A Fight to the Death

Fury blazed in my chest…

Honestly, across both my lives, this was the first time I’d felt such an overwhelming urge to kill.

Was this what they called ‘eyes reddening with hatred upon meeting an enemy’?

I could feel the magic within me surging, more potent than ever before.

If this was the case, perhaps… no, I was certain I could do it!

“I’m absolutely going to kill you!”

After spitting out the venomous words, I immediately began constructing the spell formation with the fastest speed I could muster.

Was it an illusion, or had my spell-casting speed truly accelerated significantly?

This was exactly what I wanted!

In less than a second, several ice spears, each a full two meters long, materialized around me.

They encircled me, resembling a pair of formidable wings.

Then, I raised my hand…

The ice spears instantly fanned out, completely engulfing Yue from every conceivable angle.

“Impale her!”

At my command, countless ice spears shot directly towards Yue!

Yet, faced with my fierce onslaught, Yue’s expression twisted into one of exhilaration.

“Hahahaha! This is how a battle should be! It must be a fight to the death!”

She didn’t dodge. Instead, she stood her ground, casually holding her massive club horizontally at her side…

Then, she began to spin!

Not only were all the ice spears shattered by her club, but her movements also whipped up a furious gale!

…Well, though her method was extravagant, I wasn’t particularly surprised.

I had already anticipated that a single attack wouldn’t be enough to kill her.

Thus, those ice spears were merely a diversion, designed to draw her attention.

Below Yue’s feet, the ground had already begun to tremble…

Boom!

Magma erupted from the earth!

!

Yue immediately spun around, dodging the eruption.

How could I allow her to escape so easily? My assault was far from over.

From the very direction she had evaded, thick vines coiled together, forming a massive hand that mercilessly swatted towards Yue.

Just as before, Yue attempted to shatter the vines with her bone club…

…!

Yet, how could pliable, resilient vines be so easily broken?

The bone club became entangled in the vines, unable to advance even an inch.

Then, the vine-hand’s wrist flung Yue back towards the gushing column of magma…

Tsk…!

I could clearly see the muscles in Yue’s legs begin to swell.

Was it coming?

With a powerful kick mid-air, a sonic boom instantly erupted, propelling her body to soar through the sky once more.

‘You’ve been seen through already, haven’t you?’

A tornado wrapped itself around the magma column, swiftly forming a towering inferno whirlwind that reached for the heavens.

Its immense suction mercilessly pulled Yue, trapped in mid-air and unable to escape, directly into its vortex.

Sizzle—!

The sound of searing flesh pierced the air, but the expected smell of burning was swallowed by the fire tornado, unable to escape.

Perhaps sensing its master’s predicament, the Thunder Dragon disregarded Margaret and the others who were assailing it, turning instead to unleash a torrent of electricity at the fire tornado.

Zzzzzzzzt—!

Boom!

Though an explosion occurred, the tornado undeniably grew unstable, quickly dissipating into nothing.

‘Quite a trick, then.’

Despite being charred black, the Scarlet Ogre stood as if nothing had happened…

What incredible vitality!

But… what did it matter?

My magic remained abundant, and I would continue my assault until…

…I had utterly slain her.

I raised my hand once more…

Blazing fire, howling gales, biting ice, and crashing meteors assailed her in relentless succession.

I would grant her no quarter, no moment to catch her breath.

Boom! Crash!

Hahaha!

…Despite all this, that creature managed to break through every attack without a change in expression, closing in on me.

But it was utterly meaningless.

The instant her bone club was about to strike me, a dozen pre-prepared stone thorns erupted swiftly, like an unavoidable barrage, piercing Yue’s joints and rendering her utterly immobile.

“It seems your defenses have weakened from constantly healing your body, haven’t they? At this rate, you’ll be killed sooner or later, you know?”

I mocked, my gaze fixed on the blue blood trickling down the stone thorns.

“Heh… little whelp, is it really wise to be so arrogant? The victor hasn’t even been decided yet, has it?”

“I don’t believe you stand any chance of defeating me.”

Power continued to surge within me, an inexhaustible well.

I dared to declare that, in this moment, I would lose to no one!

“Hmph… then this senior will have to teach you a lesson!”

Yue exerted all her strength… seemingly attempting to rip the stone thorns free.

“It’s useless. These stone thorns were meticulously prepared by me; their hardness far surpasses that of ordinary magic. With your joints impaled and your strength restricted, how do you expect to tear my thorns apart?”

“Hahaha~”

Yet, to my surprise, Yue merely bared her teeth and began to laugh after hearing my words.

“That’s why…”

Wait…

It seemed that what was breaking wasn’t the stone thorns.

That creature… it had actually twisted its own joints, escaping the thorny cage!

Within my field of vision, the white bone club was rapidly growing larger…

“Don’t underestimate your senior!”

Clang!

Even though I promptly deployed multiple barriers, Yue’s monstrous strength still sent me flying.

While I used wind magic to stabilize my posture mid-air, Yue had already repaired her body and was closing in.

Haaah!

A heavy blow from her bone club met me head-on!

Clang!

I was slammed back into the ground.

Thud!

The ground instantly shattered, forming a spiderweb of cracks approximately three meters in radius.

Yet… against my multiple shields, it still proved utterly meaningless…

*Crack…*

The shield had actually fractured slightly.

Well, it seemed it wasn’t entirely useless after all.

However, I had no intention of continuing to prolong this struggle with her.

My opponent seemed to think the same… utilizing the smoke from her last strike, she instantly reappeared before me…

…only to find that I had been waiting for her.

Electricity surged from my palm.

Zzzzzzzzt—

A powerful current of one hundred thousand volts surged forth!

Even if she could withstand it, she’d be immobilized for a good while, wouldn’t she?

Yue seemed to instinctively grasp this, immediately halting her attack, pushing off with both legs to evade the lethal lightning.

While it was a shame I missed, with the distance re-established, the battle was now on my home turf.

I was going to unleash my full power.

Rumble…

Thunderclouds gathered ominously above the academy…

Furious winds whipped up, fierce flames encircled the area, and even the atmospheric pressure dropped significantly, making it difficult to breathe.

In mere seconds, the academy transformed into a maelstrom of chaos.

Magic, too complex to discern with the naked eye, poured down upon the Scarlet Ogre.

This time, she no longer chose to meet the attacks head-on.

Her instincts likely told her not to casually endure these assaults.

And so, she weaved and dodged through my magical barrage, astonishingly managing to evade every single one.

A flicker of impatience stirred within me… causing me to mutter,

‘How troublesome… Just [Stop].’

…

The moment those words left my lips, for some inexplicable reason, Yue actually froze in place.

This brief pause became her fatal wound.

Boom—!

A mushroom cloud bloomed precisely where Yue had stood.

I could distinctly feel Yue’s aura growing faint.

It seemed I was the victor of this battle.

Come to think of it, why was I able to recognize her aura?