Chapter 206
Sylas had to summon the wind to blow away the things obstructing her view. The "blizzard" also had to stop. Sauran was about to rush over again, but the ground was flooded with water. Sylas suddenly knelt down on one knee and extended one hand into the accumulated water on the ground, whispering softly, "Ice spikes rise!"
The gentle water, as if directed by some mysterious command, surged in an instant, reversing the motion of raindrops falling to the ground, forming water waves that solidified into sharp spikes. Sauran barely stopped his step before stepping on the spikes.
He didn't seem particularly foolish about fighting. Almost simultaneously, he tossed out a scroll with his other hand, and the flames sprayed out from the dagger in his right hand conveniently ignited it.
The attached mysterious spell burst open strangely. Sylas was stunned and instinctively created ripples, but the sound quickly faded away from around her.
Silence Spell. She couldn't chant spells anymore.
Sauran avoided the ice spikes on the ground, while Sylas ran to the other side, quickly writing a spell with her hands. Tiny blades of wind flew towards Sauran, but he remained unaffected as if he was wearing protective gear. He swung his dagger and the flames engulfed the ice spikes on the ground, indicating that he had seen through Sylas's strategy of circling around them.
Sylas stopped running altogether. Although the wind blades couldn't harm Sauran, they could affect the path of the fire. The vacuum created by the wind forced the fire to "fill up," providing her with a way to avoid the high temperatures.
At that moment, Sauran cleared away the ice spikes on the ground with his dagger. Seeing Sylas stop fleeing, he grinned menacingly, raised his dagger, and approached her.
"He wouldn't kill Sylas in this duel... would he?" Jane and Luna tightly held Caroline's hands in front of her. Caroline showed a disgusted expression and couldn't help but admit that their concern was valid. Sauran had given up on the tactic of forcing Sylas outside the circle and was now focusing on causing harm. Everyone witnessed the power of the flames, and if they scorched her face, the little fairy's delicate features would be ruined.
"Why isn't Sylas reciting spells anymore? I feel like she... she let go of several opportunities."
"Because she's been silenced."
"Teacher Kat?" This middle-aged man, who taught combat classes, somehow squeezed into the crowd, most likely using his privilege as a teacher. His hand rested on the rippling water curtain in front of him, seeming to strengthen this somewhat unsteady defense.
"I'm glad she remembers how to defend against fire spells even though she doesn't come to class often." Kat smiled at the girls. Caroline had been taking his class for three consecutive semesters, so they were pretty familiar with each other.
"But, teacher... this is different from regular fire elemental spells. It's too fast."
"The principle is the same, but the fighting speed has greatly increased, which is a challenge for the mage's stamina."
But she was silenced! The duration and intensity of silence are related. Sauran's scroll, written by an unknown person, may have variations. But a normal Silence Spell scroll is only half an hourglass.
"It's alright, she can write. She's writing right now." Just as Kat finished speaking, the Flame Tongue that had rushed towards Sylas suddenly transformed into a fiery bird, colliding with the vacuum and burning gases, emitting a huge annihilating noise. The flames, blown by the chaotic wind, took on different shapes. Sauran panicked and lifted a scroll, but suddenly forgot how to burn it.
The Flame Tongue, with nowhere else to go, noticed this flammable object and quickly consumed it. However, this inadvertently helped Sauran. An ice shield formed in front of him, only to be rapidly vaporized and consumed by the flames. As for Sylas, she had just created a ripple, which quickly became thin and transparent. Fortunately, before that, Sylas had just finished writing a wind shield. The golden radiance overflowed everywhere due to the huge difference in magical pressure, as if a fairy in a fairy tale was really waving her magic wand.
The high-temperature flames were still dangerous, but both of them managed to defend themselves before the annihilating explosion blew fiercely outward. Sauran seemed to recover from the shock a step earlier than Sylas, raising his dagger to launch another attack.
(Translated by Gravity Tales 😝)
"Oh my, will the little fairy get hurt? Besides her hand swelling once, she has never been injured. Teacher Kat?"
Kat shook her head and said gravely, "It's been a long time since I've seen this kind of fighting technique. Wasn't Sauran completely unskilled?"
"As long as there's a warrior, they can easily defeat him, right?" Jane asked anxiously.
"That's exactly the problem. Not many mages fight like this because they can easily be defeated by melee classes, but Sylas doesn't know any punches or kicks."
"..." Yes, Luna had seen many multi-profession inspectors and fighters before. There were many opportunities just now to defeat Sauran, but compared to Sauran, Sylas was too small and fragile.
