The Academy’s Ankle Reaper – Chapter 174

Cindy kept pressuring me with various tools even after that.

She brought a ton of sticky grenades and tear gas, but all of it got countered.

I dodged all the sticky stuff and sent the tear gas flying with my sword.

Whatever she brought wouldn’t have been much different anyway.

The most dangerous thing would be locking me away in Tartarus, but if she used something like that in the exam, it wouldn’t just be a problem for the students.

Even after her tools ran out, Cindy and Hal tried several attempts to take me down, but it was all in vain.

Once I got into my groove, I weaved through the crowd, eliminating students left and right, and after slashing about eight times like I’d originally thought, most of the regular students had vanished.

The remaining students, who were somewhat skilled, couldn’t hold out for long either.

“This…!! This is just too much!! Did you really have to take everything from us to feel satisfied…?!”

In a last desperate move, Cindy lost her temper and shot an arrow, which I deflected with my sword.

“I’m just letting you have fun here. I could’ve ended this as soon as we started, but you saw how I held back, right? You should be thankful.”

“Of all the people to be grouped with… right?!”

Cindy kept trying hard till the end.

She used arrows and magic without holding back, constantly interrupting me while I hunted down the other students.

She really gave it her all.

“Still, you almost made it to the end, so your scores should still be high. Don’t be so mad.”

“That’s one thing, and this is another. It’s just frustrating…”

“Yeah, yeah.”

As I swung my longsword, even the look of frustration on Cindy’s face faded away.

“Let’s see… anyone left?”

I swept my gaze across the entire arena, wondering if anyone was hiding in the corners.

-BOOM!!!

Suddenly, another explosion echoed from the center.

It was where Lucia and Edgar were fighting.

As expected from the start, their battle was quite a spectacle.

Each technique they used came with loud noises and shockwaves.

But upon closer inspection, this time it was different.

Only one silhouette seemed to remain, meaning it looked like a decision had been made.

Lucia was the only one left in the center of the arena.

———————————-

Having been exposed to the heat of Lemnos and using big techniques in succession, Lucia appeared a bit tired.

Just in case, Atlas suggested.

“Since only two are left, should we get started? Or do you want to take a little break?”

“… No. Let’s do it right away.”

It seemed like my concern was unnecessary.

She raised her sword with hardly any signs of fatigue.

It looked like just reaching this final moment together made her happy.

“Alright then… as you wish.”

In response, Atlas raised his sword as well.

He didn’t wrap it in aura, and compared to the two-handed sword Lucia held, his looked quite small, but the pressure was more than that.

Just holding a sword made Lucia feel an overwhelming sense of pressure, making it hard for her to approach Atlas.

“Then let’s begin.”

“?!”

The Atlas that was right in front of her suddenly vanished.

Lucia didn’t even try to find Atlas; instead, she slammed her sword, charged with aura, down onto the ground.

“Rockfall…!”

Shockwaves reverberated from where she struck.

Using the simple movement of her technique, Rockfall, which could attack in all directions, she aimed to catch Atlas, who was out of sight.

-BOOM!!

“Scary…!”

Atlas, who had vanished from right in front of Lucia, suddenly fell from the sky.

It seems he had shot up into the air above her.

“Hah!!”

The distance he fell was just the right distance for Lucia.

It was a rare moment where Atlas was completely defenseless.

Not wanting to miss this chance, Lucia charged forward, attempting a series of attacks.

The massive two-handed sword sliced through the air with a terrifying sound.

Every swing seemed to rip the surrounding air apart.

Russell’s sword pinned down the opponent.

With such a wide reach, she pressed down with its weight.

Dodging Lucia’s attacks, Atlas moved back.

Lucia’s strike just went by the spot where he had fallen moments ago, leaving marks as if a giant three times his size had attacked.

Seeing Lucia relentlessly chasing after him, Atlas seemed to experience a strange emotion.

He smiled, but his expression appeared somewhat uncomfortable.

“I got… you!!!”

Atlas, who had been retreating, soon hit the wall behind him.

With nowhere else to go, he raised his sword to parry Lucia’s attack.

-BOOM!!

Instead of the sound of metal clashing, a dull thud echoed.

The swords never actually made contact.

Lucia’s Aura Blade generated a space where visibility was obscured, making Atlas’s sword suspended in mid-air.

They collided with the force generated by the aura around the two-handed sword.

Now that his sword was entangled in the aura, Lucia attempted to lift Atlas up.

“Ugh… heavy…?!”

Lucia couldn’t lift him.

Russell’s secret, with the mechanics of senior post-graduate training, lay within his heavy sword.

It wasn’t a metaphor; by harnessing the surrounding space, just one swing could devastate the field.

Still, Atlas was blocking Lucia’s heavy sword as if it meant nothing, trying to lift it.

