The magic knights surrounding them were a party comprising 5 people, with the leader being Tsukimi Astarte.
The same person whose hair had caught Akeru's fancy during the first and the only general meeting Akeru had attended during the entire span of time being stationed there.
Apart from her, there were 2 people from Aqua Deer and 2 people from Purple Orca.
Tsukimi was a third-class senior magic knight and the leader of the party.
After her, the next strongest person was from Purple Orca, who was a Fifth Class Senior Knight.
After him, the next strongest was also from Purple Orca.
It was none other than Rudra!
Rudra Moss.
The same person who was the first magic knight kicked in the balls by Akeru.
He was the same person who got rejected by Miko and was comforted by Takuma.
After him, the other two were from Aqua Deer, with prowess equivalent to first and second class intermediate Magic Knight, respectively.
Tsukimi and the Purple Orca guy were guarding the guard and Akeru, who were now holding hands.
Akeru had a fearful expression on his face, with his entire body frozen in place, as if he was seeing something else.
He was also mumbling something under his breath.
It was quite contrary to the "guard" who had a blank look on his face.
The other three magic knights had engaged in a battle against Finral and Vanessa.
The fight that happened next only took a few seconds, yet for Finral and Vanessa, those few seconds took most of their wits and magic power.
Such was a battle between magic knights.
It generally gets stretched for minutes, or it ends ina few seconds.
The battle started with one of the Aqua Deer people putting both of them in an illusion.
However, even before one second passed, Vanessa's eyes blinked.
It then blinked multiple times.
She easily broke through the illusion.
SLAP!
Vanessa slapped Finral, bringing him out of the illusion.
"Do not look in that guy's eyes," she said while pointing towards the person in question.
Finral could only nod helplessly, his expression depicting that he had been wronged.
Did she really have to slap him to break the illusion?
Suddenly, the grimoire of the Purple Orca guy floated, and a wave of sound hurled towards them at blinding speed.
Finral was barely able to react in time as he dived sideways, Vanessa doing the same.
BANG BANG
Multiple pythons made of water were coming towards them.
"Tch, don't use that for now," Vanessa said while looking at Finral and before he could say anything, he found his body moving against his will.
'When did she...'
Finral found that a thread had attached at his hips and pulled him back in such a way that he barely dodged a water python.
Not only that, it continued to help him dodge multiple following pythons.
Vanessa had laid down a lot of threads in the moment she found something odd about the guard.
It was a brilliant move as it helped them dodge Rudra's attacks.
The Sound Guy in purple hadn't made any follow-up move; he likely wanted them to be on edge due to his presence and strike when they least expected it, effectively neutralizing them in one go.
Moreover, such a tactic is also used to not let your opponent function at their peak due to the fear of "when."
This was useful against Finral, who wasn't moving his gaze from the Sound Guy, however, it was useless against Vanessa, who was calmly moving the threads through the battlefield while keeping track of all the people.
Seeing that Rudra's approach wasn't working, he stopped sending multiple snakes and created a gigantic water snake nearly 12 feet tall.
Despite being made of water, which is normally harmless, the being was anything but harmless.
"Kill Them!" Rudra spat hatefully as his 12-foot snake started moving towards the duo.
Vanessa's eyebrows furrowed as she looked at Rudra.
'Why is he so angry?... Now that I think about it,' Vanessa's gaze shifted to the faces of all 5 people who should have been on their side.
'All of them have hateful expressions.'
Their gazes screamed murder, as if Vanessa and Finral had killed their parents in front of them.
She jumped back as she dodged the snake's tail.
Multiple threads surrounded the snake, threatening to cut it into pieces.
'They are clearly being controlled, also though I can't sense his mana from here, he is clearly planning something.' Vanessa looked at the other member of Aqua Deer who was in a stance of getting ready to run.
"Finral!" Vanessa called for Finral, who looked at her.
"Prepare for that Aqua Deer guy!"
Though her words were vague, in this situation, it was quite obvious what Finral had to do.
BOOOOM
During this brief window of time where they exchanged words, it was clearly exploited by the Sound Guy as he hurled a sonic wave at Finral.
