Dark Magus Returns

Chapter 1453: The Measured Victory

The crowd’s naivety was beginning to fade. One win could be brushed off as luck. Two wins might have hinted that Wilton Academy had a hidden strength they hadn’t shown before. But three victories, three matches in which Wilton students had come out on top against all odds, was impossible to ignore.

Now, with yet another Wilton Academy student stepping onto the stage, the audience’s thoughts had shifted completely. Most of them believed Wilton was going to take this fight as well. The only question lingering in their minds was how. How would this student manage to secure yet another win?

"Let the match... begin!" the announcer called, his voice ringing through the arena.

The opposing student wasted no time. Quick on their feet, they immediately launched an attack, sharp bursts of wind magic cutting through the air toward Raze at high speed.

Good, Raze thought, his eyes narrowing in appraisal. The student’s making the right call. They don’t know what I’m capable of yet, so they’re testing me with a fast, direct strike. Even if it doesn’t land, it’s the best way to gauge my reaction. It seems their academy has been teaching them well.

Just as the wind blades reached striking distance, Raze moved. With a sweep of his arms, he conjured his own wind magic. The two attacks collided midair with a dull whump, and then vanished into nothingness, dispersing harmlessly.

But his opponent didn’t falter. In the same breath, they activated something new. A small, circular item floated above their head, spinning faintly, and from it, a stream of deadly ice spears began launching straight toward Raze in rapid succession.

Seeing this, Raze’s expression shifted slightly. He raised his hands, drawing on the earth beneath him. A thick wall of stone surged upward, intercepting the barrage. The ice spears struck hard, lodging deep into the wall’s surface with a series of dull cracks.

Interesting, Raze mused. That item... it lets them prepare magic circle formations in advance. It’s almost like activating a formation in real-time, but powered by their own ice-attribute mana. Clever, and dangerous.

The crowd reacted in mixed fashion. Some spectators groaned in disapproval at the use of an item, muttering about fairness. Others leaned forward in intrigue, impressed by the quick thinking and adaptability. The student, however, wasn’t concerned with what anyone thought. They were here to win, and they had every intention of doing so.

Chanting again, the student cast their own earth magic. The ground trembled as a jagged fissure ripped through the stone wall Raze had raised, splitting it clean in two. Through the gap, the ice spears kept flying, their pace relentless.

This time, Raze didn’t simply block. He extended both hands, flicking his wrists in swift, precise motions. His own ice magic formed in an instant, razor-sharp shards materializing before him and shooting forward. Each one struck the incoming spears head-on, their tips colliding with pinpoint accuracy, shattering them mid-flight before they could reach him.

When the two attacks collided, they dissolved instantly, fading away into nothing but stray particles of mana. That was when Raze finally began to move forward.

As he advanced, he mirrored whatever his opponent did, matching their magic in both type and intensity. Earth spells, fire spells, ice spells, and wind spells, he conjured them all, replicating the student’s output perfectly.

Step by step, spell by spell, Raze closed the distance between them. Each exchange brought him closer, his measured pace never breaking, his focus unwavering. Then, once he was close enough, he brought both hands together in a single, decisive motion.

A sudden whirlwind burst forth from his palms, slamming into the student’s stomach. The violent gust twisted them upward, spinning them through the air, and then, almost as if the wind itself were alive, it drove them back down, slamming their body into the arena floor with crushing force.

The match was over.

I hope the student managed to get some worthwhile combat experience out of that, Raze thought as he lowered his hands. It was good to see him use whatever he could and think creatively about the situation. I could have ended the fight much earlier, in a dominant fashion... but I could tell how hard you’d worked for this moment. You trained with everything you had, so I wanted to give you the chance to show it to everyone on the stage.

The second Wilton match concluded, but the reaction from the crowd was muted. It wasn’t that the fight had been bad, far from it, but compared to the earlier matches, it lacked spectacle. There was no flashy affinity, no rare trait, no awe-inspiring display like the magic swordsman had shown. It had ended too cleanly, too simply.

Perhaps, after everything they had seen so far, the audience’s expectations had climbed a little too high.

Regardless, the results were undeniable, both Wilton students had won their matches.

The tournament moved on to the next pairing: the second BIMM student versus another academy’s representative. This fight, too, lacked the unique traits or overwhelming abilities that could captivate the audience, but it still showcased a wide variety of magic. The steady back-and-forth, the clash of top-level spells, kept the crowd entertained.

It was evenly matched until the very end, but the BIMM student ultimately claimed victory. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Lee Roy advancing, but another member of their academy. From watching the bout, however, it was clear to most that this fighter was far weaker than Lee Roy.

Finally, the last match of the second round was set to begin. The name called drew the crowd’s attention immediately, Kayzel’s turn had come.

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