The Return Of The Exiled Villain

’I guess I can end the fight now...’

Ovrin was already on the edge, and his aura was constantly flickering.

Blood was dripping from multiple small wounds across his body, not to mention that the hand that was holding his sword was already trembling.

But then... Ovrin pushed himself upright once more.

His chest heaved, and his vision was getting blurry as he started saying afterimages of Gray, as if he had used his movement technique...

And yet the humiliation burned hotter than the pain.

”Y-You...” his voice came out completely hoarse.

”You think you’ve already won?”

Gray did not answer, and that silence was worse than any kind of insult.

Something inside Ovrin snapped again, but this time it was not wild rage, but a strong determination that filled his bones with strength!

With that, Ovrin slowly lifted the trusty sword that had been with him for over one hundred battles!

Fwoosh...!

This time, the qi did not burst outward in wild waves.

It withdrew.

The sword qi around him folded inward, sinking into his body, then into the blade. The bright glow dimmed, then vanished completely.

The sword turned dark, dull, as if it had swallowed its own light.

The temperature dropped, and then, a low hum spread across the arena.

Students felt their ears ring.

The sky above twisted.

Clouds that had been drifting lazily now churned in a tight spiral directly over Ovrin’s head. Wind reversed direction, blowing inward toward him.

Dust and broken stone began sliding across the ground, dragged by a force no one could see.

Students staggered at the sudden pressure, and some even dropped to one knee.

”What is he doing...?” Seraph’s eyes widened slightly.

”That stance... how interesting...”

Aurora’s smile revealed a hint of amusement as her eyes locked onto Ovrin’s figure for the first time in a while.

She had been so focused on Gray that she had forgotten that her own adopted son was already a very rare talent!

Ovrin raised the sword above his head with both hands.

Quiver...

His arms trembled violently, blood seeping from the cracks in his skin where the pressure tore at him from within.

His veins bulged like ropes along his forearms.

The ground beneath his feet began to sink, unable to bear the density of the qi compressing there.

”Sword That Swallows The Moon, Second Move!”

The space above the blade began to fold.

Not metaphorically.

The sky itself seemed to bend inward, warping like cloth being twisted by invisible hands. Light dimmed further, and the air thinned.

”Swallowing the Skies.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The sword came down, but it did not create a simple slash.

The space in front of Ovrin folded like paper being crushed in a fist.

A vertical fracture ripped through the air itself, stretching upward into the sky and downward into the arena floor.

It was as if an invisible giant had split the heavens open.

Light bent toward the fracture.

Sound warped.

The pressure that followed was not sharp.

It was crushing.

A massive wall of condensed sword intent descended, dragging the sky with it. The clouds above compressed into a dark funnel, spiraling downward.

The arena floor cracked in a straight line as the tear advanced, stone rising and crumbling into dust before being swallowed into the collapsing space.

The students screamed in complete panic as that was a move that surely surpassed what had reached the peak of the King realm, even if his cultivation was sealed!

Zooooooooom!

Several barriers in the stands activated on their own, glowing as they resisted the outward shockwaves.

The fifth-year students stood up at once, their auras flaring instinctively to protect the rest of the students.

Even the main barrier around the arena flickered under the strain.

”DIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!” Ovrin roared, blood spraying from his mouth as he forced every last drop of qi into the technique.

The collapsing sky surged toward Gray.

The pressure hit him first.

His robe snapped violently against his body.

The stone beneath his boots shattered and sank half a foot. Wind howled past him, trying to drag him forward into the tear.

Chunks of rock lifted off the ground and spiraled into the fracture. The air itself felt like it was being pulled from his lungs.

The descending wall of sword intent loomed over him, devouring everything in its path.

This wasn’t a simple move... it was a crushing force that was about to swallow his body whole, and yet... he stood still.

From the stands, Ronan, Lyra, and Seraph’s faces showed a huge amount of panic on their faces, their mouths moving as if trying to speak with Gray.

But because of the impact, Gray couldn’t hear them, but from their mouth movements, he could easily know that they were asking him to teleport away from there.

”...Unfortunately, that isn’t needed.”

[Spirit Eyes]

His eyes shone lightly as, under the gaze of everyone, he stretched his index finger to meet the ever-increasing strike.

”Nullification.”

Swish...

The collapsing sky did not explode or shatter....

