Chapter 67: Playing Around in a Fight

The only opponents left standing on the Citadel’s side were Rhaegar and Seraph. The other three had been handled without issue; Jean had taken down his matchup before collapsing from mana exhaustion, and Aqua and I had dealt with ours cleanly.

Now, the only battle remaining was between them and Lucius and Celeste.

The entire point of the formation had been ruined, but I guess not everything can be perfect.

"Come on, we don’t have time for this. Finish them off already."

I called out from the sidelines, deliberately needling the two of them as they engaged in their very dramatic duel. Credit where it was due, the fight was unfolding almost exactly as the novel had described it.

A volley of light from a human golden retriever, a brown-haired heroine countering with water magic, and the burning and freezing assault of Rhaegar and Seraph crashing against them.

But Seraph wasn’t naive enough to let us watch from the sidelines and hope we wouldn’t intervene. She barely glanced at us, yet her magic was already in motion, five illusions of herself sprouting from the arena floor to block our path.

Jean was already out of commission after taking down the opposing earth mage, slumped in a corner and recovering his mana. That left me and Aqua to deal with the illusions.

"Seraph, I’ll handle these two. You take care of them!" Rhaegar shouted, delivering a particularly vicious blow to Lucius’s chest.

"Very well."

Seraph detached from Rhaegar, and her clones immediately surged toward us alongside a barrage of ice. The real one and the illusions sprinted in perfect synchronization, impossible to distinguish.

Dodging wasn’t simple. Some projectiles were real, some were fake, and Aqua was already accumulating damage, her shoulder and wrists scratched from the confusing barrage.

I, on the other hand, simply stood there. Each icy blast that reached me shattered harmlessly against my skin.

"H-How are you untouched!?"

Aqua moved to block another projectile, but her sword passed clean through it as a real one nicked her cheek.

"You should probably use it now."

"What...?"

"Your fire. Use it."

Seraph heard the words. She moved before Aqua could respond, slamming a powerful gust of ice toward her, intending to freeze her solid and remove her from the fight entirely.

I stepped between them and took the full force of the attack. The ice parted around me like water hitting a divider, the frost splitting into a V-shape and dissipating into the air.

"I-Impossible...!"

Seraph’s soft, ghost-like voice carried genuine surprise.

"Give me a moment to motivate my teammate."

I smiled, summoning hundreds of radiant spears above her and raining them down to keep her occupied while I turned to Aqua. She was worse for wear.

This matchup was terrible for someone like her. Her close-range combat and ice magic were both being hard-countered by an illusion specialist who could attack from any angle.

"She’s already used both of her elements against us."

I said quietly.

"I think it’s time you did the same. Lucius and Celeste look like they’re losing. If I’m going to back them up, I need you to stall this woman."

"And here I thought I could save some mana for training later..."

Aqua sighed, but relented. The sword in her hands split from tip to hilt, one half blazing with fire, the other gleaming with ice.

"Training? What better way to learn new magic than in an actual fight?"

"You’re talking like I’ve had this necklace for months, not less than a day."

"Don’t worry, I’ll back you up after. But think about it: a barely trained element that counters your enemy is better than your ice magic she’s clearly mastered."

"Fair point..."

Seraph had finally fended off the last of my spears. As retaliation, she unleashed another massive burst of ice toward me, her illusions casting weaker versions to overwhelm whatever defense I raised.

"Reyn!"

Aqua moved before I could react, stepping in front of me. The flames of her sword roared hotter, and with a single swing, the sheer heat obliterated the icy barrage meant for me.

"W-Woah..."

"See what I mean? Don’t underestimate the artifact I gave you."

I turned away, already moving toward the other fight.

"I’ll leave her to you. I need to go help the two lovebirds."

✧ ✦ ✧

Like the novel said, Lucius and Celeste were losing badly. This was the catalyst for Lucius finally tapping into his limitless potential.

After getting beaten by the Citadel’s second-best, they immediately offered to train him to cultivate his magic. And to be fair, it worked wonders.

Their endgame was basically turning Lucius into a powerful monster, then manipulating him to leave Leonis and become their puppet. But Celeste snapped him out of that delusion and ended this arc.

Right now? I had no problem letting that play out.

My whole goal was to show off, and that didn’t conflict with Lucius’s character development.

Just because I was stronger than him now didn’t mean the Federation didn’t know about his divine potential. Nothing would change even if we won here, compared to them losing in the original timeline.

"Watch your back!"

I shouted from behind, causing Rhaegar to look over his shoulder, and I was there, waiting for him, my finger pointed at him like a gun.

At first he looked confused, but that expression quickly shifted to fear as a small, harmless beam of light emerged from my fingertip and reached his chest.

And from that harmless beam of light began a chain explosion of overloaded light orbs that approached his location like a railgun.

BOOM!

Rhaegar moved his hands in time to block the worst of it, his forearms scarred from the explosion. Lucius and Celeste were already moving to press the advantage.

"Nice one, Reyn!"

Lucius yelled out. He really was the main character; even now, he didn’t fully hate me. But maybe that was because he still didn’t know I had made Anna a murderer.

Not that he needed to know.

"Fuck..."

Rhaegar muttered, accepting his fate as the two unleashed their strongest magic straight behind him, causing an explosion that covered the arena in dust.

Seconds later, when the dust cleared, Rhaegar was on the ground, incapacitated.

Now that left only Aqua and Seraph...

I looked toward them, and I was actually pleasantly surprised.

Seraph was on her back on the ground, while Aqua was above her, knees planted on the ground as she held her sword, the blade buried deep in the ground just beside Seraph’s neck.

The artifact was a bigger force multiplier than I thought.

As for the headmistress’s reaction...

She was as stone-faced as a statue. As expected of a higher-up of a compromised academy.