If the trial was testing for how well we fight, rather than how quick, then I was in a bit of trouble.
If I wasn't careful, I would annihilate the entire Colosseum, so to fix that I used Perfect Control to mimic Shiro's current levels. This way, I wouldn't end up finishing this too quickly.
Let the battle begin.
I dashed toward the stone titan using Sonic Leap. I leaped into the air and swung my katana through its neck.
Clang.
The impact was strong enough to push me back, but I didn't succeed in severing its head.
Once I landed, the hybrid beast swung its claw toward me while its snake tail tried to bite my arm.
I quickly bent down to avoid the tail and grabbed it. At the same time, I raised my sword to block the claw. The impact cracked the ground beneath my feet.
Behind you.
Khaos warned me just as the stone titan's fist came in from the rear.
I jumped, still holding the snake tail, and pulled the hybrid beast with me. The titan's punch followed. I dragged the hybrid in front of me and used it as a shield.
Boom!
The force launched me across the coliseum. The hybrid took the hit full-on, a massive hole blown through its stomach. It wasn't dead, but it crashed into the ground in a pool of black blood.
Better it than me.
I barely found my footing before the horned humanoid closed in behind me.
Its crimson sword cut horizontally, fast enough that the air split around the blade. I leaned back just enough for the edge to pass in front of my throat, then drove a kick into its shin. The impact staggered it and forced it back several steps, but it recovered almost immediately and slid into a lower stance.
Stronger than it looked.
Before I could press the advantage, the titan was already behind me again. For something that large, it moved far too quietly. Both hands came together for a crushing overhead strike.
I didn't stay there to receive it.
Trinity carried me onto its shoulder. I drove my katana into the joint where the arm met the body. Compared to the neck, the stone there gave way much more easily. Cracks spread outward as I twisted the blade, then kicked off before the other arm could swat me aside.
I landed several meters away—only a short distance from the horned fighter.
It closed the gap in an instant and brought its sword down in a vertical slash. I raised my katana to meet it.
Clang!
Sparks burst between the blades. The force behind the strike was heavy, and the energy running through its sword felt dense—closer to pure killing intent than ordinary mana.
While our blades locked, the hybrid forced itself back into the fight from the side, one wing still ruined. At the same time, the titan lifted its cracked arm for another wide smash.
"Zero Hour."
The world slowed.
The hybrid's claws froze mid-swipe. The titan's arm hung in the air. The horned fighter's next cut stopped halfway through its arc.
I moved.
First, I stepped through Trinity and appeared behind the hybrid, cutting through its remaining good wing. Then I shifted again and left a single blade from Night of Blades in the path of the titan's descending fist. Finally, I returned to the horned fighter and met its strike head-on before releasing Zero Hour.
Clang!
Our swords collided again. This time I was ready. I forced mana through my katana and shoved it back.
A moment later, the titan's fist came down on the waiting blade. The blade unfixed part of the stone surface, and the cracks from before deepened with a sharp, grinding noise. The hybrid, missing both functional wings now, veered off course and slammed into the ground short of me.
Even with the advantage, the three of them working together would only get more troublesome.
I needed to remove one of them.
The titan was the clearest target.
Khaos. Watch my back.
I turned fully toward the titan and dashed in low, aiming for its legs. There was resistance when my blade met the stone, but not enough to stop the cut. The lower leg crumbled, and the entire body followed with a heavy, ground-shaking impact.
I jumped as it fell, grabbing the second handle from my waist pouch. An obsidian dagger slid free.
Wind gathered around the blade, compressing tighter and tighter until the air itself began to howl. Spirals of pressure wrapped the dagger like living veins.
"Storm Bullet!"
I threw it straight toward the titan's chest.
The dagger crossed the distance in an instant.
Storm Bullet hit the titan square in the chest. The compressed wind detonated on impact, and for a moment the entire upper body disappeared inside a roaring spiral of force. Stone shards blasted outward across the coliseum. When the dust cleared, a wide hole had been punched straight through its torso.
