Chapter 121: Second Duel: Nora Vs Sylvia [Part-2]

For a moment after Cassian’s hand came down, neither of them moved. The wind curling around Nora’s feet and the silver particles floating around Sylvia’s fingers simply hung in the air, as if the two of them were measuring each other from a distance, and Neo felt his throat go dry as he gripped the edge of the seat.

Then Nora disappeared from where she stood.

She did not use any flashy movement. A single gust of wind burst beneath her boots, and she crossed more than half of the field in the blink of an eye, her ponytail whipping behind her as a cluster of crimson petals gathered around her right hand and condensed into a long, slender blade that shone like blood under the light. She swung it in a low arc towards Sylvia’s side, giving her no time for words or preparation.

Sylvia didn’t even step back. She tilted her head slightly, and a thin wall of ice rose from the ground in front of her, so smooth and clear that it looked like glass. The crimson blade struck it with a sharp ringing sound, and a spiderweb of cracks spread across the surface, but the wall did not break.

"Oh my, such a direct approach," Sylvia said with a gentle smile, as if she was commenting on the weather. "But you should know that a wall made by me is not so easily broken, Nora."

She raised two fingers, and the cracks in the ice sealed themselves in an instant. Then, without any incantation or warning, dozens of thin ice needles formed in the air around Nora from every direction, and they shot towards her at the same time.

’Silent Casting... She didn’t even move her lips,’ Neo thought, his eyes widening as he leaned forward in his seat. ’She is not even treating this as a battle yet. She is only testing her.’

Nora did not panic. She twisted her body in the air, and the petals around her shoulders suddenly exploded outward, forming a spinning sphere of red wind that swallowed every needle before it could touch her. The ice shattered into glittering dust, and Nora landed lightly on the ground a few steps away, her face as blank as ever, without even a strand of hair out of place.

"Whoa! Nora blocked everything!" Evelyn cried, bouncing in her seat so hard.

"That was only the first exchange, Eve," Neo murmured, though his eyes were fixed on the field. "Mother hasn’t even used a single thing from her arsenal yet."

On the field, Sylvia clapped her hands lightly together, the sound echoing across the ground. "Very good. Then let me try something a little more interesting."

She stretched her hand to the side, and a crystalline bow formed in her palm, elegant and sharp, the same one that Neo had seen her use against the horde of devils years ago. The thin strands of ice wove themselves into an arrow between her fingers, and the air around her bent slightly as she drew the string that did not exist.

Neo’s breath caught in his throat, because he knew exactly how that arrow had pierced through the corpses of devils without losing any momentum.

"Nora, be careful..."

The arrow flew.

It was no longer a streak of ice cutting through the air, but a sharp, silent shadow which seemed to arrive at the target before the sound of its release even reached the ears. Nora’s violet eyes narrowed, and she brought her blade across her body in a hurry, the crimson petals around her condensing into a thick shield in front of her chest. The arrow struck the shield with a deafening crack, and the force pushed her back several yards, her boots carving two long lines in the ground, while a thin layer of frost climbed along the surface of her blade and crept slowly towards her hand.

Nora let go of the blade, and it dissolved into petals before the ice could touch her skin. She looked down at her fingers, where a faint trace of frost still clung to her glove, and then she looked up at Sylvia, and Neo saw something that he hadn’t seen on her face for the entire time.

A tiny flicker of interest.

Nora lifted her right hand towards the air, and the crimson petals gathered around her fingers once again, but this time they did not take the shape of a blade. They twisted and froze, crystallising into a pale, elegant bow, and thin threads of ice spiralled from her fingertips to form a single arrow, exactly the same as the one that had just been shot at her.

Sylvia’s eyes widened, and then they began to sparkle with a joy which was almost childish. "Oh? Oh my, you have copied it already? And with such precision!"

"Your spell is easy to read," Nora said flatly, drawing the string with perfect form.

"That is such a rude thing to say to your aunt!"

Nora released the arrow without any more words.

Sylvia hurriedly raised her hand, and a wall of wind burst up in front of her, but the arrow pierced through it as if it were paper, and she had to twist her body to the side at the very last moment. The arrow grazed past her cheek and exploded against the far wall of the training ground with a thunderous boom, leaving a long crack in the stone, and a single strand of silver hair floated slowly down to the floor.

For a moment the entire training ground fell silent.

Sylvia touched her cheek lightly with her fingertips, and a thin line of red appeared on her skin, so small that it looked like a papercut. She stared at the blood on her finger, and then she began to laugh, a bright, ringing laugh that made Cassian at the edge of the field shiver visibly.

