Path to Transcendence

Chapter 330: Julius vs Liam

Julius took the familiar walk down the tunnel toward the stadium. At this point, the crowd noise was actually comforting, and he barely heard it in the background.

When he eventually exited the tunnel and saw the colorful pops of mana exploding through the sky, he grinned. He would never get tired of the sight.

He ignored the cries from the crowd who were shouting Liam’s name enthusiastically and strolled right toward the center of the field, where an official was already standing, waiting for him. Liam was approaching from the other side of the field and stared at Julius coldly the entire time.

The official quickly explained the rules to each of them, but neither of them was really listening. They had heard the same things for the past two weeks and knew the rules by heart.

What surprised Julius a little bit was that Liam didn’t try to taunt him. The fourth year was taking this very seriously and was wholly focused on the fight. He kept the same icy expression on his face as he tracked Julius moving toward the end of the field.

Julius, on the other hand, couldn’t help but smirk slightly. He was enjoying how much Liam was taking this seriously. If the noble boy didn’t think Julius was a threat, he wouldn’t have shown such carefulness. Who knows, he could have been verbally taunting him and baiting him.

The fact that he wasn’t was a sign of respect, and in Julius’s eyes, that was a win.

When the official gave the signal for the fight to begin, Julius smiled widely as he sensed a flood of ice mana rush out of Liam. Fast and powerful were the first thoughts he had, as a trio of swords made of magically hardened ice pierced through the air. He already knew that these swords of ice weren’t to be easily ignored. He had personally seen them tear through the barriers of other students like they were tearing through wet paper.

There were at least two Concepts buried in these constructs, and Julius gave them the proper caution, which of course meant he didn’t bother to move. He felt his smile widen and casually placed his palm in front of him. He then created a barrier made of mana coating his palm.

See? If he weren’t taking these swords as a serious threat, then he would not have bothered to create any barrier. He would have let them hit him straight on.

Just before the swords smashed into his open palm, he wrapped his kinetic energy around them and siphoned as much force from them as he could. The Concepts within them made it a little difficult, but he used his powerful willpower to break through with sheer brute strength.

When they collided into his palm, he chuckled as the remaining power still forced him to take a step back. The impact didn’t even destroy them either. After they slammed into his palm, they fell to the ground, creating a bright, resonating chime as they clattered to the ground.

Liam’s facial features tightened as he watched Julius take his attack head-on without flinching. To which Julius gave the other boy the most aggravating smirk he could as he strolled forward, Liam.

Before Julius could take several steps forward, he was once again bombarded with ice constructs. This time, they weren’t swords. Liam must have decided to go with a larger number of smaller dagger-shaped constructs, attacking from all sides.

Julius sent a powerful pulse of fire and kinetic energy in every direction around him, destroying a significant portion of the constructs. He then dashed forward at Liam, using his momentum to avoid the daggers still flying at him.

However, Julius was surprised when he felt a small and subtle movement of mana under his feet. He focused downward and saw that Liam was manipulating the three dropped ice swords, repurposing them to create some ice chains that were attempting to wrap around his ankles and immobilize him.

He shook his head, slightly impressed by the skill it took to do this. It wasn’t the fact that he could recycle the used constructs; it was how subtle the action was. If Julius hadn’t been paying attention, he might not have noticed until it was too late.

He swiftly sent a bit of mana toward these chains and used his body to rip through them, shattering them into small particles of ice. However, as he was distracted by this, the small daggers of ice started to pepper him.

They weren’t as strong as the swords, but they were much more annoying. It was like being hounded by a swarm of bees, and he could feel the constructs trying to inject some type of ice mana effect into him.

Despite Liam’s best efforts, the daggers weren’t able to break through his defenses, and he advanced toward Liam, who was creating multiple obstacles between them.

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While this happened, he sent out a quick burst of kinetic energy around himself again. The daggers that were still slamming into him broke apart, and he did his best to avoid the largest number of them.

Just because they didn’t break through his defenses didn’t mean he enjoyed getting hit by them.

Once the daggers had been all dealt with, he observed as they dissolved into a fine mist that floated above the floor. To his interest, Liam took control of this mist, and it started to hover around Julius like a miniature blizzard.

Edgar warned me about this, he thought to himself with an interested gaze toward the mist.

