"Goodness," he remarked. "Just how many Soul Beasts can you summon?"

"Well…" I pushed my gla.s.ses up my nose and shrugged. "88 Constellation spirits that are recognized by the International Astronomical Union, and the five Celestial Guardians of Chinese astrology. The good news is that I can't summon all of them at once – I don't have the mana to pull such a ridiculous feat off."

"Really?" Charles barked out a laugh and then shrugged helplessly. "Man, I was planning on cutting them down one by one, but even if you can only summon a fraction of close to a hundred Soul Beasts, even I won't have the stamina to fight all of them all night."

He then pointed his sword at me again.

"Let's not dally around any further. Is that dragon your strongest Soul Beast? Bring out your most powerful summons. I've given you ample time to do that. Let's finish this once and for all."

"My, pretty confident, aren't you?" I remarked. Inwardly, I fought to suppress a surge of panic. Charles was unruffled even after seeing Draco, and even asked me to bring out my strongest summons. That meant he was sure he could defeat my trump card. Considering his superlative skills, and how he so easily dispatched so many of my Constellation spirits so far, I had no doubt that he was perfectly capable of that.

So this was the champion of last year's tournament. A very formidable foe indeed.

Feeling a bead of perspiration drip down my face despite the sudden chill that my summoning of Draco brought, I kept a smile frozen on my face. I couldn't let his confidence get to me. Even if he believed himself stronger, I just had to do my own thing and prove him wrong. That was all.

"Draco!"

My dragon moved immediately, lunging forward to slash at Charles. Amazingly enough, the puny human stood his ground and bravely parried the t.i.tanic claws. To my surprise, Charles merely skidded a few meters backward, his teeth gritted as he dug his feet in, but he held.

Then Draco sent a blast of freezing mana was.h.i.+ng over him. The holy sword wielder vanished in a white fog, but he stumbled out a few moments later, his body half entombed in ice. His holy magic kicked in and he shattered the ice instantly. He then swung his sword in a wide arc, deflecting Draco's next swipe, and then displayed remarkable agility to leap up and avoid the next few slashes.

Almost as if he was flying through the air, Charles leaped high up to strike Draco's head. However, an icy tail whipped out and caught him by the side, sending him flying several dozen meters across the air. He then crashed into a wall and disappeared under an avalanche of rubble.

"Phew…" I exhaled. At least Charles wasn't decimating my dragon like he did my other Constellation spirits. That meant I still had a chance.

Boom!

A ma.s.sive slab of rock was sent flying through the air, in Draco's direction, but the colossal dragon merely ripped it apart with his claws, grounding the debris into powder. At the opposite end, Charles trudged out, looking worse for the wear but otherwise still raring to go. He grinned, and then kicked off the ground and crossed the distance in a single bound. Swinging his sword down, he made to decapitate Draco.

Whirling around, Draco lowered his head while whipping his tail forward. Charles almost couldn't defend himself in time. While he was still sailing across the arena, he was unable to dodge in midair. Therefore he could only defend himself with his sword.

The spiked, icy tail caught him and tossed him back, but he flipped himself in midair and landed with his feet against the wall. The reinforced concrete caved in from the impact, debris and stone shaking loose, but he then propelled himself forward again.

This time, holy lightning crackled around him. Charles swung his sword outward and launched tremendous webs of deadly, jagged electricity across the arena, catching Draco almost unawares. However, Draco wasn't such a wimp to fall for that, and with a determined bellow, he countered with a blast of freezing mana that trapped the approaching bolts of lightning in ice. The two elemental mana clashed and exploded, clouding the entire s.p.a.ce in dense fog.

"Phew…"

I couldn't help but s.h.i.+ver from the sudden cold. Despite me learning ice magic, I could never get used to the extreme temperatures that my own Constellation spirits or my own spells generated.

"You shouldn't let your guard down."

"!!!"

I didn't, exactly, and was able to parry a blow from Charles. Making use of the fog as cover, he had gone straight for me, striking at my jugular. Needless to say, he failed, and would have failed even if he had kept his mouth shut. I could detect his presence, thanks to my gla.s.ses.

Even with the thick fog obscuring vision, there were infrared signatures outlined in my lenses, the sensors picking up thermal and mana readings. That gave me one advantage that my enemy didn't possess.

"As long as I eliminate the summoner, the summoned Soul Beasts will disappear along with his consciousness. So you can't afford to let your guard down and let your Soul Beast do all the fighting!"

"Thank you for your advice," I replied dryly as I exchanged several more blows with him, my lenses detecting the hint of silver flashes and outlining them clearly in my field of vision so that I could parry accordingly. I was already aware of that, and was prepared accordingly.

In fact, that very same weakness could be used as a strategy – since I knew my own vulnerability as well as my enemies, I could exploit that knowledge and use that against them. In other words, their tactics would be obvious and predictable, and I could set a trap of my own.

"!!!"

And Charles was about to learn that the hard way. While he was engaged in furious combat with me, Draco swung down and slashed him from behind, almost tearing open his rear armor. There was a slight spray of blood, but because of the holy sword wielder's unworldly combat sense, he had moved on instinct to avoid a fatal blow.

This guy was really frustrating to fight against.

Charles staggered away and withdrew to escape yet another swipe from Draco. His eyes widened, and he was clearly wondering how Draco was able to see him, even amidst such a thick fog.

The answer was simple. Draco shared senses with me, whether it was visual, aural or even olfactory. He could see whatever I could see, hear whatever I could hear, even smell or feel whatever I was in contact with. Additionally, we were linked telepathically, so I could mentally direct him to attack wherever I needed him to, without speaking a single word out loud.

