386 Chapter 386: Swords and Flowers (1/2)

Perspiration dripped down Cain's face as he sent a discreet glance at his sword. I could see purple rings of mana vibrating about his blade as he infused them with power. From his less than confident expression, I could practically tell what the captain of the Adorno Academy team was thinking.

\”If I want to win, I have no choice but to reveal my special technique…\”

He stood his ground, beckoning me to come to him. I sensed a trap, but I decided to go for it anyway. After all, this battle wouldn't end if neither of us made a move, and I needed to knock him out in order to advance.

I gathered thousands of pink Sakura petals around my swords and lunged forward, swining my blades and directing the pink cloud of razor-sharp blossoms at Cain. My opponent held his position while deflecting my spell with his blade.

\”Amazing! The rippling mana on Cain's sword knocked Richard's petals away!\”

The commentator was yelling something in the distance, but I didn't pay much attention. I was forced to parry Cain's sword, but the rippling mana waves sent me reeling back. More of my petals descended upon him, but the Adorno Team Captain raised his sword and emitted another rippling blast of energy that disintegrated them. He then spun around to thrust this sword forward. I crossed both of my swords to block his blade, but the revolving rings of purple energy shook off my defense and sent me hurtling backward.

Cain made to charge, but twin clouds of Sakura petals descended upon him from both sides, forcing him to slice through them in two successive actions. Even after he got rid of them, Green Dragon swiped at him with his claws, inciting a block from him.

\”Guh!\”

The poor guy was flung across the stage, his much smaller body unable to withstand the tremendous weight behind Green Dragon's blow. He flipped himself up and landed on both feet, skidding a few meters back.

\”Huff…\”

Sweat was pouring off his face now as he crouched down. Straightening up, he raised his sword and gathered an immense amount of mana into it. Swinging it, he unleashed an enormous blast of enerfy at Green Dragon.

Even though my Celestial Guardian was more than capable of protecting himself, I decided to step in. More to show off than out of necessity, because it wasn't as if Green Dragon would be moved by my act of protection – he was more a part of me than he was a separate, sentient entity with his own individual sense of self. Despite that, I was slightly surprised to detect a telepathic emotion of gratitude from deep within his soul.

Nonetheless, I swung both my swords and unleashed a cloud of black petals in Cain's direction. His huge mana blast met my black flowers in the middle, and my spell seemed to break apart. The black petals seemed to drink in the purple energy blast, expanding before blowing up, but instead of merely disintegrating, they split part into even more black petals, each tinier than their predecessors but each just as sharp and deadly.

\”Kuh!\”

Cain grunted as he tried to fend off the numerous black petals that bombarded him. Even though he managed to deflect them with those mystical purple rings of mana that rippled from his sword, he couldn't block all of them. His sleeves and uniform ended up being torn and tattered, and blood dripped from numerous wounds throughout his face, arms, legs and body.

Unfortunately, that wasn't all. After Cain had just barely survived the onlsaught of black petals, he caught sight of Green Dragon rearing up high and gathering a lot of golden mana into his jaws. It was a pity that I didn't have Redfield to cast Sunny Day so that I could skip the turn of gathering sunlight for Green Dragon's Solar Beam, but part of the reason why I defended my Celestial Guardian was precisely to buy him the time he needed to charge up that ultimate wood spell.

\”!!!\”

Cain dove to the side in a desperate attempt to evade, but he was too late and Green Dragon's Solar Beam was far too large. The colossal beam of golden mana lanced across the stage and engulfed the leaping Cain, and despite him turning around and trying to cleave the enormous spell of destructive energy with his sword, even the purple rings that rippled from his blade dissipated harmlessly against such an astronomical volume of mana.

Boom!

Cain vanished in a golden conflagration, his charred body toppling out of the brilliant inferno and crashing lifelessly onto the ground.

There was a long silence, before the commentator finally found his voice.

\”M…match over! Captain Cain is down! I repeat, Captain Cain is down! The winner, against all odds, is Richard!\”

\”WOOO!\”

The sizable contingent from Jing Tian Academy erupted into cheers, surging to their feet and screaming their lungs out, hugging each other as they wept tears of joy. My teammates were celebrating in the technical area, yelling and shouting as they exchanged high fives, and the girls wrapped their arms around each other in an embrace.

\”3-2! We are actually leading 3-2!\”

\”WOOHOO!\”

\”Now we need to just defeat 4 of them in the team battle, and even if we lose, we would still progress to the next round!\”

That sounded like quite the task, but honestly, the pressure was now on Adorno Academy to catch up to us.

\”Damn it…\”

In contrast to us, Adorno Academy was in a disarray. Their representative team was on the verge of panicking as they watched their smoldering captain get carried off by the medics and healing mages. The next in command, Vice-captain Gunther Schalke, tried to take the lead.

\”We still have a chance,\” he told Eleanor and the others. \”We have to do our best in the team battle…it's not as if we are out of the match just yet. We need to deny them two knock outs and win, and we will get through.\”

By defeating our team with two of their members remaining, they would overtake us with the score of 7 to 6, so it wasn't as if they had no chance at all. It wasn't impossible, and truthfully the gap wasn't even that large. That was why the team battle was implemented – to give the losing team a chance to claw back victory through a flawless display of teamwork.

In theory, anyway.