The King of Light watched the situation unfolding from many kilometres away, far away from the actual confrontation, but with the knowledge of it happening now, and his own speed, he could probably reach the battle in a second or two.

Actually less than a second considering his top speed was somewhere around one hundred thousand kilometres per second. Maybe multiplied by three depending on circumstance.

Light in a vacuum travelled at three hundred thousand kilometres per second, but the planet wasn’t exactly a vacuum, so from time to time when moving at light-speed Elior found himself feeling like he was moving through mud.

Oh to other people it was a second but for him it was the longest second in existence.

He got side-tracked in the idea of contributing to the fight, but decided that he shouldn’t in the end, only if one of the groups was in trouble, the enemy had two Darkness Sages and Elior had found himself with an understandable fear of them after being trained by Clara when he was younger.

But for now, he simply watched, focusing on the fights one by one.

With the Kazuya pair, their landing cratered the desert, sand shooting all over, but moving around and away from the married couple while their opponents looked at them with frowns.

“So? What are we waiting for?” Izuki’s false smirk faded as he ended his sentence, his katana at his side in its sheath.

Blake and Ivan looked to each other, and then nodded, well aware that the two in front of them were dangerous Sages even when they were considered six Star Sages, one of the best known tag teams in the Sage world.

There was a flare of Fire and Light, though one couldn’t truly tell where one started and the other began except for the heat given off by the former, and with their fading Blake and Ivan were ready for battle.

Blake was unarmoured, a red shroud flowing off of him and in his right he held a mace, the interior hollow and showing off a blue flame, and to his side his Manifestation appeared, a swarm of scarabs all bright red with flames, his Manifestation was clearly a ‘swarm’ type, instead of getting one creature an entire group of weaker ones were brought out.

For Ivan, his armour of Light flowed around him, armoured at his hands and forearms, his shins, and a chest plate, his helmet winged like one pictured Vikings to occasionally have, no weapon appeared hinting at why his armour had dangerous protrusions from its knuckles and across the shin, as an elephant trumpeted from behind him.

Noticing the Manifestations in front of them, the Kazuya’s responded in kind with their own, a Peregrine Falcon with lighting sparks fluttering between its feathers swooped down, landing on Izuki’s outstretched left arm, squawking with a boom similar to thunder with how large it was compared to mundane variations of its species.

Miya’s own Manifestation apparently had not appeared, though she smirked, hefting her hammer ready for the fight to begin…

There was a silence, the two sides sizing the other up about the situation…

There wasn’t any signal to start the confrontation, and yet Izuki’s falcon took off into the air, Ivan dashed forward, his Elephant charging towards Miya, and Blake’s scarabs rushed at Izuki.

While the Manifestations moved, that didn’t mean that the Sages themselves were still, with Miya jumping forwards with a notable grin on her face, very different from her previously soft or mischievous smiles…

No, this was the smile of someone was wondering how big of a splat you’d make after she hit you.

Izuki would have rolled his eyes if he saw her expression, but he wasn’t really in the position to do such a thing as Blake thrust his mace at Izuki, the flame inside extending as if it was a spear instead, only for Izuki to swing his blade while stepping out of the way, his katana wreathed in Lightning yet clashing with the ‘immaterial’ fire.

Eh, Sages were bullshit like that anyway, Izuki wasn’t going to let a little ‘physical fire’ mess up his fight… though that red aura around Blake had him worried, it was either important, or it wasn’t.

If Izuki killed Blake before it could be used for much, then it would be worthless.

Rogue Sages were asked to be captured most of the time because fighting amongst Sages was pointless when Mystic Beasts and Fae were enemies…

But sometimes you’ve got to pick between killing and being killed, and Izuki refused to die.

Miya’s leap and massive swing of her hammer were met with Ivan raising his arms above his head, certain of tanking her hit while Blake saw what was happening out the corner of his eye.

“Don’t let her hit you!” Blake warned, Ivan’s eyes widening as he fell backwards into a roll, the hammer passing by his head just slightly as a massive plume of sand erupted into the air from the force of the blow.

