of his chest.
The wind pressure still slammed into him, forcing him to dig his feet in against the increased gravity.
A sticky thread caught the edge of his boot for a fraction of a second before he twisted free.
WHOOSH!
CRACK!
The greatsword carved a deep groove into the stone where Gray had been standing.
Vaelor followed immediately with a rising vertical slash, using the rebound of the first swing to accelerate the second.
Gray raised his rapier and met the attack at an angle designed to deflect rather than block head-on.
Clang!
The impact still sent a jarring vibration up his arm.
The mana-damping field made the clash feel heavier than it should have. He slid back half a step, boots scraping against the rock.
In the viewing hall, the crowd erupted.
"He’s being pushed back!"
"The debuffs are actually working on him!"
"Vaelor is matching him blow for blow!"
In the VIP section, the nobles leaned forward excitedly; after all, it was the first time Gray was being pushed back.
Gloria’s eyes were locked on the screen with intense focus, almost praying for Gray to lose the fight.
Aurora calmly watched with a faint smile.
The Emperor’s expression was serious for some reason, while the Saintess simply raised an eyebrow at the fight.
On the battlefield, the support students kept the fields active exactly as ordered. The damping mist refreshed.
New sealing threads shot toward Gray’s limbs.
A secondary gravity pulse tried to pin his back foot. Earth users raised low walls to restrict his lateral movement whenever he tried to circle.
Vaelor pressed the attack without pause.
Fwip, clink!
"Haaah!"
He chained three heavy strikes in rapid succession, diagonal, horizontal, then a thrusting stab aimed at Gray’s shoulder.
Each swing carried a strong crimson energy that made the air shimmer.
Gray parried the first, redirected the second, and leaned just enough to let the third thrust pass by his collarbone.
The tip of the greatsword still grazed his robe, proving how little margin for error the debuffs left him.
CLANG! CLANG! SHING!
A wind blade from the second line came in from the left at the exact moment Vaelor swung again.
Gray’s free hand flicked out, disrupting the wind technique with a low-cost pulse of mana energy, but the split-second attention cost him a cleaner angle against Vaelor’s next strike.
CLAAAANG!
The greatsword slammed against his rapier with greater force than before, driving him back another step into a thicker zone of the gravitational field.
His movements felt sluggish compared to his usual standard. Every adjustment required more deliberate calculation.
Vaelor noticed.
"You’re slower," he said coldly, already winding up for a wider overhead smash.
"The net is working. Stay on him, don’t let the fields drop!"
The students responded instantly, and the recovery seals pulsed brighter instantly while the sticky nets re-wove across the ground behind Gray.
A reflective barrier angled to punish any strong counterattack.
Lightning bolts and restrained fire lances came in staggered intervals, forcing Gray to divide his attention between Vaelor’s crushing offense and the supporting harassment.
’Fuck... this is getting tricky,’ Gray cursed inwardly.
His [Spirit Eyes] continued to map every flow of intent.
He could still see the optimal micro-adjustments, but executing them under the weighted gravity and thinned mana flow demanded constant effort.
He stepped over a rising earth spike, angled his body so a fire lance struck a reflective barrier instead of him, and met Vaelor’s overhead smash with a precise upward parry.
CLAAAAANG!
The impact forced both of them to a brief standstill, causing sparks to fly across the field.
The ground beneath their feet cracked further. Gray’s arm trembled almost imperceptibly from the force combined with the suppression.
In the stands, a someone shouted,
"This is the first time anyone has made him look pressured!"
"Vaelor prepared perfectly! The multi-layered debuffs are neutralizing his usual dominance!"
The nobles excitedly looked at the fight.
Vaelor broke the deadlock first.
Swip!
He twisted his greatsword and launched a sudden thrusting combination, using short, powerful stabs that were harder to deflect cleanly under the increased weight on Gray’s limbs.
At the same time, two shadow specialists created afterimages on the flanks while an earth user raised a sudden wall behind Gray to cut off retreat.
Gray’s eyes tracked all of it.
He used Nullification for the first time in this direct exchange when a particularly dense cluster of sealing threads and a simultaneous gravity spike threatened to lock his stance completely at the worst possible moment.
[-40 Soul Points]
The threads and the spike vanished in a clean radius.
Gray used the freed space to sidestep Vaelor’s thrust, letting the greatsword punch into the newly raised earth wall instead.
Stone exploded outward.
Fwip!
