Chapter 56: Iris resolution

Dialogue "sample"

Thoughts 'Sample'

Techniques [sample]

Author notes -sample-

Chapter 56

Iris resolution

The move looked similar to the 'wind blade', but instead of one blade made of wind, this technique creates three separate ones, making it much more difficult to avoid.

Given her injured leg, there was no guarantee to dodge the attack, so Iris decided that the best chance for survival was to counter one of the wind blades with her own attack.

'My sword alone will not be enough…I will have to use that…'

During the last six months of practice, she had managed to make some progress in order to make use of her fire affinity.

"Ahhhh!" Iris' blade erupted with crimson flames as she brought it down and collided with the assassin's wind magic.

Fire and wind clashed, creating a vortex of destruction that engulfed everything in the immediate surroundings.

Iris barely managed to get away before it was too late. She was still sent tumbling on the ground, and by the time she stood back again, her body was covered in cuts and bruises from getting caught in branches and rocks.

"I am surprised you could survive that." The assassin admitted. "Maybe you are less of a failure than what people say."

"Why don't you come closer? I'll show you what a failure I am!" Iris gripped her sword with force.

The assassin chuckled. "You think you can beat me if it comes to sword skills?... please, I have many more years of experience using this thing." She waved her magic sword. "But that's fine by me. I need to finish this quickly, anyways, otherwise, my boss will get mad."

She adopted a low posture before jumping into the air, she then hopped from one tree to another until she was right above Iris.

"Die!" She descended with her blade out, ready to impale the petite girl.

Iris wanted to smile but contained herself. Her oponent just did what she wanted. In a long-range fight, she had zero chance of winning. She may be able to avoid a few attacks but with no way to change to the offensive, the was no way to damage her enemy.

'But now…you are in my range!.' Iris thought.

She avoided the assassin's attack by pivoting around, using her only good leg, she then sent her own attack, a piercing stab to the assassin's neck.

"Ugg" The assassin barely dodged it, leaving a thin red mark on her neck.

"Not bad, but don't get cocky!" She imbued wind mana into the blade, greatly increasing the cutting power of the magical sword and also the range of the blade. Infusing your mana into the weapon was the most basic technique for the use of magical weapons.

Iris could also do this with her fire mana after a lot of practice. She imbued her fire mana and the magic sword became red before bursting into flames.

Their blades clashed over and over, creating small explosions with each clash as the elements collided and fought against each other.

The assassin was clearly looking more anxious as time passed and her decision to fight at close range was looking worse and worse.

"Tsk…how annoying. I have to admit that you have some skills with that sword. But, I will be the winner of this fight!."

She created a bit of space between them and turned around to run. Her plan was to gain some distance and bombard Iris with long-range attacks until she died.

But instead of despair, Iris's face only showed determination, for she had been waiting for this.

The flames on the blade gained intensity as she brought it to one side. She then made a stabbing motion, aiming at the assassin's back.

The assassin had assumed that Iris did not have a single long-range attack or even a medium-range one. So after gaining a bit of space, she felt safe enough to turn her back on her, and that was the last mistake she would ever make.

"Flame burst!" A line of crimson flames shoot out of Iris's sword and hit her enemy on her back.

"Ahhhh!" The assassin screamed in agony, as the flames from Iris's attack continued to incinerate her insides until the flames came from the other side.

This attack only had a few feet of range and could barely be counted as a mid-range attack, but nonetheless, it was Iris's most powerful attack, but the best part was that this was one technique that Iris created herself, with some orientation from Professor Garret.

'Since I cannot rely on manuals written by some others, I will need to create my own path.'

Iris stood there, looking at the fallen assassin for a moment before she too fell down.

"This is very exhausting. Unlike rank zero spells, this technique uses my own mana reserves. Is already a lot to use it once…I need to improve my reserves if I want to perfect this technique."

<><><><><>

Edward grunted as he stood back up.

"Iria?" He asked as he looked around.

"Here!" Iria waved her arms. She was sitting against a tree, some distance away.

"Uff…I thought we were done with that explosion…that guy is very dangerous. Maybe we should -"

"Fire lance!" A spear of fire went flying and landed right at Edward's feet, creating a small hole in the grassy floor and burning everything around it.

"Well…I was going to suggest that we hide and let Siegfried deal with this troublesome person, but…I don't think that will work now."

Edward looked in the direction that the spear came from and saw the dual wand wielding man from before, he was running at great speed toward him.

"Edward, we need to fight him together, there is no other choice!" Said Iria.

"Then, for our own good, I hope you have something stronger than a 'water ball'. You do, right?" Edward said with a hopeful tone.

"Wel…I have been focusing mostly on studying runes, you see…I was planning on mastering the other rank zero water spells next year." Iria gave a nervous laugh.

"Oh dear…we are in trouble." Said, Edward.