“Holy shit…” Ivan complained with the realization that, strong as he was, he’d probably have broken arms at least from that hit.

“Hey, why’d you warn him? I was going to flatten him!” Miya roared at Blake who cursed, unable to help Ivan against Miya despite the situation, because Izuki was in front of him.

Of the Kazuya pair, Miya Kazuya was the heavy hitter, capable of wide-spread damage and heavy landscaping changes all while fighting, she was the scariest of the pair in a straight forward situation.

And still knowing that, Blake would much rather be fighting her, as he was a technical fighter, he could deal with a heavy hitter if he moved right…

But he got Izuki Kazuya, the faster of the two who somehow managed to work with Miya to create an unstoppable duo among the same rank.

“Honey, you might want to hurt him, we’ve got to go check if Hiiro is alright dealing with those dune wyrm’s after this remember?” Izuki spoke as his arms blurred, Blake struggling to keep up with their high speed combat.

The craziest thing about fights between powerful Sages was that despite the fights taking a questionable amount of time, a huge amount of actions would happen in a short space.

In the minute since the fight started Blake and Izuki had already had one hundred exchanges with their weapons, a normal human would only see their arms blurring, maybe not even that.

“I don’t like how you two are looking down on us.” Ivan growled out as he pushed Miya back with a punch to the stomach, launching her backwards as she flipped using the weight of her hammer as a fulcrum to add inertia to her spin, as she landed a pillar of sand pushed Ivan into the air and towards Miya.

“Oh we aren’t.” Miya admitted, raising her hammer and swinging horizontally just as Ivan was set to appear in front of her, only for Ivan to sort of glitch in mid-air, now falling behind Miya to her surprise.

Right, a Light user, despite his size he was supposed to be fast.

“It sure feels like it with your casual conversation!” Blake shouted as the blades on his mace extended outwards, the flame inside roaring into the shape of a massive great-sword, hitting Izuki backwards as he had much less weight in his weapon.

“It’s just how we plan without letting our enemies know what we’re doing, no biggie.” Blake and Ivan immediately felt worried as they realized something was wrong.

Their Manifestations… when had Blake’s scarabs disappeared?

“Don’t you know? Peregrine Falcons are the fastest animals alive, and my Chidori happens to be a Lightning based one… it’s faster than I am.” Blake cursed, not because of the implication about that bird Manifestation…

He cursed because his Manifestations were scarabs, they were on the surface but he was supposed to have a huge amount in the ground.

Those ones were still around, but there were a few moving erratically and he didn’t realize until now… rather, he didn’t know why they were moving so fast, until those scarabs suddenly surged towards Ivan’s elephant.

“And by the way… I’m an Earth Sage… and this is the desert.” Miya’s predatory grin was toothy, and for a moment Blake could swear her teeth were razor sharp as she spoke.

“Bite it dead, Sobek.” Hearing the name Ivan somehow paled, though that was likely because of the fucking gigantic crocodile that just jumped out of the goddamn sand to bite his elephants neck.

You know, it could be because of that.

“You really think we were taking it easy on you? Nah, we were distracting you.” Izuki’s katana was raised, the blade perpendicular to the ground as he held the handle next to his face.

“It’s a valid tactic we use a lot… by the way… ignoring the fire guy with his portals, do you have a Diversity big guy?” Miya asked, hefting her hammer as the two rogue Sages were forced to look away from the animals brawling in the background.

Blake and Ivan’s were losing by the way, with the elephant being drowned in sand while undergoing the infamous ‘death roll’ the scarabs were trying to borough through Sobek’s thick hide only to be eaten by Chidori before they could do much damage.

So Blake and Ivan had to rush through this situation, knowing that they wouldn’t want that scary as shit crocodile to join their fight.

Ivan didn’t answer the question, instead raising his fists and getting ready to dash forward with Blake at his side.

“I’ll take that as a no. But there are all sorts of weird Diversities out there, like that one guy whose farts smell like roses… as for us… well, our Diversities are super compatible.” Izuki offered, and Blake frowned at the lack of knowledge.

