Chapter 400.5: The One to Determine Fate (2)

William drew her sword and slashed it upward.

A sliver of light appeared in the face of the darkness. She had concentrated her Sword Intent to an extreme degree, focusing its might on the tip of her sword. With her slash, she unleashed a brilliant arc that sought to split the world into two.

That very instant, her previously pulsating mana vanished without a trace. It was as if everything had been harnessed into this single slash. The brilliance of her Swordheart seemed to brighten up the sky for an instant, only to vanish right after.

A white arc flashed across the rush of darkness, as if someone had drawn a line on a massive blackboard. Awfully insignificant it appeared before the massive congregation of darkness, yet it induced a magnificent explosion that collapsed the darkness.

Boom!

The humongous explosion from the clash of manas had the crowd gasping in shock, but it didn’t slow down the pace of the battle at all. Despite the hindrances from the powerful shockwaves and blinding light from the earlier explosion, William had already rechanneled her mana back to the tip of her sword, ready to launch a second attack toward Roel.

Roel’s body stiffened. He could vaguely sense a lethal threat coming his way.

William swung her sword sideward.

Weng!

There was a crisp reverberation of her sword, and it was instantaneously followed by a terrifying white arc that sliced through the lingering shockwaves, heading straight toward Roel.

In response, Artasia closed her eyes. Mana cloaked around her body and vines began extending from her hands. Flowers in the colors of black and deep blue competed to bloom on the vine. They swiftly interweaved with each other to form a beautiful flower wall.

The light arc swiftly struck the flower wall, the impact causing many of the flowers to fall lifelessly to the ground. Yet, the light arc was surprisingly unable to pierce through the flower wall.

It looked like a swordsman slashing at falling leaves. The flowers were left in a disarray, but hardly any damage was dealt at the end of it all.

“How barbaric. It might be unnecessary for me to point it out, but my hero, things could get troublesome at this rate.”

Behind the flower wall, Artasia turned to look at the black-haired man beside her with a smile, and the grave look on the latter’s face showed that he already knew.

From the failed first strike to the defensive flower wall used to block William’s attacks, Roel was expending his mana at a frightening rate. There was no doubt that the spells of the Witch Queen were formidable, but they consumed a lot of juice. At least in terms of mana capacity, Roel was at a huge disadvantage compared to the Origin Level 3 William.

He had known from the start that he would have to rely on Peytra’s Blessing to forcefully raise himself to Origin Level 3 in order to win the battle, but now was not the time for that yet.

On the other hand, William had already realized that it was impossible for her to defeat Roel through long-ranged attacks. So, she decided not to squander her mana on meaningless exploits and instead charge forward.

She had a good grasp of Roel’s strengths and weaknesses. In terms of burst power, she couldn’t confidently say that she would be able to best Roel 100% of the time, but in terms of quality and capacity of mana, she definitely wielded the advantage.

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The explosive start to their battle was so intense that even William had to catch a breather, and that was why she knew that Roel was definitely in a worse state than her.

This spelled an opportunity.

While Roel was recovering from his earlier exertion, she could close the distance between them and overwhelm him with her close-combat skills. This was a strategy she commonly used when fighting against transcendents with high burst power.

Without any hesitation, she charged through the cloud of red dust cloud floating on the battlefield toward Roel’s location.

Just as she had expected, Roel was still anxiously trying to recover from his earlier overexertion. His mana had already stalled to a halt, to the point that Artasia was no longer by his side anymore.

With the affirmation of her deduction, William further increased her speed. The sword in her hand began to glow in preparation for her next wave of attack.

It was also around then that Roel finally turned his gaze toward her, seemingly attracted by the sudden light. To her surprise, there wasn’t any fear in his eyes at all.

“You’re finally here,” he murmured.

The long-awaited blessing from the Primordial Earth Goddess traversed across space-time to fall upon him, imbuing him in a pale yellow aura. His stagnant mana immediately erupted like a furious volcano.