Even Edgar had been swung about by Lucia’s sword and was sent flying numerous times in the atmosphere, yet Atlas didn’t budge.

He wasn’t unaffected by the aura.

Even now, under the aura’s influence, Atlas wore a grin while keeping his sword at a standoff.

Yeah, it was as if he was stuck to the ground like Lucia did with her meridian.

“How… are you doing that?”

“How am I doing it? I’m just doing it.”

-CLANG!!

Atlas, nonchalant as ever, slipped under Lucia’s sword, which he had crossed, closing in toward her.

The much longer sword made it disadvantageous for him as the distance narrowed.

But backing away would mean falling into Atlas’s plan.

So instead, Lucia pressed forward.

“Hah!!”

-BOOM!!

She slammed the ground with all her might.

As shockwaves erupted, the floor shattered, causing Atlas’s body to float and retreat backward.

“Just now… that was Russell’s swordsmanship… how…?”

Drawing power from the ground beneath and moving without any displacement, it was certainly the fundamental technique of Russell’s Vision Swordsmanship that Lucia had learned since she was a child.

Upon hearing Lucia’s words, Atlas paused, seeming to contemplate for a moment, then smiled widely.

“I guess you could think that. If I win, I’ll tell you how.”

“… It’s a promise.”

“Yeah.”

Lucia once again gathered strength from the meridian.

The space around her Aura Blade warped into a circle, gathering a tremendous amount of power.

She had never unleashed her full strength while sparring with Atlas before.

Lucia’s techniques had such an immense impact that they drew everyone’s attention.

The academy facilities could have been destroyed.

That’s why she always lived by holding back her strength.

With an unusually tall stature for a girl and her innate brute strength, all of this supported Lucia to master Russell’s greatsword.

As a girl, Lucia disliked her large stature and enormous strength, but as Russell’s heir, having swung a sword her entire life, she learned to accept these two things as her foundational elements.

Disliking yet liking them.

This contradiction was a deep-rooted pain in Lucia’s heart.

Not being able to organize her feelings, Lucia swung her sword.

The sword would encapsulate her heart.

It was the sword she devoted her entire life to honing.

It was the clearest means to express her current self.

Lucia believed that Atlas would surely understand her true intentions, her entire essence.

“World-shaking punch!!”

A strike of rock that shook the heavens fell upon Atlas.

Earlier, she hadn’t been able to demonstrate its true power due to Lemnos’s urgency, but now she unleashed it properly.

This was Lucia’s best and greatest technique she could execute at this moment.

Once again, a loud explosion reverberated through the center of the arena as dust soared high into the sky.

Everything shook even more fiercely than before as the arena trembled from the massive impact.

The arena floor cracked.

The previously protected ground of the arena shattered, causing the spectator seats to shake.

Those in the audience witnessing Russell’s technique shake the entire arena wondered if even Atlas, no matter who he was, could withstand that attack head-on.

However, Lucia’s thoughts after using her technique were different.

‘I stopped it…’

The feeling under her hand was different.

Lucia’s sword couldn’t strike the ground.

It was clearly blocked, and it was still holding strong.

Amidst the rising dust, a white light flickered.

The light belonged to the Aura Blade emanating from Atlas.

Atlas, with one hand, had taken upon himself Lucia’s ultimate strike.

“… Pretty….”

Even with all the thick dust around, Atlas’s Aura Blade shining brilliantly struck her as beautiful.

And then her sight shifted.

Just a moment ago, she was in the arena, and now she was back in the waiting room.

Surrounded by students who had just been in the arena, staring in shock at Lucia.

Once she grasped the situation, Lucia felt her legs go weak, collapsing onto the ground.

“… I lost.”

She hadn’t even seen the last attack from Atlas.

It seemed she had ultimately been defeated.

Although it was frustrating, there was a somehow relieving feeling in her heart.

——————————

“… Was that a bit too much?”

Atlas stood alone in the arena, reflecting on the sparring match from just a moment ago.

Managing power control was quite difficult.

It wouldn’t do to finish too quickly, but neither could he hold back too much.

He managed to maintain that delicate balance.

‘Lucia may hate it, but… I envy her height.’

Russell and Titan’s swordsmanship share a common foundation.

Both families, holding territories across the Blade Mountain, are quite close.

The prerequisites for mastering the Vision Swordsmanship passed down in both families were similar as well.

Seeing Lucia skillfully use the stone sword brought back memories of when he learned swordplay from his father.

-The final victor is Atlas Nemea!!

As the dust cleared and it became apparent that he was the only one left in the arena, his name appeared on the scoreboard.

“Well done, everyone!”

“Yeah!!”

They applauded him, which was rare.

A few spectators in the stands seemed displeased that he remained, but none dared to openly jeer at him.

Probably because he was glaring at each of them one by one.

Well, regardless, this concluded my final skill test.

It signifies that one semester is now over, but what I need to do is just beginning.