Chapter 119: Duel with Father [Part-3]

Cassian took a step forward, and the lightning which had been coiling around his body gathered into his right arm, until the whole limb was wrapped in a thick, crackling blaze that made the air around it hum with a sharp sound. Neo felt the hair on his arms rise even from a distance, and he understood that the duel until now had only been a warm-up, and that the man standing in front of him was the Demon of the Battlefield that countless enemies had feared in the past.

"Hold on tightly, Neo."

Before the words had even finished echoing, Cassian vanished from where he stood.

Neo’s body moved first. He bent his knees and leaned backward on instinct, and a fist wrapped in lightning cut through the space where his chest had been, close enough that the shockwave tore his sleeve and sent a sting of heat across his skin. He didn’t get the time to feel relieved, because the second strike was already coming from his left, and he twisted his body in the air, using the frozen ground to slide away while the starlight trailed behind him like a streak of falling comets.

The fight became far more intense than anything before it. Cassian chased him across the ice with slow, steady steps which somehow covered more distance than Neo’s own sprinting, each punch and kick carrying enough force to split the frozen ground, and every time Neo tried to counter, his father blocked the attack with the same casual ease, as if he could already see where it would land. Neo threw a starlight-coated fist at his chest, and Cassian caught his wrist, turning it aside and driving a knee towards his stomach, which Neo barely managed to block with his forearm, the impact sending him skidding backward across the field with his boots carving two lines in the ice.

’He is still a step ahead of me. Even after holding back this much, the difference between us is too large to close with speed alone.’

Neo gritted his teeth and forced his mana into the frost beneath his feet, and a dozen spikes of ice shot up from the ground around Cassian, trying to restrict his movement from every side. Cassian looked at them with a faint smile and swung his arm in a wide arc, and a wave of lightning rolled outward from his body, shattering every spike into glittering dust. In that very moment, Neo had already appeared above him, his sword made of starlight raised high, and he brought it down with all the strength he could gather.

The blade met Cassian’s bare hand with a thunderous impact, and the shockwave blew the broken ice away in all directions. Cassian had stopped the sword between two fingers, and his eyes were shining with excitement as he looked up at his son.

"Good, good! But you are still thinking too much with your movement, Neo!"

He flicked his wrist, and Neo was thrown backward through the air, crashing onto the ice and sliding for several yards before he stopped himself with his hand. His chest was heaving, and the glow of the starlight flickered weakly around him as the strain began to show on his body.

From the seats, Evelyn clutched Sylvia’s sleeve so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. "Mother, Brother is losing! Is Father really holding back?"

"He told us that he would... But your father has always been terrible at keeping his promises when he starts enjoying a fight." Sylvia answered quietly, though her eyes had not left the field for even a moment, and her fingers were gently tapping against her knee in a rhythm which showed her worry.

Beside them, Nora said nothing. Her violet eyes were fixed on Neo, and the hand resting on Yuki’s back had tightened so much that the little dragon let out a soft, complaining sound in her sleep.

On the field, Neo wiped the blood from the corner of his lips and raised his head. His father was walking towards him calmly, the lightning crackling around his shoulders, and the pressure he was radiating had grown heavier with every step. Neo knew that he could not win this fight by continuing in the same way, and he also knew that there was only one option left which could change the situation.

He closed his eyes and let his breathing slow down, and the noise of the field, the crackling of lightning, and the footsteps of his father slowly faded into the background, as he stopped trying to grasp the mana and simply opened himself to it.

[Nine Heavens Dragon Ascension Art: Third Ascension!]

A soft light began to rise from his body, and it was no longer the blinding burst of starlight from before. It was warm and steady, spreading through every inch of his skin like sunlight spreading through water. The atmospheric mana around the field began to drift towards him, curling around his shoulders and sinking gently into his chest, but this time he did not feel overwhelmed. He let it flow through him as if it had always belonged there, and he felt his own boundaries melt away until his consciousness stretched outward past the limits of his body, settling over the whole training field like a quiet, invisible dome.

When he opened his eyes, they were shining a deep, clear blue, like sunlight sparkling across the surface of a calm lake, and for the first time since the duel had begun, he could see everything.

He could feel the lightning gathering in his father’s arm before it formed. He could feel the faint shift of Cassian’s weight on his left foot, the tiny tightening of the muscles in his shoulder, and the exact moment he decided to strike. It was not reading his movements, as his father had warned him, nor was it thinking, and it was not even instinct in the way he had practiced with his eyes closed. It was something far wider, as if the whole field had become an extension of his own body.

Cassian paused for a moment in his steps, narrowing his eyes as he felt the change. "Oh? This is different from what I heard from the village reports..."

"Father, please come."

Cassian’s smile returned, wider than before, and he disappeared once again.

This time, Neo did not even need to move his eyes. He stepped half a pace to the side, and a fist wrapped in lightning passed by his cheek without touching it. He tilted his head, and a kick brushed through the strands of his silver hair. He bent backward, and a palm strike swept over his chest, and then he spun lightly on his heel as a bolt of lightning crashed into the ice behind him, throwing up a cloud of glittering frost.

He was not dodging in a panic, nor was he struggling to keep up. He moved like someone walking through a rain shower, stepping between the drops without ever getting wet, and with every dodge, the distance between him and his father shrank, until he found a gap in the middle of a flurry of punches and slipped inside it. His palm, shining with a condensed light, struck Cassian’s chest with a powerful sound, and Cassian was thrown back several steps, his eyes wide with genuine surprise.

"Hahaha! Wonderful! You have really come a long way, Neo!"

The lightning around Cassian’s body exploded outward, and the ice for dozens of yards around them cracked and shattered at once. He charged forward, and the two of them collided in the centre of the field again and again, each clash sending ripples of light and thunder across the ground. Neo met every strike with calm precision, his blade of starlight tracing arcs of light through the air, and for several long minutes, the fight became a dance of two figures moving in perfect, deadly harmony, while the audience in the seats watched in stunned silence.

"Brother is... Brother is as strong as Father!" Evelyn whispered, her eyes shining like stars.

But in the middle of the excitement, Cassian’s smile had slowly grown wilder. The sensation of facing a son who could finally match his pace had stirred something deep inside him, something which he had kept locked away for years, and without even realising it, he began to pour more mana into his arm than he had intended.

He threw a punch, lightning coiling around his fist. But the moment the attack shot forward, his expression changed. The power behind it was far greater than he’d intended, and he knew he would never use such a dangerous blow against his own son.

"Neo, dodge—!"

The lightning shot across the field with a deafening crack, tearing through the ground as it raced toward Neo. A blinding flash swallowed the training ground, leaving him with nowhere to run. His eyes widened as he tried to dodge, but the attack was simply too fast and covered too much ground for even his enhanced senses to help him escape.

Before the lightning could reach him, a wall of starlight appeared in front of Neo.

It was barely thicker than a veil, its silver glow so faint that it seemed incapable of stopping anything. Yet the moment Cassian’s attack hit it, the lightning vanished. There was no explosion or impact, only a few violet sparks that floated through the air before fading away.

The flash slowly dimmed.

Neo stood in the same place, unharmed, without even a single scratch on his body, staring with wide eyes at the wall of starlight in front of him, which was now fading away into drifting particles of light.

"That’s... starlight?"

A soft sound of footsteps echoed across the field. Neo and Cassian turned their heads at the same moment and saw Sylvia stepping forward from the seats with her hand still raised, small particles of silver light gathering around her fingertips and slowly vanishing into the air. Her usual gentle smile was gone, and in its place was a calm, cold expression which made even the Demon of the Battlefield swallow hard.

"Cassian... we agreed that this was only a test."