Chapter 131 - Nicole Vs Kian I

Kian Crag

The eight child of Marquis Crag.

Kian possessed far more talent than any of his siblings and had been praised due to it from a young age.

He was born from a family that possessed superior magic talent even among other marquis houses, and naturally, was very proud about being the most talented in such a family.

That was until his father's second wife gave birth to his younger sister.

The ninth child of Marquis Crag, a girl who possessed even more talent for magic, ether, Aether and many other energies than the marquis himself.

All the vassals who were at his beck and call abandoned him to curry favour with his younger sister, no one praised him anymore, even his own mother favoured his younger half-sister than him.

This led him to develop hatred towards his younger sister and eventually, an inferiority complex.

He tried many times to prove himself to be better than her however he failed time and time again. He even postponed going to the academy until he could defeat her and ended up spending two more years at home.

This was frowned upon by most of the Marquis of Crag's vassals but the Marquis who acknowledged that his eighth child possessed some talent decided to indulge him for a bit.

However, the 15-year-old Kian was miserably defeated by his ten-year-old sister, and publicly at that.

At this point, his father, the marquis, finally lost his patience and forced Kian to attend the academy and stop wasting his time on 'impossible' things.

Despite wanting to continue challenging the younger girl to prove his superiority, he was powerless against his father and ended up going to the academy.

He ended up having the 15th position in the academy exams, this showed that he was considerably strong, after all, that set of first year students were more than ten thousand.

His father, the marquis, praised him for the first time in years as he did not besmirch the name of the house and was among the top 100.

Nevertheless, his father's praise did not mean much to him anymore. The only thing that mattered was defeating his younger sister who had defeated him countless times.

Even in the aspects of swordsmanship and other martial and mystic arts, she still surpassed him completely.

In the end, his hatred for his younger sister, evolved to hatred for females as a whole. He started showing contempt for any females he knew and began challenging and defeating them to prove himself superior.

When he discovered that he ranked lower than the some noble ladies in his school year, he began challenged and defeated them multiple times.

He even went as far as to challenge girls ranked lower than him so he could defeat them and revel in the feeling of superiority.

What's more is that he did so without using his outstanding magic and energy manipulation skills, only using a sword and his aura with the occasional lightning magic against them.

Kian had become notorious for his actions and many refused challenges from him or even went as far as challenging others just to avoid him.

However, Kian could not care less about any of this, he continued what he was doing regardless, while also secretly improving his strength so he could defeat the two girls in the top 10 of the second year.

Layla Eryrth and Nicole Harper.

As a misogynist, he naturally could not accept the fact that he was ranked lower than two girls who were younger than he was.

He had planned to 'put them in their place' eventually, however, when he saw that they had both advanced to the grandmaster realm while he was still merely a half step grandmaster, he could not contain his anger and challenged Nicole to a challenge.

While he was acting due to rage, the rational part of his mind warned him not to mess with the Grand Duke's daughter, Layla, especially after how it was revealed that she could defeat inferior stage grandmaster beasts during the incident with Zach.

He decided to challenge the count's daughter Nicole who he felt would be easier to deal with.

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Looking at the blonde haired boy who was pointing at Nicole with an angry look on his face, Arthur and Layla simultaneously clicked their tongues and decided to ignore his existence altogether.

"So Nicole, your dad said something about sending gifts of thanks but all that would be a hassle, mind telling him not to?"

"Arthur, you should know that if he doesn't do that then the other nobles would use that to nitpick at him."

Layla responded to Arthur's words before Nicole could as she attempted to pull Nicole into their class, however the latter refused to move.

"Nicole?"

"Um...can I accept this? I want to test something out..."

Nicole pointed at Kian who was visible getting more enraged at the fact that he was being ignored.

Ignoring his increasing anger, Arthur and Layla looked at each other before turning back to Nicole. Arthur spoke up.

"Well, it's up to you to accept it but I was thinking that you should not accept challenges that aren't worth it."

Nicole nodded in affirmation before turning to the enraged Kian and accepting the challenge. 

They moved over to one of the arenas that was currently unused, along with a number of students who wished to see the Rank 3 of the Second Year class in action.

Nicole's duels were usually low-key as such not many had seen her in action before, however, Kian's public challenge in front of a lot of people gathered a lot of attention.

Many had even began streaming on their school forum accounts and other social media unique to Kreiz.

As the rank 3 of the second year class that had a lot of outstanding talents, Nicole was fairly popular. Coupled with the fact that she always hung around with Arthur and Layla, many had their eyes on her and wished to know more about the strength of the girl who the two most outstanding devils of the generation considered a close friend.

One was a half-devil but that didn't really matter.

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"Okay, so I'd be mediating in this, you know the duel rules, I'm not gonna go over all that so let's just get this over with."

Arthur spoke with a yawn as he stood in between Nicole and Kian who had changed into attires that were more appropriate and arming themselves.

Kian wielded a magic sword and Nicole chose to use a small dagger for close combat. 

They both possessed five sacrificial artifacts each that would absorb lethal damage for them, the winner is decided when the sacrificial artifacts belonging to one side are broken completely.

Kian did not want to use such however after being pressured by Arthur and Layla, he reluctantly agreed.

"Begin."

The moment Arthur spoke, Kian charged forward instantly with a speed that made it seem like he disappeared.

Nicole hurriedly evaded his sword slash by a hair's breadth, however Kian followed it up with a high kick to her shoulder.

"The end!"

He attempted to attack again and end the fight, however Nicole who had been passive finally decided to take action.

"Water Needle."

A sharp spike of water materialized right in front of her and dashed towards his head, causing him to cancel his attack and duck to avoid it easily.

Nicole dusted her shoulder and asked Kian a question with a curious voice.

"That kick, was that... your full strength?"

Her tone was filled with curiosity and it had a hint of disappointment in it, this was noticed by Kian who did not take kindly to it.

"You damned!"

He dashed at her with a faster speed than before and slashed multiple times, his sword glowed yellow as he let out multiple aura slashes towards her which she dodged by a hair's breadth, occasionally parrying the weaker slashes with her dagger.

**WHOOSH!

He let out an aura-filled slash from behind which she evaded without looking, before sending a kick to her defenseless back.

"Mist." "Ice Needle."

She chanted two spells the moment his kick connected.

One of which used a magically created mist to impair his vision and the other to bind him with ice spikes.

"Annoying." 

He shouted and released a burst of aura, creating a gale that blew away everything around.

"Haaa!!"

"?!"

He fired a non-attributed magic bullet towards Nicole that hit her square in the stomach. She was sent flying receiving an impact as if an explosion had occurred close to her.

"What is she doing?"

"She's barely fighting back."

"I came to see a fight not a one sided beat down."

Spectators spoke up after seeing Nicole get sent flying by Kian's attacks, some felt the fight was boring, some felt Nicole was unable to react to Kian's attacks.

However, the far more perceptive ones seemed to have realized what Nicole was aiming for.

"No matter how you look at it, she's using him to test her strength."

"Exactly, she barely took any damage from all those attacks."

"Am I the only one who noticed that she parried his aura filled sword with just a dagger?"

Nicole ignored their statements and stood up before dusting the sand off her body, turning towards the charging Kian, she casted a spell.