383 Chapter 383: Battle between Aces

Amidst the boisterous and polite applause, Cain remained unruffled. He turned to his shell-shocked team, his voice calm and reassuring.

\"Don't worry. We still have the lead.\"

\"Captain, please allow me to participate in the fourth round.\"

One of the members stepped forward to volunteer. Cain turned back to appraise him. It was a slightly good looking guy with stylish, longish silver-blue hair. He wore a smug and confident smirk, his eyes gleaming eagerly as he sought this opportunity to prove himself.

\"If I'm the one fighting, ten minutes is more than enough.\"

\"Then I'll be counting on you.\" Cain nodded coldly. The gangly guy grinned and shook a couple of fingers in his captain's direction.

\"Don't worry, I've got this.\"

\"Still acting so arrogantly,\" Gunther Schalke muttered disapprovingly, but he sighed in partial relief. \"Oh well…I guess he's entitled to his confidence. After all, he's our hidden ace. I can't believe we're unveiling him so early in the knock-out rounds.\"

The commentator's excitement grew when he caught sight of the guy stepping onto the stage, carrying a sword.

\"Adorno sends Adonis to the stage!\"

\"…who?\" I wondered out loud, but the rest of my teammates shrugged. Even Harrison didn't seem to know much about him.

\"From what I know, he's one of the elite students in Adorno Academy, even though he's only a second year student. If I recall, this Adonis fella is said to possess immense talent, and is a prodigy in the sword.\"

Fortunately, despite not being familiar with this guy, our team captain was still on top of things. In just a few seconds he managed to unearth at least a bit of information on this new guy that none of us had ever seen before.

\"I think I've heard of him before.\" Yue Chu was thinking hard. \"Isn't he from the Cyan family? I thought their base was in Vermillion City.\"

\"Apparently the Cyan family had some conflict with the Porter family, so Adonis decided to enroll in some other academy outside Vermillion City.\" Sheila was the one who provided this new piece of information.

While we were discussing the new guy, the crowd was booing and jeering at Adonis.

\"You'll finish this in less than ten minutes? Show-off!\"

\"Arrogant asshole!\"

\"You better not cry when Jing Tian Team forces you to eat your words!\"

While the spectators decried the arrogant Adonis, Harrison turned to survey the team, his brow furrowed as he considered who to send out. Fortunately, the choice was made for him. Craig stepped forward, thumping his spear on the ground and jabbing a thumb at himself.

\"Harrison, if you don't mind, I would like to teach that smug bastard a lesson.\"

\"Sure.\" Harrison smiled and nodded, as if he had anticipated this. \"Go get him, Craig. Show him that our Jing Tian Team is not to be underestimated.\"

\"Leave it to me, Captain!\"

Grinning, Craig stepped up onto the stage.

\"Oh?! Jing Tian Team is sending Craig Carlson, also a relatively unknown second-year student who is participating in the tournament for the first time! I wonder what tricks he has up his sleeve?\"

Placing a hand on the hilt of his sword, Adonis slowly drew his weapon.

\"So you are Craig Carlson, the one known as the Demonic Spear. I think I've heard of you. Your cursed spear is capable of piercing any defense, or something like that, right?\"

Adonis snickered, and swung his sword in a flash, showing off his technique without actually casting any spell.

\"I'm sorry to say, but you'll never get the chance to unleash that cursed technique of yours!\"

\"Uh huh.\" Craig merely snorted disinterestedly, but didn't bother to respond otherwise. Like me, he was more interested in sparring with action rather than with words. So he merely dropped his spear and pointed it toward Adonis, while waiting for the commentator to signal the beginning of the match.

\"Ready…start!\"

\"Take this!\"

The moment the commentator gave the signal, violet mana exploded around Adonis and he surged forward immediately, clearing the space between himself and his opponent in a single bound. Wisps of vicious violet mana trailed his blade and back, almost as if they were forming wings. Gushing backward, the purple spell seemed to convert itself into kinetic energy that propelled Adonis forward at an incredible speed.

\"Whoa! Amazing! Adonis powered himself with a single basic physical reinforcement spell right from the start! Even though it's only an elementary physical reinforcement spell, he is able to enhance himself to such impressive levels?! He truly deserves his title as a sword prodigy!\"

However, that wasn't all. I noticed that this wasn't just a simple physical reinforcement spell or a flash step. Adonis was incorporating a specific element into his technique. It took the commentator a second or two to realize it too.

\"There are wind spells wrapping aroud both his blade and his feet! The wind spells are what increased his speed manifold! He really is one of the top wind mages of his generation!\"

Almost as if he was riding a sonic boom, Adonis gleefully thrust his sword forward to pierce Craig. Manic laughter burst from his mouth.

\"Your cursed spear technique is useless if I take you out before you can use it!\"

Craig merely smiled before he stepped to the side, dodging Adonis's sword thrust by a hair's breadth. Despite the close shave, he didn't even sustain so much as a graze. Undeterred, Adonis launched a barrage of sword strikes, slashing and stabbing at the evading Craig, who twirled his spear and deflected each and every one of them.

Crimson collided against violet, Craig parrying all of Adonis's sword attacks with his demonic spear. Sparks flew from the furious exchange, neither combatant letting up in this tit-for-tat trade of ferocious blows. Craig counterattacked with a sweeping blow that forced Adonis to duck, and the latter than retaliated with a riposte that Craig avoided by cocking his head to the side. Despite the blade singing past his cheek, it left no cut.