"Hahaha! Oh, this is wonderful! It has been years since someone drew blood from me, other than your father when he was drunk!"

"I heard that," Cassian muttered, but nobody paid attention to him.

Neo, on the other hand, felt a cold sweat run down his back as he looked at his mother’s glowing eyes. ’That’s the same look Father had before... Did I just watch the second monster of this household wake up?’

Sylvia raised both arms, and the temperature of the whole training ground plunged at once. A cold wind swept across the field, carrying countless snowflakes that glittered like tiny stars, and the silver light around her hands spread out into the air, turning the falling snow into drifting sparks of starlight. The ground beneath Nora’s feet began to freeze at an alarming speed, white lines of ice crawling outward from Sylvia’s feet as if the entire field was becoming a part of her.

"Now then, Nora, since you have shown me something so lovely, I will also show you a little of what I can do."

Starlight gathered above her head, and hundreds of small, sharp lances of light formed in the air, each of them glowing with a pale, silver radiance. They hung there for a heartbeat, and then Sylvia lowered her hand.

The lances rained down.

Nora ran. Her figure blurred across the frozen ground, leaving a trail of crimson petals behind her, and every place she stepped was struck by a lance a moment later, exploding with bursts of light and frost that sent sharp fragments of ice flying in every direction. She weaved between them with precise, almost graceful movements, her sleeve torn by a shard of ice, a thin cut appearing on her arm, but she did not slow down for even a second.

’She is dodging all of them without losing her balance... but she has not attacked even once since the last arrow. It is as if she is waiting for something,’ Neo thought, his eyes following her figure as it darted across the field.

Then he noticed it. Every time Nora jumped or twisted her body, her left hand was pressed slightly against her chest, and her fingers were curled in a way that was just a little too tight. It was a tiny detail, so small that nobody else in the stands would have noticed, but Neo had spent years watching her closely, and he knew what it meant.

’The curse... It’s seems every spell she uses, every circle she draws on... it is hurting her, even now.’

His fingers dug into Yuki’s scales, and the little dragon looked up at him with a worried look as he forced himself to loosen his grip.

On the field, Nora suddenly stopped running. She planted her feet on the frozen ground and raised both arms, and the crimson petals around her swirled faster and faster until they formed a massive spiral above her head, their colour deepening from red to a dark, glowing violet. The wind roared around her, and the lances of starlight which were falling towards her were caught in the spiral one after another, twisting and bending in the air until they all turned around.

"Hm?" Sylvia’s smile faltered for the first time.

Nora lowered her hands.

The lances of starlight, hundreds of them, shot back towards Sylvia in a single glittering wave, turning the sky above the field into a river of falling silver light.

"Wait a second... she copied Mother’s another spell... and turned it back against her!"

Sylvia stood motionless as the wave of starlight descended upon her, and for a brief moment, Neo thought that she would not move at all. Then she closed her eyes and let out a quiet, delighted breath.

"Wonderful... truly wonderful."

She raised her right hand towards the sky, and a thin, shimmering wall of starlight rose in front of her, the same one that had swallowed Cassian’s lightning earlier, and the wave of lances struck it in a dazzling storm of light. Each lance dissolved harmlessly into sparks, and the entire field was bathed in a glow that made it look like a sea of drifting stars.

When the light finally cleared, Sylvia lowered her hand, and the smile on her lips was no longer gentle. It was sharp, bright, and filled with the excitement of someone who had found an opponent worthy of her time.

"Nora, I must thank you. It has been a very long time since I felt my heart race like this." She stretched out both hands, and the frost on the ground rose into the air like a storm of white petals, circling around her slowly. "So now, I will stop treating you like a child."

The air in the training ground became so cold that Evelyn’s breath turned into thick white mist, and Neo felt the hair on his arms stand up as he recognised the pressure in the air, a vast, silent, absolute sense of stillness which he had only felt once before, when he once saw a practice duel between mother and father.

’This is... Absolute Zero Domain.’

Across the field, Nora lifted her head, her violet eyes calm and cold, and the crimson petals around her began to glow brighter, as if in answer to the challenge. She tightened her grip on nothing and took a slow step forward, and Neo noticed that her shoulders were trembling very slightly, though her face did not change at all.

’Don’t push yourself too far, Nora...’

Cassian, standing at the edge of the field, took one step back with a serious look on his face, his hand slowly rising to prepare for stopping the fight if it became necessary, while the two figures in the middle of the frozen field faced each other in silence, with the real clash only just about to begin.