Finral was caught off guard and unable to move.
However, he was barely able to dodge due to Vanessa's intervention with her threads.
Despite being focused on dodging the snake, which was too strong for her threads to do anything, she had clearly enough free time to monitor everyone on the battlefield and assist Finral in escaping.
Click
A clicking sound was heard, and Vanessa found the second Aqua Deer had finally made his move as he moved towards Vanessa at blinding speeds.
His movement was even faster than the Sound Guy's attacks.
If one looked closely, they would find that he was literally sliding on the ground.
His magic allowed him to change friction between any objects, and this, paired with some good reinforcement magic, was a deadly combo as Vanessa wouldn't have her body in one piece if she got hit by him.
"FINRAL!" She could only signal Finral with her words.
And the man didn't disappoint.
'Fallen Angel Gate'
A crack in space formed in front of Vanessa, which expanded almost instantly just as the Aqua Deer Guy came near it and due to the suddenness of this action, he couldn't do anything other than helplessly go into the spatial rift.
This moment was also used by Sound Guy to attack Finral; however, just as he was able to release his attack, the same spatial rift had opened with the Aqua Deer guy's body rushing at him at high speed.
Due to the speed at which this happened and how close the rift was near him, Purple Orca was barely able to release his attack.
The sonic attack collided with the other's body.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM
Despite that attack, the collision between both of their bodies still happened.
A lot of dust was released during this, and when it got cleared, everyone came to know that both the Purple Orca guy and Aqua Deer guy had fainted with foam coming out of their mouths.
Just like that, Finral not only took care of both of the people who could have defeated him in a few seconds one-on-one, but also shocked their enemies for a second.
They weren't expecting a spatial mage's presence here, and if they knew beforehand, the guy with Friction magic wouldn't have done what he did now.
This was the reason Vanessa initially told Finral not to use his Spatial Magic.
It was to make them use one of their hidden moves and thwart it with Finral, which is exactly what happened.
Their shocked pause was used by Finral as he created another portal and grabbed the neck of the guy with Illusion magic.
He pulled him back before he or others could do anything, pulling him beside him and closing the spatial rift.
Finral then jumped back and dodged the other party's horse kick.
The guy then quickly turned back, already in a fighting stance.
"I am sorry," Finral said with a polite smile, not meeting his gaze and kicked forward.
At his position, the kick wouldn't reach the other guy, which confused the latter.
However, he didn't have much time to think as a small spatial rift opened in front of Finral and his kick... hit his opponent in the balls.
"AHHHHHhhhhh...."
This moment was exploited by him as another spatial rift opened and a fist was upon him from behind his head.
And just like that, Finral's opponent was taken out.
'I think all that training has increased my proficiency with spatial magic, who would have thought that I could use it in this manner to attack?' Finral chuckled as he looked at the passed out guy.
'Well, I was lucky this time as he had been caught off guard too many times. Before I grabbed his neck, he had mana reinforcement throughout his body; however, at that instant I grabbed it, fear of the unknown made him act and focus on his upper head entirely.
I just used that fact to kick him in the shin, which caused him to then focus on mana reinforcement there instinctively after the attack due to the pain, leaving his neck wide open. It was completely mind games at this point. This strategy is useless against Senior Magic Knights due to the usual training they go through when reaching that level.'
Suddenly, Finral felt an intense feeling of drowsiness in his entire being.
Vanessa was no different.
She just wanted to lie down now and sleep there itself.
However, she quickly shook off that feeling.
Her gaze met the purple-haired girl who was looking at her.
It was at that moment, the battlefield changed.
The guard backed off from Akeru, who had a bright light coming from his chest, indicating that his grimoire was shining.
"The Missing Piece is finally complete." The guard said as the slight trembling of his shoulders indicated that he was happy, betraying his poker face.
Akeru had a blank look on his face, devoid of any emotions.
However, hidden behind that blank facade was a calculating look as if he were looking at the world purely in form of gains and losses.
***
A/n- Another Long chapter, this was unintentional though, unlike the previous one, which was intentional.
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