12 Chapter 12 - End and Beginning

One step, two steps, three steps…

I've taken several steps already from where I was, but Belial was still in dazed. He probably could not believe it. In his eyes, I disappeared. When in fact, I just walked.

<Shadow Step> allows me to move in the shadows. Well, simply put, I could move without my opponent noticing me. <Side Step> is my bodies movement matching the speed of light. Combining these two skills, of course, he would be surprised. Ultimately, I could just use side step, but the opponent is a hero. It's better to be cautious. Just like Van, he's a complete abnormal.

Anyway, the skills I possess whenever I am a human are restricted to the following:

<Shadow Step>, <Side Step>, <Minimal Regeneration>, <Sword Slash>, and <Herculean Strength>.

<Sword Slash> is the ability to handle the sword, in my case Siguigaran, without the use of aura. Simply, it's the sword play I had mastered by rigorous training. While <Herculean Strength> is my innate strength. It's actually a downgraded skill compared to when I was a dragonian.

The magic are as follows:

<Omnipotence>, <Mana Manipulation>, <Material Manifestation>, and <Elemental Manipulation>.

<Mana Manipulation> is my ability to control the aura inside my body as well as the mana outside it. <Material Manifestation> is when I can create anything just by pouring mana. From non-living things to living things. Yes, I could give life, however, it consumes most of my aura so I rarely use it. I only used it one time and I was unable to use magic for a whole week after that. I was quite surprised that I got to get this ability when I became human. Nevertheless, it's an ability I cannot use every day.

<Elemental Manipulation> is obviously as it sounds. Though, as of the moment, the only elements I could control completely are fire and wood (forest elements). This ability is also an inheritance from my father, so basically, it's innate. Maybe, the reason why I have this even in my situation, just like <Herculean Strength>, is because it's innate. So, dragonian or not, I will still have these magic abilities. The only difference is that, <Elemental Manipulation> is a complete magic, not a downgraded one.

I stopped my tracks few meters away from his left side and took out Siguigaran. Jumping towards my opponent, attempting to use <Sword Slash>, I attacked him. However, in a split second, before my sword could hit his neck, he managed to block it with his sword. Just like that, I summersaulted mid air because of the impact. His sword moved and immediately stopped its down momentum and slashed me mid air, which I was able to avoid by jumping with his sword as my platform, matching my jump and the slash of his sword.

He's really tough, I thought. Despite my surprise attacks using my <Side Step> and <Shadow Step> which is probably unnoticeable at all, he evaded and even counter attacked.

He's truly worthy to be the first victim of Siguigaran.

I raised my sword and now poured my aura on it. In the background I could hear the crowd shouting and I could see Belial's stance. It was still Battoujutsu-like, but something's different. I could see aura gathering on his sword.

Did he develop another type of attack with our few exchanges? Terrifying. I was smirking while thinking of that, in anticipation and excitement of what would he do before me.

I respect him. And because of that respect, I started my own attack. It's the first time I would be able to use it with a human as an opponent. Heck, I've never even used it in anybody before. The trees in Dragonia were the only ones who had fallen prey to this sword.

Siguigaran. A sword especially built for me. I don't know about humans but for us Dragonian Royalties we have are own unique weapon that would protect us forever. It's like an extension of our life.

In our palace, there's a place called Sacred Weaponry. It's unmanned. There's no one living there. Actually, no one could ever live there. A room with its own dimension, a sea of flames. Hell itself. However, once a new dragonian royalty is born, this room will automatically produce the life weapon of the said baby. But the time when it will be delivered to the babe is unpredictable. Sometimes, it's in the fourth birthday (like my Mother), sometimes it's the moment the babe is born (like my father). In my case, it was when I was a few months old. And it wasn't delivered at all. The moment I was able to crawl, I crawled myself inside the Sacred Weaponry and brought it out myself.

Siguigaran was also the reason why I was named Hell. Because, well, I survived the Hell out of it. I went out from that room without scratches and all. In my case, if I could remember correctly, I just felt that something was calling me inside it and so I entered. And when I entered, there was no sea of flames but a stand, and leaning against that stand is Siguigaran. Curious, I rolled it (since I was still unable to grasp), and got out of the room safely. And when I turned around to close, it was the time I saw those sea of flames.