Sage information was easy to come across generally, some information couldn’t be hid, such as Armament, Clad and Element, but hiding a Manifestation or Diversity was easy, especially for the latter.

Blake hadn’t known about either the falcon or the crocodile, so he definitely wouldn’t know about their Diversities.

“See, my Diversity lets me magnetize things.” Izuki said with a smile while Miya hefted her hammer.

“And my Diversity lets me share physical ability between two people, so they become as strong as the strongest between the two, likewise with speed and durability.” Miya added, and it didn’t quite click immediately…

And then the two dashed forward, with Miya moving just slightly slower than Izuki, and Blake cursed as the information clicked in.

“Ivan, work together or we die!” He shouted as Izuki swung, spinning almost like he was swinging a golf club at them as he shouted.

“Raikiri, strike!” There was a hum, and the blade split straight down the middle as a huge blast of Lightning flowed out, hitting the dome of blue fire Blake was expelling from his mace, almost as if using it as an umbrella.

Blake rolled diagonally backwards after the strike, Ivan stepping into the space Blake just occupied only to see Miya suddenly accelerating towards Izuki, the male member of the Kazuya pair spinning out of the way as Miya swung down at Ivan who was forced to do an uppercut reminiscent of the way Everburn punched the Apostle flying.

The clash of armour against hammer resulted in Ivan cursing as he stumbled back, his fingers on his right hand broken from the exchange while Miya used the backwards momentum to completely bend backwards, using the hammer as a point to flip with.

There was a marked difference from the previous fighting with the Kazuya pair for the two rogue Sages, namely the lack of small talk, and the glare in their eyes…

Ivan barely had a chance to cross his arms in front of himself when Izuki blurred in front of him, sparking all over as he struck at blistering speeds, Ivan forced flying from the much heavier blow…

Right, the sharing of physical abilities between the two... Izuki was actually physically weaker than his wife in raw strength, but he was in turn faster.

Now she was as fast as him, and he was as strong as her.

It was complete bull from the point of view of Blake, who had to step in to deflect a sudden hammer attack from Miya, while Ivan jumped back, concentrating light into his hands as he launched blasts at the group.

“Please, try again.” Izuki smirked, even as he swapped his katana to his left hand, his right hand blurring in front of him before an array of lightning bolts burst out from his hand, tracking straight into and through the blasts of Light…

Yeah, Lightning had the greatest force over the smallest area, basically, piercing damage. It disrupted Ivan’s attacks and had the muscular Sage blocking, a mistake that Blake caught.

“Ivan!” Blake tried to warn, but it was too late, Ivan had been blocking in a peek-a-boo stance, unable to see his opponent as the bolts of Lightning impacted his gauntlets…

He didn’t see Izuki appearing behind him. He didn’t see Izuki widening his stance as he twisted. Ivan didn’t get a chance to defend the back of his neck.

With a horrible cutting sound, a head was sent flying into the air leaving Blake to curse, having lost his comrade there was no definitely no way to win…

And the elephant Manifestation vanished as Ivan’s head landed in the hot desert sand, leaving the massive crocodile to attack…

Between a swarm of scarabs versus a giant crocodile and that falcon, well, Blake was sure he was going to be attacked.

“This is a bust…” Blake cursed as he jumped backwards, fire bursting from below his feet to launch him further away, leaving the two married Sages to stare at him in confusion, though still ready to finish him as well.

“What, not going to avenge your partner?” Izuki asked, gesturing to the headless body bleeding out on a few metres away with his katana.

“Nah… he was the weakest of us and quite frankly I didn’t like him… so I’m just going to be stepping out here.” Blake smirked as Izuki and Miya finally caught the portal appearing behind him as he hopped backwards, closing it before the two could follow him…

One down, one escaped, the only problem was that the one who escaped was arguably the worst person to let live.

