Blade Over Magic

A Proper Fight III

Xander bent his legs slightly as channeling was focused into them.

Inhale.

He leaned forward.

Exhale.

And shot out like a bullet.

This startled the wyvern. Not because of his speed. Rather, it was due to his decision to come closer. Because previously, the wyvern was unable to target his body directly due to him constantly ’parrying’ its focus on the safe zone he had.

But now that he got closer...

Crystal flowers bloomed in Xander’s path as a moment later...

BOOM

Violent explosions rang out. But these flowers didn’t simply detonate. Instead, the released disrupting waves of energy meant to keep track of Xander’s location. That way, he wouldn’t be able to evade its senses like before as he found his own energy disrupted!

But this also caused a large amount of dust that obstructed the wyvern’s vision, but that mattered little as its senses were strongly attuned to its territory. And sure enough, it sensed something moving rapidly through the ground.

Like before, it forced ’Xander’ out of the ground by making the crystals reject him, and at the same time as his ejection, a sharp crystal spike was waiting for him, making him ram straight into it as he was impaled.

The wyvern growled in satisfaction, however, when the dust cleared, its slitted pupils shrunk as it saw... what it impaled wasn’t Xander, but a somewhat humanoid figure wielding a longsword.

A red light suddenly bloomed below it as...

’Rising Sun.’ The bottom of its jaw was struck hard, Abscinde slicing deep into the scales and drawing blood as the wyvern let out a screech, its head thrashing around as it tried to throw Xander off.

Xander held strong as he summoned another sword and threw it beside the wyvern, embedding it in the ground there as he pulled Abscinde our and twisted his body. At the same time, the thoroughly enraged wyvern opened its mouth, preparing the blast and airborne Xander away.

But the...

Switch

Where Xander had been, the sword he threw earlier suddenly took his spot, and he reappeared where the sword had been as the sword was the one that took the blast. As for Xander...

’Rupture Thrust.’ Cascading vibrations ripped through space until it began to collapse, the collapse lined with red lines as the side of the wyvern was struck hard, the scales getting shredded and flesh torn as it roared out.

Its tail suddenly swung like a whip, aiming to smash into Xander’s side, the appendage covered in crystal spikes. But Xander simply positioned his body as he aimed the tip of Abscinde at the incoming tail, and...

DING

A resonant noise sounded. The wyvern was shocked as its tail carrying the force to decimate a mountain and enough of its concept to crystallize multiple was actually halted!

Xander, who had already grasped the wyvern’s physical and conceptual frequency, had changed his to the exact opposite. So when the tail struck, rather than him getting blown away or the tail getting rebuffed violently, all the force was instead harmlessly released into the surroundings.

He exhaled again as he used two skills in conjunction.

’Flowing Tide, Feather Steps.’ His body blurred as he moved like rushing water, yet his whole body was light like a feather as in a moment, he’d run across the body of the wyvern, and it roared as wounds appeared all over its body, blood spraying freely.

This, however, was nowhere near enough to kill it. As it turned out, as a creature began to tap into anything related to concepts, their very existence became more and more anchored into reality. Much like how Anchor Worlds did. Hence, ending them also became harder to do as everything about them was more and more difficult to bring to an end.

It’s this reason why previously, Curtis’s ice which had attained a state of absolute zero bounced harmlessly off Keir’s scales.

Something similar applied to the wyvern as Xander saw its paths changed, and he made the executive decision to instantly get off its body and back away as the creature spread its wings and took to the sky once again.

As it did so, Xander watched as at the edges of its territory, massive crystal monoliths towering above the trees appeared until the whole territory was surrounded, and each of these monoliths was connected by huge chains.

The monoliths lit up with incandescent light as he heard the wyvern utter in a deep voice filled with authority.

| Crystallize! | It’s voice reverberated throughout the surroundings, and for the first time, Xander’s face turned somber as he looked up.

The monoliths all then released rays of that same incandescent light into the sky above the wyvern, all of it meeting up into a single point as a pulsing orb of that light was formed, then it sunk into the wyvern as its wounds began to close, and its body coiled up tightly, and for a moment, all lights faded, and...

The wyvern spread its wings with a roar, and the incandescent light erupted from it in the form of a rapidly expanding sphere.

