𝒪𝗏𝑙xt.𝐂𝞸𝑚

Whilst the fight between Hal and Valyr had seemingly reached its climax, with the former unleashing a move that instilled fear even to the escorts that had accompanied the four candidates to the crater, Loreina and Faulus’ attention were fixated on the attack, briefly feeling a sense of dread from the golden light that had covered part of the crater.

“To think the rumors were true,” muttered Loreina as she recalled the stance Hal had taken before unleashing his attack. Going through the vivid memory, she watched the young man in her mind raise his sword up into the air before infusing it with his mana, causing the blade to glow the same color as his body.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped all of a sudden, the sword and the young man seemed to have become a single entity, both of them giving off the feeling that they could cut through anything within an instant underneath the great power it contained.

“I don’t even know if we could even be considered a prodigy in front of him.” Shuddering as her mind stopped on the exact moment she felt Hal and his blade become as one, Loreina let out a low sigh as she shook her head, watching as the golden light from Hal’s side continued to envelop more and more of the crater.

“Well, he’s not called the Lord of All Trades for nothing.” Faulus wryly smiled, letting out a sigh of his own as he shook his head as well. “But still… awakening an Intent Seed at Rank 2 is considered near impossible.”

“And we just saw that impossibility become a reality,” said Loreina, prompting Faulus to turn silent as both of them went over the knowledge they already had about Intents.

From what they knew, the earliest one could obtain an Intent was at the class rank following their current one, which had its own set of rules, procedures, and qualities that would take ages to go over. However, before one could even obtain an Intent, one would first have to find the concept or type of knowledge that they have great understanding in before proceeding to trek the journey of awakening an Intent.

Now, if one were to find this concept and pushed their understanding of it past a certain quality, one would begin to feel a faint connection to this understanding, which would eventually give rise to the connection one would have with the world.

Though different places called it under different names, this first faint connection was mostly known by everyone as the Intent Seed, the proof that one was already on the path of awakening their Intent.

‘With how smooth the feeling of unity is between him and the blade… he’s probably reached the second stage already.’ Sighing once more, Faulus watched as the golden light had already occupied around three-fourths of the crater’s area, leaving only a quarter left for Valyr to move about.

“Though Valyr is definitely strong in his own right, it seems that even the strength he was hiding from us isn’t enough to triumph against Hal.” Saying these words, Faulus turned to look at Loreina with a faintly bitter smile, for some reason having hope in his mind all this time that Valyr would be able to beat Hal. Though, with how things were turning out, it seemed like he had to suppress these feelings deep inside.

However, just as the young man thought that Hal was undoubtedly going to be the winner of the fight between the two, Faulus noticed Loreina becoming incredibly shocked, prompting him to turn his head towards the crater, only to be left at a loss for words as well.

That was because… aside from the golden light within the crater…

There was now a dark haze.

…

“This is definitely something you don’t see every day.” Witnessing the golden light Hal had sent out gradually consume more and more of the crater’s inside, Valyr decided to dispel the Arx’has Boar he had summoned, noticing that the wolves Hal had summoned earlier were already taken care of.

“I really have to go all out against this… or else I won’t come out of this with just a few minor injuries.” Feeling part of the mana he had used to summon the Arx’has Boar return to him, he then took in a deep breath as he retrieved his spear from his back one last time.

“Gotta make every second count.” Letting out a long, drawn-out sigh, Valyr went ahead and activated all of the buffing skills he had yet to activate, as well as the buffing skills that had expired throughout the fight.

“Limit Break!”

“Offense Aura !”

“Rage of the Nascent Wyvern!”

“Intermediate Fire Magic Style: Blazing Vigor!”

Whoosh!

With every skill he activated, the aura he emanated underwent a considerable increase in power, forming a scene that screamed immense desperation when contrasted against a golden light that seemed to engulf everything.

However, him activating his buffing skills was anything but desperation.

“Shadow Serpent Style…” Summoning the Shadow Energy stored within the small black mass near his heart, Valyr deftly manipulated it towards the tip of his spear as he simultaneously began to infuse the spear with his mana.

Then, after feeling like both the Shadow Energy and mana within the spear had reached a saturation point, he firmly gripped on the spear with both hands, pointing it to the ground before swiping it upwards at the fullest extent of his strength, causing a wave of dark energy to manifest in front of him.

“Tide of the Dark Night.”

Swoosh!

Like a fine blade, the wave of dark energy began to cut through the golden light attempting to engulf the entire crater, gradually giving Valyr more space to move about as he made preparations to unleash yet another attack.

“Tide of the Dark Night.” Watching the first wave he had sent out make headway into the golden light, Valyr eventually felt that the cooldown for the skill had ended, prompting him to send out yet another wave of dark energy, which swiftly combined with the first one to form an even larger wave.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

With the combined momentum of two waves of Shadow Energy, the golden light was now gradually being pushed back to where Hal stood, whose stance and expression all this time remained more or less the same from the very moment he had unleashed his attack.

Seeing the golden light he had unleashed being gradually pushed back, a slight frown erupted on Hal’s stoic face, responding to the retaliation from the other side by infusing more mana into the attack.

Unfortunately…

“Tide of the Dark Night.” As if he had already foreseen Hal’s response, Valyr unleashed the skill one last time as he moved closer to the ever-expanding wave of dark energy he had sent out, causing its power and momentum to undergo a massive increase, finally giving it the strength to steamroll through the golden light and make its way to where Hal was.

“Blade of Six Paths: Nascent Sword Intent.” Seeing that even putting in more mana was useless in front of Valyr’s counterattack, Hal decided to focus his attention on a countermeasure, raising his sword up in the air once more in preparation for what he thought was a more destructive attack than before.

However, before he could even begin to unleash it…

“Breath of the Nascent Wyvern!”