The more they traded blows, the faster their movements became. In less than a minute, the two of them virtually disappeared from the arena, their figures becoming nothing more than crimson blurs against streaks of violet. The spectators gasped as they struggled to follow the two's movements, unable to keep up with what was happening.

\"What amazing speed!\"

\"I can't even see either of them!\"

\"Allow me to display the true extent of a prodigy's abilities!\" Adonis boasted as he almost became one with the wind. He practically flew around Craig, turning into a circle of purple wind currents that blew ferociously against the crimson spearman.

Craig burst out laughing as he deflected and parried all of Adonis's strikes before responding with his own counterattacks, his spear turning into crimson streaks that almost caught the swordsman by surprise. Blood sprayed into the air as the tip of his spear grazed his adversary's arm, as well as cheek. Adonis staggered back in shock.

\"How?!\"

Adonis looked completely stupefied by the sudden turn of events, desperately fending off Craig's onslaught and doing his best to keep his distance before Craig could reverse casuality and stab him in the chest with a sure-kill hit.

\"How did he counterattack?! If he simply avoided it, I could understand. Even though this wasn't a distance that he could evade my strike, I would still understand if he somehow pulled it off. But for him to catch my blow and even retaliate?!\"

\"You underestimate your opponent too much.\"

After another ferocious clash, the two of them sprang apart in a shower of sparks. Perspiration dripped down Adonis's face, mixing with his blood. Swearing under his breath, the sword prodigy wiped it off his cheek.

\"What? Did you expect me to be dodging like some clown? This isn't Battle Frenzy, you're in the wrong story, pal.\"

\"What the fuck are you talking about?!\" Adonis roared before he lunged at what he perceived was an insolent enemy. As if he was the only one allowed to be arrogant and all that. What utter bullshit.

\"Nothing.\" Craig even had the opportunity to shrug casually bfore he deflected Adonis's blow. \"If you don't get it, then it's pointless to explain it to you.\"

He skidded back after trading another couple of blows with Adonis, their weapons gouging out concrete from the stage and sending rubble flying all over the arena. The two of them seemed evenly matched, with neither party giving an inch or yielding any ground as they furiously traded blows in the center of the stage.

\"This scoundrel…!\" Adonis swore under his breath. \"Give up already!\"

\"Make me!\" Craig retorted, his voice dripping with disdain. \"You can't seriously be expecting your opponent to give you a free win, can you?\"

\"Oh, shut it!\"

\"You shut up!\"

Thankfully, they didn't get any further with their squabbling because their mana chose that moment to clash and explode, forcing them apart in a thunderous shockwave. Flipping himself back upright, Adonis swung his sword and unleashed a couple of wind blades that Craig effortlessly hacked apart with his twirling spear.

A tornado materialized over Adonis before he leaped forward, spinning rapidly and turning his sword into a funnel of sharp wind. Craig calmly stood before him before intercepting his opponent's technique with his spear, the crimson streak darting into the middle of the purple whirlwind and tearing it apart.

\"!!!\"

Adonis just barely managed to deflect the spear away from his chest, and he landed heavily on his feet. Bringing his sword up, he parried Craig's next counterstrike, the sharp tip grazing his cheek again and drawing another line of blood. Cursing, he used brute force to knock Craig back, but the spearman merely regained his footing and spun his weapon about to bedazzle him with another stroke that almost took him in the neck.

\"Damn it!\" Adonis swore before he desperately retaliated, but Craig knocked his sword aside before slamming the blunt end of his spear's hilt into his midriff. The sword prodigy doubled over, coughing, but his hacking was abruptly ended when Craig smashed the shaft of his spear into the poor guy's face, almost breaking his nose and sending him flying.

While Adonis staggered back, his face a mess of blood, his eyes flickered with rage and he swung his sword.

\"Why, you!\"

Even as he spat, several wind blades blasted out to slice into Craig. Craig narrowed his eyes and defended against the sudden spells, but even he wasn't able to escape injury this time, his arms bleeding as he forced himself to withstand the barrage.

Smirking, Adonis thrust his sword forward, a ferocious whirlwind wreathing his blade. Craig swung to the side, spinning away from the thrust. Despite the sword cutting his shoulder deeply and sending a geyser of blood into the air, Craig grimly replied with a spear thrust of his own.

\"!!!\"

Adonis was unable to evade this attack in time and found his chest punctured by Craig's spear. He convulsed and fell forward, held up only by the length of Craig's spear. Dropping his sword, he clutched the fatal injury in his chest and slumped down.

\"Oho! What a turnaround! Adonis has fallen to a debilitating injury! Winner: Jing Tian Team!\"

\"Craig!\"

The significant contingent from Jing Tian Academy who had traveled all the way here to support us immediately erupted into cheers, pumping their fists into the air and roaring their approval. Even those not from Jing Tian Academy began to clap enthusiastically, moved by our impressive display.

\"They actually turned things around!\"

\"It's 2-2 now! They clawed back to a draw!\"

\"Will this become a reverse sweep?!\"

Craig sauntered back to the technical area, his spear in hand, even as medics and healing mages rushed onto the stage to take care of the fatally injured Adonis, whose life was preserved only by the boundary field.

\"Nicely done, Craig.\" Harrison beamed in approval. Craig grinned back, his expression full of triumph and joy.

\"I'm glad I didn't let you guys down.\"