“A teleport-user and we let him go… that sucks… let’s go help the kids, I doubt the other fights are going to be as simple.” Izuki offered his wife who nodded, the sand beneath them condensing into a rolling wave, carrying them away as their Manifestations vanished…

Though they vanished only after Sobek ate the dead body of Ivan, erasing all evidence of the fight bar the red stains and the head left on the ground…

A cruel fate, but the Kazuya’s wouldn’t care… not when they threatened their son… not when he was their only child.

Meanwhile, with aforementioned son, the S-Class was finding themselves breathing heavily and sporting more than a few bruises from times where the dune wyrm’s decided that slamming their bodies into the Sages would be a good idea.

Thankfully they were skilled enough to recognize that, yes, dodging the many, many, many teeth inside a dune wyrm’s mouth was very important, and none of the first years had gotten hit at this point.

“This still sucks!” Vince complained as he stomped his foot, a cactus erupting from the ground growing large barbs to stab into a particularly aggressive dune wyrm which was roaring into his face.

Vince had already looked away to fire a shot at another dune wyrm that erupted from the ground in an attempt to eat Leah’s entire top half, the laser forcing the Mystic Beast to the side and grazing past the thankful girl.

The dune wyrm behind Vince was not left to die slowly as Liza passed by, a whirlwind as she severed the ‘head’ of the dune wyrm leaving its roughly two metre wide head to flop on the ground for a moment.

Liza had banished Nirvana in exchange for her sabre and dagger instead after seeing how fleshy the things were, blunt force worked well only against things with proper bone structure.

In the current fight, despite his position as ‘leader’ it was actually Vince and Leah who were speaking the most, the two ‘rear’ fighters having the most vision of the area due to their roles allowing them to survey the battlefield instead of being right in the thick of it.

Granted, Vince and Leah weren’t coming up with solutions, but by calling out their observations they were giving a constant supply of information to their teammates who would then move accordingly, sometimes Edward would contradict an action with a better option, but otherwise everyone knew what to do.

Vince and Leah, rear guards, Liza was fast enough to protect the both of them while assisting the ‘front-line’ of the group, Jade joining Liza in that role.

That left the remaining three, Edward, Hiiro (who asked to be called that while his parents were around) and Tony to be the front-line fighters, attacking the dune wyrm’s instead of reacting to the situation of the battle field like the mid-line or taking pot-shots and supporting like the rear-line.

To follow Tony’s love of football/soccer, they were in a three-two-two formation of strikers, midfielders and defenders respectively.

Edward and Hiiro were the only ones who got that reference though they all agreed to watch a game with Tony the next time they got the chance, as he was apparently quite the supporter of that team from the Empire, Liverpool?

Back to the fight, the unveiling of his actual main weapon had Hiiro getting excited looks from Edward who was being especially violent against the dune wyrms…

Understandably, as Edward had been defeated by Hiiro back when Hiiro used his secondary weapon, seeing his rival at his full power was getting Edward hyped to challenge him when they returned from the mission.

Their sparring record was actually pretty even with more than a few draws after both getting too tired, it just so happened that Edward didn’t bother trying to battle Hiiro for rank outside of the first term, much like how Tony could be the fourth ranked, but after everyone reached three Stars kept his seventh ranked position.

Hiiro was the only one who guessed that Tony actually kept the position to be passive about the fact that he actually wanted people from outside their class to challenge him to get more combat experience and confidence.

He didn’t share his suspicions with the class, but he was an advocate for him being allowed to hold that rank.

It wouldn’t hold in the first term of the second year, but until then it was fine.

A dune wyrm wiggled while its mouth was pointed skyward, and Hiiro felt the ground beneath him shift for a moment as he slid away on a sheet of ice, the action a bit more tiring than usual due to the heat of the Egyptian desert fighting against the manipulation of cold.

But his decision was a good one, as where he stood was pierced by spikes of densely packed sand, Hiiro had witnessed those spikes piercing one of Jade’s blade-bombs so they were sharp.

As he slid though, Hiiro finally stopped, using the movement to switch to Earth and focus on pushing himself towards the wyrm that just attacked him, sending himself flying a short distance in an imitation of the move he saw his mother use.

It was pretty useful in a place where the ground could be freely moved like this.

