Chapter 594 - Recognized

Victoria jumps in front of me, only to burst into pieces of flesh, and part of me wonders how much longer she can keep going. The attack that was supposed to kill me is partially blocked, but it still throws me to the side. With cold, detached curiosity, I watch as the next one carves deep holes into the building next to me.

I could feel no mana, neither in the attack nor in the burst when Lissandra used it.

I boost myself into the air and take black mana from the crown and I use that black mana to form a barrier in front of me, only for its surface to wobble as it absorbs another invisible attack.

Victoria slowly walks towards Lissandra. She rips off her finger and throws it to the ground, where it quickly grows into an identical copy of herself. Keeping an eye on Lissandra, she plunges her hand into the duplicate’s back and yanks it out in a spray of blood, and sending the body collapsing to the ground. In her hand, she holds a pearl-white short sword with a very wide blade, made entirely from bone.

She lifts it in front of her, the surface cracking but blocking the attack from Lissandra. Her slow walk turns into a run and then her speed increases further, each step tearing the asphalt under her feet.

I lift another black shield to block the attack and place seals back onto my Ignition Heart. The incredible healing I had until now is reduced to a fragment, but my mental capacity increases greatly by not having to deal with it. The pain also disappears, making me feel almost lightheaded.

Then, it's back to using only mana.

A javelin made of black mana shoots ahead and it pierces through Lissandra's shield and crashes into the ground next to her, devouring the mana from the area nearly instantly.

Even then, the monster takes a step and disappears. The space in front of her shrinks and waves in the same way Ruby used to.

Victoria crashes where Lissandra stood. Passing by the javelin, she pulls it out and throws it my way. Even before it fully reaches me, I transform it into a shield as another barrage of attacks reaches me.

Three, five, ten attacks slam into the shield with tremendous force. Then one gets through—a thin, needle-like mana projectile, no thicker than a nail, piercing a hole about the same size right over where my heart is.

With my heightened perception, I watch as another similar projectile flies toward my head. I barely tilt it to the side, then block another one with Fracture before it can reach my heart.

Fracture bursts open, releasing all the forces it held: glass made of white sand, [Disintegration], and black mana.

All of it surges toward me, and I know I'll die if any of it hits. Even so, I watch with fascination. Part of my mind registers how many shards I just lost. Another part is amused by the fact. A third focuses on amplifying the effect of my eyes to observe the process.

The most reasonable part of me moves black mana around my body, shielding me from the parts of the explosion I can still block.

As if in slow motion, I shoot my hand into the explosion. I twist it, take the damage I can endure, and snatch the largest fragment of the shattered blade from the air. I boost myself, crash against the road, then use Wraith Dance two times, three times, five times, ten times.

Behind me, the blast zone spreads into something unholy—an eruption that disintegrates everything in its path. White sand grows more charged and pierces through everything, clashing with black mana over the surrounding mana in the air.

I stop using kinetic energy and rely on mana to reinforce my body, trying to mimic the way Lissandra uses it. Each movement is faster than the last. I don’t think much about it; I just let my body lead, drawing inspiration and trying to combine it with the feeling I had when the coolest person I ever knew moved my body.

Victoria flies towards me and by my side, with one of her arms missing, having been cut off by a mana disc floating over Lissandra.

I reach toward her as she passes by, grab her hand, spin around, and hurl Victoria back toward Lissandra. Victoria uses the momentum, lands hard, and keeps running. She reaches into the wound where her arm used to be and pulls out a bone dagger, still slick with blood and strips of flesh.

There are no more duplicates.

The [Empyrean Lance] I’ve formed shoots forward as Lissandra moves her disc to block it. Both vanish on impact. She slips away again to avoid Victoria, but I track her with my eyes, letting more mana flood into my body as I close the distance.

Another [Empyrean Lance] fires at her just as I focus harder on disrupting her mana. I pour everything into it, narrowing my will to a point and reaching into the flow of her magic. The effort burns through me. It’s like trying to dam a river with bare hands. I claw at her threads of mana, pulling them out of sync, twisting them against each other. For a brief second, I feel her falter, something stutters in her casting, but it’s not enough.

She exhales, quiet and steady, and her body moves with impossible precision. One arm snatches the lance from the air. It detonates in her grasp, but a barrier flares to life, sealing the blast. Both the lance and her arm vanish in the burst.

She raises her mana, and I respond in kind. [Eclipse] activates, draining the color from the area around us as we clash.

I give everything I have to smother her power. I force my mana into the space around her, try to unravel her focus, try to overwhelm her with raw interference. I scream inwardly with the strain, feeling my own flow begin to fray.

She pushes back. Calm, steady, unshaken.

And she wins.

Despite everything I do, she cuts through my interference. I grit my teeth and cross my arms in front of my chest, stacking barrier after barrier to brace for the impact.

All of the barriers break at once, cutting into my flesh. The attack breaks through and throws me against a nearby light pole, breaking it, and then into the side of the car behind.

Victoria reaches Lissandra, who throws up a barrier in front of her. It shatters instantly under a punch so forceful that Victoria’s hand explodes on impact. She doesn't stop. Even with blood trailing behind her, she charges forward.

