Within that short instance, the battle had been transformed from a massive, wide-scale battlefront in which explosions and environmental disasters were running rampant into a tense 1-on-1 confrontation between the two 'leaders' of the respective sides.
The students of Theta watched with tense and anxious eyes as Himitsu faced off against the general of the Pythons. The Pythons watched with a similar expression of tense and anxious anticipation.
In the center of the cratered and destroyed battleground, there was a large ring of flames where the Life-Force Oath was initiated. Just outside that ring of flames, the massive wall of fire, which had been raging for a while now, spiked up massively, threatening to encircle both armies.
Standing in the center of the ring were Himitsu and the General of the Pythons. The general brandished his massive spear, dragging its glowing blue tip along the ground in circles.
The ground was burnt by the areas that the spear touched.
Himitsu, on the other hand, stood tall and confident, both hands in his pockets. He stared at the general unfazed, even yawning while he waited for the battle to commence. He was giving off an air of pure overconfidence and superiority.
The general then took a step forward, planting his spear in the ground and dragging it behind him as he walked. He began to speak, never breaking eye contact with Himitsu.
"It'd be more than just a little foolish for me to reveal my true name in a place like this. However, it is customary to give over names before a duel."
Coming to a stop a few feet away from Himitsu, he lifted up the spear and pointed it directly at Himitsu's chest.
"Call me Marcus. Marcus Aurelius."
Himitsu didn't flinch as the massive glowing weapon was pointed at him.
"Aurelias? The emperor?" Aurelia nodded. "Talk about ancient history...." Shaking his head, Himitsu relayed his own name: "Himitsu."
Aurelia nodded, to which Himitsu said, "That's it. Himitsu." Shrugging his shoulders, Aurelius drew back his spear and entered a battle stance.
"HIMITSU!!"
Himitsu turned around to look at Suijin, who was shouting at the top of her lungs. They locked eyes, and Himitsu saw all of the fear and worry in her expression. He almost lost his resolve to fight there; however, he managed to reel in his own emotions. All of his students were watching. He would not give them a pathetic outing. Not when he promised to show them the greatest lesson they had ever seen.
Flashing her a smile and putting a thumbs up, he tried to end it there, but Suijin wasn't done.
However, what she said next was the last thing he had expected.
"When you finish this battle, I'm going to slap you. Before giving you a lecture on why you shouldn't try and do things alone, before finally giving your lesson a 3 out of 5 once again for lack of interactivity."
Saying that, she stepped back away from the ring of flames, leaving Himitsu standing in the center, dumbfounded.
However quickly a smile replaced his confused expression. "She's just like her...." He muttered to himself as old memories began to resurface. Shaking his head, he turned to face Aurelius.
"Heartwarming." He said emotionlessly. "A shame, really. If you had just surrendered when I suggested it, we wouldn't need to be standing here."
"Surrender?" Himitsu scoffed. "After everything that's happened, you'd really ask that?"
Seeing that his final request fell flat, Aurelius shrugged his shoulders.
"I won't show any mercy then."
His aura flared out, and the ground began to crack.
Himitsu flexed his own aura.
"And I won't hold back either."
There was a brief pause, as both fighters stared at each other silently, allowing their auras to do the talking.
And then in an instant they had both dashed forward and clashed with each other, causing a massive explosion that filled up the entire barrier.
BOOOOM!
All around, shouts and screams of shock and worry rose into the air.
Himitsu and Aurelius were sent skidding backwards from the force of the blow, all the way to the very edge of the ring.
Smoke filled the miniature arena, unable to clear out because of the closed nature of the barrier.
Debris began to rain down as it bounced off of the barrier and into the ground.
Himitsu prepared to dodge once again, brandishing his wand, which was a large bow staff made out of a black metal.
He dashed forward and into the smoke.
Moments later, slashes of blue aura flew out of the smoke and crashed into the barrier, causing multiple students who were close to flinch away.
The smoke was suddenly blown away by a massive pillar of blue light.
The pillar belonged to Aurelius, who was charging a massive amount of mana using his spear.
The pillar of blue light contacted the very top of the barrier, causing light sparks to rain down.
Just as Himitsu got close, Aurelius drew the spear in a horizontal semicircle.
A massive wave of blue aura vaporized the ground and everything else in front of it.
Himitsu jumped over it before landing right on top of Aurelius' weapon and unleashing a furious combo with his bow staff.
Surprisingly, Aurelius simply abandoned his weapon in order to avoid the bow staff combo.