"What is she writing?" Many of the students who were in the same class as Sylas knew that her way of writing spells was different from others. She had many abbreviations and shorthand, and could even write multiple spells in a disjointed manner before they disappeared in the air. Her writing speed was much faster than others, sometimes even writing while speaking. The young people found it difficult to recognize what she wrote, so they came to ask the experienced Kat.
Kat also showed a puzzled expression and leaned heavily on her cane, thumping it on the ground.
"Ice... barrier? That won't work, right?"
A little faster than his thinking speed, Sylas finished writing. An ice pillar formed in her hand, sweeping away Sauran's dagger like a sword. A tongue of fire spewed elsewhere, forming a terrifying heat wave. The ceiling was scorched and deformed by the high temperature, turning black.
Sylas succeeded in one strike, using the ice pillar as a long sword to stab at Sauran's face. Unfortunately, the front end of the ice pillar wasn't sharp and had no real attack power. However, even so, Sauran had to dodge. The clumsy mage used an unfamiliar melee method to duel. While he ducked down, he accidentally got punctured due to the lack of precision.
Frustrated and embarrassed, Sauran grabbed the ice pillar and pulled it towards himself. Sylas took advantage of this and charged into his embrace, using her shoulder to push him off balance. He stumbled backward several steps.
But because of this distance, Sauran firmly grasped his dagger again and charged towards Sylas.
"She should step back and find another chance to attack like this!" Kat thumped her cane heavily again, nervously twisting her own beard.
But Sylas seemed to have unleashed her wild side. She had deleted the word "retreat" from her dictionary and bravely ran towards the dagger with an ice barrier in her hand.
"Too fast!" Kat tightly held onto his own beard and squeezed out a few words through his teeth. The girls huddled together and said, "Why use this? We can't defend ourselves against the fire tongue at such a close distance!"
An ice armor formed above Sylas's fist, resembling a fist spike. The icy armor directly enveloped the flame dagger, which was only inches away from her fist, while her other hand pushed against Sauran's chin.
With a crisp sound, Sauran's upper teeth hit his lower teeth. The cheering around them stopped, and so did the discussions. Sauran's short incantation to activate the dagger was interrupted. The dagger hummed for a moment, but nothing happened.
Sylas clenched her teeth tightly and pushed Sauran's chin, continuously moving forward as if she intended to forcefully push him out of the battle area.
"Too savage... this is not how a mage fights." Kat almost wanted to pull his own beard off. "Watch out for the dagger!" he suddenly shouted loudly.
Sylas instantly became alert, swinging her fist spike upwards just in time to deflect the fire tongue that suddenly shot out from above her shoulder. The gasps from the audience almost lifted the roof, and then complete silence followed.
The girl let out a mournful cry. The towering Sauran was pushed out of the yellow circle by her, and wind blades appeared seemingly out of nowhere and wildly attacked him. As the girl pushed him, a small-scale explosion occurred behind Sauran. The melting crystal destroyed the thin fabric on his back, splattering onto the nearby water screen and making a sizzling sound. Then, the aftermath of the wind blades shredded his robe into pieces.
Blood soaked through his white shirt, and the yellow circle rapidly shrank and concentrated beneath Sauran. It crawled into his pants like insects and left a burning red mark above his head.
"Can never compare to Xerath's dark crawlers."
"That's a really long string of words... How is Sylas doing?"
Kat suddenly shouted, "Let the ambulance through! Don't crowd around!" He raised his staff and cleared a path from behind. The paramedics, who were blocked on the outer ring, hurriedly climbed through the crowd. They first rushed towards Sauran, who looked more injured.
But Sylas knelt nearby, and the scene frightened the nearby students. The young mage apprentices had no experience in dealing with such situations. Sylas's clothes on her shoulders were completely burnt, half of her hair was singed off, and her skin was swollen and red. She wanted to cover it, but as soon as her skin was touched, she had to cry out and let go, unable to call for help.
"So tragic, oh my..."
"How did it burn like that?"
The students whispered among themselves, and Kat rushed to her side and said, "It hurts a bit, hold on."
The girl's shoulders were a horrifying sight, with burn scars protruding halfway from her damaged clothes. Kat examined the wound and pondered on emergency methods. Suddenly, he realized that this was not a fresh injury from just now, but an old scar that had been there for a long time.
It... it... the mark of a slave?
But Sylas's soft moan pulled him back to reality. It was not a good time for recognition. The water ball overflowed from his hand, covering all his deep red skin. Gentle flowing water slowly trickled out from the water ball in his palm, passing over his almost burnt deep red translucent skin.
