Chapter 159 - Unfinished Duel

"Really?"

Arthur asked as he stretched out his hand and activated a wind magic spell to block the spears of darkness.

"Towering Tornado."

A giant whirlwind formed with him at the center, it height easily reaching five meters as the top of the tornado was close to the celling of the private room.

Ignoring Arthur's answer to her spears of darkness, Layla stabbed her sword into the ground and cut off her magic, switching to ether before utilizing one of the new techniques she learnt under Aurora's tutelage.

A halo of dark light spread out around her outstretched hand, which then went on to encircle her hand. She then launched three beams of darkness-attributed ether towards Arthur, easily bypassing the raging whirlwind that surrounded him and hitting him square in the left shoulder.

"Guh!"

Arthur grunted in pain and disabled the tornado, as it offered no defense against Layla's beams of ether.

Seeing that the first group of beams did their intended job, Layla grinned and launched more beams of ether, this time; they were about ten groups of five each.

"Enhance my strength Celestia."

Arthur spoke out loud, causing Layla to tilt her head in confusion.

'Who's Celestia?'

Arthur ignored her obvious confusion and rose his sword to slash at the beams of darkness-attributed ether that aimed at different parts of his body.

However, there was no way Layla was going to let him do so with peace of mind. She fired a few more groups of ether beams before spreading her arms wide open and causing the halo of dark light to levitate and continue firing out beams of darkness at regular intervals. She then switched to her guns and began firing bullets of condensed ether towards him.

Arthur coated his entire body with a thick layer of aura as he judged the beams to be a greater threat than the supporting bullets and focused on slashing at them while ignoring the bullets.

His thick aura coat prevented the bullets from doing any damage to him and Layla was also unable to penetrate it by firing multiple times at the same spot since he was constantly on the move to dodge the beams of darkness that possessed a homing feature.

Narrowing her eyes, Layla threw both pistols in the air and used her reequip artifact to summon a bayonet into her hands.

She then dashed towards Arthur thrusted out the sword at the tip of the bayonet causing him to create an aura blade with his free hand in order to block it.

He also created a shield of aura to block the inevitable barrage of bullets that came right after he blocked the sword thrust.

**PAPAPAPAPAPAPA!!!

"Why are all you guns rapid fire weapons?!"

Arthur shouted out loud as he released a burst of aura that sent shockwaves around the entire room, causing the floor and walls to shake.

Layla was pushed back and had to use magic to break her fall and regain her footing. However, the burst of aura he released, disrupted the flow of ether from her to the halo of dark light that was still firing beams of darkness, causing it to dissipate.

Magic power exploded from Arthur's body as he cracked his neck and held out his left free hand.

"Let's end this."

The moment he said that, his palm glowed with black light, similar to that from Layla's ether technique.

However, instead of beams of darkness, what shot out of his hand were multiple dark lightning panthers that dashed towards Layla at lightning speed.

"Got some inspiration from that third rank I fought during our first year."

He revealed the inspiration for this spell to be the descendant of the Hollis dukedom he fought in his first year, Jenson. However, if Jenson realized that Arthur still did not remember his actual name, he may have ended up throwing a fit due to rage.

The dark lightning panthers blitzed towards Layla, slashing at her as they passed. She hurriedly pulled out her actual sword once again and blocked the slashes from the claws of the dark lightning beasts.

After slashing at Layla, the panthers all merged together to form one single giant panther behind her.

"GROARRRRRR!!!!!"

It roared loudly before dashing towards Layla with its mouth wide open, intending to swallow her whole.

Sensing this, Layla flicked her fingers and her pistols that she had thrown on the floor previously, floated up and fired towards Arthur while she channeled darkness into her sword and released that darkness as a slash that flew towards the giant Black Panther.

**BOOOOMMMMM!!!!!

The slash cut the panther in two, however it exploded, causing tendrils of lightning to spread in all directions shattering the floor and cracking the walls. Layla then sensed that the two weapons she sent towards Arthur had been destroyed and hurriedly turned around, only to feel Arthur's cold blade on her neck.

She wanted to activate an ether technique however, she sensed multiple spears of lightning form using the residual lightning from the destroyed dark lightning panther.

"I win."

She scanned Arthur from head to toe and realized that beside the hole in his shirt from where the first beam of darkness hit him, he was relatively unscathed.

However, she refused to admit defeat easily as her eyes glowed lightly and Arthur felt his body stiffen temporarily.

It was not long, but it was long enough for Layla to back away to a safe distance. She slammed her hands together and a three ringed magic circle spread out from underneath Arthur's feet.

Chains of darkness burst out of the circle and threatened to ensnare Arthur, however he suddenly showed an evil grin and the stomped his foot on the ground.

The moment his foot came in contact with the ground, he instantly overloaded the magic circle with aura, causing it to break and the chains of darkness dissipated.

He then kicked off the ground with an aura-filled sword and dashed towards Layla who had taken a side stance with her sword pulled backwards.

She poured her own dark aura into her sword and Arthur filled his with silver aura and raised it overhead.

Layla then kicked off the ground and charged towards Arthur, leaving a large crater in the ground behind her.

The two closed the distance almost instantly and Arthur swung down with his aura filled sword while Layla thrusted hers forward to meet his blade.

***KKKABOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!

The resulting explosion from the two's weapons clashing, shook the entire building and caused it to collapse despite the fact that it was built with the intention of surviving the full powered attacks from a dozen peak superior stage grandmasters simultaneously.

Not many students were using the private rooms beside that particular dormitory at the moment so there were only a few who suffered injuries.

The Training area supervisors arrived on scene and rescued all the other students before the building could collapse on them.

**BOOOMMM!!!!!

Meanwhile, Arthur and Layla seemed to have lost themselves in the thrill of fighting and were still clashing aura-filled swords with each other with bright smiles on their faces.

The falling debris did not affect them much as their entire bodies were covered in thick coats of aura.

Backing away simultaneously, the two caught their breaths as Arthur silently placed two aura augmenters on both hands.

Layla on the other hand, stomped her foot on the ground, causing some broken debris to fly up in to the air.

She then waved her hand and wrapped them all with magic before firing them towards Arthur who was sighing in exasperation.

'I really wanna use earth magic and block all that but I gotta be careful now that the building has collapsed, people from outside are watching.'

He rose his sword and used his signature aura based attack.

"Sword of Victory."

The aura augmenters on his arms shone with a bright light and vibrated wildly as he squeezed out more than half of the aura in them and swung Celestia towards Layla.

***BOOOMMM!!!

The wave of aura crashed on the flying debris, turning them to dust instantly. It then went on towards Layla however, she jumped out of the way, leaving the wave of aura to crash into another private training building behind her and crumble it to the ground.

Arthur then dashed towards her, causing her to turn her attention back to him as she filled her sword with aura once more.

The two slashed towards each other; however, their swords never met as someone suddenly appeared in between the duo and held both their weapons with his bare hands.

He then forcefully dispersed the aura in their blades and used his own aura to hold them in place, rendering them unable to move.

"I was wondering what was going on, but to think that it was just two students dueling.

These are called 'Training rooms' for a reason, if you want to duel, go to the arena."

The man was one of the one in charge of the third year private training rooms, one of the directors of the academy.

Arthur frowned and almost reflexively activated his authority in an attempt to resist the aura of the director that was holding them in place.

The director noticed Arthur's reaction but paid it no mind as he rose his voice to speak to the other students who were watching the spectacle.

"What? Never seen two students dueling before?"