Chapter 247: Senile
Elion’s gaze sharpened for the first ti since the fight had begun, and without any warning, he cast the first spell of the match, a simple water spell that ford instantly beneath his feet, and before anyone could even react.
The water froze over into a smooth layer of ice that spread outward just enough to support his movent, and in the sa motion, a pressurised jet of water burst from behind him, propelling his body forward with explosive speed.
The movent was sudden and unpredictable.
Woosh!
He vanished from William’s line of sight.
William’s eyes went wide.
"Shit—!"
The realization ca to him too late.
His instincts scread at him as he tried to snap his neck around, his body twisting awkwardly as he attempted to form a wind spell to defend himself, his mana rushing toward his hand in a desperate attempt to create a barrier or at least redirect the incoming attack.
But his thoughts were too slow, his casting too subpar, the spell never had the chance to take shape because Elion was already there.
The white blade flashed into view at the very edge of William’s vision, reflecting the sunlight in a brilliant arc as it ca from the left, in a precise and utterly rciless angle.
In that single instant william understood.
’I’m going to lose my hand.’
The thought made him feel cold all over.
And it brought with it a surge of seething anger that burned through his fear as his teeth clenched and his eyes flared with hatred.
’This bastard... He’s paying
back for what I did to that whore of his!
Rage surged within him, but it ant nothing because anger did not make him faster, it did not make him stronger either, and it certainly did not make him capable of stopping what was inevitable.
The blade ca down in a clean and unstoppable arc.
Shing!
Ti seed to slow as Elion’s blade began to slice into William’s arm, and in that stretched mont between motion and consequence, his entire figure looked like nothing more than a blur.
From the instant he propelled himself forward on that jet of pressurised water to the mont his sword descended, there had been no wasted movent and no hesitation, only clean, decisive execution.
The proctor never even had a chance.
Even if she had known beforehand what was about to happen, even if she had been prepared and watching closely, her body would have never reacted in ti to stop it, because the speed at which Elion moved was simply beyond her ability to intercept.
It was simply incomprehensible for a first-year student to move that first. Even the upper years would be hard-pressed to reach that kind of speed and agility.
The blade was already biting into flesh.
Woosh!
Bang!
A figure ca crashing down from above.
It happened so suddenly that no one could process it.
The impact landed on Elion’s side with overwhelming force, and the sound of several bones cracking echoed loudly across the arena as several of his ribs fractured instantly under the blow.
"Argh—!"
Elion was sent flying.
His body spun violently through the air, twisting uncontrollably like a ragdoll caught in a storm, and the speed at which he rotated made him look like a spinning top as he hurtled across the battlefield.
He hit the ground once.
Then again.
Then again.
Each collision sent dust and debris into the air, but the force behind the attack was far too great for him to stop or even slow himself down.
Bam!
His body slamd into the outer ring of the arena, the barrier that separated the battlefield from the first row of seats, and the wall caved in around him on impact as cracks spread outward from the point of contact, fragnts of stone falling away as his body finally ca to a stop, lodged into the broken structure.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
The entire arena went quiet in an instant, as if the air itself had been sucked away.
"What just happened...?"
It wasn’t clear who said it first, but it didn’t matter because it was the question on everyone’s mind.
It couldn’t be—
There was no way that William had done that.
Every single pair of eyes snapped upward toward the figure that had descended.
Shock.
Pure shock.
To say that every spectator, every professor, every student in the arena was stunned would be an understatent, because what they were witnessing was sothing that should not have happened, sothing that broke the very rules of what this tournant represented.
Mira felt her entire body go cold, as if her soul had left her for a mont, her eyes wide as she stared at the screen without blinking.
Aria froze completely, her eyes trembling as she tried to make sense of what she had just seen, her mind refusing to accept it.
"No..."
The first voice that broke the silence ca from above.
Maximus.
"DAWNCREST!"
His voice thundered across the arena, filled with unmistakable rage as the pressure behind it shook the very air.
"What is the aning of this!?"
Yes.
Floating in the sky was Duke Cain Dawncrest.
He stood there without a trace of sha, his expression cold and unreadable as he looked down at where Elion’s body was embedded in the broken wall, as if what he had just done was nothing more than a necessary action.
He had attacked a junior in broad daylight, in front of everyone, and he did not seem to care.
Maximus moved.
And it was strange, because to everyone watching, it looked like he was both slow and impossibly fast at the sa ti, as if the space between him and his destination had simply folded to accommodate his will.
In the span of a single heartbeat, he had already left his balcony with his sword staff in hand.
Within a split second, he was there.
Right in front of Cain Dawncrest.
He positioned himself perfectly between him and the direction where Elion’s body had been launched, as if placing himself as a barrier, not just physically, but symbolically as well.
"Explain yourself!" Maximus thundered, his voice carrying a pressure that made even the air around them tremble slightly, and the authority in his tone left no room for misinterpretation.
Dawncrest did not flinch.
He slowly lifted his gaze to et Maximus’s. He looked into those abyssal black eyes.
"...Don’t tell
you’ve grown senile, old man," Cain said calmly, his voice devoid of urgency despite the situation, as if he were rely pointing out an inconvenience rather than answering to an accusation.
Maximus’s grip on his staff tightened.
"What are you implying?"
Cain’s lips curled ever so slightly, not quite a smile, but sothing colder.
"Can you not see it?" he continued, his gaze flicking briefly toward the broken wall where Elion had been embedded, then returning to Maximus, "or are you only pretending... and letting this rot fester in your school?"
The words hung in the air.
Maximus’s aged eyes trembled.
A thought crossed his mind.
’Did he see it...?’
’The origin core...?’
The implication struck deeper than the accusation itself, because if Cain truly understood what he was looking at... Then that put his plans in jeopardy.
Maximus’s expression hardened slightly as he processed that possibility.
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