"What is that?!"
Stella was entirely shocked by the sudden, impossible burst of speed and power from Ikki Kurogane.
Such a thing was unheard of!
"Everyone's raw magical power is permanently fixed from birth! How could it possibly increase?!"
The Chairwoman calmly explained, "It hasn't actually increased."
"Huh?"
"Vermillion, do you know that normal humans cannot truly exert their full physical strength?"
"What do you mean...? Some kind of spiritual theory?"
"Not like that. For example, when an athlete says they are giving it their absolute all in a hundred-meter sprint, their brain actually subconsciously holds them back. If they truly used 100% of their physical muscle strength, they would tear their own tendons, collapse, or even lose consciousness the moment they crossed the finish line," Kurono Shinguuji recounted, recalling what the boy had once explained to her years ago.
"The human survival instinct strictly limits the exertion of power to protect the body from destroying itself. But Kurogane actively, violently destroys this instinct, thus truly unleashing all of his latent physical strength at once."
As the former World's Third-ranked World Clock, she had once suffered greatly from not understanding this bizarre ability, resulting in her losing a match to a mere student knight.
But she didn't feel ashamed because of it.
Because that kid, Ikki Kurogane, was indeed an amazing knight.
'Destroy his own survival instinct?' Stella thought in horror.
'How could that be? Such a suicidal thing isn't something that can be achieved through effort alone... it's just too exaggerated.'
"A move that completely exhausts all physical strength and magical power within a single minute—do you think that kid can actually withstand the backlash?" Kurono Shinguuji smiled as she turned her gaze back to the simulated battle arena.
Stella lightly clenched her fist on the railing.
As expected of Hagun Academy.
If she didn't come here to study abroad, she probably wouldn't have known that such insane dedicated knights existed in the world.
An F-Rank failed knight, through sheer bloody effort alone, could actually reach such a terrifying level!
But....even so.
"If you lose to him, I won't forgive you, Noah!"
Stella's loud shout reached the boy's ears down in the arena.
As his iron sword was shattered, Noah heard Stella's voice and immediately reacted.
He placed one gauntleted hand flat on the stone ground.
Impact—activate.
The entire duel platform shook violently.
The ground loudly cracked into massive, uneven fragments that lifted upward, destroying the flat terrain.
Because his footing suddenly became unstable, Ikki Kurogane was forced to immediately stop his exaggerated supersonic movement and land on a relatively large piece of floating rubble.
Noah didn't even look back.
He directly unleashed forty to fifty compressed wind blades toward his opponent's position in one go.
The endless wind blades surged forward like a roaring tsunami, completely filling the airspace of the duel platform.
Unless Ikki could somehow jump fifty feet into the air, there was absolutely no space to dodge left or right.
"Damn!"
"What the hell is that?!"
Seeing the overwhelming, shrieking wind blades filling the sky, the spectator students outside the shield were so frightened their legs trembled.
If Ikki Kurogane couldn't withstand this attack, the stray blades would probably shatter the barrier and catch the audience in the crossfire!
Countless wind blades—once caught in a storm like that, a human body would definitely be shredded into minced meat.
"Damn it, is he a monster?!"
"No, he is insane!"
"We are going to get caught up in this!"
Seeing the students panicking in the stands, Kurono Shinguuji clicked her tongue, preparing to intervene and freeze time.
But before she could act, someone else moved faster.
A massive, glowing purple barrier suddenly appeared at the edge of the arena, twisting and crushing the stray wind blades, safely returning all the rogue elements to the atmosphere before they could hit the stands.
Seeing that masterful technique, Kurono Shinguuji remarked, "What, you are here too?"
The terrified students, realizing they were still alive with all their limbs intact, nearly cried with relief.
They looked toward the edge of the spectator stands.
There stood a petite figure dressed in highly extravagant clothing.
She casually leaped from the high railing and instantly landed beside Kurono and Stella.
She was a girl who appeared somewhat young.
Not much older than Noah.
But judging from her flawless magical ability just now, she was definitely no ordinary person.
She had long black hair, sharp black eyes, and wore clothing reminiscent of a traditional oiran, with a large, elaborate ribbon bow tied in her hair.
She complained lazily, "Such an interesting event and you didn't even notify me in advance! Still making me put in effort on my day off—what a ruthless capitalist you are, Kurono."
"Even if I didn't tell you, you still easily found your way here, didn't you?"
"Hehe, such an interesting, destructive scene. Of course I would come."
Kurono Shinguuji introduced her to the shocked princess. "Stella, this is Nene Saikyo. She is also a temporary teacher here at our school. If I use her official title, Yasha Princess, you should know who she is, right?"
"Wh-What?! The Yasha Princess?!"
Stella looked at the young-looking girl in absolute shock.
That highly active KOK League competitor, the current world-ranked number three, the Yasha Princess, was actually a temporary teacher at Hagun Academy?!
This school was too astonishing!
"By the way, what about the match?" Nene asked, snapping her fan shut.
Stella hurriedly turned back to look at the arena below.
A battered figure emerged from the settling smoke.
It was Ikki Kurogane!
He gripped the handle of Intetsu with both hands, the weapon stabbed deeply into the ground to support himself from falling over.
Noah stood opposite him, perfectly calm and composed.
The insignificant, shallow injury on his shoulder—he had just returned it to his opponent nearly a hundredfold in one go.
