The Strongest Student of the Weakest Academy-Chapter 477: The Heavens Shall Fall (XVIII)

"Vine Field!"

Emyria suddenly pressed both palms flat against the air in front of her.

Rustle...!!!

And suddenly, a dense interlocking structure of roots and compressed wood took shape over three full seconds while the platform vines held me back from closing the distance.

This created some kind of wall of creation authority that filled the space between us from floor to the upper limit of her reach.

When the wall was formed, she smirked coldly at me.

"So, what are you going to do about this now?" she flicked her long hair to the side.

Ignoring her words, I began to move along the edge of the platform, circling to the left while keeping my distance from it.

I was watching closely for a subtle point where her control might weaken at the edges.

Rustle...!

The vines beneath my boots shifted and tightened with every step I took, reacting to my position as if the entire surface were aware of me, forcing each movement to cost more effort than it should have.

Still, I continued carefully, finding the narrow stretches where the stone still showed through between thicker growth.

My attention stayed fixed on the wall, waiting for the moment she would transition into her next attack.

But unfortunately for me, it did not come from the wall.

The shift came from above.

The arena ceiling had never been high enough to ignore, and Emyria chose that moment to make use of it, gathering her authority into a point directly over my position before releasing it in a cascading mass.

THRUUUM!

The compressed organic material came down in a wide column, spreading far enough that there was no clean escape in a single motion.

"Fuuucck!!"

I moved as fast as I could and cleared most of it.

THUMP!

The trailing edge still caught me.

It slammed into my left shoulder and drove me sideways with enough force to send me crashing into the platform, the divine-treated stone beneath me fracturing on impact as cracks spread outward in a jagged web.

"Ughh!"

I caught myself on one hand before my face hit the ground, forcing myself back up immediately, only to find three vine clusters already tightening around my wrist before I had even fully risen.

Grip!

...Fwip!

Midnight moved in a short, sharp backhand cut, slicing through them cleanly, and I pushed to my feet, rolling my shoulder once to test it.

The joint held, though it protested the movement with a dull, lingering pain that I chose to ignore.

Rustle...!

She was already preparing something else as I got up.

Emyria stood at the center of the platform, having turned into her vine field, both arms raised, her golden eyes fixed on me intensely.

The authority around her no longer stayed contained beneath the surface; it spilled outward in visible waves, distorting the air with the pressure of sustained divine output.

The space around her shimmered faintly, as if the arena itself had begun to react to what she was forcing into it.

Creack...!

The platform groaned beneath us until it suddenly split apart.

This was not another controlled eruption of vines.

The stone itself gave way, a deep fracture tearing across the surface in a wide diagonal line as her authority forced its way up from below.

The platform separated into two uneven halves, one rising under her control while the other remained where it was, leaving a widening gap between us.

I did not hesitate.

Fwoop...!

I moved as the crack opened and jumped across before the distance grew too large, landing on the rising half while it was still within reach.

Rustle, grip!

The moment my boots touched down, the surface responded, fresh vines bursting up around my ankles with the speed of something that had been waiting for that exact moment.

"You’re faster than before," Emyria called across the gap, her voice steady despite the strain of what she was sustaining.

"You’re stronger than the last time I saw you fighting," I answered.

Her expression surprisingly changed at my words, as something between a smile and something colder appeared, and then disappeared as quickly as it came.

Swooooshhh!

She brought both arms down.

Thrruuuummm!!!

The elevated half of the platform dropped back toward level, and when the two sides slammed together again, the impact sent a shockwave through the entire structure.

The force traveled up through my legs and into my spine all at once, throwing off my balance for a brief but dangerous second while cracks raced outward from the point of reconnection and spread across the arena walls above us.

I did not look.

I regained my footing and moved immediately, because standing still after losing balance in front of her was the kind of mistake that only happened once.

Three vine clusters surged toward my torso from different directions at the same time.

Fwoosh!

I cut through the first two cleanly, then let the third strike land across my ribs rather than break my positioning to avoid it.

The impact hit with real force, enough to knock the breath out of me in a rough, involuntary sound.

"Kugh...!"

I kept moving.

A thin line of blood opened along my side where the strike had connected, running down from my ribs to my hip before dripping onto the pale stone below.

I noticed it, registered the damage, and pushed it aside for later.

Emyria noticed it as well.

And, for the first time since the match began, she closed the distance herself.

She was faster than I had accounted for.

Fwooosh!

Her leading hand thrust forward, forming a compact creation lance aimed directly at my throat.

There was almost no telegraph in the motion, only a tight, efficient strike meant to land before I could react.

Clang!

I brought Midnight up and deflected it downward, the blade catching the lance and driving it into the platform, where it embedded itself several inches deep with a sharp crack.

Her other hand followed immediately.

A flat strike aimed at my chest, wrapped in dense creation authority that hardened the air around her palm just before impact, turning the motion into something far heavier than it should have been.

It hit.

KOOOOOOOM!

I was driven back several steps, my heels grinding against the vine-covered stone as I felt the foreign authority trying to take hold at the point of contact, attempting to root itself inside me the same way her earlier attacks had.

I reacted without thinking, drawing on the Karma authority and pushing a thin thread of it through my chest at the exact point where her power had connected.

It was not a full release, only enough to disrupt the process, and her creation withered on contact, unable to establish itself.

She felt the interference immediately.

Her eyes sharpened.

"...What was that?"

"...."

"Was that your authority?"

I didn’t answer.

She studied me for a single second, her gaze sharp and analytical, taking in every detail she could in that brief window.

Then she stopped asking and attacked me.

The platform ceased to function as a stable surface and became something entirely under her control.

Every inch of space responded at once as vines surged upward from below, and lances formed from every direction she could reach.

The stone itself rose in compressed columns wherever her focus settled, the divine-treated material visibly straining under the pressure of sustained output that pushed beyond what the arena had been designed to endure.

This time, the walls did not merely echo the force.

CRACCKKK!

They cracked.

Long fractures split upward from the platform toward the observation tiers, the sound deep and strained, like something being forced to hold far more than it was built for.

Someone shouted from above.

It might have been Kael.

I did not spare the attention to confirm.

Fwoop, swish!

I kept moving, continuously, never allowing myself to stop for more than the time it took to clear the immediate threat.

Midnight worked in short, efficient arcs, cutting space open around me without trying to eliminate the source, because reaching her through the storm she had created would have required pushing through a field dense enough to make that approach questionable at best.

A lance caught my left forearm.

Splat!

"Tsk..."

The strike tore a clean line from wrist to elbow, blood spilling immediately and running down into my palm before dripping from my fingers.

I adjusted my grip on Midnight without slowing down, compensating for the damage, even as the trail of blood marked my path across the platform in a way I found quietly irritating.

Two more lances came from opposite sides at the same time.

Clunk!

I deflected one, but the other struck my right hip, spinning me halfway around before I caught myself.

She did not waste the opening.

Emyria stepped through the gap my movement had created, both hands driving forward as she gathered everything she had into a single, focused mass of creation authority between her palms.

The pressure of it was immediate, and she pushed it toward me with her full weight behind the strike.

There was no clean way to deflect it.

No angle that would redirect it without leaving me exposed.

No space to step aside, not with the vines constricting every possible path.

I looked at it as it came.

At Midnight in my right hand.

At the untouched hilt resting at my left hip.

...Fine.

My left hand moved.

Shing...!

I gripped the hilt of the Heavenly Swallowing Sword and drew it free, the blade sliding from its sheath with a quiet sound that still cut through the chaos around us.

Emyria’s gaze dropped to it.

Her attack did not slow, so I brought the Swallowing Sword up to meet it.

Fwip!