Chapter 124: Our Strength Is Limited?

Chapter 124: Chapter 124: Our Strength Is Limited?

Faced with the possibility of being killed on the spot, many students began looking at one another with suspicion.

Some turned their attention toward the five targets, silently calculating whether their lives were worth sacrificing for strangers.

The more frightened they became, the easier it was to convince them that handing over a few people was the only sensible option.

Within half a minute, even some of the instructors were beginning to waver.

After all, they had families, friends, and students they wanted to protect.

The thought of dying in a hopeless battle was enough to shake even the bravest among them.

Yet not everyone was prepared to surrender.

Several teachers stepped forward, positioning themselves between Damon and the frightened students.

"You want to take our students? Not while we’re still standing!" one declared.

Another instructor clenched his fists and shouted, "We are their teachers. Protecting them is our responsibility. If you want to hurt them, you’ll have to kill us first!"

"That’s right! We can’t hand over innocent students just to save ourselves!"

Their words stirred a different kind of emotion among the crowd.

Some students lowered their heads in shame, realizing how quickly they had been willing to sacrifice their classmates.

Others remained too frightened to change their minds.

But the teachers who had chosen to resist were determined to make their stand.

With only twenty seconds remaining, Caleb Hart and Stanley Crook led the charge.

Thirteen other instructors joined them, bringing the total to fifteen.

They knew they stood little chance of defeating Damon.

The difference in their cultivation was simply too great, and the destruction of the viewing platform had demonstrated how effortlessly he could kill them.

Nevertheless, they charged forward.

They were teachers, and they could not watch their students being hunted without making an attempt to protect them.

Even if they died in the process, they hoped their actions would give the students the courage to resist instead of surrendering out of fear.

If everyone abandoned their principles at the first sign of danger, Arcadia Academy would lose far more than its students.

Damon watched the fifteen instructors rush toward him and let out a cold snort.

"How foolish," he said.

He had no desire to waste time killing every person who opposed him, but he would not allow a few insignificant martial artists to interfere with his plans.

He began to raise his hand, preparing to deal with the approaching teachers.

Before he could strike, however, a figure suddenly burst forward from behind them.

The newcomer moved with astonishing speed, cutting through the distance like a bolt of lightning as they rushed straight toward Damon!

The figure rushing toward Damon Veil moved with terrifying speed, carrying an overwhelming force that made even the Bloodshadow Cult leader’s expression change.

Damon had no time to identify the newcomer.

Sensing the danger, he immediately pulled out a dagger and thrust it toward the approaching attacker.

Metal struck bone with a sharp, ringing sound.

Damon’s eyes narrowed as he finally saw what had blocked his dagger.

It was a long sword fashioned entirely from dragon bones, its pale surface gleaming faintly in the darkness.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

His question received no answer. Instead, the newcomer launched another strike.

The sword moved in an unusual arc, its trajectory so unpredictable that Damon struggled to determine where the blade would land.

There was nothing particularly impressive about its speed, yet something about its rhythm disrupted his judgment.

Every time he tried to anticipate the next move, his instincts seemed to lead him in the wrong direction.

A sudden warning from his survival instincts snapped him out of his confusion.

Damon hurriedly drew a second dagger from behind his waist and crossed both weapons in front of his chest.

The bone sword stopped less than ten centimeters from his heart.

Before he could recover, another strike came. Then another.

The attacker continued without giving him a moment to breathe.

Each movement was deceptively simple. The sword alternated between thrusts, slashes, flicks, and precise changes in direction.

There were no dazzling displays of sword energy or extravagant movements, only a continuous series of attacks that left Damon struggling to defend himself.

He could barely find an opening to counterattack.

Shock gradually replaced his initial confidence.

Damon had practiced martial arts for more than fifteen years.

Throughout that time, he had fought countless opponents and encountered all kinds of combat techniques.

Yet he had never seen swordsmanship like this.

The individual movements appeared ordinary, but their coordination possessed an almost incomprehensible elegance.

Each strike flowed naturally into the next, leaving him unable to predict the attack that followed.

Dodging did not help.

Every attempt to retreat merely placed him in the path of another strike, forcing him to raise his daggers and defend himself again.

Before long, the bone sword had become the only thing he could focus on.

He had entered the battle intending to seize his prey, yet he was now fighting desperately to keep the blade away from his vital points.

After exchanging more than a hundred blows, Damon finally found a narrow opportunity to break away.

