CHAPTER 61: Clash of the Unequal
Caspian didn't wait for the dust of his previous counter-attack to settle. With a sudden, violent burst of speed that cracked the stone beneath his boots, he launched forward. He was a streak of azure and obsidian, closing the gap with a velocity that defied human biology.
Alium, though paralyzed by a flicker of primal terror, forced his feet to stay rooted. His noble pride was the only thing keeping his knees from buckling.
"GET AWAY FROM ME, COMMONER!" Alium shrieked. He thrust both palms forward, his mana flared into a brilliant, chaotic aura. "FIRE BULLETS!"
In an instant, thirty small, white-hot orbs of flame manifested in a halo around him. They didn't drift; they hummed with the high-pitched whine of spinning turbines. With a flick of Alium's wrists, they began to fire in a rhythmic, rapid-fire succession—magical artillery designed to shred anything in its path.
Pew! Pew! Pew!
"Fire Bullets..." Lyra whispered, her eyes tracking the projectiles. She recognized the spell—it was a mid-tier offensive technique that favored quantity over quality. While Alium's version lacked the refined heat of her own family's flames, his desperation had granted them a jagged, unpredictable lethality. Her gaze shifted back to Caspian.
Caspian didn't slow down. If anything, he leaned further into his sprint. As the first wave of fire bullets reached him, his hand became a blur.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The sound was jarring—the high-pitched ring of metal meeting magically hardened plasma. Caspian was weaving through the barrage with the fluidity of a dancer. He slashed vertically, cleaving an orb in half; he parried horizontally, sending another ricocheting into the dirt. As he ran, he left behind a trail of after-images, faint silhouettes created by the sheer speed of his evasive maneuvers. He slid under one shot, pivoted around another, and leaped over a third, his black blade moving so fast it looked like a shimmering shield of darkness in front of him.
The closer he got, the more Alium panicked. The boy was a relentless machine, a force of nature that refused to be burned.
"Ugh!" Alium groaned, his teeth gritting as he poured more mana into the circles. The strain was showing. Perspiration beaded on his forehead, evaporating instantly in the heat. This ordinary pest was a stain on his heritage. If he lost here, in the presence of the Valerius heir and the other Commoners, his family name would be dragged through the mud.
"No... I won't lose. Not like this. NOT TO YOU!"
The rapid-fire barrage ceased abruptly. The sudden silence was more jarring than the noise. Alium took a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes bloodshot. Caspian was less than ten meters away now, his movement a jagged, zig-zag blur that made it impossible to lock on.
Alium knew he didn't have time for a full, formal incantation. He took a gamble that would have horrified his tutors—a shortened, cast.
He thrust his hands forward, a massive, three-ringed incantation circle snapping into existence. It glowed with a sickly, incandescent orange.
"Beseech thee and unleash burning fury!" he hissed, skipping the rhythmic meter of the spell. "INFERNO FLARE!"
BOOM!
The circle didn't just fire a projectile; it erupted into a continuous, wide-angle cone of roaring flame. It was a flamethrower of god-like proportions, engulfing the entire front half of the courtyard in a blinding sheet of fire. The shockwave rattled the windows of the distant academy buildings.
Caspian's friends screamed his name, their voices lost in the roar of the blast. Even Alium's own teammates shielded their eyes, stunned by the sheer destructive output of a spell cast in such a reckless manner.
Silas and the rest, however, stood perfectly still. Thier eyes remained fixed on a single point within the inferno, expression unimpressed.
Alium slumped forward, his hands on his knees, gasping for air. Pant... pant... "Damn... used too much... on an incomplete cast," he wheezed, a triumphant, jagged smile breaking across his face. "There's no way... no way he survived that. He's ash. He's nothing but ash."
The smoke began to thin. The stone was glowing cherry-red, the air shimmering with heat distortion. But as the dust cloud cleared, Alium's smile died.
The area was empty. No body. No blackened bones. No shattered sword.
"Where... where did he go?" Alium whispered, his head whipping left and right. "No. No, he couldn't have survived. He had to be vaporized." He laughed, a shaky, hollow sound. "He's gone. I won."
But a cold, leaden weight settled in his stomach. A sensation of being watched—of being hunted—crawled up his spine.
"ALIUM!"
He turned toward the sound of his friend's voice, expecting a cheer. Instead, he saw his teammates pointing frantically, their faces pale with a terror he hadn't yet realized was meant for him.