Using the momentum, Kazuya thrust while twisting his spear, having swapped to manipulating Lightning to increase the penetrating force of the spear.

The result was a massive gouge going straight through the dune wyrm, having twisted its flesh to the point that it looked like the giant worm-creature had gotten hit with a giant drill.

There was another one approaching, trying to avenge its fallen comrade as Hiiro landed, using the end of the haft that didn’t have a spearhead on it to dig into the ground and push himself back away from the bite, just barely escaping before slashing with his spear, using Metal to lengthen and add to the blade of his spear to further cut into the beast as it split partially, dead.

Using the current length of his spear, which was now more closer to a pike in length, Hiiro looked at a nearby, but suitably far away dune wyrm before raising one hand, the other…

He was in a javelin throwing stance, Edward realized as Hiiro flung his spear through one dune wyrm before it got stuck in the second one, Hiiro’s katana appearing in his hand after accessing his inventory spell.

“So that’s why he has a secondary weapon?” Edward wondered aloud as he heard Vince warning of four wyrm’s behind him, the warning coming at the same time as a boost from Leah had him feeling lighter and quicker, likely a Wind-spell of some kind.

Regardless, he was thankful, aware that despite feeling lighter, it didn’t mean he was actually lighter.

He was a big guy for his age, and he was already being compared to Bobby in physique only not being the Tyrant’s equal due to his height.

That much muscle brought with it weight, mass… and Jonathan’s physics lesson stated: mass multiplied by acceleration equals momentum. With enough momentum, you could not be stopped.

Edward was actually quite the technical fighter, but sheer overwhelming force had its perks sometimes.

Edward focused on this thought and charged forward with sand rising to pack itself across his form, further adding onto his unarmoured parts as he dashed across the sand, hardening the sand beneath his feet to get better traction as he shoulder tackled a worm with a burst of fire exploding from his shoulder.

The dune wyrm exploded into bloody chunks, though Edward didn’t even stop to care about that as he continued, much slower than his first burst, but still fast enough to raise a fist and punching with a right straight, a spear of ice growing around his fist punching a hole straight into the dune wyrm, the ice inside it growing like the roots of a tree.

Honestly Edward was glad he couldn’t see what he just did to that thing, it probably looked horrifying if someone actually checked.

There were still two dune wyrm’s approaching though, one trying to control the sand to make Edward sink, and another trying to bite him.

It was a shame for the dune wyrm’s, but that wasn’t the first time they tried to sink the group, and it wasn’t the first time Edward prevented it from happening.

Packing the sand so tight it couldn’t move much was simple for a three Star Sage, even over the entire area. He couldn’t stop the dune wyrm’s from moving at all, they were Earth users like himself of course, and he also couldn’t stop them from attacking with the sand without tiring himself out.

But simply keeping the ground beneath them stable was something Edward was doing since the beginning of the fight.

All Elements had tenants to their power, something a Sage of that Element came to comprehend with experience.

For Lightning Sages, for example, it was to strike quickly and powerfully, to take the quickest and surest path to victory and end fights as soon as possible.

For Metal Sages it was to be as sharp as a blade, and as tough as the strongest armour.

For Earth Sages?

If you cannot trust the ground beneath you, you have lost.

Make the enemy lose that trust.

Edward felt sad at being incapable of following through with the latter part of the Earth Sage tenant, but to be fair his enemies were following through with the first, same as him.

Earth was looked down on, as a ‘basic’ Element, for not being as flashy as Fire, or as versatile as Wind or Water… but Sages learnt early on to underestimate no Element.

You could acknowledge that yes, Wood wasn’t really a good idea against Fire, or that Water was a good match against Fire… but no fight is really that simple, and a skilled Fire Sage could easily defeat a Water Sage with a lack of skill.

So faced with the dune wyrm’s ineffectual sand-pit attack, and the bite, Edward practically ignored the former and focused on the latter, raising his arms as they got encased in Ice, massive hands made out of the cold substance moving just a bit less accurately as his real ones as he held the mouth of the dune wyrm open, then pulling in opposite directions, ripping it in two.