Embarrassing, but I did pee myself after seeing those sea of flames.

Siguigaran had four unique magic abilities. The spells are <Sumaran> which means soul purging, <Suiguinarugan> which governs physical death, <Sumpoy> which sucks out life force, and <Paiburong> that can imprison souls.

Yeah, mainly, it's a sword of death.

As I poured my aura into the sword, I was mentally activating the sword spell <Sumpoy>. It's the safest spell this sword has. It sucks the aura of the opponent just by clashing swords. It's a slow effect magic but to opponents who have monstrous aura reserves, its effect will be monstrous as well. The aura it sucks is exponential with respect to the reserves of the opponent. If they have small reserves, it would suck small. If they have plenty of reserves, then it would suck out plenty.

However, I still have to be careful in using Sumpoy because the previous explanation is the effect if I use a fourth of its spell formation. If I use the complete formation, it would suck not only the aura of every living being in this arena but their life force at best.

<Life Force> is different from aura. Aura strengthens and is use to produce magic, but life force gives life. It's like you can run out of mana and replenish it through meditating or capturing the aura of nature. However, life force controls the death of the consciousness of living being. Once it runs out, your soul might still be alive, your body is very well alive, your mind is constantly running like always, but you won't be able to wake up. You'll be in a coma or something along the lines.

After the spell was activated, I stopped pouring my aura on it. It immediately sucked out Belial's aura. Not noticing the feat, he immediately attacked me with a slash. It was indeed a new technique.

A slight shift of aura onto the tip of his already large sword, making it heavier and hard to block. It's line of direction was very slow compared to his previous attacks, to the point that I could read his incoming moves completely. However, I could not evade by retreating backwards as I am already against the walls separating the main arena to the audience. Evading by passing through him is also not a plausible. Who would do that when it's obviously what the opponent wanted me to do?

The sides are also not plausible. There's a very big possibility that he purposely slowed his swings, and then if I jumped away from it sideways, it would increase in speed. I could use Shadow Step and Side Step, but I chose not to.

Belial was a battle maniac. He moves through instincts. Showing him those moves again might result to another on-the-spot technique that could counter attack it. It's too risky.

There's also no way I could block it by sword.

Normally that is. Unfortunately, Siguigaran was never normal.

"Are you underestimating me?" I whispered a question without expecting an answer.

I received his blow by blocking it with Siguigaran. The impact had thrown my whole body flying in which I managed to land in fours.

"Your sword… it's not broken."

I smirked with his remark. So that was what he was aiming for in that kind of route?

"Of course. It is my sword, you know." I said. I casted a magic circle on the ground beneath my feet. A light blue magic circle. It's an elemental wind magic only the level of elementary since my compatibility with the wind element is worse. I can't control it, even if it's this low level. However, it was just perfect.

I activated the spell then from where the spell was formed, I felt a hug torrent coming from it. The next thing I knew, I was flying because of the burst of wind from the spell formation. Not normally 'flying'. With the impact, my speed doubled.

Attacking Belial who got ready for my speedy attack, I slashed Siguigaran. Our swords did not meet in the end. I made a few adjustments so that his sword won't hit mine so as not to hinder me from slashing him.

When I came into, I landed behind him. I immediately looked at him and saw he was kneeling on the floor, gripping his right shoulder where I hit it with the back of my sword. His huge sword was on the ground. Apparently, he was right handed.

"H-how?"

He seems not to understand what happened.

Indeed, even with my minor adjustment, he should be able to block and counter attack with that level. However, he could now feel the effect of Sumpoy.

"Apart from the fact that you are unconsciously equipping your sword with aura, which was very sloppy by the way, I've been sucking out a large amount of aura from you since the beginning of round two, y'know. Thanks to this." I showed him Siguigaran.

"Sucking? Aura? Do you mean Mana?" He said. "So that was it. The uncomfortable feeling, I felt during our exchange of blows."

I shrugged.