"ON YOUR RIGHT!"
Alium spun around, his heart leaping into his throat. Caspian was standing twenty feet away, untouched. Not a single singe marked his uniform. The lack of emotion in his eyes was more terrifying than the fire;
"What is this?" Alium thought, his breath hitching. "I am Alium Castamir! I am a noble! I cannot be afraid of an Commoner!" He forced a laugh, masking the tremor in his hands. "So, you survived. Not bad for a—"
"Shut up," Caspian cut in, his voice a flat, dead calm. "Let's end this."
The dismissal hit Alium like a physical blow. The fear was instantly eclipsed by a tidal wave of volcanic rage. His blue pupils bled into a violent, glowing red as his mana went into overdrive.
"YOU DARE TELL ME TO SHUT UP?! YOU... YOU TRASH! YOU FILTHY COMMONER!"
He thrust his hands out, and the air hummed with a different frequency. This wasn't basic elementalism anymore.
"Level Two Sorcery: HEAT LASH!"
Ropes of white-hot liquid flame shot from the circles on his palms. They didn't just travel forward; they split and multiplied in mid-air, turning into a tangled web of flaming whips that sought to ensnare Caspian's limbs. Alium's plan was simple: bind the pest, melt the steel, and finish the job.
The lashes closed in, crisscrossing the space around Caspian. But just as the first coil touched his shadow, Caspian vanished.
There was no smoke, no sound. He was simply gone.
Lyra gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. She scanned the courtyard—left, right, above—but there was no trace of him. It looked like high-level teleportation.
"Ordinary!" Alium screamed, his head spinning in a frantic circle. "Where are you?! Show yourself!"
He looked toward Lyra and the others; they were just as confused, their heads turning like spectators at a tennis match. He looked at his own team; they were backing away, their eyes wide.
"Is this concealment magic?" Alium hissed to himself, his mana sensory organs flailing. "How can a nobody hide from—?"
" Alium."
The voice came from directly in front of him. Alium's heart nearly stopped. Caspian appeared as if he had stepped out of a fold in the air, his face inches from Alium's own.
The Commoner expression hadn't changed—it was still that dull, Soul-less void. His black sword was already in mid-swing, the cold edge of the blade whistling toward Alium's throat.
Out of pure, desperate instinct, Alium snapped his fingers. CRACK.
A spark ignited. A micro-incantation circle manifested against his own bicep—a dangerous, self-destructive move.
BOOM!
A localized burst of flame erupted between them, the force of the blast acting as a makeshift thruster that sent Alium flying backward, narrowly avoiding the arc of the blade. He tumbled across the stone, sliding thirty feet before coming to a stop.
Alium groaned, clutching his right arm. The white sleeve of his prestigious academy uniform was gone, burned away to the shoulder. His skin was steaming, red and blistered from his own explosion. He panted, the pain finally grounding him in the reality of the situation.
He looked up. Caspian hadn't moved. He stood exactly where the explosion had occurred, the smoke curling around his boots as he stared at Alium with that same, haunting indifference. Caspian raised the black sword, the tip pointing directly at Alium's heart.
"This could all end, Sir Alium," Caspian said, his voice echoing in the silent courtyard. "Yield."
"Well," Zerav said, leaning back and crossing his arms. "The winner has been decided."
"He was impressive," Louisa noted, her eyes narrow with professional respect. "That evasive burst... to implement an emergency fire-thrust under that kind of psychological pressure takes years of training. Alium has potential."
Yawn.
Edna stretched her arms over her head, her boredom returning. "Can we go now? I'm hungry. This is just getting sad to watch." She turned to leave, and Zerav and Louisa prepared to follow.
"You may want to wait," Silas said, his voice stopping them in their tracks.
"What?" Zerav asked, looking back. "It's over, Silas. Alium is cooked."
"You would be shocked," Silas whispered, a dark glint in his eyes, "at what other surprises are yet to surface. And Caspian... Caspian is finally starting to enjoy himself."
"What more could Alium possibly do?" Zerav muttered, his attention snapping back to the arena.
In the center of the charred stone, Alium pulled himself to his feet. He looked at his ruined arm, then at Caspian. The fear was gone now, replaced by something much deeper and more dangerous. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, jagged red crystal—a Mana Catalyst.
"Yield?" Alium whispered, his voice trembling with a dark, melodic madness. "You want me to yield to you?"
He crushed the crystal in his hand. The air in the courtyard began to scream.