Why? Why I couldn’t make a single hit at all? I tried everything and Eren see through it miles away. He was too fast. But that’s impossible…

“Why are you not attacking me, Eren!” I shouted at him.

“I’m not wasting my magic on stupid idiot like you, stupid idiot.”

“Why you!” I tried to slice him off but he wasn’t in my line of sight all of a sudden.

How can this be? How can he dodge from my blade so fast. I looked behind and saw my friends were watching me fight.

“Lore! Help me out”

But Lore didn’t answer me. That’s weird. Another thing that was weird was Eren didn’t even made his move to attack me. Why was Lore ignoring me? I will get to the bottom of this after I settled with Eren and his annoying face. I tried to slice him off once again but he wasn’t in my slicing zone once again. It was like a sudden ‘poof’. In a blink of an eye. He’s gone and standing behind me.

I transformed my armor into a lighter armor so that I could move faster. Even when I did that however, all of my strikes fail to even at least make a near miss on him. It was a huge miss. He disappeared in the instance I tried to do something. Is this another of his ability? But I never heard of someone who has a two different ability…unless…

There was one theory but I’m not quite sure if its possible or not. I can’t prove it right now. That theory will have to be ignored for now because that certain person still hasn’t shown a sign concerning that theory. What matters at the time was that I have to beat Eren.

As much as I tried, I never seemed to make a single hit at all. Then I realised something was off. I don’t know whether the other members of Buddyz were just watching us just to play fair or anything but they were also silent throughout the battle. In any case, I kept trying the same thing over and over again until I started to get tired. It was to the point where I finally dropped my blade.

Impossible. How can this be? I never knew my classmate would grow so much after a school break. What kind of immense training those guys had done? I started to lose hope when I realised I’m getting too tired. I couldn’t pick up my blade properly. Was this how darkness will engulf me?

My vision was starting to get darker and hazy. It was almost like…despair. A few moments after I was deep inside the cloak of darkness, A sudden bright light purified the darkness within me. I looked around and saw him. It was one of The 7 Top Students. It was Sonozaki Wakana.

“Rider. This is just an illusion. Break free from this impurity.” Sonozaki whispered to me.

After telling me that, he suddenly disappeared. It was like pure light. Like an angel. The Angel of Death if you think of his nickname. Thanks a lot Sonozaki Wakana, I would never know this was an illusion. I don’t care if you are on a different team. But thank you for telling me that.

If it was an illusion, then that could only be one thing. Rolls Sharp. Where was he? I looked around and saw him standing behind Shallow.

“There you are you son of a gun…” I sliced through Shallow and Rolls.

The instance I kept my Blade back to its sheath, this False Reality had finally been broken. Yes. A total False Reality that Rolls made. I looked back and saw Rolls rolled his eyes in surprise.

“Impossible! How can you escape from my False Reality!”

“It’s not that hard.” Sonozaki appeared out of nowhere behind him. “All you need is to have a pure heart and a pure instinct.”

“Sonozaki…” I braced myself.

“Now…It’s time to count up your sins!” Sonozaki pointed his index finger to Rolls.

Rolls runs away but Sonozaki suddenly flashes in front of him. Sonozaki then gave a spinning kick to Rolls’s neck, sending him down to the ground. His kicks were also induced with a brimming shining light that glows brightly. It was dazzling seeing his Light-induced kick.

Shallow finally noticed the situation and began to intervene as he threw a medium-sized Dark Dome to Sonozaki. The dome was known to be formidable because of its Dark elements. Not a single weapon or magic can break it. Unless…your ability happens to be manipulating Light itself. Sonozaki sliced the Dark Dome by chopping it off in half with his hand that were also induced with Light Energy.

“Darkness and Light are weak to each other. Didn’t you know that?” Sonozaki’s signature scarfs moved gracefully as a gentle wind started to pick up.

“You monster! You’re more than a monster! A Devil!” Rolls speak up as he crawled away.

“Devil?” Sonozaki laughed. “I’m no devil. That’s my friend you’re referring to.”

Sonozaki flashes in front of Shallow and punched his belly with his Light-induced fist.

“People call me, The Angel of Death!” Sonozaki’s punch made Shallow flew away to a tree.

The tree begins to tumble-down as Shallow hits the tree. The falling tree then crashed on the escaping Rolls. Sonozaki flashes to Rolls and flashes back to save him from the tree. The Dark Dome that Shallow made to trap the others were slowly starting to fade away.

“Rider. Take a rest for now. Let us handle.”

“Us?”

