The Clash II

Seth stood up from the ground and dusted his clothes, ignoring the words of the reaper.

"You probably forgot but the moment you removed the first seal and I could use mana, the seal was as good as gone." The reaper informed Seth who continued to ignore him.

"I didn't forget." Seth raised his head to look at the reaper.

"What!?" The reaper who wanted to shock Seth ended up being shocked.

'Had this kid calculated so far into the battle?'

"If I had removed them all immediately, you would've dealt with me before I could remove my restrictions too. I had to do it slowly and thanks to you being slow, I managed to remove the second seal while you were rambling on and on."

The Reaper's eyes darted around Seth's neck, looking for the necklace on his neck but he found nothing.

Seth raised his hand showing the necklace to the reaper. "It's here." Seth answered.

Although he had removed the seal, his mana didn't spike up like before but the reaper, his opponent could definitely notice the drastic rise.

Cold beads of sweat gathered around his neck but he remained firm. He would see to the end of his mission. "I suppose we'll have to end this quickly. The principal would sense your aura if you fail to kill me within two minutes."

Only now did it dawn on the reaper why this boy didn't let his aura run wild. The principal would pick up on it soon.

With gritted teeth, the reaper cast the first real spell for someone his level. "Blazing Tornado."

A flaming tornado kicked up from the floor and quickly rose to five meters tall and two meters wide, raising the temperature of the whole room.

As it spun violently and headed toward Seth, it left burnt marks on the hardened floor.

"Phew… What's with you and flames? I thought you were supposed to be a concealing killer?" Seth asked, raising his hand to cast his spell.

"Frost bombs." Seth's spell left his mouth and a new set of twenty balls formed around him. They were all one foot in diameter and had a crystalline outline. They glittered as they contained frozen particles within. One that would go on to freeze everything once the bomb exploded.

Immediately they finished forming, they shot forward, colliding with the flaming tornado that was coming Seth's way.

One by one, they exploded, freezing parts of the tornado as it became smaller after each explosion. After the fifteenth explosion, the tornado had almost vanished.

"You have a very annoying fiery character. You need to chill out a bit." Immediately Seth's word ended, the remaining frost bombs shot toward the reaper, catching him off guard.

Before he could cast a spell to counter the bombs now within a meter radius, all five collided forcing out a deafening explosion.

Booooom!!

The ice particles within covered the reaper, dropping his temperature drastically.

"That's better." Seth smiled.

A vein popped up on the forehead o the reaper. Never in his life had he been humiliated this much, nonetheless by a child.

His specialties were fire and wind so most of his spells were firebased. Such spells were used in open fights such as this while he would only use wind magic for assassinations. Wind magic served as speed boosters, smell concealers, and a variety of other purposes so it was great.

"I'll admit, I forgot I was an assassin before a mage." The reaper pulled out a dagger from his shoe. He was still in his form as Karl.

"Why not revert to your original shape?" Seth asked. The principal had been too lazy to undo it.

"You might get to see it just before you die." The reaper vanished from Seth's sight.

He has used up one minute and had one more to kill Seth before he was detected by someone powerful.

"You're running out of time." Seth pulled out a dagger from his uniform. Due to Raiden, Seth never walked without one.

Chiiinnng~

The sound of iron scraping against iron rang out as Seth turned to his right to parry the reaper's strike which came down as a slash aiming for the left part of his chest.

"You can do better than that." Seth cheered for his opponent.

"Crazy little bastard!" The reaper grew angrier being praised by his target.

"How are you so strong for a fourteen-year-old?" The reaper asked Seth.

Clang!

Their daggers clashed again.

"I just trained," Seth answered nonchalantly after blocking the reaper's second attack.

"I hate geniuses like you who look down on others the most." The reaper said, moving his sword from his right hand to his left hand.

'Oh, boy~... Rare but troublesome bastards.' Seth felt a brief ache in his head.

Left-handed swordsmen were very rare but were considered talented. It was believed that almost any average left-handed swordsman would beat an average right-handed one.

"Well, I hate annoying assassins like you the most."

"Your time is almost up so I suggest you do your best." Seth warned the reaper.

The reaper didn't seem to need any earning as Seth could see him gathering all his mana into two places. His legs and the tip of his dagger.

He was imbuing wind magic in both places with all the mana he could gather. Wind magic in his legs to boost his speed and on his dagger's tip to increase the penetration power.

"I'll end this quickly."

Seth decided to get serious too. Mana gathered around his palm and coursed through his dagger.

"Come at me with all you've got since you'll either die after this or tell me who sent you," Seth replied with an expression that showed how serious he was.

"Then you can die!" The reaper said and disappeared.

With speed barely discernible to any student, the reaper launched himself at Seth.

Seth calmly saw this and sighed. He then went ahead to perform something that he hadn't done in a long time.

One that would leave every mage dumbfounded if they saw what he did.

He raised a finger and began writing strange words in the air.

At first, the reaper thought Seth was being stupid but he soon saw something brighten. Strange words were being inscribed in the air as it left him in a daze but he couldn't back out now even if his intuition was screaming for him to retreat. If he missed this chance, the principal would get to him and he wouldn't have killed Seth by then.

"Armored Shield." Seth spoke out and the words transformed into something like a shield.

Seth couldn't afford to use his mana since that would draw the attention of the principal so he could only apply this method. Using the mana in the surrounding, through rune inscription, Seth cast a spell that would only require a small amount of his mana to write the rune and would rely entirely on the surrounding mana to sustain the spell.

The shield appeared before Seth, standing between him and the reaper, looking both corporeal and incorporeal.

With all the mana the reaper could gather, he stroked the shield.

Boom!

The explosion sent waves through the room.