The cold sensation of her blade tickled his neck as blood started to trail down it. Luon felt as if the grim reaper had appeared behind his back ready to reap his soul and yet after it made its appearance it didn’t make a move.

“That’s once,” a cold voice rang. Luon intuitively jumped away only to meet with Valerie’s cold, expressionless face, there was no trace of smile she had showed him just seconds ago.

‘How can she move like that? I wasn’t even able to see her,’ thought Luon as he carefully studied his opponent. Lightly tracing his neck he could feel the scar she had done to him. The blood incited his senses as the nerves in his brain screamed of danger coming from his opponent. Fear for the unknown yet excited to battle Luon once again readied his stance and faced his opponent, he carefully studied her anticipating her next move.

The same maneuver was repeated once more as her silhouette vanished, only this time he swung his blade behind his back in an attempt to predict her future movement, it was in vain though. Rather than appearing behind him, her body materialized in front of him. Luon who had his neck turned around felt another cold sensation against his neck. He slowly faced Valerie who was in front of him as she said, “That’s twice. I’ll give you one more chance, the next one would be your last.”

She removed her blade and began to walk away, leaving Luon completely dumbfounded. What kind of movement was it? Teleportation? Fast movement? Luon couldn’t fathom what it was. She was able to decide where she could appear and could react based on his actions.

“You still couldn’t see through it,” Thanatos muttered after sighing.

‘No, I couldn’t see how she did it at all. Why are you only asking now? Did you figure out how she did it?’ asked Luon as he was still thinking about how she did it.

“What she was doing was a combination of high-speed movement and illusion magic,” Thanatos explained. It appears that despite being slightly oversized, the blade tends to attract the view of her opponent’s and because their attention is focused on the range of her sword it allowed her to easily use her illusion magic to get up close to her opponent. Coupled with high-speed movement it gave the impression that she was moving at an extremely fast pace.

Luon didn’t think that she would be using illusion magic. She had never used it before and felt that the only reason she was doing it now was that she was having fun toying with him. Watching him desperately resist against illusions would be quite entertaining for her. Luon was quite angry, but he managed to calm himself down. After all, this wasn’t the first time he was made fun of, rather than rage it was better to just retaliate with strength.

‘Okay, so I know what it is now… how could I stop it?’ Luon said as he readied his stance once more. It appeared that Valerie wanted to end it sooner than later as she turned around and prepared her position once more.

“I didn’t want to say it earlier because I realized that she didn’t want to eliminate you, at least right away. It would have been more beneficial if you learned how to analyze the move yourself, and think of a counter. However, it appears that you won’t be able to understand the concept in this match. I’ll tell you a little trick for now. Take your mana and encase your eyes with it, your eye of insight may be able to provide you with some details about objects and people. However, it isn’t able to see everything, the ultimate truth of the world. The mana will help you dispel the illusion, just think of it as wearing a pair of glasses,” Thanatos pointed out. Luon found him quite talkative when he starts his lengthy lectures.

Committing his words to memory, Luon coated his eyes with mana. Valerie who was in front of him vanished as if she wasn’t there in the first place. Sensing something was amiss he immediately jumped towards that direction and turned around only to find her just a few meters behind him.

She dashed towards him with her blade aiming towards his heart, quickly Luon parried the move thus dispelling the illusion. Valerie who was repelled laughed as she said, “Looks like your brain isn’t full of just muscle after all! Come! Show me your strength!”

An erratic melody of swords resonated with the surroundings. Luon struggled to repel the large blade with his two swords, it didn’t look like it before, but her strength was unprecedented. Unlike the Vice-captain he had dealt with earlier she was more aggressive, especially with the characteristics of having a long katana.

Every time he tries to repels the attack she would pull back slightly and attack again in a different angle. Her wrist acted like a motion controller that decided where the attack would come and go as her blade danced in front of him. With speed and strength Luon felt outmatched, the pace was entirely in her hands.

Many found the challenge quite difficult, to begin with, a level 79 combatant sparring with a level 85? The gap was too huge, just like how the bets for the match was completely one-sided.

Despite being in a disadvantageous situation, a few prayed for his victory. His teammates, his teachers, others from the Nexus solar system, and a few more who had no money at all after spending their savings to bet on Nexus for a slim chance of victory to make a giant killing.

The fact he was able to resist was already praise-worthy.

All Valerie had in her mind was to merely satisfy her desires to fight, however, as time passes she found no signs of Luon powering up any further. Disappointed she began to increase her pace. The strength and speed of the long katana nearly doubled as he starts to struggle to keep up with the pace.

‘I need to do something quick!’ Luon thought. He began to channel his mana to cast a spell to make himself a gap to work with. He intended to case an ice bolt at her to get her to back away. Just as he was about to cast a spell, Thanatos said, “It’s pointless to use magic against her, dragons are rather resistant to magic.”

‘Then what am I supposed to do?!’ asked Luon as he frantically dealt with her attacks.

“Don’t know,” Thanatos bluntly said.

‘...’ Luon was speechless.