He then dropped the carcass before looking to the fourth wyrm, seeing Tony already moving on from said fourth wyrm, having killed it while Edward tried out these weird ice arms…

It was an interesting application… Edward would be sure to work on it, turning while maintaining the cold around his arms, making sure to stay away from any blade-bombs he saw.

Jade, controlling said blade-bombs was using them as if tossing the dune wyrm’s into a blender if they dared get too close, though after seeing one or two wyrm’s dying to that method they all learnt enough to know to stay the heck away from the shredders…

That didn’t stop Jade from using her blade-bombs in other ways, having been training with her technique since its creation, she was understandably more versatile with the move compared to Hiiro who could also use the technique.

Because unlike Hiiro, Jade could create a blade-bomb, use it as a ‘no entry’ zone and then… as if holding an invisible object in her hand, Jade stared at a particular wyrm trying to enter the ground in the direction of Vince, before closing her fist.

The result of her seemingly inconsequential action was the separation of all the blades that made up the nearest blade-bomb, the blades flying at and then into the wyrm, making it look like Swiss cheese.

Unfortunately doing this meant she couldn’t re-use the blades as they got damaged from the action, and it wasn’t worth trying to control that many tiny metal shards, she didn’t have the control to do that in the middle of a fight.

“Jade, your four o’clock!” Leah shouted out and Jade raised her rapier to her right, slightly behind her and flicked it out, launching a lance of Light from her rapier and only then checking the direction to see a wall of sand took the blow…

Right, Mystic Beasts weren’t dumb, they could figure out blocking and… wait… wasn’t this dune wyrm… bigger than the others?

The other wyrm’s were generally around two metres in width…

This one seemed closer to three… and seemed to have much more teeth.

“Oh… is that a four Star one?” Someone spoke out even as the silent wish for it to not be true went out from all of them.

It wasn’t to be, as the creature roared as if acknowledging the question, the sand around them rising to stab into them…

Seven of them versus this one dune wyrm? Possible victory.

The seven of them versus this one dune wyrm plus its nest? Not quite…

“Well, seems we have impeccable timing honey.” The casual tone, not from any of the S-Class, caused a metaphorical record scratch in the moment, causing the first years to turn and feel relief at the sight of Hiiro’s parents.

“That we do dear… do you think we should keep the smaller ones from bothering this fight?” And then the relief vanished upon realizing what Miya Kazuya was suggesting.

“I suppose we’re should, this is supposed to be their mission and it’s supposed to be challenging… they seemed to be doing quite well against the weaker ones, let’s have them handle the boss.” Izuki offered cheerily, not even bothering to summon his katana as he waved his hand.

Instantly four of the three Star dune wyrm’s exploded into charred pieces, the attack, clearly a Lightning strike of some kind, was done so quickly that none of the students even saw whether it was four separate attacks or one that did it.

“Oh alright, let’s get a nice view then.” Miya stomped onto the sand and an explosion occurred.

Stomachs floated as the sensation of an elevator going down hit each member of the S-Class, and they realized what just happened when they noted the huge circular arena they were in.

Miya Kazuya just casually created a massive pit in the desert for them to have their ‘boss battle’.

“Ah, nothing like a coliseum fight… suppose Sobek and Chidori are going to be dealing with the small-fry while we watch?” While the first years had no idea what the Kazuya pair were talking about, Hiiro only had one thing to say about the situation.

“Sorry about my parents, they’re drama queens.” Looking at Hiiro who was socially restrained yet accepting of weird antics, and then hearing this line, it explained a lot.

Before they could complain, the ‘boss’ moved…

Yeah, the fight was on… but… well… wasn’t the danger basically gone?

Be that as it was, it was an opportunity to gain fighting experience, to be stronger.

It was worth taking the chance… for looking at the sheer power of a seven Star Sage?

The idea of remaining at their current strength when there were beings of such power was insanity.

Who would ever accept being weak when that meant they wouldn’t be able to survive against such power?

The S-Class moved with smirks on their faces.