As he dashed backward, Himitsu lost balance as the spear fell.
However, he landed on the ground gracefully and just pressed on, seizing the fact that Aurelius had dropped his weapon.
Himitsu swung.
Aurelius dodged.
However, Aurelius was being quickly pushed back as the wall of the barrier was getting closer and closer.
As soon as he felt his wall touch the barrier, and he saw Himitsu jump forward thinking he had secured a hit, Aurelius opened his hand.
"HIMITSU!" The students shouted.
Himitsu sensed what was happening and curved out of the way at the very last second.
At the same time he dodged, Aurelius' spear came flailing past before striking Aurelius in the chest. The spear was stopped by his large and strong armor.
Had Himitsu gone for his blow, he would have been impaled upon the tip of that spear.
As he landed, Himitsu clenched his staff tighter, and the bottom of the flat-ended bow suddenly opened, revealing a short metal section with a hole at the end.
The top of the spear also opened, revealing a blade.
Along with being a bow staff, the Himitsu spear had two functions.
One that allowed it to shoot blasts of mana and spells from one side, and another that provided him with a long, extendable blade.
After unveiling this, Himitsu jumped straight back into the fray.
As they continuously clashed weapons, Himitsu began to speak.
"Why would a magic knight like you defect and join a rebel organization?"
A few more blows were traded, and Aurelius dodged a few blasts of flame from Himitsu before responding.
"It's simple. Because I was moved by Prometheus's words and this organization's goal."
Sliding back away from the reach of Aurelius's long spear, Himitsu extended the blade on his bow staff to allow him to attack without running the risk of being attacked.
"But that doesn't make any sense. From everything I knew, this is the first appearance of you guys."
Aurelius smiled as he pushed forward, avoiding the slashes of Himitsu's elongated bow staff and using an elaborate magic sequence to rain down fire upon him.
"Really? I'm sure you must have heard about our actions. Even though at that time we weren't operating under any one name."
Himitsu's eyes widened as he came to a realization.
In real time, he dodged the blasts from the many magic spells raining down on him before retracting his staff and beginning to spin it quickly.
"That means. All of the terrorist attacks. All of the protests...".
Aurelius nodded with a large grin on his face.
"It was all just the beginning of the plan. The Pythons first had to sow disorder and unrest and create an environment where the idea of rebellion was just a fantasy!"
As Himitsu listened to Aurelius's words with gritted teeth, he applied a defensive spell and a reflection spell to the surface area of his spinning staff.
Dashing forward fearlessly, he used the spinning spear coated in reflection spells to block and deflect all of Aurelius' attacks.
Aurelius dodges the attacks, all the while approaching himself.
Clouds of smoke rose high as the reflected attacks smashed into the ground in explosions.
Weaving their way through the clouds of smoke, the two fighters clashed once again, causing an explosion that blew away the smoke.
The two held their weapons as they fought for control, each one trying to overpower the other.
And then part of Himitsu's bow staff opened up, revealing another hidden barrel.
Aurelius's eyes didn't even have time to go wide before he was absolutely assailed by blasts of magic.
At close range, the attacks would have done critical damage if it hadn't been for the armor that Aurelius wore.
It blocked off a majority of the power of the attack, so despite catching Aurelius completely off guard, he only came out with a few dents and scratches in his armor.
Aurelius gave Himitsu a small smile. "You're tricky."
Not even waiting, Himitsu dived back into battle. "Thanks." He continued to swing his bow staff around and use the gun barrels hidden along the weapon to up the pressure even more.
Of course, Himitsu wasn't the only one with tricks in his kit.
As the two re-engaged, Aurelius revealed the multiple functions within his suit.
Four extra arms, each of them wielding their own blades.
Machine guns that protruded from his shoulders.
And rocket launchers along his back.
And with that, the 1-on-1 hand-to-hand duel had transformed into an explosive, high-octane battle that was nearly impossible to follow with everything that happened all at once.
Rockets were constantly detonating, sending smoke flying high.
Blue slashes and explosions of aura appeared sparsely throughout the battlefield.
The sound of metal-on-metal contact filled the air.
Every few moments, Aurelius and Himitsu popped back into view, battling fiercely.
Himitsu was moving insanely quickly, using his bow staff to ward away Aurelius' advances, which had now become 10 times more dangerous and powerful with the addition of 4 extra sword arms.
All the while the two were engaged in intense physical combat, their weaponry duked it out.
Aurelius's machine guns and rocket blasts clashed with Himitsu's own magical beams of flame and lightning.