He retreated several steps, creating enough distance to catch his breath and examine the person who had forced him into such an embarrassing position.

The moment he recognized the attacker, his eyes widened in disbelief.

"How can this be possible?!" he gasped.

Standing before him was Mira, the very woman he had identified as one of Arcadia Academy’s five most valuable targets.

She was only at the 8th-Level of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Meanwhile, he had already reached the 3rd-Level of the Star Sea Realm.

The difference between their cultivation levels was enormous.

Under ordinary circumstances, he should have been able to defeat her with little effort.

Yet he had just spent more than a hundred exchanges desperately defending himself against her sword.

A woman whose cultivation was several major realms below his own had actually forced him onto the defensive!

Damon could hardly believe what he was seeing. Before he could make sense of the situation, Mira closed the distance again.

The strange sword technique resumed without hesitation, leaving him no opportunity to recover.

Once more, Damon found himself trapped in close combat, forced to rely on his daggers to block the relentless attacks.

His supernatural abilities were far more destructive than ordinary martial techniques, but using them effectively required an opening.

Mira’s swordsmanship denied him that opportunity, keeping him under constant pressure.

And because the earlier exchanges had shaken his confidence, his defense was now even more hurried and disorganized.

From the playground, thousands of teachers and students watched the battle in stunned silence. Nobody could understand what they were witnessing.

"Is that really Mira? The same Mira everyone calls the academy’s beauty?" one student asked.

"No wonder she won the Barley Cup! She is incredible!" another said.

"Forget the Barley Cup! Her opponent is the God of Death, a Star Sea Realm expert! She’s actually holding her own against someone at that level!"

"Could she have already broken through to the Star Sea Realm?"

"Impossible! I was in her class yesterday. She was still at the 8th-Level of the Foundation Establishment Realm!"

A collective gasp passed through the crowd.

An 8th-Level Foundation Establishment martial artist was fighting a Star Sea Realm expert on equal terms.

It was like watching a small rabbit confront a ferocious tiger and somehow prevent it from landing a single decisive bite.

The scene defied everything they knew about martial cultivation.

Some of the students who had previously suggested surrendering Mira to Damon lowered their heads in shame.

"Whoever suggested handing Mira over should be ashamed of themselves!"

"Keep going, Mira! Defeat that monster!"

"Kill him!"

The cheers spread across the playground as hope returned to the frightened crowd.

For the first time since Damon had appeared, they believed they might actually survive.

Yet the person receiving their cheers was not nearly as confident as they imagined.

Inside her own body, Mira was equally bewildered.

If she possessed this level of combat ability, she would never have needed to summon the Dragon Bone Puppet to save Stanley Crook earlier.

She could have confronted Damon herself.

But the truth was that she was not the one controlling her body.

Lydia had awakened after sensing the danger and taken over.

Just before the attack, Lydia had spoken to her through their mysterious connection.

I promised I would protect you. Leave this to me.

Immediately afterward, Mira had felt control over her body slip away.

She could still perceive everything happening around her, but she was no longer the one directing her movements.

She watched as Lydia drew the Dragon Bone Sword and charged straight at Damon.

The experience was difficult to describe. It felt as though she had become a spectator watching someone else operate her own body.

And yet the strength displayed by that body was astonishing.

Mira had never imagined she could withstand an opponent as powerful as Damon.

The gap between the Foundation Establishment Realm and the Star Sea Realm was supposed to be enormous, but Lydia’s swordsmanship had somehow bridged it.

After observing several exchanges, Mira finally understood that the secret lay in the technique itself.

Lydia’s movements were unlike anything she had learned.

Every attack seemed to anticipate Damon’s response, forcing him to defend against the next strike before he could even recover from the previous one.

How could such a terrifying sword technique exist?

Mira searched her memories for an explanation, but none came to mind.

Lydia, on the other hand, seemed rather pleased with herself.

This should be the sword technique I mastered in my previous life. After all, I was an Empress! Hahaha.

Lydia giggled gleefully.

Mira was momentarily speechless. An Empress from a previous life? A sword technique capable of suppressing a Star Sea Realm expert?

What else could she say? Lydia was amazing.

Unfortunately, that admiration was short-lived.

There’s something you need to know, Lydia suddenly warned her.

I can’t maintain this for much longer. The chaotic energy remaining in my soul is almost exhausted. At most, I can keep fighting for another five minutes before I fall back into slumber.