"Well, it's the end, Belial. What are your last words?"

"…"

"Nothing, eh?" I looked at him trying to concentrate whether he was planning something with this reaction. But there was no abnormality. I guess, that just suit him. "Okay, so feel free to witness the power of your own aura."

"… It's Mana."

In the end, those words were his last words when he was engulfed with a 'friendly' fire I casted using his aura – which was commonly called Mana by humans. The whole arena was engulfed with that fire.

It marked the end of the seventh Match.

---

3 days later

I was at the center of a forest, closing my eyes, trying to concentrate. There were five people attacking me. Three of them had swords, one of them had a bow and arrows, while the last one was the supporting mage.

The swordsmen attacked me all at the same time.

The swordsman on the left thrust his sword toward me, in which I evaded by moving my body sideways. The other one attacking my back slashed me from right to left but before his strike landed I kicked his stomach that sent him flying towards the previous guy. They both stumbled on the ground.

The supporting mage immediately ran toward them and healed the two of them, however, I did not let him do it. I fired a lightning bullet from my left gun which stunned the support mage. Noticing the arrow aimed at me, I fired a wind bullet from the same gun. The guy with the arrow immediately ran and hid on the bushes. So his technique was sniping, huh? Even though he had bow as his weapon.

However, I can't let him get away. I activated the same elemental wind spell I used when I was battling Belial, and jumped towards the guy. I found him beneath the bushes, trying to camouflage himself in the surrounding forest with <Blending Magic> but I noticed him, kicked him on his crotch that made him unable.

That seriously hurts.

I reminisced the feeling when I still had my bestfriend down there.

Landing on a tree bark, I jumped again toward the last swordsman who had the same Battoujutsu-like stance as Belial. Drawing his sword from its scabbard with the speed of light, it slashed my direction. I managed to adjust by firing a continuous wind bullet on the ground that sent me flying upwards.

Seeing that the five of them gathered in the center with bird's eye view, I raised my right gun and immediately fire a wide-range area of effect spell. There was no bullet nor anything alike that came out from the gun. However, a gravity-like pressure stomped the five down, that resulted in them disintegrating on the spot.

I smiled with the result.

It's not like the right gun was useless just like I deduced from my match with Belial. There were just several things I needed to keep in check first.

And one of them is that these guns, the two of them, both can do wide-range area of effect magic with two types of magic elements each.

The left gun had lightning and air types of bullets.

While the right had light and darkness type of bullets. The thing that disintegrated my opponents were light pressure particles I fired.

Defeating the enemy, I finally opened my eyes.

What I saw was a certain circular area of the ground had been devoid of life due to the pressure of my right gun.

I landed perfectly at the center of it.

"As usual, that spell is really powerful… To disintegrate the opponent… that's overkill." Felix muttered while giving me a towel. "How many opponents did you imagined for today, hime?"

I drank a glass of water first, which was carried by Felix as well, then answered, "Five of them. They're all low level."

"Hm… I wonder why low level?" I shrugged. Well, in reality, if I start imagining my opponents as Van and Bel – level, I would certainly lose. No, I've imagined them being the opponents, and that was utter defeat. If it's one-vs-one, I could win, however, if it's multiple enemies, that'd be too dangerous. I stopped imagining because I'm getting insecure.

"Anyway, the effect was really devastating." I kneeled and touched the soil. Devoid of any nutrients, huh. I started casting a spell onto it. <Elemental Manipulation>. One of my elements is the wood element. Therefore, I could completely alter anything that concerns it. Basically, the forest is my den, and I could reproduce tress as much as I want by manipulating the roots of the surrounding trees and increasing the growth rate of the growing trees.

After a second, the circular brown land became lush with the newly growing trees.

I stood up and together with Felix we went back to the dorms.

When we arrived at the dorms, few people were waiting for us. There was Van, Bel, Zerxa, and a guy named Eliezer.

"You're late!" Zerxa was frowning while complaining. "The class is starting!"

I ignored her selfish complaints.

"By the way hime, have you given them names?" Felix asked. I looked at the two guns in their holster.

"Yeah."