The moment their weapons separated, the ground beneath Noah’s feet shifted.

Thick green vines burst upward from the cracks in the rubble, coiling around his legs before he could step clear, wrapping tight and pulling downward. He was locked in place from the knee down, both legs bound firmly.

Michael moved immediately, his rapier driving forward to take the opening.

But his own feet didn’t respond.

He looked down.

Both his feet were locked in ice, frozen by Noah’s ice creation ability, holding him in place just as firmly as Noah was bound.

Neither of them could move.

For one brief second, they were both completely still, their weapons raised. They stared at each other.

Michael moved first.

He pulled his free hand back, and a two-star magic circle erupted in the air in front of him, large and bright green, spinning once before the spell launched.

Thick vine tentacles shot out from the circle, sharp-tipped and fast, driving directly toward Noah.

Noah swung his spear downward and cut through the vines binding his legs in two quick strikes.

He freed himself just in time and threw his body hard to the left.

The vines hit the ground where he had been standing just a few seconds ago.

BOOM

The rubble beneath the impact point shattered and scattered, chunks of concrete flying in every direction. A cloud of dust burst outward.

Noah rolled on the broken ground and then pushed himself up, already back on his feet. He didn’t hesitate. He gripped the spear in his right hand, raised it above his right shoulder, elbow lowered, hand drawn slightly back.

Mana surged into the spear, coating it.

Then he threw it forward.

It left his hands with everything he had behind it, cutting through the air in a straight, clean blue line with a sharp whistle.

Michael had just broken through the ice around his feet. He heard the sound, saw the trajectory, and dropped low instantly.

He ducked down.

The spear passed directly over his head, close enough to cut through the air above him.

He started to straighten.

Noah was already there.

He had closed the entire distance while Michael was ducking, moving the moment the spear left his hand. His storage ring had already produced his sword before Michael looked up at him.

Dense blue mana ran across the blade from hilt to tip, sharp and concentrated. The light was steady and cold.

He brought it down in a hard diagonal slash.

Michael’s rapier came up to meet it.

CLANG

The impact rang through both their arms. Michael absorbed it cleanly, his footwork shifting as he redirected Noah’s momentum sideways and created space between them in a single elegant motion.

’He’s really strong.’

His swordsmanship was clean and precise. Each movement was economical. Nothing was wasted.

He fought the way someone fought who had trained with one weapon for years and understood it completely.

His footwork was smooth. His transitions between offense and defense were almost seamless.

Between strikes, vines threaded into his movements. Not large conjurations like before, but small, quick ones, shooting from the ground to redirect Noah’s feet, to tangle his wrist, to pull at the back of his knee at the exact moment he shifted his weight.

It was elegant.

Blade and nature working together.

Noah was rougher.

His swordsmanship was nowhere near as refined, and he knew it. His strikes were direct rather than technical.

But he kept moving, never staying in one place, constantly changing angles and distances.

At one point, he created distance between them. He performed the Dewdrop stance of his blade art.

It was something that took only a few seconds to conjure now. Weeks ago, when he had started learning the first form, it had taken much longer.

But not anymore.

Every time his blade connected with Michael’s rapier, he let the ice in his mana bleed into the contact point, spreading a thin layer of frost across whatever surface it touched.

It was the effect of his first form of blade art.

The rapier’s blade had accumulated small patches of ice that Michael had to shake off between exchanges. Not enough to freeze the weapon entirely, but enough to slightly dull the edge and add weight to each strike.

A vine caught Noah’s ankle.

"Tch!"

He stumbled half a step.

Michael drove forward instantly, his rapier thrusting straight toward Noah’s chest.

"Take this, you bastard!!"

Noah twisted his torso sharply to the side. The rapier missed his chest but scored a clean line across his left arm, cutting through the jacket and drawing blood beneath.

He gritted his teeth and stepped into Michael instead of back.

The close distance made the rapier useless for a moment, too long a weapon to function properly in tight space.

’I need to end this fight faster. Before Travis defeats Arisha. I cannot delay this, or everything I planned will be for nothing,’ Noah thought grimly, his expression turning determined.

Noah drove his elbow hard into Michael’s forearm, breaking his grip slightly. Then he pushed Michael with his shoulder and created space again immediately.

Blood ran down his left arm.

He switched his sword to a one-handed grip, letting the wounded arm hang lower but not dropping it entirely.

Michael reset his stance, his eyes reading him carefully now. He had noticed the arm.

"I will eliminate you soon!" Michael yelled.

He came in again, this time controlled and patient. He was clearly planning to target the injured side.

Noah let him come.

He baited the next strike toward the left, leaning slightly as if favoring it.

Michael took the angle. His rapier moved toward the left side in a clean thrust aimed at the shoulder.

Noah’s right hand moved.

He dropped the sword entirely.

From the air, a short ice lance formed directly in his palm in a second. It was small, but dense and razor-sharp, barely half a meter long.

He drove it forward with his right hand at the same moment Michael’s rapier moved into its line.

The ice lance punched into Michael’s shoulder, the same side holding his weapon, before he could pull back.

The cold ice lance detonated on contact.

Ice spread from the entry point outward across Michael’s shoulder and down his arm in a sharp crackling burst, locking the joint and upper arm in a sudden freeze.

"Arghh! Dammit!" Michael cursed.

His rapier dropped from fingers he could no longer feel.

Michael sucked in a breath through his teeth.

His left hand came up, trying to conjure another spell, but Noah was already moving.

He pushed off the ground and drove his knee into Michael’s midsection, doubling him forward.

Then he caught him by the collar with his right hand and slammed him backward into a broken slab of concrete, pinning him against it.

The ice lance was still buried in his shoulder.

Noah pressed it harder.

Michael’s face tightened in pain. His left hand dropped. The spell he had been forming scattered into loose particles.

"ARRGHHH!!!!" Michael screamed in pain.

For a moment, he just breathed, pinned against the slab, his arm frozen and useless, his rapier lying somewhere on the ground behind him.

He looked at Noah.

Noah looked back.

"You’re good," Noah said.

Michael let out a short breath that was almost a laugh despite everything. "You... why are you doing this suddenly?"

Noah pushed the ice lance in slightly further.

Michael’s body shuddered once. "Gahh!!"

Then Noah used his free hand to form a sharp ice dagger and thrust it into his neck.

"Argh!!"

His body began to flicker.

His body started to glitch. Then it took him from the feet upward, dissolving the frozen shoulder, the clean uniform, all of it, until there was nothing left against the ground. Only cold air remained. The ice lance dropped to the ground with a small sharp sound.

Noah stood over the empty space and breathed for a moment.

He looked down at his left arm. The cut was bleeding steadily. Not deep enough to eliminate him, but enough to properly limit the arm.

He picked up his sword from where he had dropped it and stored it back in his ring.

Then he turned toward the sounds of the fight still going on between Travis and Arisha.