He indulged in his curiosity and took some time to inspect this mist. He felt it trying to seep through his skin and into his body. Along with the sheer coldness that he felt from the ice was a sluggish sensation. Things were already slowing down in real time for him. He almost felt like an insect stuck in amber.

Luckily for him, he was able to invigorate his willpower, and the slowing effect immediately had its potency reduced. He did notice something enlightening during this brief exchange, though. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but he was almost certain that Liam had an Emblem of his own.

Along with the two Ice Concepts he had felt earlier, another one aided the slowing sensation of whatever skill Liam was using. It was similar to how his immobilization technique with kinetic energy worked. But, instead of concentrating on a single individual, this ice skill enveloped the entire area where there was mist.

It wasn’t as inhibiting, but being slowed down by even a fraction in a fight could lead to disaster. Once he handled the mist and made sure it wasn’t hampering him too much, he used [Flash Step] to dash toward Liam once again.

Unfortunately, the fourth-year had created many obstacles that Julius needed to take out before he could reach him. He was forced to smash through walls of thick ice and a withstand constant salvos of small annoying constructs.

Normally, this would drain someone’s mana pretty quickly, but Julius knew better than that. He could feel how efficient Liam was when he created another attack or construct of ice. It was almost like he was barely using any mana at all.

Was it the perfect affinity coming into play? Or was it good mana control? Or perhaps, it was a mixture of both. Regardless, Julius knew that he wasn’t planning to play a game of who runs out of mana first. While he was pretty confident he would win with his massive pool of mana, he had no intention of spending all of that time in a battle of exchanging resources.

That wasn’t any fun at all.

Despite his failed attempts to close the distance, he tried one more time. Supercharging his body with aura and mana, he blitzed at Liam. Tearing through several barriers of ice that attempted to stop him. These barriers were quite strong and took significant effort to break them down, but with a determined will and a hard head, he smashed his way through these walls face first.

The walls were destroyed, but they did their job and slowed him down enough for Liam to use some kind of skill to barely escape Julius’s hand. Julius chuckled as he looked down at his empty hand. It was clear that Liam had been hiding many of his skills during the previous matches as well.

The noble boy had a wide assortment of unique and interesting skills. The movement skill he just used was a weird combination of a [Flash Step] and an intangibility skill he experienced with the assassins.

While it didn’t make Liam as intangible as the assassin, he was still able to disperse his body into a puff of mist. Julius’s hand, which had not been expecting something like that, passed right through him. The only thing that showed that he had missed Liam was the collection of misty dew on his hand.

If that wasn’t enough, Liam then used the mist on his hand to try to freeze his limb. The amount of ice present was small, but it was still impressive how dangerous the attack was. If he hadn’t handled it right away, he could have found half of his body frozen in a block of ice.

Julius sighed. He couldn’t believe how much difficulty he was having while fighting Liam. Still, he couldn’t help but realize that he was having a lot of fun, much more than he was expecting to have when he found out he would be fighting Liam.

It was at this moment that he made a realization. No matter how much of a prick Liam was, he had earned Julius’s respect as a fighter.

The skill and elegant way he fought showed the countless hours of training Liam must have spent. He wasn’t just some arrogant, lazy noble. Sure, he was conceited and still a prick, but buried deep beneath rude behavior was a true fighter with an evident love for training.

So, with a smile still on his face, he conceded to Liam. He couldn’t close the distance without taking serious risks or getting lucky. If he were able to use his healing skill, he would have been able to, but since the bracelet limited his skill, his usual strategy of soaking up damage wouldn’t work. It would probably signal that he had lost and activate the safeguard enchantments before he could let his skill work.

Which was why he decided to switch things up. Just because he enjoyed fighting up close didn’t mean he could no longer fight like a mage. If Liam wanted to fight like a mage, then he was more than glad to reciprocate.

So, before Liam could realize what was happening, he wove his mana together in a bright surge of mana. Using [Sage of Savagery] to help him, he created half a dozen spikes charged with fire mana and kinetic energy. The brilliant azure blue flame and light blue glow of kinetic energy swirled together into a beautiful dance concentrated right on the tip of the spike.

He created simplified versions of channels throughout each construct. These channelsʼ sole purpose was to allow the constructs to contain more mana and hold his infused Concepts more efficiently.

But he didn’t throw them at Liam right away. Instead, he calmly stood there as a brief silence pervaded the field and gave a challenging grin toward the other boy. Julius couldnʼt wait to see how Liam would react to this provocation.