Examination End [I]
Samael's plan should have been simple.
Avoid getting close to Alexia and attack from a distance.
But surprisingly, he did the exact opposite.
The golden-haired boy rushed toward the blind girl.
Alexia raised an eyebrow in surprise.
She had fully expected him to keep his distance, yet here he was, approaching her directly.
She knew he was arrogant, but she expected more intelligence from him.
Regardless, as soon as he got close, Alexia lunged forward herself. She straightened her palm like a sword and thrust it toward his shoulder.
Samael countered by sidestepping and driving his knee into her gut.
The blind girl caught the blow with her other claw-like hand and redirected her outstretched palm to strike Samael's neck.
However, the golden-haired boy disengaged by jumping back. He landed low and touched the ground.
Alexia braced herself for his ability, but nothing happened. No stone spike shot toward her, the ground beneath her didn't soften, and no wall erupted before her.
Momentarily confused, she soon watched as Samael started moving again. In a burst of speed, he circled around her, trying to attack from a different angle.
But Alexia was quick to react. She turned and blocked his kick from the left before he jumped back, circling her once more to initiate another attack from yet another angle.
'So this is his strategy? Attack and disengage?' Alexia thought inwardly.
Unfortunately for him, he wasn't fast enough to pull it off.
Alexia easily evaded his attacks.
If it was absolutely necessary, she would even block them.
However, she couldn't pin down Samael long enough to hit his pressure points.
He was continuously moving and shifting his body, making it difficult for her to aim precisely.
Did he know what she was doing?
Certainly not. He shouldn't have been able to figure out her martial technique so quickly — that was impossible.
Yet, given his movements, it seemed he did.
'Fine then,' Alexia grinned as she dodged a knee strike aimed at her face.
She then moved behind the golden-haired boy while he was in mid-air and grabbed the back of his collar.
Channeling her aura into her arm to enhance her strength, she spun around and hurled Samael away like a ragdoll.
That, however, wasn't enough to bring him down. Samael flipped before hitting the ground, landing masterfully on his feet.
But by then, Alexia was already in his face.
"Ah!" Samael, startled by her speed, flinched back in surprise.
Alexia seized that moment to move to his side and unleashed a flurry of loose punches beneath his left arm.
Instantly, Samael lost all feeling in his left hand. He couldn't move anything below his shoulder.
For someone like him, whose power depended on physical contact with his target, that sensation was almost terrifying.
Almost.
But unlike Michael, or any other sane person, Samael was never scared.
He kept his head calm and moved with calculated composure.
His right hand was still functional and encased in a massive concrete gauntlet. He was certain Alexia wouldn't be able to target his right arm's pressure points because of that.
And just as he predicted, the blind girl whirled around him like wind, completely ignoring his only remaining good arm and striking low at his right leg instead.
But Samael had anticipated this.
Reading her movement, he brought his concrete-clad fist down on the petite girl, fully intending to crush her where she stood.
But yet again, Alexia proved too quick for him to hit.
By the time his fist struck the ground, hollowing out a crater on the spot, Alexia had already moved behind him to target his other leg.
The young Theosbane pivoted sharply, tracking the petite girl. Before she could paralyze another one of his limbs, he swung his massive fist toward her head.
And she dodged it again, letting his punch crack open another spot in the ground.
Samael, sensing trouble, tried to retreat. But when he jumped back, Alexia followed him like a predator on the hunt.
"So annoying!" Samael cursed as he tried to hit the blind girl again, but she slipped away just in time... again!
He understood what she was doing.
Alexia was using his own tactic against him — using her superior speed to attack and disengage.
Only in her case, it was working because Samael was far too slow compared to her.
He couldn't get a hold of her.
Alexia stayed low and struck lower. By the time Samael brought his heavy gauntlet down, she was already gone.
His fist hit nothing but ground, cracking it each time on different spots.
He tried to retreat and put a safe distance between them, but she refused to let him escape.
Alexia knew sooner or later Samael would get frustrated and make a mistake. Either that, or he'd discard his heavy gauntlet to try matching her speed.
In either case, she would win.
The result of this fight was already decided.
And just as she thought, Samael made a mistake.
He left his chest too open after a missed attack.
His left arm wasn't working, and he swung wide with his right.
There weren't any pressure points there she could exploit, but she could definitely land a powerful hit.
She channeled as much aura as she could in a split second, and struck Samael right in his chest with a brutal punch.
But that alone wasn't enough.
As Samael staggered in pain from the impact, she followed up with a fierce uppercut to his chin that knocked him back several meters.
He hit the ground hard and skidded to a stop. For a moment, his vision went black and he couldn't breathe.
But he forced air into his lungs, gasping roughly, and struggled to push himself to one knee.
Alexia was already walking toward him in a slow, deliberate manner like she had already won.
However, Samael couldn't let her get close. He discarded his concrete gauntlet and slammed his palm into the ground.
In response, the ground split open right in front of him.
Alexia, reacting fast, jumped back in alarm.
"Resorting to cheap tricks now?" she laughed. "You are so predictable. How disappointing. I expected more from the great young lord Samael."
Samael coughed several times and looked up. His voice came out ragged and strained when he spoke in a bitter tone, "You sound like my father."
Alexia stared at him in silence for a moment before bursting into uncontrollable laughter.
After a beat, she calmed herself down and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, "Yeah, I sound like my father, too. But still, was this really your best effort?"
Samael kept his hand pressed to the ground as confusion spread across his face. "What do you mean? I defeated you. Isn't that enough?"
"...What? No you didn't?" Alexia frowned. "On the contrary, you've lost. You're in no condition to dodge my next move. It's over. Did I hit your head too hard?"
The golden-haired boy chuckled softly. He then gestured vaguely at the ground around her.
"Look around yourself, Lady Alexia," he said, then immediately laughed as if he had told a very funny joke. "Oh, wait. I guess you can't. Fine. I'll paint you a picture of your surroundings. There are giant craters all around you in a circle. They are the spots I targeted while dodging your attacks. With just one command, I'll split open the ground under you and you'll fall into the lava. As I said, I defeated you."
Alexia's eyes widened. She could sense anything with an aura within a certain range around her... but inanimate objects didn't have aura!
She had been able to sense the incoming spikes and attacks due to the disturbance in her own aura field.
But she couldn't possibly have noticed the cracked ground around her.
A chilling sensation of dread grasped her heart. In that moment, she felt what she had not felt in a long time – the crippling disadvantage of her blindness.
Quickly shaking off that thought, she tried to move back from her spot before Samael had even finished speaking.
However, she suddenly found herself unable to.
The ground had reached up around her legs and shackled her feet, rooting her in place!
She acted instantly, frantically pulling her leg up with all her strength.
She managed to free one of her legs... but it was already too late.
A sinking feeling hit her gut as she understood her mistake.
Samael! That guy! He had revealed his plan to her because he needed time to shackle her in place. He knew she was fast enough to avoid falling if the ground under her cracked open.
Now, though, with one leg still stuck, there wasn't enough time.
A deep line of fissure cracked around her, joining each crater Samael had so carefully dug out, until the very earth under her feet crumbled.
In the next moment, she found herself in free fall – plummeting into a pit that felt like a furnace.
When the heat became suffocating, all her orbs shattered together. But before she was burned by the lava, someone — a staff member probably — swooped in and whisked her out of the grounds.
Just like that, Alexia Von Zynx was eliminated from the evaluation exam.