After neutralizing the threat, the graceful figure descended slowly beside Alan, carefully wiping the blood off his body.
Alan looked a bit uncomfortable. He muttered under his breath, "Senior, cut it out. We're still in the middle of a fight."
Blanche lightly smacked him on the head and scolded, "So what? If you don't clean your wounds now, what if they get infected later? Do you really want to end up bedridden in the dorm for half a month just after winning a tough battle?"
"No way! I'm not like ordinary people. I heal super fast," Alan replied defensively, forcing himself to suppress the urge to use his vital energy to treat his wounds.
It wasn't that he was afraid of being discovered by his senior; rather, he was concerned that if Blanche saw the miraculous effects of his vital energy, she might montarily be stunned—and that brief lapse could give the enemy an opening to launch a surprise attack.
Blanche finished cleaning the blood off his body and then glanced around. "Why are you the only one here? Where are the others?" she asked.
Alan scanned the battlefield. His teammates were still locked in combat with the enemy assailants. Fort, who had taken a direct hit from the massive sword earlier, was now fighting as if nothing had happened—he moved fluidly and seed completely at ease. In contrast, Francis was visibly struggling. After burning through nearly all of his mana, he could barely maintain a small three-ter-wide gravity field. Even forming it seed to tax him greatly.
Seeing this, Alan pointed toward Francis and said, "Senior, go help Francis first. He's overdrawn his mana and might be in real danger."
Blanche didn't hesitate. "Alright. I'll go help him first. But you—don't go doing anything reckless."
With that, she dashed off toward Francis.
Alan, now alone again, turned cold. He faced a treetop nearby and shouted, "Had enough eavesdropping? If you're done, get down here! Our fight isn't over yet!"
As he finished, Alan kicked the tree where the robed man was hiding, breaking it with a loud crack, then lunged toward the exposed enemy with a swift, deadly charge.
"Tsk tsk… this kid has ability, he's got guts, and more importantly—he's got sothing you rarely see in the younger generation of mages," murmured Claude, watching from a distance.
"Oh? What trait is that?" Hols asked, standing beside him. Both n observed Alan's fighting style with the air of seasoned critics.
Hols smiled faintly and replied, "Resilience. The unyielding kind. It sounds simple, but in practice, very few can truly embody it."
"It's easy to say you won't give up, but to actually hold to that belief under imnse pressure, or even in the face of death—to stay true to your decision—that's rare," he added.
As Hols spoke the words "face of death," both he and Claude instinctively turned their gazes toward the far end of the rainforest.
There, a blurred silhouette had erged, quite distinct from before. The figure didn't move—he simply watched, showing no intention of interfering in the battle.
Not far from the two n, a young girl nad Isabella stood quietly beside Hols. Her expression didn't carry the analytical calm of the adults. From beginning to end, her innocent eyes had remained fixed on one person—Alan.
But now, as she saw her brother pushed into a difficult fight, Isabella's expression tensed visibly.
Her breathing grew faster, her small face gradually flushed red. She looked like she wanted to rush forward and help him, to share so of the pressure. But after a long inner struggle, she still couldn't bring herself to take that step.
anwhile, Alan had entered the most intense stage of his battle with the robed man and the shield-wielding attacker.
The confrontation was now in full swing—fierce and explosive. And yet, Alan had begun to seize control of the rhythm. His speed was escalating—strike after strike, faster and faster. His relentless assault had pushed his opponent, the robed man, into a defensive flurry. The man could barely keep up.
But the robed man wasn't exactly at a disadvantage. Each of Alan's attacks required a buildup of power, however slight. Even though Alan had refined the process to near-invisibility through masterful mana control, the ti gap still technically existed.
And the robed man had begun to exploit this faint gap, launching counterattacks with precision.
He specialized in wind-elent magic, and his only attack move was a whip-like leg strike. Simple as it may sound, one should never underestimate its lethality. In magic, precision and focus often outclass variety. Better to master one technique than to dabble in many.
The robed man clearly understood this principle.
Though his whip kick looked crude, it contained hidden killing intent—its force comparable to a tier-platinum mage's full-power strike. More than a few enemies had fallen to this very attack in the past. It was, in fact, his signature move—and one of the reasons he had been selected for this mission.
The man had believed taking down Alan would be an easy task.
But after engaging Alan in direct combat, he realized—he had been terribly, terribly mistaken.
"You're daydreaming in the middle of battle? You looking down on or sothing?"
Suddenly, Alan blinked—teleporting right behind the robed man—and drove his sword toward the man's back in a surprise stab.
The man shuddered and hurriedly retreated.
Alan had used this move several tis before. While it was indeed startling at close range, the robed man had already figured out its flaw: launching an attack at such proximity restricted the range of Alan's sword to a very narrow arc. As long as the target managed to move out of that arc in ti, Alan's strike would miss—and he'd be open to a counterattack.
This ti, the robed man had no intention of holding back.
But then—
"Wait… what the hell is that?!"
As he prepared to unleash his full-force whip kick and turn the tide, he saw sothing that left him completely dumbfounded.
Alan's elental sword had left his hand—flying straight toward him on its own!
Just like the earlier assault by the giant warrior who had thrown his massive blade.
The robed man was stunned.
"Impossible! That sword is ford from elental energy—it should rely on the mage's mana to exist. Once it leaves Alan's control, it's supposed to dissipate imdiately! Why is it still intact?!"
Across the battlefield, Alan's lips curled into a subtle grin.
He had gambled—and won.
Because the earlier battle had been so chaotic—and because Alan had intentionally held back—none of the attackers had seen him use the technique called Mana Blade.
Which ant no one knew he had already mastered the advanced ability of mana shaping.
That changed everything.
Now, as Alan used invisible strands of mana to remotely control the elental sword, his opponent had no way to anticipate it.
Just as Alan himself had once underestimated the giant warrior's thrown blade, assuming it was no longer a threat after it left his hands.
Likewise, these attackers never imagined that Alan's elental weapon would remain in play even after leaving his grip.
And that was why—earlier in the fight—Alan had repeatedly used close-range teleportation attacks.
He wanted to reinforce a false assumption in their minds:
That his combat style always required the sword to remain in his hand.
He wanted them to think he could only fight within arm's reach.
Only now—when it mattered most—did he reveal his true trump card.
A strike they never saw coming.
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