Inside the Forbidden Zone Barrier, the fierce battle raged on.
Aiden moved with agility, wielding his seemingly ordinary—yet deceptively ordinary—longsword, launching a relentless storm of attacks at Rufus.
Bolstered by a series of powerful buffs like Adrenaline, his movements were so swift they left afterimages.
His swordplay was graceful, executing a dazzling and elaborate dance of blades.
Silver light wove into a shimmering net, enveloping Rufus entirely.
Rufus roared in fury, relying on the formidable defense of his flame armor as he swung his burning Greatsword of Flame with grand, sweeping motions.
The scorching flame strikes carried terrifying heat; each swing was heavy and forceful, attempting to crush Aiden with overwhelming power.
Thanks to his exceptional agility, Aiden darted around Rufus, seizing every opening.
One precise strike after another rang out with clear, metallic clinks against Rufus’s fiery armor, sparks flying.
Yet his attacks achieved little—his sharp blade could only leave faint white scratches on the armor’s surface, unable to pierce the solid flame defense.
“Transfer student! Is this all you’ve got? You can’t even break through my defense! It’s like you’re just tickling me! What can you possibly use to fight me?”
Rufus quickly noticed this as he blocked and sneered with contempt.
Faced with Rufus’s heavy and forceful flame strikes, Aiden had to dodge with full effort every time.
Some of the fierce fiery sword qi brushed right past the edges of his clothes, scorching deep grooves into the ground.
He was forced to focus most of his energy on evasion, disrupting his attack rhythm.
Trapped inside the protective barrier, Selise’s heart was in her throat.
Though amazed by Aiden’s swordsmanship and agility, she knew that without an effective way to break Rufus’s defense, he posed no real threat.
Now confined and helpless, she could only pace anxiously inside the shield, filled with worry for Aiden.
Before long, a minute had passed.
The powerful effects granted by Adrenaline receded like a tide, replaced by a sudden, intense wave of weakness that swept over Aiden’s entire body.
His speed visibly slowed, his movements no longer flowed with the previous agility, and his breathing grew shallow.
The Debuff of the Weakness State lasted a full hour, and the situation suddenly looked grim.
Rufus keenly noticed Aiden’s rapid decline.
The transfer student before him was breathing heavily, his steps unstable, even his sword hand trembling slightly.
A cold sneer crossed Rufus’s lips as he guessed—had the strange magic spells Aiden cast earlier expired?
Or did the burst state itself come with terrible side effects?
Whatever the case, to Rufus, this transfer student was clearly at his end.
Just a pompous clown, good only for flashy, meaningless tricks.
The moment it came down to a real battle of endurance, his true nature was exposed.
“What’s wrong, transfer student? Your movements… have slowed! Where’s that swagger from earlier?”
Rufus mercilessly taunted him.
“Really?”
Aiden panted but pulled a tired yet mocking smile.
Under Rufus’s suspicious gaze, Aiden snapped his fingers crisply once more.
An indescribable surge of fresh vitality immediately coursed through his body, restoring his trembling limbs and steadying his breath.
The exhaustion vanished from his face as if the battle had never happened.
Calm and collected.
Instantly resetting all his base stats and refreshing the cooldowns of all skills except this one.
Cooldown time: two hours.
Rufus’s brow furrowed deeply.
What kind of strange magic was this, making the transfer student look fully recovered?
“Clack!”
Taking advantage of Rufus’s momentary distraction, Aiden repeated the trick, snapping his fingers in succession.
The glow of buff spells flickered and stacked anew upon him.
“You think I’ll give you a chance like this?!”
Furious, Rufus clenched his sword’s hilt with both hands, holding the massive Greatsword of Flame horizontally, its blazing edge pointed straight at Aiden.
Suddenly, a crack appeared down the middle of the flaming blade, from which an immense, fiery magical energy gathered and compressed wildly, radiating a terrifying aura.
“Aiden! Watch out!”
Selise’s face drained of color as she shouted urgently.
But it seemed too late.
As soon as she warned, Rufus’s Greatsword of Flame finished charging.
“Hellfire Cannon!”
A thick, scorching beam of flame—overflowing with destructive energy—erupted from the sword’s crack like a roaring fire dragon.
Moving at an impossible speed, it swept toward Aiden, who seemed unable to dodge.
Wherever the beam passed, the ground was scorched black.
Rufus’s face twisted into a ferocious, triumphant grin.
At this range, Aiden had nowhere to escape.
But Aiden merely smirked, a cunning smile playing at his lips.
The moment had finally come.
At the last second, he raised his hand slightly.
[Mirror Reflection]
[Usable when an opponent casts a spell, this skill nullifies the spell and reflects it entirely back at the caster.]
A magically perfect, mercury-like mirror instantly appeared before Aiden.
As the raging beam was about to strike, it collided with the invisible elastic barrier and was forcibly redirected in a complete 180-degree turn.
Faster than before, it shot straight back toward the unsuspecting Rufus.
“What?!”
Rufus’s wicked grin froze instantly, replaced by utter shock and disbelief.
He watched helplessly as his own attack reversed, crashing into himself with a deafening boom.
“Boom—!”
His proud flame armor shattered like paper under the brutal force, scattering burning fragments everywhere.
The impact sent Rufus flying backward, crashing heavily to the ground in a pitiful heap.
The spear has fallen upon its own shield.
By now, Aiden had already reapplied all his buffs and moved swiftly to Rufus’s fallen form.
His sword gleamed coldly as he pointed it precisely at Rufus’s throat, his tone calm but filled with undeniable murderous intent.