Before Vaelor could fully recover the blade, Gray’s rapier flicked out in a short counter toward the larger man’s exposed side.
Clank!
Vaelor blocked it with the flat of his greatsword, but the force still pushed him half a step back.
The exchange continued without pause.
Vaelor attacked with relentless pressure, with heavy sweeping arcs, sudden thrusts, short-range bursts of crimson energy that exploded on impact.
The support students maintained the fields with disciplined rotation, refreshing the damping mist, reapplying sticky nets, launching opportunistic projectiles whenever Gray’s attention was fully occupied with the greatsword.
Gray answered calmly, trying to conserve as much energy as he could.
He never met force with pure force when he could redirect. He never stayed in the densest part of any single field longer than necessary.
His [Spirit Eyes] let him read the timing of the supporting attacks so he could weave between them, but the cumulative fatigue of moving under constant suppression was beginning to show in the slightly tighter lines of his shoulders and the extra fraction of a second some of his adjustments required.
A dual-spear user from the left flank coordinated with Vaelor for a simultaneous high-low attack.
Vaelor’s greatsword came in high while the spears thrust low toward Gray’s legs.
At the same moment, a sticky net tried to catch his back foot, and a lightning bolt streaked in from the rear.
Gray’s calculation was instantaneous.
He nullified the lightning and the net in one focused pulse.
[-90 Soul Points]
Then he hopped lightly over the low spears, harder than usual under the residual gravity, and angled his rapier so Vaelor’s descending blade slid along it rather than crashing through.
The deflection still sent a painful vibration through his wrist.
CLANG!
SCRAPE!
Vaelor pressed closer, refusing to give space.
His dual-blade style with the single greatsword was aggressive and physical, relying on weight, momentum, and constant forward pressure to keep Gray from finding clean breathing room inside the debuff zone.
The two traded a rapid series of blows, causing sparks to shower across the field.
The ground continued to fracture under their feet.
Supporting techniques forced Gray to constantly micro-adjust, never allowing him a full, uninterrupted exchange with Vaelor alone.
Back in the VIP section, Gloria finally allowed herself a cold, satisfied smile as she watched the projection.
"Look at that, Aurora," she called out with a mocking tone.
"Your precious genius is finally being pressed. The debuffs are slowing him, Vaelor is matching him blow for blow, and the entire formation is functioning exactly as a proper academy team should. It seems even Gray has limits when the preparation is thorough enough."
She glanced sideways at her rival, her golden eyes gleaming with obvious mockery and disdain.
"Perhaps you overestimated him after all. All that talk about talent beyond his sister... and now he’s stuck grinding against a single well-led group of 4th-years."
Aurora’s expression did not change. She simply continued watching the screen with that same faint smile, offering no immediate reply.
Gloria clicked her tongue at that.
On the battlefield, the exchange continued its grinding pace.
Vaelor forced another heavy combination.
The support students refreshed the damping field and launched another wave of opportunistic projectiles. Gray continued to read, adjust, and deflect under the constant weight of the layered suppression.
Then suddenly... Gray’s lips curved into a devilish smirk.
A very familiar devilish smirk.
The change was small, but on the massive projection screens it was impossible to miss.
In the viewing hall, the crowd noticed immediately.
"Why is he smiling?"
"Did something change?"
"He looks... satisfied? In the middle of being pressured like that?"
Confusion rippled through the stands.
Even some of the nobles in the VIP section leaned forward, puzzled by the sudden shift in Gray’s expression.
None of them understood the reason.
Throughout the entire exchange, while appearing to be forced into constant micro-adjustments by Vaelor’s pressure and the supporting attacks, Gray had been taking far more hits on purpose.
Every step he took, every deflection, every small retreat or lateral shift had been calculated to slowly, invisibly manipulate the positions of the students and the alignment of their fields.
He had been herding them.
Piece by piece, without any of them noticing, he had adjusted the living formation until a perfect, uninterrupted straight line now existed, from his current position, through Vaelor, and continuing through the densest cluster of support casters and barrier specialists behind him.
No one on the battlefield realized it.
No one in the stands realized it.
Only Gray’s [Spirit Eyes] had tracked the gradual alignment.
Fwoooooooop!
His aura suddenly flared.
Dark mana rose around him in a strong surge that cut through the surrounding suppression for a faint moment.
Then, he mumbled...
"Soul Chasing Extremities..."
The rapier in his hand blurred.
"[Severing Pursuit]"
Chapter 389: Inter-Academy Tournament (XLI)
9 min read