The silhouette of a humongous serpent manifested behind him, but more importantly, his mana began to rise to greater heights, eventually reaching the level of an Origin Level 3 transcendent. This unbelievable sight had William widening her eyes in disbelief.

A commotion broke out amongst the incredulous crowd in the colosseum too.

“Origin Level 3? How could this be?”

“It’s a long-lost spell from the ancient era!”

The commentators were excited by the turn of events. The transfer students from the Knight Kingdom all had their mouths agape.

This was the first time since the start of the tournament that Roel had used a spell to forcefully raise his Origin Level. Such a deed should have been impossible, but that was precisely the reason why the crowd was so agitated.

No one could have thought that the finals would turn out to be a showdown between two Origin Level 3 transcendents. The odds had previously been in William’s favor, but this sudden development rattled everything up, making it no longer possible to predict what would happen next.

Thunderous applause broke out in the colosseum.

Meanwhile, in Charred Mountain, Roel’s golden eyes started glowing like faint candlelight. With his surging mana, he was able to complete his deadly trap in a mere instant.

Crimson mana suffused Roel’s body as pale white bones swiftly manifested around him. Grandar’s towering skeletal body appeared amidst a layer of mist. Crimson lightning crackled around his tightened skeletal fist, bestowing it with absolute destructive might. With the prowess of his Strength Origin Attribute, he hurled his fist toward William’s incoming sword.

This was the display of what extreme physical strength was capable of.

The falling fist looked like divine retribution, a comet descending from the heavens to punish those who had incurred god’s wrath. It felt impossible to stand against a force of such extent.

At the same time, loud rumbling echoed behind William. A golden serpent rose from the earth. Peytra had brought with her the hottest lava from the depths of the charred land, which she channeled and released as a calamitous surge of flames.

Two ancient gods from different eras were collaborating with each other to launch a pincer attack against William.

The rapid depletion of mana caused Roel’s face to pale, but he knew that he had to quickly end this battle.

Peytra’s Blessing came with severe side effects, so he couldn’t afford to fight a prolonged battle. On top of that, William’s Origin Attribute spelled great trouble too.

The Cambonyte’s Courage Origin Attribute was the most suited for battle amongst the Three Main Origin Attributes. There was nothing better than it when it came to large-scale battles and attrition fights. Possessors of the Courage Origin Attribute were known to get more fearless and unyielding over the course of a battle, which, in turn, granted them even more power.

I must end this battle as soon as possible!

With such a thought in mind, Roel further increased his mana output.

Finally, Grandar’s fist collided with William’s sword.

It was the clash between two warriors who had reached the peak of their field.

Grandar’s fist harnessed the will to tear down all obstacles that stood in his path. William’s Swordheart represented her unyielding spirit. It was a battle of wills as much as it was a battle of strength.

Ultimately, the clash ended with the skeleton giant’s victory.

How could William overcome an existence that had tempered his strength over countless years? The light arc she had released shattered, and she was sent flying from the impact.

At the same time, Peytra’s surge of calamitous flames shot straight toward her, and it all culminated in a devastating explosion.

Boom!

The compressed mana formed a towering pillar of flame, and William was sent flying into the distance. Many in the colosseum cheered excitedly, thinking that the battle had been decided.

However, on the battlefield, Roel kept his eyes firmly on William’s silhouette, not easing up at all. He could still clearly sense William’s aura and his pulsating immense pool of mana.

—-

I know that I keep alternating between him and her for William.

William is a girl but she’s concealing her identity, and much of the narration in this story is spoken from the perspective of the character.

What’s weird is how the perspective keeps changing every few sentences as the author slowly paints on bits of details to the characters interacting. This is the typical writing style for Chinese web novels. This means that the pronouns end up changing every few sentences.

In William and Teresa’s narration, I’ve kept William’s pronoun to female because the two of them know of her real gender, but when it comes to Roel’s narration about William, I kept her pronoun to male because that’s how he perceives her.

It’s confusing and affects readability, and I considered standardizing to just male or female too… but that comes with its flaws too. It brings about other confusion. It would be awkward if the female pronouns are used in narrations where Roel thinks William is a male.