Draco continued to pursue him, and Charles unleashed another thunderbolt that keept the enormous Constellation spirit back. Draco conjured a glacial wall to block the devastating spell, which obliterated the ice screen under a few seconds. Skidding backward, Charles a.s.sessed his situation grimly, and then he decided not to dwell on it for too long and charged forward again.

Blade met claw in a crackling collision of violent mana, and both knight and dragon sprang apart in a shower of sparks. Whirling around, Charles unleashed another web of lightning at near pointblank range, and Draco froze everything in the vicinity in response.

For some reason, I was reminded of a Magic: The Gathering duel where a player was casting red spells such as Lightning Bolt or Shock, and then his opponent cast blue spells such as Counterspell or Mana Leak to cancel it out. I don't know why, but it might be because I was reading too much Destroy all of Humanity. They can't be regenerated. At least recently anyway. If you hadn't heard of that, it's an amazing manga with some romance in it. Try reading it.

Anyway, Charles was engaging my Draco in a clash of both physical power and magic. His sword swung about, flashes of golden that cleaved the drifting mist apart as if it was made of paper. Spinning around, he unleashed another colossal thunderbolt at close range, which Draco swatted away with an icy claw. Before Charles could land, he was struck by a spiked, icy tail, and was sent hurtling across the air again, his body slowly freezing over.

Holy magic and electricity crackled around him, shattering the ice and minimizing his injuries. It wasn't a true healing spell, but I could see that his holy magic was deadening his pain and ensuring that he could continue fighting without dropping…until his body reached its limits, of course. Healing magic was a branch of holy magic, so holy magic users could heal themselves to a certain extent, just like Eliza Franklin during our last exchange in the quarterfinals.

Somehow Charles managed to recover his footing. When Draco bore down on him, he kicked off and switched direction, heading for me instead. Swinging his sword down, he yelled out in determination as he sought to cut me down before Draco could hit him.

As I said, completely predictable.

"!!!"

Before Charles could reach me, he found his body clamped down by a ma.s.sive paw.

"That's impossible!"

Charles clearly thought the paw belonged to Draco. Yet, given his immense bulk, there was no way Draco could move fast enough to pin him before he could reach my position. So how did my dragon catch him…?

The answer was…it wasn't Draco who caught him, but Cerberus. The three-headed guardian of h.e.l.l let loose a chilling howl before s.h.i.+fting more of his weight to his paw, crus.h.i.+ng the knig of knights down into the ground.

"Even the king of knights must submit to death and pay his respects in the underworld," I commented, trying to sound cool and failing entirely. d.a.m.n, but that was so middle school syndrome. I felt embarra.s.sed over saying that.

Charles stilled for a moment, and then he barked out in laughter.

"It's true…" he admitted. "I did tell you to bring out your strongest Soul Beasts, and you already told me that you have almost a hundred in reserve. It was my fault for letting my guard down."

"Yeah, well…" I shrugged. Inwardly, I felt a flare of hope. Was this an admission of defeat? Was he going to give up? That would save me a lot of trouble…

"?!"

Cerberus was suddenly blasted off Charles's position. The holy sword wielder slowly stood up, holy lightning pouring off his body and electrocuting the great guardian. Cerberus whimpered as he withdrew to a distance, and then all three heads of his growled, their jaws opening to unleash a triple torrent of blizzard spells.

For a moment, the entire arena froze over. And then the ice were all smashed into smithereens by a gigantic maelstrom of lightning.

Raising his holy sword high above his head, Charles obliterated the ice across the arena with a single stroke. Frost fragments fell everywhere, almost like snow.

"Lifting the restraints of the Round Table," he whispered.

"Huh? The restraints of what?" I repeated incredulously. "Are you seriously trying to rip off Fate/Prototype now?"

Ignoring me, Charles swung his sword and yelled a single word. "EXCALIBUR!"

The entire coliseum vanished in a blinding tsunami of golden mana, which swept across the place and instantly obliterated Cerberus. Draco fared better, his t.i.tanic form engulfed by the anti-fortress attack unleashed by the Sword of Promised Victory. Huffing, I threw my right hand out and yelled out an incantation of my own.

"I am the soul of my sword!"

Draco was slowly keeping the golden spell at bay for now, but he was gradually and inevitably disintegrating. d.a.m.n it…his new form was not complete. If I had a little more time to recombine my new ice magic with my Constellation magic, I should theoretically be able to summon a more powerful version of Draco, but I wasn't quite there yet.

"Fear is my body, frost is my blood."

Draco finally disappeared under the overwhelming onslaught, his form disintegrating into frost fragments and azure shards of glowing mana. Charles continued to infuse his spell with more mana, determined to end the match once and for all.

"My skill, Giant Beast Hunting, was attained because I have abundant experience in fighting against gigantic enemy monsters. And if you're familiar with the tales of knights, you'd know that we are well versed in the art of slaying dragons and other giant monsters."

"I'm sure," I responded dryly. There wasn't much else I could say, given that Draco was now gone, and I still had to complete my incantation. Dragging my attention back to the present, I resumed my spell. "Discarded by Life, Embraced by Death…"

The enormous, destructive tsunami was now upon me. Taking a deep breath, I spoke the words of power that would make my spell a reality.

"Snow Aegis!"

And then the tsunami of golden, destructive energy almost washed over me, cras.h.i.+ng into my gigantic snowflake s.h.i.+eld. My view vanished in a blinding flash, my senses fizzling out from the tremendous amount of raw power that battered violently against my greatest defense.

Then I knew nothing.