Suddenly, I saw two other figure appeared from the trees. It cannot be. But it must be. I’m certain.

“Let Team Purity handles the rest.”

So it was true. Team Purity. It consist of all students from the 1st class. A class filled with elites. Most of them were ranked B-C while the remaining few were the top 7 students! How are we going to beat them in the Magic Duel if we even can’t beat Buddyz?

Sonozaki flashes into the disintegrating dome for his grand entrance and introduction to the others. Once he was done introducing himself, he instantly flashes to Ozzy and does an uppercut to him. He then helped Lore to get up.

“Are you alright?”

“Uh. Yea. Thanks. I think?” Lore thanked him nervously.

Sonozaki then flashes back to Ozzy who was still in the air and kicked his belly and it sent him toward Morderkaizer who were still surprised by Sonozaki’s appearance. Ozzy crashed into Morderkaizer, tumbling him down as well. Sonozaki flashes next to both Kurokiba and Herone. A light-induced knuckle to their head was all it takes to make both of them fall.

“Don’t go too overboard on them, Wakana.” One of the figure from Purity told to Sonozaki.

“Not to worry, guys. This is only a small portion of my power!”

A small portion?! Him alone with a small portion of power was able to defeat almost all of Team Buddyz. That’s too insane! Now I finally realised just how small Team Stardust was.

“Who are you people and what have you done to my Buddyz?!” Eren was furious.

“Your ‘Buddyz’ huh? I doesn’t look like you all had cooperation with each other. By the way, we are Team Purity. We just happened to be looking for the wands around here when suddenly we heard a loud bang.”

“So…you did well…Rulend…” Lore tried to say as he drags himself to Rulend.

“Since we are an example to the rest of the whole school. We have to show them how responsible we are! And look what we found here. A team that tries to bully another team. An incomplete team by the way. You guys dare to play dirty in a clean competition like this!”

“What are you talking about!” Eren retaliate.

“At least if you want to play dirty. Make sure it isn’t harmful to the other students in any way.” Sonozaki then flashes next to Blax and whispered, “Don’t worry. your little Digital Assistance does not count at all. Even our team has something similar.” Sonozaki then flashes back to his original place.

Blax sighed in relief after hearing to what Sonozaki had whispered to him.

“We do what ever we want! We will win the Magic Duel and then you will know that Team Buddyz are the strongest team ever!” Eren riled up.

Just as things started to get to its resolution, the ground started to shake. The whole forest was shaking. Meanwhile on the outside, White was carefully watching his old best friend, Sonozaki Wakana from the multiple screens that was placed outside the 'arena'.

White clenched his fist, “Wakana…”

The earth continues to shake. It wasn’t Ozzy’s magic but it was a totally different one. Everyone felt a tremendous amount of Infinitum around them. The ground begins to crack and out comes a big structure. Multiples of structure appeared from the ground.

“The 2nd interval…Location Change…” said Rulend.

“You are right, Rulend. It has been 20 minutes into the hunt.” Sonozaki flashes next to Rulend.

“When did you get here?”

“I’m just doing my job as an honorary student.” Sonozaki happily smiled.

“Glad you’ve answered my call.” Rulend laughed a little.

“Now let’s see how the third round of The Treasure Hunt will look like.”

“Good luck.”

“To you as well, Rulend.”

The earth finally stopped shaking. The next thing everyone figured out was that they are no longer in a forest. They are now inside a small abandoned artificial city. The buildings combined with trees and vines and mosses all around the place. This was the perfect setup for the climatic round of The Treasure Hunt.

“Damn it. Buddyz! Retreat!” Eren calls for a retreat and ran away.

Before we even realized, Team Buddyz has separated from us. Leaving us with the rest of Team Purity.

“So what now?” I asked.

“We don’t have time to fight. We need to get the wands. That’s what matters right now.” said Sonozaki.

Sonozaki nodded to his teammates and his teammates went into the city.

Sonozaki looked back and said, “See you in the group stage, Stardust.”

“We definitely will be there!” said Blax confidently.

“Oh yes you will. I have high expectations of all of you. Especially him. I heard he had an interesting ability.”

We all knew exactly who he meant.

“Send my regards to White.” Sonozaki flashes away from us.

That was a tiring bout. I’m already tired and Lore was hurt. The real game has just begun. There’s no time to lose. Even right now outside of the arena, all of the remaining teammates was gone already. They all immediately went inside the new battle zone. White was also among them.

Around the same time as well, Hosuke and Airi were still caught up with The Magnificent Three. What will happen to the rest of Team Stardust? I hope things goes well for those two...

TO BE CONTINUED