“I’m expecting to gain some insights from you, don’t let me down,” Cain’s voice sounded out.

Floating arrows of ice threateningly rotated in the air around Ryzel, watching his every movement.

Ryzel began a mad dash towards Cain with Bloodwhistler in hand, prompting the ice arrows to launch towards him all at once. The second Ryzel began his approach, multiple things simultaneously happened.

Cain quickly knelt down, tapping his fingers against the floor and called out, “Frost field!” covering the marble floors in a layer of ice, and making Ryzel’s movements and approach more sloppy. The ice arrows that were launched towards Ryzel were sliced apart in midair by invisible moving wires as soon as they came within a certain distance to him until there were none left. The icy liquid revolving around Cain left his body and shot towards the approaching Ryzel, meanwhile he was being bombarded by Ryzel’s invisible moving artifact threads that could easily slice apart flesh and bone.

Cain didn’t even need to notice or pay any attention to the invisible threads, whenever they came close to touching his body, Aegis would sense the threat, and automatically move his left arm at blinding speeds to shove and push aside the wires.

Ryzel clicked his tongue when he saw the stream of icy liquid come his way, it seemed to track and follow his every movement, slowing down his approach in his efforts to avoid it. His invisible wires would cut apart the stream of water, only to see it coming back together to pursue him once more. He had to be in constant movement to avoid the water, and took a roundabout approach to eventually reach Cain.

Ryzel made brutal swings with Bloodwhistler, and sounds of metal colliding filled the atmosphere. The area around them was devoid of any other student or demon, as if the others were fearful of getting caught up within their crossfire.

Ryzel constantly flashed around Cain, and blurs of white and red could be seen as Aegis clashed against Bloodwhistler, also defending Cain from the roving wires coming from every direction.

Ryzel in his experience with the harsh environments of the North quickly adapted to the slippery icy floors, and moved around Cain trying to get a hit in, all the while paying attention to and evading the stream of ice water that haunted him.

“Is defending the only thing you’re capable of?!” Ryzel screamed in frustration. He hadn’t been able to get a blow in since the start of the confrontation, every time he swung Bloodwhistler, Aegis would always flash in front of the sword moments before the attack connected.

“Of course not, watch closely,” Cain smirked arrogantly. The stream of water finally came into contact with Ryzel’s right leg, completely freezing it and sealing his movements. Cain took advantage of the situation and voluntarily swung Aegis, intending to do a shield bash.

This time it was Ryzel’s turn to mirror Cain’s smirk, as his artifact Ginkumo’s wires wrapped itself around his frozen right leg, balancing him. Whether Ryzel had control of his limbs or not didn’t matter, he could move his body like a puppet with the help of Ginkumo. Ryzel sent mana into and lifted his left leg, violently spinning it towards Cain.

The kick and Aegis collided, pushing Cain back several meters.

The two narrowed their eyes facing each other. A stalemate.

Ryzel was no fool. He was a cunning and cruel demon, and had already noticed the weaknesses of Cain and Aegis within that brief exchange. He had come up with two solutions to deal with Aegis. The first solution he came up with was a battle of endurance. Who could last longer? Him or Cain’s arm? The constant movements Aegis’ made in order to block every single attack must put a large strain on the wielder’s arm, Ryzel was able to infer this much. He could pull the pace of the fight into a battle of attrition and outlast the energy Cain had to be able to wield Aegis. The second solution was that he could make an unavoidable, simultaneous attack towards Cain to injure him in which Aegis would be unable to block, but how likely was that? Ryzel was weak in making simultaneous attacks, and if Aegis had the ability and speed to contend with blocking every single one of Alistair’s millions of simultaneous fragmented bladestorm attack, how could he possibly have success with that method?

Ryzel was forced into making this a battle of endurance. In other words, as it stood, a stalemate.

“Tch,” Ryzel clicked his tongue at the troublesome thought of it.

It was unknown whether he could even outlast Aegis.

Cain had the same thoughts as Ryzel. This was to be a battle of endurance, the one who could outlast the other would come out on top.

They were both thinking the exact same thing. At this moment they both thought that a battle of endurance between them was unavoidable, unless…

A third element. An unpredictable factor joined the battle and broke the equilibrium.

When the two thought of this, both sensed an aura of an immortal approaching them.

Ryzel and Cain turned their heads to the approaching figure.

The sinister aura the figure emanated bore a striking resemblance to someone that was unforgettable to Ryzel. Although his form was different, that was the aura of the former Demon King.

“It’s you!” Ryzel shouted in disbelief as his pupils shrunk.

“Hope!”

“Zieg!”

Cain and Ryzel shouted simultaneously. Both of their voices were filled with hostility and excitement.

Evidently, both immortals also wanted to fight him.

They had found their third element.