“...” Even Thanatos didn’t know what to say about the current situation.

The mana that Luon conjured up began to show signs of instability, initially, he was going to use it to cast a spell against Valerie, but after learning it was useless, he held on to it.

‘What should I do with this mana then?’ asked Luon.

“Toss it on the ground? It’s useless after all?” said Thanatos.

Following his directive, since it seemed to make sense, Luon tossed the mana on the ground. The spell that he was going to cast was ice bolt, and the elemental type of the mana particles was ice, his actions quickly froze the ground surface he was aiming towards.

Valerie who was aware of the fluctuation of mana coming out of Luon’s body kept a safe distance while maintaining the momentum. Immediately after he shot it out, she jumped away, barely dodging the attack that had gone just passed her. As her feet stepped onto the ground, she noticed something peculiar. The coefficient of friction between her and the ground changed as she slipped right on top of the ice.

Luon and Thanatos who was once speechless, once again fell speechless, and it wasn’t just them, the crowd also fell silent. Luon made the dragon princess fall down? Fortunately for her, she wasn’t wearing any loose clothing to make the scene any worse than it already was.

“What are you doing? You could have attacked her,” Thanatos pointed out.

Luon who suddenly realized this began to charge at her with anticipation, but before he could move, Valerie who on the ground rose up and raised her sword. Only this time her expressionless face and deceptive smile were replaced with rage and anger. Luon somehow got this feeling that the next few minutes may be the worse few moments of his life.

There were no tricks, Valerie charged towards Luon launching a series of deadly blows as if she was a game character launching constant special attacks with an infinite amount of energy.

Rather than defending and staying his ground, Luon parried the attacks before continuing to run away, and at some point the running speed used, doubled if not tripled when Luon gave up repelling the attacks and focused on running and dodging.

Bendan who was was released from the trap when it stopped producing monsters managed to arrive at where Luon is. As he raised his hand to greet him, all he could see was the figure of Luon running right by him. Confused he turned to see what he was running from, and all he saw was a flashing white light. In one shot he was instantly eliminated!

Scared from the vivid and gruesome display Luon continued to run as Valerie chased him down. Soon enough he arrived outside of the building. Although Valerie was mad, her attacks weren’t without reason. Her teammates were dead making it more difficult to win this match, and if she didn’t kill Luon now, she might bring shame to her people.

Luon who realized this fact quickly ran away, one needed to know when to attack and when to retreat, a war isn’t won by one person.

Outside of the structure, the two met an intense light, and upon recognizing what it was the facial expression of the two differed significantly. Luon was glad to see the arrival of Thomas’s Robotic army accompanied by several mages, and in front of them, all was a hero. The same hero that he was introduced to by Belle, Ivar. On the other hand, Valerie found the situation quite troublesome, using all these units as a meat wall will be a challenge, but despite the disadvantage, she smiled thinking about the difficulty.

Ivar without his weapon was equivalent to a level 80 warrior, many heroes had a similar amount of power, the only difference was that they all had some kind of quirk to help them overturn armies. Valerie could be considered a hero as well, strength wise. To qualify as a hero one had to create a legend, and then later have someone record their life when they have perished. She could overturn this situation in her dragon form… and the restriction binding her was just removed. The match had passed 40 minutes.

Immediately an alarm rang, several beams of light appeared out of nowhere and hit Valerie, seeing this Luon yelled, “Attack her! Don't let her transform!”

But it was too late as a series of attacks approached her, while coated in the light she smiled as the glare shrouded everyone's vision. By the time they regained their senses a gravitational force had overwhelmed everyone on the scene.

Their bodies didn't become heavier it was their spirit. With scales that glimmer with a golden hue, an imposing golden dragon stood before them. The dragonified Valerie roared, “The battle ends now!”

Her body shines brightly as mana particles gathered around her mouth, her neck stood gallantly as she breathes out a devastating blaze. Wherever she faced, the golden flames coated the army leaving no trace of any survivors behind. With a single breath, she had shattered half of the robotic army and several mages who desperately deployed barrier magic.

Ivar roared greatly and hammered her with his fist, but the racial differences between a dragon and a barbarian were too vast. His attack which would have devastated many normal Inzektors was proven useless before her might.

Luon desperately retreated from the battlefield, the moment he was eliminated the match was all over. Rather than a fair match, it was a slaughter, within seconds she had reduced the entire army which Luon held confidence in into dust. With a hard stomp, she had defeated the Ivar, the dragon stared down on him causing his soul to shiver. With a sword in his hand, he readied for the last battle, though it may only last a few seconds it was still time that he desperately needed.

And that time was well used, unlike Valerie who treated who comrades as trash, Luon treated them as companions, he believed in them when he needed them, and they did the same. Tyron who managed to break himself free of the trap reached the enemies unguarded Crypt of Heroes and destroyed it. A single person can’t change the tides of a war, a war is fought on multiple fronts. Which is why the Inzektors were still prominent today.

All of the competitors vanished, and the final match was over. Luon may have won the war, but he lost that battle.