Chapter 34: Allen vs. Rudy, Rudy’s Foresight

Hardly had the words left his lips when the soil at Alan’s feet was violently upturned. Like a cannonball fired from a gun, he surged toward Rudy.

The literal "cannonballs" soon coiled before him.

It was a dense barrage of water spheres, each nearly a meter in diameter. Packed together in the air like blue balloons, they formed a wall of spherical bricks—and this was no mere thin partition. The casting of water ball magic continued, with the thickness of the wall steadily accumulating.

Alan smirked, his hand on his blade, his eyes narrowing. The wind seemed to quiet down significantly.

"Quite the display of power... but I won’t just be using the Sword God Style this time. I need to maintain high-speed momentum while slicing through these water spheres, and I need a wide enough attack range. The Twenty-Slash isn't enough. Then..."

"North God Style—Practical School—Constant Form, Second Style."

Debris exploded behind Alan’s heels. He kicked off, his body twisting in mid-air. As he spun, his blade swept a full circle around him. Just as he unleashed the fully charged strike, the wall of water spheres loomed right before him; he could even see the sunlight reflecting off the surface of the spheres.

Battle aura surged.

"Circle Heaven Slash!"

The aura coated his blade, making the light of the sword seem to stretch infinitely.

The water wall was sliced clean through, and Alan’s body burst forth from the gap!

He shattered another oncoming water sphere with a single swing, weaving through the gaps that had grown significantly wider. The spheres exploded around him one after another, their remnants flowing over the grass in turbulent waves.

Amidst the ripples, Alan stepped on the water and pressed forward, his speed increasing rather than waning.

He looked toward Rudy in the distance. The boy was firing water ball magic continuously from his palms, his body leaping and retreating rapidly like a bouncy balloon. It was a series of continuous "Air Breath" spells used to put distance between himself and Alan.

"No wonder the water balls were scattering; Rudy can’t aim properly while jumping... Leaping... Air Breath magic? Two casts per jump: one to create a reaction force against his own body to launch himself, and the second cast at his feet to dampen the impact and facilitate the next jump."

"But, it’s not fast enough..."

The inaccurate barrage of water balls could not stop Alan’s advance. His dynamic vision was pushed to its absolute limit. The spheres burst uselessly around him, turning the ground into a torrent, but he moved like a butterfly skimming across a lake, maintaining his momentum without a single stutter.

The distance between them had closed to fifty meters!

Rudy, seeing this, gritted his teeth.

"Water Fall! Ice Pillar!"

Alan instinctively sidestepped to dodge the ice pillar, only to realize no ice had formed at his feet. He looked up at Rudy.

The latter was surrounded by a massive, cylindrical flow of water that crashed down instantly! The immense volume of water saturated the ground, forming a shallow stream, and then a field of ice pillars suddenly appeared beneath his feet.

"Rock Cannon!"

Rudy flicked his wrist, firing a Rock Cannon compressed into the shape of a blade. With a crisp sound, he shaved the ice pillar into a flat shard suitable for standing, stepped onto it, raised his hand, and shouted at Alan.

"Rock Cannon!"

Alan veered to dodge, only to find that no Rock Cannon was fired. He looked up to see that Rudy had merely feigned the shout; in reality, he had used the Air Breath spell, leveraging the reverse inertia to slide the ice shard rapidly away across the water-logged grass.

It was more than twice as fast as using the air thrust alone.

Alan was dumbfounded.

"You can do that too?"

Suddenly, a Rock Cannon whistled toward him. Alan deflected it with his sword. The nascent core of Dragon Saint battle aura in his gut tightened and expanded, squeezing out a gushing stream that melted into the native battle aura coursing through his limbs.

He sliced through an oncoming ice spear, plowed through the water surface to create a high spray, and accelerated. The Rock Cannons slammed into the mud behind him, but they couldn't lock onto his position.

Battle aura surged wildly; Alan was moving so fast he was almost a blur!

Within a few breaths, the distance closed again—thirty meters!

Rudy, seeing that the Rock Cannons couldn't hit Alan, showed no panic. His eyes glinted with excitement as he shouted.

"Alan, watch closely! This is a combination spell!"

"Mud Swamp!"

As soon as the words were spoken, a flash of realization crossed Alan’s eyes.

As someone who had read the original novel, how could he overlook Rudy’s signature magic? However, the current Rudy shouldn't be able to cast a large-scale Mud Swamp instantly. In the novel, he had only used a two-meter diameter Mud Swamp during his fight against Paul at the end of his childhood.

Alan chuckled, swinging his blade toward his own feet. Using the wind pressure to part the soil that was rapidly turning into mud, he found solid ground, leaped high to clear the swamp's range, and sliced through an insidiously fired ice spear.

He landed on the ground five meters away.

One foot sank into the mud.

"?"

Alan looked at his legs trapped in the mire and glanced at Rudy in surprise.

Rudy had stopped his rapid retreat, shouting at Alan with excitement.

"My Water Ball and Water Fall spells weren't just for show! Look around you! This is a massive-range spell I prepared specifically for you!"

Alan shattered an ice spear that arrived with Rudy’s words, his eyes narrowing as he scanned his surroundings.

Below the hillside, the ground was already a quagmire.

Rudy couldn't cast a large-scale Mud Swamp instantly, but what if the conditions had been prepared in advance?

During the battle, the massive volume of water from the Water Cannons and Water Falls had completely saturated the hillside. Rudy had only needed a "trigger" to complete the large-scale Mud Swamp spell.

The entire bottom of the hill was now covered in sludge.

Alan remained silent, staring at his legs trapped in the swamp, while in the distance, Rudy suddenly released a barrage of massive ice spears into the surrounding area.

"However!"

Rudy crossed his arms and grinned.

"Even if you’re slowed down by the mud, I still can’t pose a real threat to you. My magic just gets sensed by your Sword God Style and cut away, right?"

Alan narrowed his eyes at him and smiled.

"And so?"

Rudy waved his hand, releasing a fireball that pulverized the surrounding water spears. Ice and fire collided, and, mixed with the thick water vapor from the hillside, they formed wisps of mist.

Rudy pointed at his own eyes.

"So I’m going to cloud your senses!"

He then bent down, touching the ground with both hands while keeping his gaze fixed on Alan. He chuckled, looking quite proud of himself.

"Intermediate magic—Geothermal! Combination magic—Dense Fog! Natives of this sword and magic world, feel the charm of physics!"

Alan felt heat radiating from deep within the mud. The swamp beneath the hill began to steam, and soon, the surroundings were blanketed in fog.

"Tch, so smug. He even shouted his inner thoughts out loud. Does he really think I don't understand him?"

He rolled his neck, raised his long blade, and aimed at the crouching figure in the mist—who was still touching the ground and becoming increasingly obscured—and asked with a smile.

"But with this magic, if you're killed while casting the geothermal effect, the spell will be interrupted, won't it?"

Rudy’s brow twitched violently.

"...What do you mean by that? Even if you could get over here, I could just cast magic and run away."

Alan moved his blade behind his ear, adopting a throwing stance, and looked at Rudy, enunciating each word clearly.

"The North God Style has a swordsmanship technique for throwing blades. If this were a fight to the death, the moment you crouched down, you would already be dead."