The air inside the chamber turned suffocating.
The flames of Gerald’s greatsword crackled loudly against the crimson density emanating from Aoi’s sword.
Seeing the tip of Haruto’s short sword driving toward his chest at surgical speed, Gerald reacted with the agility of a veteran of a hundred battles.
He forced a burst of mana into the soles of his boots and leapt backward, breaking the pressure and dodging the thrust by a mere couple of centimeters.
“Damn you…” Gerald spat, landing heavily as his red cloak billowed around him.
“You aren’t using the mana granted by the System.
What on earth did you do to your bodies?” “We simply stopped playing by your Church’s rules,” Haruto answered, immediately stepping alongside Aoi.
With a fluid motion of his left hand, Haruto drew an invisible rune in the air.
Thanks to the Ancient Way, he no longer needed to chant verbal incantations or rely on the world’s interface; magic flowed as a pure extension of his will.
ZUUUM!
Three discs of blue mana, dense and razor-sharp, materialized around Haruto and shot out toward Gerald’s flanks.
At the exact same time, Aoi propelled herself forward, giving the Commander no room to breathe.
She launched into a low charge, using the weight of her greatsword to unleash a flurry of three consecutive strikes shrouded in her compressed soul aura.
Gerald was forced into a desperate defense.
He parried the first disc with the pommel of his greatsword and dodged the second by leaning his torso, but Aoi’s horizontal strike forced him to block head-on.
CLANG!
CLANG!
Aoi’s sheer strength made the Commander’s legs buckle.
The metal of his elite armor groaned under the vibration of spiritual energy.
Before he could counterattack with his holy fire, Haruto’s third disc grazed his shoulder, shattering his blessed steel pauldron and carving a clean cut that stained his cloak with blood.
“Aoi, crossover step!” Haruto ordered in Japanese.
Without a second thought, Aoi angled her sword downward, presenting the flat of her blade as a platform.
Haruto planted his boot onto Aoi’s greatsword, and she launched him upward with the full strength of her arms.
Soaring above Gerald’s guard, Haruto plunged straight down.
His short sword glowed with a dense blue pattern, focused on a single point: the fire-channeling core in the hilt of the enemy greatsword.
CRACK!
Haruto’s descending strike landed squarely on the gem in Gerald’s hilt.
The sacred channeling crystal couldn’t withstand the penetration of the Ancient Way and exploded into a thousand pieces.
The golden flames covering the Commander’s blade died out instantly, leaving behind nothing but a notched, smoking sword.
The shockwave from the explosion threw Gerald backward, forcing him to his knees as he coughed up a line of blood from the magical feedback.
The few paladins still standing watched the scene in horror.
The Commander of the Third Division, one of the Vatican’s most feared combatants, had just been neutralized by two teenagers without a divine blessing.
“Impossible…” Gerald stammered, clutching his chest with a trembling hand as he stared at the two youths cornering him.
“The Church…
will destroy you both…” Haruto landed gracefully beside Aoi, flicking the tip of his sword clean with a swift motion before sheathing it.
Aoi rested her greatsword over her shoulder, keeping her icy gaze fixed on the fallen leader.
“Tell the Archbishop to stop sending enforcers,” Haruto said in a serene yet ruthless voice.
“Next time, we won’t bother just breaking your weapons.” Aoi looked toward the depths of the ruins, where a secret passage illuminated by ancient crystals opened up behind the manuscript’s pedestal.
“Let’s go, Haruto,” she said, relaxing her posture slightly and reaching out her hand.
“We still have a long way to go to become immortal.” Haruto took Aoi’s hand firmly.
Without a single glance back at the defeated knights, they stepped into the darkness of the ancient passage, leaving the Third Division in ruins and taking their first true step toward freedom.