Very quickly, the battle in which the two found it difficult to deal damage to one another had shifted into a battle where the two found it difficult to avoid damage from one another.
Both were now covered in blood, a mix of their own and their opponent's.
A massive gash that ran down the right side of his face completely blocked out Himitsu's right eye.
Cuts ran along his arms and legs, and his outfit was completely destroyed.
Aurelius's once-perfect white armor was now filled with more dents, holes, and scratches than one could count.
His robotic arms and tech had been damaged so heavily that their wiring and insides were exposed, and they were actively sparking.
The helmet he had summoned to protect him had been completely smashed up, and his face was covered in cuts.
And this intense battle continued to rage on. It was impossible to figure out who was on top and who was at a disadvantage. It was really a duel to be seen.
Everyone on the outside watched the chaos unfolding inside in absolute silence. The air was so tense that if you threw a rock too hard, you might actually shatter it.
Everyone was so laser-focused on the battle that they didn't see what was going on behind them.
It was only by the miracle of God that Sujin's gaze flitted over to the side and noticed what was going on.
The second in command of the Pythons, the one who had spoken to Aurelius right before the duel had begun, was standing just above the area in which the rest of the injured students were being held.
Instead of his bow, he was in the midst of assembling a massive rocket.
As soon as Suijin saw this, she realized what this was all about.
Aurelius's duel request served as a strategy to gain everyone's attention, distracting them from whatever plans the Pythons wanted to carry out.
In this case, they attempted to launch a flank attack and wipe out the entire backline, where not only the injured students were, but also the rest of the students who were still up and preparing Riko's strategy.
Not to mention, it wouldn't violate the Life-Force Oath, because the duel wouldn't have been interrupted. If the strategy succeeded, then they would be able to catch the rest of Theta off guard and quickly finish off the battle.
Suijin intended to ensure that didn't happen.
But how can I get there quickly?
There was the entire beanstalk that she had to climb; even if she did use levitation and jump-boosting spells, it still wouldn't take too long.
And it was at that moment that she felt someone pick her up. With great strength, Suijin was launched towards the top.
Looking behind her, she saw that it was Erika who had thrown her. She had used mana to boost the strength of her limbs.
Trying to convey as much thanks as she could through her expression, Suijin turned around just in time to land along the battlement of the magic academy.
Sliding down, she jumped down into the massive hole in the wall of the Magic Academy, left by the battle with Wrath. As she landed in the midst of many students.
Ignoring their shouted shock, Suijin turned to block the attack.
The rocket was coming straight down at them.
In only a few seconds it would make contact.
So Suijin moved to set up an attack to block it.
However, a mistake was made.
It was bound to happen eventually. After fighting for so long, going through so much mental duress, and still managing to stay on her feet, it was inevitable that Suijin would falter.
In this case, she attempted to use her ability, Absolute Zero, to neutralize the attack.
However, the rocket was just that. A rocket.
It wasn't made out of mana, and so Absolute Zero had no effect.
There was no big signal for Suijin to realize that a mistake was made.
Only the cold realization that gripped her body when her mind cleared, and the realization that dawned over her that it was too late to fix things.
It was only one mistake. Committed after fighting so well and so hard for so long.
Yet it would spell their deaths.
But the rocket never hit.
Suijin opened her eyes to see that the rocket had been redirected.
Himitsu stood in front of Suijin.
Prior to the beginning of the battle, Himitsu had set up a teleportation magic sequence on all of the students battling down in the front lines.
He did it in the midst of the battle, and no one noticed.
The sequence featured a sensory spell, so Himitsu would be able to know when a student was in danger.
Then he would activate the teleportation spell and be transported towards them.
Himitsu used the spell now to save the lives of everyone. Noticing Suijin's absolutely devastated expression, Himitsu gave her a thumbs-up. Even though he was covered in wounds, with blood dripping down his mouth, he still kept up his confident and happy expression.
"You see? Everything's going to be okay. Alright?" He tilted his head and smiled at her.
However, Suijin's expression did not get better.
In fact, it only fell further. The terror in her gaze was amplified, and tears began to stream down her face.
She stood, completely frozen.
And that was because Himitsu had been impaled. Straight through.
The long, glowing blue tip of the spear pierced directly through his midsection. Four separate katanas also peeked through his body, stabbing through vital organs.
Suijin's expression had soon been rendered blank, with tears running down her face.
Standing behind Himitsu, holding the spear and 4 katanas that pierced him, was Aurelius. He looked at Himitsu with pity.
"This is the end."