I unleashed a flurry of rapid strikes. No pausing to aim. No bothering with critical locations.
The charade parried every strike. It was like it knew every move I was about to make.
Maybe it did.
In a fair fight, I stood no chance.
There was only one option, then.
Fortunately, fighting fair had never really been my style, anyway.
It’s just like the shadow I fought in the spire, I realized. Only, instead of a mirror…
The charade jabbed toward my face. I moved my head to the side, but the aura brushed my cheek, leaving a gash.
That strike brought him closer to me, though. I stepped in and rammed my forehead into the mask, discharging a burst of transference mana in the process.
I didn’t like using my mind mana. But I liked losing fights even less.
The creature fell back, cracks spreading across its mask where I’d landed the hit.
My own forehead hurt from the impact, but not enough to slow me down.
Gotcha.
I rammed my sword through the creature’s chest.
That was a bad move.
The charade’s torso distorted, hardening into an armor-like substance.
My sword was stuck.
It brought back its own blade, preparing to strike.
I gripped my sword in both hands, then concentrated.
Condense.
The aura of mana around my blade shifted all to one side — the top of the blade.
Then I pulled upward.
I split the charade’s torso and head in half.
The creature crumpled to the ground immediately, then shifted in shape again. The features that resembled mine dissolved, leaving a clay statue with a cracked mask.
Then even that vanished as the mana sustaining the creature faded away.
I turned toward Marissa. A clawed humanoid with green scales and a beak had grabbed onto her right arm.
She kicked the wolf-like creature as it tried to approach her again, then slammed an elbow backward into the scaled monster, but it didn’t let her go.
The robed figure on the opposite side of the clearing hit her with another blast of lightning. More cracks formed in her shield, and it was evident it wouldn’t hold much longer.
Closing the distance would have taken seconds, but attacking from here was faster.
I swung my sword and projected a wave of force, which hit the green-scaled creature in the back.
As it gasped in pain, Marissa adjusted her stance and hurled it over her head, right into the blades protruding from the top of the wolf.
The results were…messy. But effective.
The scaled monster vanished a moment later.
I rushed forward after that, while Marissa dodged a charge from the bear-like monster and hopped over a sword-strike from the animated suit of armor.
With that, I was at her side. Marissa grinned brightly at me. “Took you long enough.”
“Oh, yes, let’s complain about our rescuer. That seems reasonable.” I blocked a swing from the walking suit of armor.
Marissa rolled her eyes. “Rescue? Is that what this is? Thought you just couldn’t stand two minutes without me.”
The bear-like monster swung around and tried to maim her with a claw, but Marissa danced backward, then swept upward with a kick. Her aura whipped forward and sliced the creature’s head clean in half.
The monster collapsed, then vanished.
“That’s a new one. Haven’t seen you do that with a kick.” I side-stepped a lunge from the blade-covered wolf, jabbing my sword into its side.
The wolf howled, then took a deep breath. A sphere of flame began to form within its jaws.
“Nope, not happening.” I stabbed right through its neck. It vanished a moment later.
A blast of lightning caught me in the side, knocking me back a step and leaving a dangerous web of cracks in my barrier.
I cast a glance at the figure in the woods, then blocked another swing from the suit of armor.
Marissa smashed the armor with a fist, staggering it, and I followed it with a cut that knocked the sword out of its hands.
After that, Marissa punched the helmet right off it. There was no head inside, of course, but it still looked pretty brutal.
Fortunately, it fell and vanished a moment after that.
I slashed another blast of lightning out of the air, then attached a thread of mana to my shield sigil with my other hand. It was something I should have done a lot sooner, but I’d been distracted.
Then I stepped back, avoiding another blast, and began to recharge my sigil.
The last remaining monster was a slime. Marissa kicked it. It died.
“Left or right?” Marissa asked, glancing to the two remaining students, who were slowly beginning to back away.
“One second first. C’mere.”
Marissa raised an eyebrow and turned toward me. “I know I was talkin’ about missing me, but now is hardly the place or the time—”
“Ssh.” I put a hand on her shield sigil and poured mana into it. The cracks faded. “There. And left, by the way.”
Marissa laughed. “Aww, I wanted that guy. But fine.”
We charged in two different directions.
For the sake of symmetry, I sheathed my sword and charged more mana into my fist.
“Star descends from sky!” Marissa shouted in the distance.
“Uh…explodey fist!” I tried.
“Explodey fist?” The cloaked student had just enough time to question my attack naming abilities before I slammed a glowing fist into his chest.
He flew back just like the previous one had. His barrier cracked and shattered.
I rushed over to make sure he wasn’t too badly hurt, but he was already picking himself back up. The shields didn’t stop an attack completely, but they did a pretty good job of stopping a single punch — even a strong one - from causing permanent harm.
I didn’t bother to check on Marissa’s fight immediately. I went to the other student I’d smashed right at the beginning of the fight.
His eyes were reddened, and he still had a trail of tears along his sleeve.
I paused at a few paces away. “You okay?”
“…Yeah. Just disappointed.”
I nodded. “Sorry about that. You did a good job with the ambush.”
“Not good enough, I guess. You’d think with two Summoners and an Elementalist we could have handled two other students.”
I shook my head. “It was a good strategy.” I offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. “Marissa and I are two of the top students in a dueling class. You had bad luck, that’s all.”
“Bad luck.” He shook his head. “Guess that makes me feel a little better, at least. But Dad is still going to beat the resh out of me when I get sent home.”
My fist tightened when I heard that.
I glanced from side to side. No one else was watching us.
“Give me your shield sigil for a second.”
The student frowned, but complied. “Why? I already failed. There’ll be a signal going to the Soaring Wings.”
“They may not be able to tell how many signals are coming from one area.”
I knew how the sigil monitors worked. This one was only slightly different from the ones we’d used in the dueling class.
I sent a hint of mana into the shield sigil, recharging it with just a fraction of the sigil’s capacity. Then I reset the monitoring rune.
With that, it would detect that the shield was still intact. And, hopefully, it would stop signaling the Soaring Wings.
“What are you…?”
I handed it back to him. “Put it back on. It may register as not completely broken. No promises, I haven’t tested this before. Hide until the Soaring Wings show up, then have them check the sigil. They may let you stay.”