Everything the light touched, whether it be the air or the space itself, everything was crystallized without exception. Moreover, this wasn’t just some massive explosion. No, the weavings of the concepts were far more complex than anything it had unleashed before, leaving virtually no gaps.

It’s speed was truly obscene as well, as Xander was certain that even if he used Vibration Traversal, he wouldn’t be able to escape the range of the attack fast enough.

The light washed over him and everything within the wyvern’s territory in an instant, and once this happened, the wyvern gave a mental command, and the massive monoliths all also turned into that same incandescent light as it all condensed before erupting, the shape moving to resemble a massive crystal tree that loomed over the forest like a pillar from the heavens.

It was large enough that everyone within partaking in the hunt could see it clearly from where they were, and Xavier let out a whistle as he looked up from the screen.

”Well I’ll be. That wyvern was on its way to becoming a true dragon, wasn’t it? Must have been here for a long time.” He said, the comment aimed at Irene.

Her face which carried an uncanny sense of beauty showed no expression. She simply spoke.

”It was one of many creatures I took into this place when I created it. Its magic and concept are certainly a bit unique for its level. That said...” She glanced back at the screen, her brows furrowing just a bit.

”It seems like that boy is indeed someone to watch.”

Back at the sight of the battle, the wyvern stood on one of the branches of the massive tree it had created. The spell was the nascent form of something far greater, something only those at a certain level could utilize, a place it strived hard to reach, and yet...

Drip... Drip...

It looked down and saw that on its chest, there was a single stab wound. It wasn’t very thick, and one might think it was only a surface wound, but on closer inspection, the wound wasn’t on the surface. Instead, it actually went all the way through.

Through its heart.

Ordinarily, even this wouldn’t have been enough to kill it. Among the concepts it employed, preservation was a prevalent one. One would need to do more than stab its heart to kill it.

The problem was the one who did it.

The wyvern looked forward at Xander whose shirt was on the floor next to him, having been reduced to crystals. But other than that, he was pretty much unharmed.

”... How did you avoid my attack?” It asked, its voice still strong despite how its aura was rapidly weakening.

Xander just looked at it calmly.

”The way you constructed your concept to make that attack was indeed problematic. However, you focused solely on preventing me from cutting through the attack. That wasn’t all I could do.” Xander didn’t fully explain as he was sure someone was watching, but for those who knew about his skills, it was clear.

The wyvern focused on his ability to parry and cut through its concept utilizing the Myriad Paths. However, it had no clue that he could weave his own paths to enter the blindspot of someone or their attack.

Hence, when the wyvern used that final attack of its, Xander had entered its blindspot at the last moment, allowing him to evade an otherwise unavoidable attack. Granted, it wasn’t flawless, his shirt was an example of that.

”... And I can sense that you didn’t go all out either. Tell me, was I close, or were you toying with me the whole time?” It asked again, even as its blood pooled beneath it.

Xander considered the question, then he shook his head.

”I indeed held back. But saying I toyed with you would be inaccurate. I had to calculate many things at once, and a single mistake would have led me to face the same fate as that projection you destroyed earlier. I fought with the amount of strength I believed appropriate for you, but I never toyed with you. You were too strong for that.” When he said this, the wyvern let out a laugh.

”’Strong’, but I still couldn’t make you go all out.” It slowly lowered itself to the floor, the light in its eyes fading.

”How... unfair...” It’s body went still, all signs of life fading.

Xander exhaled and looked at Abscinde, the sword having gone back to its usual state as the flower within his garden went dormant once more.

’You did good buddy.’ He sent his will towards the blade, and he got a level of satisfaction back as he sheathed it, then he moved forward and calmly took in the wyvern’s corpse.

Just then, the chime of a bell could be heard, and he looked back to see a giant bell swinging back and forth. This indicated the end of the hunt.

’I wonder how the others did.’ Xander hummed and jumped down from the tree.

Normally, if a spellcaster died, their spell would disperse immediately. But with concepts, things weren’t so simple.

That tree, chances were that it would persist for quite a long time until someone chose to destroy it. But more likely, due to the mana and residual concepts lingering in the area, a creature was likely to start developing abilities in a similar direction as the wyvern.

Xander landed gently and started running back, his pace relaxed, but still above Mach 1.