The ground beneath Mars’ feet shattered as he disappeared from the spot. A sonic boom rang out shortly afterwards.

Artemis had a lot of experience fighting wind mages, many of whom were speedsters. Though she was a little surprised by the extreme velocity demonstrated by Mars, her instincts had her responding in the most correct manner reflexively.

~ Aspect of Gravity: Circle of Pressure ~

Her grey eyes flashed silver from within her helm and a field of force proliferated with her as the centre and the ground around her cracked, crushed by its own weight.

Mars crashed into the region of enhanced gravity, but instead of stopping dead in his tracks and crashing to the ground like she expected, he merely slowed from effective invisibility to a blurry streak. His palm grew large in Artemis’ eyes and before she could react, it smashed into her helmet.

A blindingly white brilliance exploded from the point of contact as Artemis’ barrier activated, draining her mana to negate the impact.

Mars’ eyes widened. When he had learnt that she was contracted to her sword, he had thought that she had, at most, found a way to push Vita’s divine will into it and stop herself from going Feral. He hadn’t expected for her to have a functioning Barrier.

Artemis felt like a mountain had crashed into her chin and though she didn’t feel the impact of the blow, it had been angled upwards and it sent her blasting backwards into the air. Snapping out her wings, she balanced herself. Flipping midair, she landed on her feet and slid backwards, her armoured boots leaving two trails in the dirt.

With the sound of thunder, Mars slammed another palm into her from the side, disbalancing her and sending her flying again. Before she could regain her balance, he slammed into her again, angling the blow so her feet didn’t touch the ground.

Her eyes flashing silver, Artemis increased gravitational pressure around her to slow him down, buying herself enough time to lighten herself to weightlessness. Beating down hard with her wings, she shot up into the air, out of the range of his unilateral pummelling.

Stabilizing herself in the air, she shook her ringing head to clear it. That very first blow to the chin had shaken her brain in her skull, dizzying her and letting him play pinball with her for a while. Quickly checking her mana, she was shocked to find nearly a fifth had been consumed.

She could hardly believe it. What kind of monstrous strength did he have to cause that much impact damage? Wasn’t a Hominum’s body supposed to be much weaker than a Bestia’s? Then what was this anomaly. She shook her head. Apparently close combat was out of the picture. At his speed and strength, she wouldn't be able to touch him even though she was confident that a single slash of her sword could bisect him.

If anyone had doubted his actual strength, just this much was enough to put all those doubts to rest. With just a simple wind spell for acceleration and only his physique, he had demonstrated a level of close combat prowess that would be more than enough to take out any unprepared Tier 3 mage. She had felt that each of his palm strikes caused a focused shockwave of thunderous sound that could bypass a Barrier and attack the internal organs. If not for her armour negating the sound, she would have lost the battle in one strike. He was a formidable opponent.

Well, since he was so strong, she wouldn't be able to beat him with normal methods. Beating her wings, she rose higher into the air until she was close to the ceiling. Floating there weightlessly, she turned her gaze upon the figure of the red-headed boy looking up at her from below.

He had made no attempt to follow her into the air, knowing that his strength and manoeuvrability in the air would be much lower than hers and that he wouldn't be able to take advantage of his physique. He was just standing there, looking up at her and waiting for her next move. He most likely wanted to play this reactively, countering or dodging her moves as she made them and waiting for her to run out of mana. After all, not requiring mana was his specialty.

A mistake.

She pumped her mana into her wings and they shone a bright silver. She whipped them down.

~ Aspect of Sharpness ~ ~ Aspect of Gravity ~ ~ Aspect of Regeneration ~

~ Tier 3 personal magic: Rain of the Feather Swords ~

Her metallic feathers detached from her wings and with each downward whip of her wings, shot down to the ground with their edges shining a sharp silver and accelerated to a blur by the enhanced gravity. It formed a beautiful but deadly sight as thousands of the tiny swords rained down upon the Arena below, covering the entire region without a gap. As her wings thinned out, new feathers grew, replacing the ones lost, letting her maintain her barrage uninterrupted.

The first of the feathers struck the ground, punching through it like a hot knife through butter, only stopping after penetrating several feet into the ground when all the mana attached to it had been exhausted. Then the sword rain fell in earnest, perforating the ground like a sieve.

Artemis watched with mounting horror as the boy made no attempt to dodge, simply standing there utterly stunned, and several of the feather swords punched right through his body. Her mind came to a screeching halt and she hastily stopped her attack.

For a moment frozen in time, there was utter silence, then screams resounded through the audience as they all fell into a tumult.

This wasn’t supposed to happen! He wasn’t supposed to die here. Artemis admitted that there was some mental inertia from only fighting life or death battles against convicts… but she had only used a killing move because father had said that there were protectors. She had expected them to intervene if things got too dangerous.

Had she overdone it? Had the protectors slipped up and let the boy die because of how broad her move was and how slow he was to react? Her mind was in turmoil… she didn’t want the blood of an innocent on her hands.

Wait! Something was off. Why wasn’t the figure toppling over and why wasn’t there any blood?

Suddenly, her instincts screamed of danger. Every fine hair on her body set upright as a giant sense of crisis covered her from the back. She tried to dodge or turn around.

But she was too late.

As the shadow doppelganger on the ground melted away into nothing, Mars dropped down on her from behind. With both his fists clasped, his biceps bulging and veins standing out from the amount of Vita’s divine power he had pumped into his arms, he hammered down on her back, sending her blurring down in a streak of silver and black.

She hit the ground with a thunderous crack, making it fissure and cave, raising a ring of dust. Mars landed on his feet next to her, crouching to absorb the impact.

Without giving her any time to recover, he grabbed her ankle and swung her limp form above his head, bringing it slamming down onto the ground. He thrashed her like a farmer would a bunch of wheat. With every swing, he pumped the scant remains of divine power in his body into his arm to increase the power of the swing. He was going to run out soon and if he didn’t manage to knock her unconscious within the limited time-frame, he would lose all his advantage.

Artemis felt like a ragdoll in the hands of a child throwing a tantrum. Although her barrier was absorbing the impact and her armour was protecting her from physical damage, the sheer whiplash from the thrashing was causing her brain to rattle around in her skull and giving her a concussion. She was dizzy and her mind was struggling to work.

But above and beyond that, the sheer absurdity of the situation – how humiliating it was for her as the First Princess of Regiis to be manhandled in this manner in front of such a distinguished audience – made her breathless with shame and anger. Enough was enough! She hadn’t even gotten to use her sword!

With a wrathful scream, she pumped her mana into the channels of her armour and activated the runes. The entire armour began vibrate with an extremely high frequency, releasing a shrill whine that caused Mars to release her and stagger backwards with his hands covering his ears.

Artemis’ feathers began to resonate with the whine along with her sword, releasing a grating sword cry.

Mars coughed up blood as the sound bypassed his barrier and attacked his internal organs, making him feel like he was being pricked from the inside by a thousand swords. He began to bleed from his ears and nose, followed by bruises forming all over his body as the capillaries under his skin ruptured.

~ Tier 2 wind magic: Void Barrier ~

Calling upon the wind, he sketched out several runes into the air and the ambient mana around him responded to his call, surrounding him in alternating layers of compressed wind and vacuum, cutting off the infernal sword cry.

~ Tier 2 light magic: Heal ~

A warm light seeped out from the interior of his body, making him glow red as it passed through his flesh. His internal injuries began to heal rapidly and his bruises faded. Standing straight, he raised his head to see the First Princess floating a few metres above the ground, glaring at him with her intense grey eyes.