Zev's face twisted into a ferocious grin as he raised his staff high, its tip shimmering with a dazzling radiance. In a flash, he lunged forward, his body cutting through the air like a blade.
Deep down, he couldn't help but feel a sliver of wariness toward Kael. This brat had been prepared from the start, dealing him a devastating opening blow. Had the Black Eagle Guard not been elite to the core, their losses would've been catastrophic—perhaps even total annihilation.
"There must be a military genius in his ranks. Damn it!" Zev's expression darkened. His chant erupted at a machine-gun pace, the syllables rattling off like roasting beans.
To onlookers, it sounded like a rapid-fire incantation—and then, twin torrents of magical flame erupted before Zev. Given the complexity of the spell, this was undoubtedly a grand-scale magic.
"Twin Elemental Drakes!" Kael recognized it instantly—a large-area annihilation spell, fusing earth and fire into a composite Level 10 magic. If unleashed, Laphie's walls would crumble in seconds, plunging the city into chaos.
Zev aimed to reverse the tide with this single spell!
Kael's eyes narrowed to slits. The moment Zev lifted his staff, his own chant began—a Level 10 defensive incantation.
"Twin Elemental Drakes!" Zev's staff thrust toward Laphie's walls. Instantly, pale-yellow earth and crimson fire intertwined, erupting into a cataclysmic elemental surge. The sky split with thunderous detonations as two draconic forms materialized.
These were no mere illusions. Every scale gleamed like armor, every claw sharpened like a blade. Their oppressive draconic aura felt tangible, their roars shaking the very air. Compared to other magic-forged dragons Kael had seen, these were in a league of their own.
Wings unfurled, blotting out the sun as the twin drakes coiled around each other, their deafening bellows reverberating across the battlefield.
Zev smirked coldly, his staff directing the drakes straight toward Laphie's heart.
"Barrier of the Earth!" Kael's spell flared to life.
The drakes screamed through the sky, their unstoppable momentum threatening to pulverize everything in their path—until, a colossal stone wall erupted from the ground!
Fifty meters tall and impossibly vast, the barrier towered over the battlefield, dwarfing all who stood before it. Against this monolithic defense, even the drakes seemed momentarily insignificant.
Barrier of the Earth—this was the might of a Level 10 defensive spell!
The Twin Elemental Drakes slammed into the barrier with deafening force, the impact sending shockwaves that rendered nearby soldiers momentarily deaf. At this level of combat, even a single misstep meant annihilation.
Fortunately, Kael had positioned the barrier to shield Laphie's forces behind it. Without this protection, the collateral shockwaves from the two Level 10 spells clashing would have reduced them to dust.
The crowd stared in awe at Kael's levitating figure, their gazes reverent, as if beholding a deity.
Was this the power of a Level 10 mage?
Kael's display sent tremors through every onlooker. The collision of the two spells ripped through the air, leaving a vacuum of magical energy for kilometers around.
Overwhelming.
A Level 10 mage was nothing short of a walking war machine—a realization that struck the spectators with bone-deep clarity. No wonder mages held such exalted status compared to warriors of the same tier. This battle was proof incarnate.
"You… advanced to Level 10?!" Zev's pupils contracted violently the moment Kael's barrier manifested, his face twisting in undisguised disbelief.
He couldn't—wouldn't—accept it. The last time they'd met, Kael had been a middling Level 9 mage, not even at the peak of that tier.
Yet even then, Zev had marked him as a dire threat. Kael's lightning magic, his terrifying ocular techniques—all screamed monstrous potential. That was why Zev had resolved to eliminate him before he could mature.
But now…
The threat had fully materialized.
Words failed Zev. This was beyond absurd. A mere month had passed since their last encounter, yet Kael had shattered the boundaries between tiers, ascending from mid-Level 9 to Level 10!
This monstrous rate of advancement left Zev utterly speechless.
He could only feel a profound absurdity. It had taken him years to climb from Level 9 to Level 10—and even then, his progress was considered remarkable, earning him a place on the Continental Rankings of Power.
But this brat before him…
A shiver crawled down Zev's spine. What kind of freak was he?
Kael narrowed his eyes and waved a hand—his Minor World unfolded.
"A Minor World? Hmph. Did you think yours was unique?" Zev's expression flickered through shades of disbelief before settling into cold, unbridled killing intent. True, Kael's potential was terrifying, but he'd only just broken through to Level 10. Zev, on the other hand, had been a mid-Level 10 powerhouse for years.
By his reckoning, crushing a novice like Kael should've been effortless.
With a derisive snort, Zev unleashed his own Minor World.
In the sky, twin colossal spheres of light erupted, like a second sun had been born. Onlookers gaped, their minds struggling to reconcile the sight with reality.
The surrounding magic elements seemed to drain away entirely, siphoned into those two radiant orbs. Though Kael and Zev's physical forms appeared minuscule, their presence within the roiling magical tempests was inescapably vivid.
"So this… is the power of Saintly Magi…"
Countless magic arrays and elemental energies woven into a tapestry of light, fracturing the heavens within seconds. The sky itself split into two distinct realms, each governed by its creator's will.
Kael and Zev hovered kilometers above ground—a deliberate choice by Kael to spare Laphie City from the cataclysm of their clash.
Within their respective Minor Worlds, they stood as sovereigns of their domains. Zev's gaze burned with undisguised murderous intent, while Kael's eyes flashed with a glacial sharpness. The two locked in a frozen standoff.
Zev's Minor World was a nightmare of azure desolation—a Frozen Wasteland of endless blizzards and jagged ice, sculpted from pure elemental frost.
A stark contrast to Kael's vibrant, Life Tree-anchored world. One brimmed with vitality; the other, a tomb of cold oblivion.
Yet Kael's Minor World spanned farther—over a kilometer in radius, dwarfing Zev's. A testament to the Life Tree's unparalleled nourishment.
As Kael and Zev faced off high above, the atmosphere among Kael's forces grew increasingly tense. Lone Wolf's voice, infused with a surge of battle aura, boomed across the battlefield: "Ancient Octagonal Formation—deploy!"
In an instant, thousands of soldiers moved as one, their positions aligning with meticulous precision, each step demonstrating their mastery of the formation's arcane intricacies.
The very essence of their presence transformed. Such was the power of the Ancient Octagonal Formation—even Laphie's greenest recruits now stood brimming with unshakable courage, their spirits forged into steel by the formation's might.
On the ground, the roar of combat shook the heavens. Amidst the cacophony of war cries and clashing steel, Laphie's soldiers and the Reynolds Family's Black Eagle Guard collided like two opposing tidal waves, their fury erupting in a maelstrom of violence…
Kael's peripheral gaze took it all in, every detail etched into his awareness.
"Boy, you dare distract yourself with the battle below while fighting me? You're courting death!" Zev's face darkened with a hint of cyan rage, his lips curling into a sneer.
Zev held absolute confidence in the Black Eagle Guard's prowess, his demeanor utterly unshaken.
"Zev, you arrogant fool! How about I obliterate you in one strike and show you the true might of dragonkind?" Suddenly, the little kitten leaped from Kael's shoulder, fixing Zev with a glare of defiance. Not an ounce of fear colored her stance.
In the past, she might have fled without hesitation. But now? Kael stood as Zev's equal—a Level 10 powerhouse capable of meeting him blow for blow.