The wound on his arm stopped bleeding within seconds; I can’t feel any life-mana coming from his body. Is a Ruby-rank’s recovery really that good? No, it shouldn’t be like this—something must be affecting his healing.

  I’ve been slowly healing my own body, letting life-mana circulate and repair everything quietly. This assassin is paying attention to every detail; if he senses a strong pulse of mana, he’ll know something is happening.

  My body, fully recovered, is ready for the next round. My mental ability keeps the pain under control, but the limitation is in my body’s performance while injured. I don’t want to let him rest any longer; I construct two dozen Joyeuse in an instant and send them flying, aiming to pierce him.

  His own constructs arrive—why are they fewer than before? I try to focus on how his mana flows. Is he conserving mana? It doesn’t look like he’s running low, but he’s definitely more empty than before.

  The assassin keeps dashing from side to side, dodging my ice swords; he destroys the more troublesome ones with that powerful orange flame—and finally one of them connects. The sword breaks through his defense a little and pierces a few centimeters into his thigh before being destroyed by a combination of mana, Imra and Laws.

  I’m not happy about landing the hit; something has been worrying me for a moment now. For the first time I’ve been able to focus on his mana since the fight began, and I’ve finally noticed a thread of mana coated in Imra connecting his body to the device that created this enclosed space.

  Is the only way to shut it down by killing him? Will it turn off when he runs out of mana? That might explain why he’s conserving as much as he can. A tiny smile appears on my face—if he’s worried about saving mana, then I’ll be able to butcher him at my leisure.

  I don’t stop at sending ice swords; I increase my gravitational pressure and release powerful electric currents around him to seal possible escape routes. I can see him clicking his tongue, frantically using more mana to avoid being impaled by the barrage of Joyeuse flying at him.

  My senses go on alert when something appears in his hand. Is that a core? It looks strong—Grade 4? Maybe even Grade 5. He finds an opening to toss it near the isolating device and it gets absorbed instantly. At that moment, the faint line of ice between the two of us vanishes, leaving only the thread of Imra.

  Anger and frustration twist his face. It seems he really didn’t want to waste such a valuable core just to keep us trapped in this place.

  I feel a surge of mana as he activates a skill, his body igniting in multiple orange flames. I focus and circulate more mana just like he does—this ability looks dangerous, I can feel the heat even from here.

  My constructs are slightly less effective now. The assassin keeps closing the distance little by little; when he finally gets close, I shift into a defensive stance, pretending to still be injured and making my movements look rougher.

  He wants to take advantage of my supposed disability; most of his strikes aim at my “injured” side, trying to completely destroy my arm.

  He charges recklessly, every strike thrown with surgical precision. The bastard has enviable footwork—clearly years or decades of experience in close combat. He lands hit after hit. His straight punch connects with my “injured” side and I purposely drop my sword, while he takes a deep slash to his leg.

  A blow I could’ve avoided or blocked “breaks through my defenses.” As he’s about to hit me again, I fully heal my arm. I block his strike with my supposedly shattered arm; the force of the impact breaks several bones again and tears my skin apart, and I feel every part of my arm burning under the intense heat.

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  I catch a glimpse of his surprise just before it twists into pain. He walked right into my trap. As I grabbed his arm, I endured the agony as best as I could—my brain gave the order at the same instant. With a fluid upward motion of my left arm, my sword slices vertically and tears off half of his left arm.

  He reacts half a second too late, swinging his remaining arm toward my head, but that small delay lets me retreat using my old movement technique based on electricity. I still haven’t revealed my dimensional step.

  “Get used to that pain—I’m taking you back without your limbs.” I drop his severed arm; my ice-mana condenses over it, and when it freezes solid, I destroy it with a powerful electric discharge.

  The assassin still doesn’t speak, fully focused on the fight. For a moment I see him glance toward the strange device on the ground—I create several ice swords in that direction, just in case. I’m not sure I can restrain him without risking damage to the people living nearby. I’d rather avoid unnecessary deaths.

  The fire-and-death-mana user unleashes a powerful wave of flame toward me; the massive heat blast covers a huge area and blocks my vision. He uses a movement-boosting skill to sprint toward the device, but my blades intercept him mid-dash. I take the opportunity to evade his massive attack and keep bombarding him.

  I create spheres that deal more instant damage and cover more area—they’re more effective here. The assassin looks slightly surprised that I stopped his escape attempt.

  “A Ruby rank running from a Sapphire? That shouldn’t be happening.” I mock him, a sinister laugh echoing. His face contorts hideously.

  We both rush toward the center; I leave several spheres floating near the device on the ground. This bastard may be one-armed and badly injured, but he’s still sharp and fast. I have to stay completely focused to avoid a fatal strike—one wrong move and I could die.

  My caution was justified: he’s throwing himself fully into the offensive, every blow aimed to kill me or cripple me. He’s already broken several of my bones, even when I block. I have to heal immediately to keep up. Not everything is bad news—he’s bleeding heavily from dozens of cuts.

  His movements are slowing; loss of stamina and blood is catching up. The ground is soaked in his blood, his eyes are tired, and he can barely follow my sword movements.

  I sense him gathering mana throughout his body. His control over Imra has deteriorated due to his physical state, letting me clearly see how his mana moves. He’s gathering it in every part of himself.

  A terrible feeling crawls up my spine. Just as I move to retreat, an enormous surge of heat rushes toward me. A heartbeat later, his body releases all his mana through every pore.

  What the hell is this bastard trying to do? My arms start burning—they’re carbonizing in less than a second. My mind manages to stay calm enough to use my dimensional step, teleporting as far from him as possible.

  An unbelievable amount of mana detonates the instant I move. The heat is suffocating; my body feels like it’s inside a furnace. How am I burning from this distance? That attack lasted barely two seconds—and it was pure torture.

  The mana begins to dissipate, the heat slowly decreasing. Everything is still scorching, breathing is difficult. I don’t open my eyes—I’m afraid to fry them. I can only see the damage through my Personal World. My arms took the worst of it, being near him when the ability triggered—they’ve been incinerated up to my elbows.

  The rest of my body has second-degree burns; my hair, eyelashes and eyebrows are almost gone. After several seconds, when the heat finally drops thanks to the ice-mana surrounding me, I open my eyes and begin healing.

  It takes me two seconds to purge the remnants of his Imra, mana, banner and laws before I fully heal. If I had stayed a moment longer near him, I might have been burned alive. Just looking at what’s left of my arms makes that clear. I could’ve died.

  I walk toward where the assassin should be; his body is completely black, no longer human—it’s almost entirely ashes. “Were you trying to take me with you in the end? Or were you just afraid of letting me find out who sent you?” My question is swallowed by the air; the bastard is now more ash than man.

  My Thundersnow Fangs were slightly charred; I pick them up and store them away. They’ll return to their normal state in a few days.

  “That was close,” Glia says—she’s been helping me throughout the fight.

  “Yeah… we’re leaving with no information, but at least we didn’t die.” I freeze the corpse into a solid block of ice and shatter it with electricity. I did it out of pure anger—given time, the remains would’ve turned to dust and scattered with the wind.

  “Be careful on the way out. We don’t know if he was working alone.” Glia is right. I head toward the device—it’s also been damaged. The Imra thread vanished when the assassin died and its mana is nearly depleted.

  I sit down to rest and recover a bit; I don’t know if I’ll have to fight again once this dome disappears. I store the device in my dimensional bracelet, sense no one nearby, and walk cautiously toward the carriage station—I need to return to the academy quickly.