Even Kurono Shinguuji couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
"Hey now... unleashing such a massive, wide-area attack in an instant, and he still looks like he's fine? With only C-Rank magical power, how can that boy be so ridiculously strong?"
"Huff... huff... huff..."
Ikki Kurogane forced himself not to collapse into the rubble.
Although his physical abilities were currently enhanced dozens of times over by Ittou Shura, the real reason he hadn't fallen was actually due to the match rules.
Both their inherent Devices were locked in Illusion Form, causing no real physical damage.
In a real, unsanctioned battle, he would already be sliced into hundreds of pieces of un-reassemblable Kurogane.
Of course, if the match hadn't restricted them to the small arena, he could have used his speed to escape the area of effect.
To avoid losing by ring-out, he had withstood the frontal wind blades head-on.
Since they wouldn't leave lethal wounds or cause real bleeding, he forced his Illusion-battered body to endure through sheer, raw willpower alone.
He knew he had actually lost the exchange.
But as long as he hadn't fallen unconscious, he wouldn't stop fighting.
"So you are a true mage. Such wide-area techniques are truly impressive," Ikki Kurogane panted.
"My time is running out. From now on, with my absolute weakest, I will defeat your absolute strongest!"
Ikki Kurogane's glowing figure vanished again.
Even with Illusion injuries that should have easily knocked a normal man unconscious, his blazing will remained undiminished.
"Gravity Interference."
The exact moment Ikki Kurogane entered his five-meter radius, Noah transferred all the weight of the earth directly onto him.
Yet, in a moment even briefer than an instant, Ikki Kurogane accelerated again, forcefully changing his trajectory mid-air.
BOOM!
Terrifying gravity crushed the duel platform where Ikki had just been, causing an entire corner of the arena to vanish, forming a neat perfectly smooth, deep pit in the stone.
With that amount of crushing power, a normal person would probably be flattened into bloody paste.
"Gr-Gravity?!"
"What is the deal with that guy?! The exchange student! Exactly how many Abilities has he used so far?!"
"The match announcement board has the competitors' public information, idiot! Check it quickly!"
"Oh, right!"
The spectating students hastily took out their student handbook terminals to look up the official information about Noah.
Then they saw it: Natural Causality Type—can control ALL elements.
"You have got to be kidding me!"
"This Noah guy is totally cheating!"
The current world's third-ranked Yasha Princess, Nene Saikyo, upon seeing Noah's flawless gravity application, made an intrigued "ho ho" sound.
The moment the gravity crush missed its incredibly fast target, Noah decisively reversed the gravitational pull.
With him as the center, a massive repulsive force expanded in all directions.
Ikki Kurogane's sure-kill strike stopped abruptly, his blade hovering just inches from the back of Noah's head, before he was gradually, forcefully pushed away by the invisible wall of gravity.
Seeing his desperate sword strike about to fail despite being so close, Ikki Kurogane roared, pushing Intetsu forward with all his remaining might.
"First Secret Sword: Saiga!"
At this moment, Ikki Kurogane concentrated all his physical force vectors into a single, piercing point, going completely all out.
Noah slightly furrowed his brows, calmly sidestepping to dodge the piercing thrust.
Ikki Kurogane's glowing figure brushed past him, the sheer physical force of the near-miss slicing off a small chunk of Noah's suit collar near his ear.
Since the inherent Device was in Illusion Form, he only felt a slight sting of phantom pain.
The boy holding Intetsu hadn't given up yet.
Noah knew he wouldn't give up, because he had been strictly calculating the time—the duration of Ittou Shura still had exactly 15 second left.
Now he was on the defensive.
No doubt Ikki Kurogane believed that as long as he broke through this final guard, victory would be decided in an instant!
Thinking this, Noah temporarily rewrote his spell formula.
The ambient water elements in the air were directly manipulated by Spell-Weaver, instantly condensing into a beautiful, razor-sharp ice crystal sword in his hand.
He aimed the ice sword directly at Ikki Kurogane.
Ikki Kurogane had no time to be surprised that Noah was also an ice mage.
A desperate flash of inspiration crossed his mind.
"Sixth Secret Sword: Dokuga no Tachi!" (Poisonous Moth's Blade!)
By stealing others' sword techniques to supplement his own lack of magic, Ikki Kurogane had perfected seven ultimate sword techniques in total—the Seven Secret Swords.
The Sixth Secret Sword was originally a specialized move used against heavy, defense-specialized opponents, but it also served as a lethal surprise technique.
Its function was to transmit highly destructive, high-frequency physical vibrations through the blade directly into the opponent's body during a clash, thoroughly destroying their internal organs.
In other words, as long as the opponent physically parried the strike, the battle would end.
Watching Noah use that fragile ice sword to block, their blades violently met.
The next moment, Ikki Kurogane froze.
Because Noah took his Sixth Secret Sword head-on without changing his expression, showing no physical reaction to the vibrations at all.
Instead, Ikki felt Intetsu in his hands being continuously impacted by an impossible force, as if his sword was about to be knocked away.
'Huh?'
'It didn't work? Why?!'
Ikki Kurogane looked in shock at the ice sword in Noah's hand.
He then suddenly realized his black blade wasn't actually touching the ice sword itself—it was perfectly blocked by an invisible, highly compressed layer of airflow spinning around the ice.
"This is... the blade is wrapped in wind?!"