* * *

Through the ashen smoke, Lydon’s body soared into the air. Shards of the shattered ice shroud glittered and scattered along his path.

“Alas, when I fought Cadel again, I wanted to go all out against him. Why did this happen?”

A wistful face looked out over the desert, a mess of explosions, auras, and swords. As he reinforced his shattered barrier, waiting for the thick smoke to disperse, he soon saw the figure of a man.

It was Cadel, and he was looking straight up into the sky at Lydon, making sure the sun wasn’t blinding him. Lydon waved his hand lightly at him, and as if in anticipation, a fierce gust of wind swept down. It was a vicious attack, one that would leave a deep wound if it hit.

Instead of dodging, he faced the blast, and the barrier split with a sharp crack. A gust of wind grazed his cheek as it sliced through the barrier, but Lydon only smiled in amusement.

“But since we’ll be fighting as enemies like this…….”

Danger flickered in the red eyes that stared down at Cadel. His thumb traced the scar on his cheek, and Lydon’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m getting a little excited.”

Most of his mana was already gone. He’d eaten the herbs he’d taken from Cadel’s bag, but he’d been noticeably weaker since entering the temple.

So if he were to run head-on into Cadel at this point, he would definitely die. Even knowing that, Lydon was panting, drenched in the anticipation of battle.

“……Shall we have some fun?”

Lydon had no intention of killing Cadel, of course. If he did, Lumen, who had an exceptional talent for nagging, would make a fuss, and he wanted Cadel to live as long as possible.

However, if he enjoyed fighting with Cadel, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Lydon, who judged himself arbitrarily, began to gather the mana that had been exhausted.

Soon, countless ice crystals floated ahead of him. Lydon’s breath leaked out of his mouth in a rush of cold. The floating ice crystals tangled together, swelling in size and quickly taking shape.

An arching curve and a thin thread connecting two vertices. The solid ice crystals merged and took on the shape of a giant bow.

Lydon’s grip tightened, and as he raised his hand to the elastic string, an arrow, as long and thick as the bow, appeared from nowhere on the string.

The closely-pulled string was gradually angled, and Lydon, who had accurately aimed at the target, shouted with a broad smile.

“It’s an arrow of love, Cadel!”

An unbelievable echo was created by the flying arrow. Lumen, who was stepping backward to avoid Van’s attack, frowned at the sudden wind and cold.

It was obvious what was happening.

“I would have killed him without hesitation if I was dealing with Lydon.”

It was always that damn fairy. As Lumen squinted through the sandy wind that stung his face, Van’s aura stretched out as if it had been waiting.

Turning around to avoid the attack, Lumen immediately cut off the aura and quickly closed the distance with Van. In the midst of an aura attack that didn’t cover the top, bottom, left and right, he succeeded in approaching, and he cast his sword drawing technique.

[Swift Sword Dance]

Flashes of blue light were dizzyingly engraved on Van’s body wrapped in a dark red aura. He slipped and evaded the greatsword that had been swung aiming at his chest, and swabbed the slightly lifted sword.

Pushwoosh!

A sword energy, a beat too late, cut across the spot of light, followed by the grisly sound of tearing flesh. Lumen narrowed his eyes at the thick smell of blood.

‘……That smells like real blood.’

[Swift Sword Dance] was a technique that focused on ‘pain’ rather than killing. Instead of digging deeply into the target, the swordsman distracted his opponent with shallow wounds that spread across the body.

So, it was not a technique to kill Van from the beginning.

‘I’m getting tired of dealing with him.’

Whether the Van in front of him was fake or not, it was overly realistic.

If these were fakes, why did the trial have them deal with fakes that look like real things? What did she wish for he didn’t know, so Lumen just felt terrible.

Lumen looked back at Van, his entire body drenched in blood. As a berserker, Van fueled his strength with his own blood, and Lumen needed to strike the man before he could recover from the pain.

“Lu, men…….”

Lumen slammed the hilt of his sword into the back of Van’s neck as he jerked his head around to find Lumen. The unconscious body fell limply to the ground. Seeing that Van showed no sign of getting up, Lumen relaxed his shoulders.

“It’s kind of fake, seeing him go down so easily.”

He swiped at the inside of his dry mouth, then looked to Lydon. If Lydon was struggling, he had to join in.

However.

“……?”

To his horror, he found Lydon crashing into the middle of the desert when he should have been flying perfectly fine.

“That bastard is……!”

He had to snatch Lydon before Cadel’s attack could reach him. Rushing forward at high speed, Lumen spotted the drop-off just before Lydon hit the ground. He barely caught him. The weight of Lydon’s body gave him an overwhelming desire to pummel him, but he resisted with superhuman willpower.

Lumen dumped Lydon onto the sandy ground, which was pockmarked with potholes. He breathed harshly, bracing himself for a flying attack, but thankfully there was no sign of it.

“Haha…… That was super fun…….”

Lumen’s grim face flinched at the sound of the dying voice. For a man who had crashed with his wings intact, Lydon was in terrible shape. His face was a mess of unexplained cuts, his clothes charred and torn, and his skin tanned.

Lumen wasn’t exactly sympathetic. Lydon had said it himself. It was fun. It was simple karma.

Lydon met Lumen’s cold, almost icy gaze with a pleasant smile.

“I really like Cadel, Lumen.”

“I should have let you fall.”

Lumen glanced away quickly, displeasure evident on his face. He scanned the battlefield, blurred with sand and dust, but could barely make out what lay beyond.

“Where’s Leader? If your play was of any use, he’d be out of strength.”

“Cadel is over there.”

Lydon stretched out a limp hand and pointed somewhere, and Lumen’s mouth opened as he followed his fingertips.

In the slowly sinking sandy dust, something intermittently glowed in the sunlight.

At first glance, they appeared to be dense columns of ice, but upon closer inspection, each was a single, shapely arrow. Lydon chuckled softly as he stared at the ice arrows, half buried in the sand, drawing a tight circle.

“I locked him up, and it’ll take at least 10 minutes to thaw, assuming he doesn’t freeze to death in the meantime.”

Of course, Cadel will make it out alive!

Beside the cheerfully assertive Lydon, Lumen could only rub his throbbing temples. He hadn’t asked for that kind of restraint.

“……I guess I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”

He shouldn’t have expected Lydon to behave the way he did. Lumen would rather blame everything on himself.

‘But for now, we’ve managed to subdue them both. If we’re looking at a minimum of 10 minutes for Leader to get out, we’ll have to come up with a plan in that time…….’

But before Lumen could formulate a plausible plan, the desert began to vibrate. The sudden rumble seemed to shake not only the ground, but the very fabric of space, including the atmosphere and sky, and the feeling was not misplaced.

“The sky is……!”

Lumen and Lydon. The two men’s gazes turned to the crackling desert sky. Like the cracking of an egg’s shell, fragments of the sky were falling, revealing the inky darkness beyond.

The endless desert landscape was gone. Beyond the illusory fragments of heaven and earth, the interior of a dark temple was revealed.