The titan attempted to raise its hand and rebuild its body from the stone scattered across the ground.
I used gravity magic to increase the weight of my sword and pierced through the titan's head as I landed.
Crack!
The titan's forehead split wide as stone pieces flew into the air.
The light in its eyes flickered for a moment before going out completely.
"One down."
I pulled my blade out of the titan and walked over to where my dagger had landed. I picked it up, then looked at the other two.
The horned humanoid wasn't backing down, but I could see the hybrid slowly retreating. It was a smart creature. Knowing when to abandon a fight showed good instincts.
Unfortunately, I couldn't leave until I killed it.
The horned figure could wait. Once I took out the hybrid, the two of us could fight as much as we wanted.
I bolted toward the hybrid, completely ignoring the horned humanoid. It lunged at me and attempted another claw strike, but I stopped a second before the attack landed and let it miss. All it hit was the already-crushed ground.
I stretched out my hand.
Hundreds of glowing purple orbs lit up across the yellow sky. They twisted and reshaped themselves midair—spears, swords, daggers—each one wrapping itself in a spiraling current of wind.
"Night of Blades: Vortex Storm!"
The swarm shot forward.
The hybrid tried to move. It dragged its broken body sideways, then forced its ruined wings open in a desperate attempt to lift off. It didn't matter. The first blade punched through its remaining wing. The second took it in the shoulder. Then the rest arrived.
They drilled through its body with almost no resistance. Black blood sprayed across the coliseum as the hybrid beast screeched and crashed to the ground.
Somehow, it was still standing.
I got tired of waiting and stepped in to finish the job.
Wind gathered along my katana, compressing tighter and tighter until the blade itself seemed to vibrate. The air around it howled.
"White Tiger Slash!"
I swung with a vertical slash.
A crescent of compressed wind erupted from the katana. The air roared as it hit the hybrid clean and carried straight through.
For a moment, the creature remained upright—frozen in the shape of the cut.
Then its body split apart along the path of the slash and collapsed into hundreds of scattered pieces, the remains dissolving into black blood and fading mana.
I lowered my sword.
Only the horned fighter was left.
Without a moment to spare, we clashed. Sparks flew as our blades crossed.
My katana was my main weapon. I used it to block incoming attacks and deliver my own slashes. The dagger was for the angles I couldn't reach with the longer blade, and because of its small size, I could use it for quick piercing strikes toward any blind spot I forced open.
Unfortunately, the horned humanoid was just as fast as I was. It blocked every attack I sent and dodged the dagger thrusts by narrow margins.
Every one of its movements was quick and efficient. It wasted nothing and never hesitated when countering.
There was no point dragging out a pure close-range fight. If I continued like this, I wouldn't make any real progress.
As I tried to back away, the killing intent from its sword grew thicker. It was as if the blade itself wanted to murder me.
It swung once more, and a flash of red light illuminated the entire coliseum.
I instinctively used Trinity to retreat as far as I could. When the red light cleared, I found myself standing on a stone platform in the air.
Actually, that wasn't accurate. I was still on the ground—or at least what was left of it. The attack had completely destroyed the floor of the coliseum, leaving only scattered floating debris.
A few meters away, the horned humanoid stood on a stone platform of its own.
I might have gotten overconfident.
It was a mistake to assume I could finish this easily by playing on its terms. Close combat was its specialty, and right now I was outclassed in that area.
At least, until I stopped holding back.
I released my aura and mana at the same time and used Perfect Control to mix them together, forming a new type of energy—Chi.
Chi greatly increased my physical strength and agility, but in exchange it limited long-range attacks.
To make up for that, I drew on the Wind Qi I had previously stored in my body and mixed it into the Chi, changing its nature. That way I could extend the range of my attacks without losing the physical boost.
Once I was done, I released my Chi at full blast.
---
A massive burst of blackish-blue Chi spread through the area. The floating debris in the sky crumbled the moment the pressure hit it, vaporizing into dust.