Lissandra slips to the side and delivers a precise kick to Victoria’s leg. I hear the crack as the bone gives way.

Without pausing, Lissandra tilts her head just enough to dodge my next projectile, then disrupts another before I can even release it. The mana I had gathered twists in the air, hijacked by her will. It swells with her mana and detonates beside me, the blast lifting me off my feet and slamming me down the road.

Before I can get back on my feet, Lissandra is already in front of me. She kicks with brutal precision, breaking both of my hands and shattering the barrier I had just raised while I push myself up on one knee.

This time, I don’t get thrown. For a brief moment, I switch back to kinetic energy, absorbing the impact and holding my ground. Standing so close to her, I release everything I have, every bit of mana I’ve gathered, firing it at her in tightly packed, concentrated bursts.

The air between us ripples and swells as the attack pushes forward, but before it can reach her, it halts. It twists, spins, and reshapes itself into a swirling orb that she catches between her fingers. All that power is now contained in that single, small object.

She moves to return it to me, but I reach at it as well, fighting against her with all my might.

While we both hold the orb, her strength floods into it. I don’t try to overpower her. Instead, I shape around her force. I add no extra energy; I focus on changing its structure. I build pressure lines, create absorption paths, and form layered mana anchors, using everything I can manage in the short time we fight over it.

She notices. I can tell by the way her grip shifts, just slightly, to cut off my influence. But I already left my mark.

I destabilize it. Not from force, but from within.

The orb flickers, folding in on itself.

Her head tilts, and she smiles like she’s enjoying the surprise. Not in mockery, but in interest. She laughs and moves to teleport away. While further damaging my broken arm, I move it and stab a remaining shard of Fracture into her collarbone before she can disappear.

This destabilizes her teleportation enough to allow me to latch onto it, and both of us barely teleport away before the orb explodes.

The destabilized teleportation, with more persons than intended, twists, tears, and damages both of our bodies. Even the direction is messed up, and we end up in the middle of the road, laying on each other.

I move my head down to slam it against hers, but she twists and moves, causing me to miss and smash it against the asphalt. With her remaining hand, she punches my chest and releases bursts of mana she quickly collected to throw me into the air.

Before she can do anything else, Victoria is here, armless, with one broken leg, and yet she still kicks Lissandra's head, sending her crashing against the wall of what used to be a building.

The wall that barely stands crashes and the bricks fall down, burying her beneath them.

I fan the thermal flames under my skin, the necessary healing fixing some of the damage, but I can barely keep it up. I feel like I could pass out at any moment, and when I try to lift one of the seals, the flames flowing into me almost burn me uncontrollably.

From the fallen wall of bricks, a mana projectile comes and stabs into my shoulder, sending me staggering back before I can try more. It sends a wave of disrupting mana through my body, deactivating nearly all of my active skills.

I barely pull it out and throw it to the ground. Of course, it destabilizes there and explodes, throwing me back once more.

A laugh escapes my lips as I climb to my feet and walk over to Victoria’s side. Her leg is partially healed, though she’s still missing an arm. She flicks her head to clear the hair from her eyes and straightens her posture, standing there like this is just another ordinary day.

Out of the rubble, Lissandra also climbs. Terribly wounded and damaged, she still does not heal herself. Even the shard of Fracture remains stabbed inside her; the gray smoke and black mana are surely causing her a tremendous amount of trouble.

One of her eyes is gone, her arm is gone, and there are tears all over her body, but she bears the same confidence as always.

With a voice that sounds just the same as it always does, she says, “This reminds me of the time before I even became a candidate. Back then, when I was younger than that empath of yours.”

She dusts off her clothes and smiles, “I miss those days. There was so much to learn, so many mistakes to make, and so many dangers that seemed insurmountable.”

“Let’s stop here before I get carried away,” Lissandra says, glancing between us with a faint smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “This path requires more than just strength or talent. Out of everyone I’ve seen in this tutorial, you two come the closest to understanding that.”

Her presence increases once again, and her wounds heal as she removes the limiters she has placed on herself.

On my skin, I feel the tingling of power she radiates and the sensation as if the system itself is listening to her words.

“It’s not only the outcome of this fight, but everything I’ve seen leading up to it. I cannot say whether either of you will reach the end of this path, but there is one thing I can state with certainty.”

That pressure on my skin increases; it feels the same as when she declared me a candidate.

So I interrupt her.

“I refuse.”

Lissandra stares at me, her mouth slightly open before she calmly closes it. The faint disbelief in her eyes makes it clear she hadn’t expected anyone to refuse her. For a moment, she pauses, as if unsure of what to say.

"I don’t need you to declare me. I don’t need anyone to. I am Nathaniel Gwyn, and I’ll make the system recognize me as an Absolute Candidate, whether it wants to or not." I speak the words plainly, knowing others can hear.

As sore a loser as she is, Lissandra disappears. She forfeits the event to end, but doesn't say it out loud; it remains only in her mind.

Before I turn to my right, I hear Victoria say, “I forfeit,” and she disappears as well.

Standing there alone it seems that the winner of the last event has been decided.

***

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