“Do you have any last words?”
Rufus lay on the ground, chest rising and falling violently, staring at the cold blade mere inches away, his face twisted with unwillingness and hatred.
No matter what, he couldn’t understand how he lost to this transfer student who couldn’t even handle magic properly before!
Was this kid just pretending to be weak all along?
Still, he forced out a last sentence through clenched teeth, not fearful of death but wearing a scheming grin.
“Hmph… You should… worry about what’s behind you first!”
With his last ounce of strength, Rufus manipulated the barrier’s energy, swinging his hand sharply.
Inside the purple shield trapping Selise, strange, raging purple flames suddenly burst into life.
Like a living creature, the fire lunged madly at Selise in the center, intent on engulfing her completely!
Selise reacted instantly, casting frost magic to summon a thick Frost Barrier around herself.
However, the purple flames were bizarrely corrosive.
The ice crackled and hissed under the fire’s assault, slowly melting and corroding, inching closer to Selise inside.
Aiden’s expression darkened suddenly.
“How’s that, transfer student? If you want your little sweetheart to live, drop your sword and surrender immediately! Otherwise, she’ll be burned to ashes by this Netherfire!”
Rufus laughed cruelly and confidently.
“Aiden! Don’t listen to him! Don’t worry about me!”
Selise shouted desperately while struggling to maintain the ice shield.
But the situation was dire—the purple flames clung like persistent parasites, and the ice was visibly thinning, on the verge of collapse.
Aiden gave Selise a long, complicated look—an expression filled with mixed emotions, but ultimately firm resolve.
“No… Aiden! Don’t!”
Understanding his gaze, Selise’s panic surged.
She shook her head violently as tears poured from her eyes.
But Aiden had already turned away.
Facing Rufus, he relaxed his wrist; with a loud clang, the longsword at Rufus’s throat fell to the ground carelessly.
He spread his hands, signaling surrender.
“Alright… you win.”
“Ahahaha!”
Rufus burst into wild, triumphant laughter the moment Aiden dropped his weapon.
Knowing villains die for talking too much, he gave no chance for mercy.
He quickly picked up the longsword Aiden had discarded, eyes blazing with murderous intent, and without hesitation drove the blade deep into Aiden’s chest!
“Pshhh!”
The sound of steel piercing flesh rang clear.
Aiden’s body jerked sharply, pain flashing across his face as he doubled over.
“Die, transfer student!”
Rufus then kicked him hard, sending him flying off the blade and crashing onto the ground not far away.
At the same time, the purple flames inside the shield flickered and extinguished as Rufus’s attention faltered.
Yet, the now-free Selise witnessed the most heart-wrenching scene of her life.
Blood poured relentlessly from Aiden’s chest as he collapsed before her.
Trembling, he weakly reached out his hand toward Selise, as if trying to grasp something.
“Aiden——!!!”
Selise screamed in anguish, wildly leaping to his side.
She desperately tried to hold Aiden’s bloodied hand, but the barrier’s isolation made it hopeless.
She could only watch as his hand twitched feebly in the air before dropping lifelessly.
“No… no… Aiden… no…”
Selise collapsed to the ground, utterly drained.
Her eyes went blank as she stared at Aiden’s rapidly cooling body, trembling uncontrollably, whispering words of despair.
“Hahaha! Transfer student! You’re so foolishly naive! Giving up your life for a woman! Hahaha! Finally got rid of you, an annoying pest!”
Rufus looked on, his laughter turning cruel and triumphant.
“Too bad I didn’t leave you alive to watch how I enjoy Selise… but don’t worry, after I’m done, I’ll send her down to the Underworld to join you soon enough! Hahaha!”
“Aiden… Aiden… Aiden…”
Selise’s voice no longer cried out but repeated his name over and over mechanically, low and hoarse.
She clutched her head, her face a mask of utter anxiety and terror.
For a moment, something inside the girl seemed to shatter completely.
“It’s all because of him… he’s the one who…”
Selise suddenly lifted her head, her once-clear eyes now fixed unblinkingly on the smug Rufus.
A sinister black mist with an ominous aura began uncontrollably pouring out from around her body, crackling with black lightning-like magic.
“Ah—!”
With a heart-wrenching roar filled with endless pain and hatred, Selise unleashed a powerful, terrifying aura.
As the black mist slightly dispersed, her once icy blue hair had turned a deep, dark blue.
Her eyes lost all life, pupils unfocused and empty, locking onto Rufus like an abyss.
“I… will… kill you…”
Her cold, emotionless voice emerged from the girl’s lips.
Rufus’s triumphant grin froze, replaced by panic and disbelief.
This… this was the legendary… dark transformation?!
He never imagined that the fabricated scene he used to trap them would actually manifest right before his eyes.
Rufus involuntarily took two steps back but forced himself to calm down.
With the protective barrier still up, even if she had darkened, this woman shouldn’t cause much trouble.
Yet the next moment shattered his luck completely.
Selise slowly raised a slender, pale finger and lightly traced it across the nearly impenetrable barrier.
A dark blue frost mark, radiating extreme cold, appeared and rapidly spread.
The barrier—strong enough to resist powerful magic attacks—shattered like fragile glass, a huge crack easily cut by the girl.
“Th-This can’t be possible!”
Rufus’s pupils shrank to pinpoints, his face full of disbelief.
Selise stepped through the broken shield, radiating a bone-chilling aura of despair like an abyss.
Her vacant eyes stared coldly at Rufus, her voice as frigid as absolute zero delivering judgment.
“Your sins… cannot be atoned for… even if turned to ashes…”
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