The Chi spiraled around me. The horned humanoid just stood there and watched. For whatever reason, it didn't interfere. Maybe it believed it could still beat me without acting first.
It regretted that decision immediately.
I dashed through the air and closed the distance in an instant. To the eye, it would have looked like I simply vanished and reappeared in front of it.
I swung my katana horizontally. The horned humanoid raised its sword to block.
Clang!
A violent gale burst out from the clash and blew it off the stone platform. Flight wasn't a problem for it, so that alone meant nothing. The real problem was what came next.
I flooded it with slashes.
Hundreds of Chi-coated strikes landed in under a second. Each one bit into its sword and chipped the edge further. Realizing it couldn't block everything, it shifted to protecting only its vital points.
Even so, cuts opened across its arm, leg, and chest within moments.
Its armor kept it standing, but smoking dents marked every place the Chi had landed.
It tried to back away, but I didn't let it.
Behind me, a body double formed from my Chi. I had used this skill more times than I could count, so the process was instant. Its Chi was only slightly lower than mine, close enough to pressure the same opponent.
The double vanished and reappeared beside the horned fighter, dagger already thrusting toward a gap in its guard.
It blocked the attack, but in the process, it's blade snapped in half. The pieces floated in the air for moment, before falling down.
Defenseless, the horned humanoid flew backward—but the body double vanished again, reappeared above it, and drove a kick into its back.
I, on the other hand, was preparing to end the fight.
Khaos, do it.
Understood.
I raised both hands and gathered as much Chi as I could, shaping it into a blade. It spiraled like a vortex as I formed it into the shape of a saber. It held enough Chi to split the sky, but it was only part of the finisher.
I released the Chi Saber, and it blasted through the air like a missile.
The body double moved out of the way, and the Chi Saber struck toward the horned humanoid's chest.
At least, that was what I thought.
Sparks flared on contact, but they came from the Chi Saber and the horned humanoid's hands rather than its chest.
At the last second, it had blocked with its bare hands.
Unfortunately for it, it forgot about the body double.
Swoosh!
That was the sound the air made as the Chi-infused blade in the body double's hands cut through the horned humanoid.
The slash passed from its torso all the way up through its head. A dark-blue line appeared along the path of the cut as blood erupted from the wound.
It looked at me with even stronger murderous intent. But that glare faded almost immediately as dozens of the same blue lines spread across its body.
The horned humanoid fell apart into countless pieces before disappearing into mana.
The body double flew over to me and smiled.
"Without me, you're nothing."
I ignored Khaos's remark. We high-fived, and then the body double dissolved into bluish-black Chi.
The yellow sky began to turn blue as the ground rebuilt itself from nothing.
Guess that means we're done.
I quickly changed back into my original outfit and put my weapons away before concealing the bag.
As soon as I landed back on the grounds, my surroundings completely changed. I was now one of a few hundred students who had completed their test.
I could see the others being transported back in streams of blue light.
I looked up and saw a translucent screen in the middle of the sky. I'm guessing that was the leader board.
I was the second position. My time was about thirty minutes. The people below me had better time than I did. But my exam score itself was much higher than the rest.
Apparently though, the first position went to a guy named Nova Proteus. He outscored me by one point. A measly one point.
Good for him, I guess.
I exhaled through my nose and turned away from the screen. Around me, students were still appearing in flashes of blue light, some cheering, some collapsing to their knees in relief, some already arguing about rankings. A few glanced in my direction, mostly because of the mask, but no one approached.
But anyway, it's official.
"Noir Drake has successfully been admitted to the academy."
Classes would begin the very next day. I turned around and walked through the crowd of students before exiting the school.
I opened a gate and stepped right into Infinity's Domain. I appeared directly in my room.
I changed the time difference in there. One minute outside, would be a day in here. This would allow me to recover the energy I lost.
I was at Shiro's level, so I didn't use any more power than he was capable of using. This exhaustion was just a part of that. This is what Shiro would have felt doing what I did.
I fell onto my bed, face flat. Slowly but surely, I drifted to sleep.