The Return Of The Exiled Villain

Among the last two remaining students, Maelis stepped forward.

She walked onto the scorched and water-stained platform with clear reluctance in her posture.

For a moment, her eyes dropped, and her shoulders shifted as if she were about to raise her hand and surrender on the spot.

Then a sharp, cold glare from the VIP section locked onto her. Gloria sat forward slightly, her golden eyes fixed on her student with a clear warning.

Maelis instantly felt the pressure from that look. She sighed, shook her head once, and lifted her gaze toward Gray.

”Let’s finish this fast...” she mumbled, and gave him a small wink.

Gray shook his head at her words.

The referee’s staff came down.

”Begin!”

Maelis moved first, not toward him, but away.

Gravity mana flared around her in a wide, invisible field.

The air above the platform grew heavier in an instant.

Gray felt the sudden increase in pressure against his shoulders and legs, as if the weight of his own body had multiplied.

He took one step forward, and the resistance thickened even more.

He did not bother fighting the field head-on.

”[✧Swap✧]”

His figure vanished from the center of the growing gravity zone and reappeared three meters to Maelis’s left.

The moment his boots touched stone, she was already sliding farther back, both hands weaving another layer of gravitational force.

A localized spike of pressure slammed downward toward the spot he had just occupied, cracking the platform in a shallow crater.

Gray swapped positions again, this time appearing almost directly behind her. Maelis spun, eyes sharp, and thrust her palm outward.

A focused beam of compressed gravity shot toward his chest.

Swoop!

He twisted, letting the beam pass close enough that the edge of it tugged hard at his robe, and closed the remaining distance with two quick steps.

She did not let him stay close.

A wide, sweeping gravity wave expanded from her position, forcing the air itself to push outward.

Gray’s forward momentum slowed as if he had stepped into deep water.

Before the wave fully recovered, he swapped once more, exchanging positions with a fragment of broken stone behind her.

He appeared at her back and reached out.

Maelis dropped low and rolled forward, the gravity field around her body intensifying in a tight shell that made the air shriek.

Gray’s fingers closed on empty space.

THRUUUM!

The shell expanded and shoved him several meters away before he could adjust.

’...Tsk! She really does have an annoying battle style...’

Maelis landed lightly and immediately raised both hands.

Multiple small gravity wells formed in the air between them, looking like dark, shimmering points that bent light slightly.

Each one pulled at everything nearby with sudden, sharp force.

Gray swapped past the first well, felt the second tug hard at his ankle, and had to swap again before the third could lock onto his torso.

He reappeared closer to her right side.

Maelis was already moving, boots sliding across the stone as she maintained the maximum range she could manage.

A horizontal blade of condensed gravity sliced toward his legs. He hopped it, landed, and swapped forward the instant his feet touched down.

The distance closed to two meters.

Maelis’s eyes narrowed.

THRUMMM!

She slammed both palms downward.

The gravity across the entire half of the platform where Gray stood multiplied several times over.

His knees bent under the sudden weight.

The stone beneath his boots cracked in a widening spiderweb. For an entire second, his movement was fully suppressed.

He instantly swapped out of the zone before the pressure could fully pin him, appearing on the lighter side of the field.

Maelis used the brief window to put another five meters between them, her breathing already controlled and measured.

She was pacing herself, refusing to waste mana on large, flashy techniques when smaller, continuous applications could keep him at bay.

Gray advanced again.

”[✧Swap✧]”

He closed half the gap in one exchange.

Maelis answered with a rapid series of gravity pulses aimed at his weak points, making sure that each pulse was timed to disrupt balance rather than deal heavy damage.

Gray swapped through the first two, took the third against his left shoulder with a dull impact that made the joint ache, and continued forward.

A thin line of blood appeared where the concentrated gravity had pinched the skin under his robe.

Maelis saw it and pressed harder.

She began chaining the techniques without pause.

A wide field to slow him, followed by sudden spikes to force swaps, then narrow cutting blades of gravity that tried to catch him on the exit of each displacement.

Gray’s movements stayed efficient.

He never stayed in one place longer than a second.

When he appeared within arm’s reach for the third time, Maelis gritted her teeth and released a spherical gravity bomb at point-blank range.

The air collapsed inward then exploded outward in a crushing wave.

Gray crossed both arms in front of his body and took the hit directly.

BOOOM!

The force drove him back across the platform in a low slide, boots carving fresh grooves in the already damaged stone.

Several small cuts opened along his forearms where the compressed gravity had scraped against skin and cloth.

He straightened, rolled one shoulder, and swapped forward again without giving her time to enjoy the space.

Maelis was already retreating, one hand trailing behind her to leave a lingering gravity mine in her wake.

Gray swapped past the mine, felt it detonate a meter to his left with a sharp pull that tugged at his balance, and kept closing.

Another gravity blade came at his neck. He leaned under it, the edge of the technique slicing a thin line across the top of his shoulder.

Drip...

More blood dripped to the floor.

The crowd had gone quiet in a different way than before.

The earlier shock of Selene’s elimination had been replaced by the tense, drawn-out rhythm of a chase.

Students watched Maelis continually create distance, and Gray continually erase it with the same calm, repeated use of his spatial skill.

Each time he got close, the gravity mage found another way to slip away or punish the attempt.

Maelis’s forehead showed a light sheen of sweat now. Maintaining so many overlapping gravity effects while constantly moving was not free.

Yet she refused to stop.

Every time Gray’s hand came near her, she twisted the local gravity to throw his timing off by a second, enough to let her slide out of reach once more.

He appeared directly in front of her again.

She dropped a heavy field straight down on both of them, accepting the pressure on herself in order to lock him in place for a moment longer.

Gray’s boots sank a centimeter into the cracking stone.

He swapped out an instant before the full weight settled, but the residual force still clipped him, opening another shallow cut across his collarbone.

Maelis used the bought second to put maximum distance between them once more, already weaving the next set of wells and blades.

Gray’s expression remained neutral.

”Pfftu...”

He wiped a thin trail of blood from his wrist with his thumb, then raised his eyes to her again.

”I got the essence of your magic now...”

’Reverse Nullification...’

[Ding! Gravity Magic acquired!]

The notification rang cleanly inside his mind.

Maelis felt the shift the moment the words left his mouth.

Her eyes widened.

She slammed both hands downward, pouring everything she had left into a dense, multi-layered gravity field meant to crush the space around her and launch her body far across the platform in one explosive escape.

The field began to form... and then collapsed.

Gray did not use Nullification.

He simply raised one hand and made a small, precise motion, reversing the exact flow of gravitational force she had just created.

The wells she tried to open inverted.

The directional pull she meant to use for escape flipped against her. The heavy pressure she intended to drop on the platform scattered into harmless ripples of displaced air.

Maelis’s body locked in place for a fraction of a second, her own magic turning against the movement she needed.

That fraction was enough.

Gray’s figure blurred.

He crossed the remaining distance in a single, lightning-fast step. His hand came up in a clean, horizontal chop aimed at the side of her neck.

Thud!

Maelis’s eyes rolled back. Her body went limp before she could even finish the shocked expression on her face.

The residual gravity mana around her scattered completely. The elimination light wrapped around her in an instant, removing her from the stage.

Gray lowered his hand and stood alone on the scarred platform once more, the shallow cuts on his body already beginning to close under his highly natural recovery.

The match was over in that instant.

”Victory... to Gray Vireux of Clementine’s Sword & Magic Academy!”

The referee announced, sounding less surprised than before, given the number of ’miracles’ Gray had already created in a single tournament.

And now... only a single opponent remained.

A mysterious one.