It did not clash against some opposing force in a grand collision.

It simply... disappeared.

The massive fracture that had torn through the heavens trembled as if someone had brushed over it with an unseen hand.

The spiraling clouds above loosened, their violent rotation slowing into confused drifting.

The crushing wall of sword intent, the one that had been descending with enough force to bury the entire arena, thinned out in midair and dispersed into faint streaks of qi that scattered like smoke under sunlight.

The trench carved across the arena floor stopped growing.

The shattered stone that had been lifting toward the tear dropped back down with dull thuds.

The suffocating pressure that had pressed against everyone’s lungs vanished so suddenly that several students stumbled forward from the abrupt release.

Ovrin’s sword completed its downward arc.

It cut through nothing.

The blade hummed once and then fell silent. The qi he had poured into the technique no longer answered his call as if it had never been there.

His arms trembled violently from the recoil of emptiness.

”What...?”

His voice came out hoarse and thin, completely different from the roar he had unleashed seconds earlier.

Across from him, Gray stood exactly where he had been.

His robe fluttered lightly in the fading wind, strands of his hair settling back into place.

There was no wound on his body, no sign that a technique capable of tearing apart the sky had just descended upon him.

[- 472 Soul Energy]

’...That was quite a stretch.’

For several seconds, no one in the arena spoke.

Then the confusion erupted.

”W-what just happened?!”

”It disappeared!”

”No, it didn’t disappear, it was right there!”

”I saw it hit him! I swear it hit him!”

”That was the second move of a Heavenly inheritance! You can’t just dodge that!”

Lyra stared at the arena with wide eyes, her fingers tightening around the fabric of her skirt.

”Huuff... I didn’t even see him move...”

Ronan rubbed his face with both hands as if trying to wake himself up.

”There’s no way... did the barrier absorb it? No... it didn’t even touch the barrier...”

Seraph’s brows were drawn tightly together. She had felt the pressure clearly; she had seen the space fold and collapse.

What stood before her now made no sense whatsoever!

”That wasn’t evasion,” she murmured under her breath. ”He didn’t step aside or counter it... what did he exactly do? Did he erase the technique...?”

She thought about the possibility... but it was simply impossible. There was no way that Gray would be able to do that.

Her gaze locked onto Gray, searching for some visible trace of effort.

There was none at all, reinforcing her thoughts.

High above the arena, Aurora hovered in silence.

Unlike the others, her eyes had not widened in confusion.

They had sharpened with interest.

The moment Gray’s lips moved, she had felt something change around him.

A severing... move that took place on the tip of his index finger.

A clean, precise cut at the very root of the technique.

The structure that held ”Swallowing the Skies” together had vanished in an instant.

The core that anchored the collapsing space had been erased before the descending force could complete itself.

He had not endured it or overpowered it... But he had simply removed its foundation.

Aurora’s breathing slowed, her pupils glowing faintly with a deep green hue that flickered with growing possessiveness.

’He erased the base of a completed sword art in less than a second...’

’Without even lifting a weapon.’

Her lips curved upward slowly, showing a maddening, sick smile.

’You are mine.’

Back in the arena, Ovrin stared at his own sword as if it had betrayed him.

”I felt it... I released it...” he muttered, his voice trembling from complete shock.

”I completed the form... I did everything right...”

His gaze lifted to Gray, and for the first time since the duel began, there was no arrogance in his eyes.

Only complete disbelief.

’I knew that he was going to be this fucking strong! He was a monstrous genius back then, for god’s sake! Why did I accept my mother’s proposal to challenge him?!’’

Still, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity and asked:

”What did you do?”

Gray remained silent at his words, simply looking at him calmly.

Then he took a step forward.

Thack...

The sound of his boot pressing against cracked stone echoed clearly in the silent arena.

Another step, and Ovrin instinctively stepped back.

His grip loosened.

Cling...

The sword slipped from his hand and fell to the ground with a sharp metallic clang that rang louder than it should have.

No aura surrounded Gray, nor was he using any kind of technique...

And yet, as he approached, the pressure in the arena felt heavier than it had during Ovrin’s grand attack.

Everyone could feel the invisible pressure... because Gray didn’t need to use a grand technique to build his reputation or to show off.

He simply had a strange majesty that clung to his bones, making him seem like the most eye-catching person no matter where he went.

This kind of overbearing... no one could truly match it.