Even as she spluttered in disbelief, Nirvana gnashed her teeth angrily.

"Don't get too ahead of yourself, you incompetent girl…!"

Before Melina could react, Nirvana swung her mace and knocked her sword away. The blond swordswoman jumped back a few paces, neatly avoiding the gladiator's brutal weapon. Enraged, Nirvana stepped forward and continued to smash away.

This time, it was a reversal of what happened earlier – Nirvana was on the offense and was attacking frantically, forcing Melina onto the defensive. However, while Nirvana lacked finesse and was dragged into Melina's pace, here Melina was beautifully defending against every of her Nirvana's attacks.

A hop there, a parry here, a ddoge by a hair's breadth there, all conducted with the utmost confidence. Unlike Nirvana's frantic and hasty attacks and her desperate defending earlier, Melina almost looked as if she was toying with her opponent, dancing away from her wide swings and weaving through the blunt strikes. If anything, it appeared that Melina was baiting Nirvana to dance to her tune.

"You…!" Nirvana shrieked, allowing her frustration to get the better of her. She plunged onward recklessly, her movements getting wider and her attacks getting sloppier. Watching her antics brought a smile on my face.

Melina shared that smile. I recalled the discussion we had recently, when I told them to gather information on their opponents, one of the things we raised was Nirvana's bad temper and tendency to get provoked easily.

Back then, I had told Melina, "that's something you can make use of. And you should. In a battle, you should use everything to your advantage, because if you don't…you'll die. Well, not really. But you want to win, right? As long as you win wthout cheating, that's fine. Any whining on the loser will just be that – whining. Poor sportsmans.h.i.+p. A delusional inability to accept that she lost because she was weaker and stupider.���

And now Melina was taking that lesson to heart.

Nirvana was slowing down, having exhausted herself through her reckless swinging and screaming. She had launched powerful attacks that should have obliterated Melina…except that none of them landed. Melina was always deftly staying just out of range, completely avoiding Nirvana's strikes by a hair's breadth, or riding the shockwaves to escape.

"Who the h.e.l.l said that she doesn't have talent for swordsmans.h.i.+p?"

"Is the Franklin family serious? Condeming her as incompetent and not fit to learn the sword?!"

"If she doesn't have the talent to wield a sword, then the majority of swordsmen and swordswomen don't have the right to call themselves as such!"

The specators were overawed by Melina's display of sublime swordsmans.h.i.+p, and thoroughly impressed by her performance.

"This is impossible!" Kureha Franklin leaped to her feet, her face pale. Beside her, Eliza Franklin's jaw dropped. The self-proclaimed paladin had condemned Melina as incompetent and ordered her to give up on learning swordsmans.h.i.+p because she was so confident that she had no talent.

To see her cousin proving her completely wrong was a huge slap in the face. She wasn't able to hide her embarra.s.sment, her face completely red as several people turned to look at her curiously, as if to ask, "This wasn't what you told us? Why did you lie about your cousin being incompetent in the sword?"

"This can't be happening! How is Melina wielding a sword so proficiently?!" Eliza struck her seat with a fist, smas.h.i.+ng it. Several spectators nearby jumped up in fright. "This cannot be true! We were not wrong! We weren't!"

"What did you teach Melina, Richard Huang?!" Kureha screeched from her side of the arena. I ignored her, much to Miura's amus.e.m.e.nt. "How did you turn that incompetent talented girl into a proper swordswoman?!"

"Hey, someone's asking you a question, you know?" Miura was giggling as she stared at the two Franklin girls, amused by their rage. "Why are they acting like it's such a problem that their cousin has achieved such a high level of swordsmans.h.i.+p? Shouldn't they be happy for her?"

"I think…it's because Richard teaching Melina swordsmans.h.i.+p and proving them wrong has caused them a ma.s.sive loss of face, and they are extremely embarra.s.sed." It was Rossetti who provided an answer.

"Well, they can go screw themselves," I replied bluntly, my attention still on my charges below. "Besides, the battle is far from over."

Another thing I had taught both Melina and Adrian. It ain't over until it's over. Unntil the enemy lay on the ground, dead or defeated, never let your guard down.

The both of them had taken that lesson to heart. Whether it was Melina, whose face was one of utmost concentation and she continued to weave in and out of Nirvana's attacks, or Adrian, whose wood magic had flooded the entire s.p.a.ce where he occupied, calling upon the trees in the battlefield to reinforce him.

In fact, Adrian was proving to be quite the surprise himself. To my amazement, he had summoned a bunch of Treeants to his aid. The lumbering treeflok towered over the two frightened girls and brutally clobbered them to submission. They screamed briefly, their shrieks cut off abruptly as they vanished beneath a gigantic branch, and stomped into near oblivion by gnarled roots. Of course the boundary field would preserve their lives, but they would be spending a long time in the infirmary.

With his foes done, Adrian then moved toward Melina and Nirvana, his Treeants in tow. The gargantuan creatures left tremors with each step they took, the roots that made their legs leaving small craters in the ground.

"What the h.e.l.l…?!" Rossetti turned to gape at me. "That boy…did you teach him summoning magic as well?!"

"A little," I confessed, scratching my cheek. Adrian had begged me to teach him summoning magic, having seen mine and wanting to emulate me. Since I didn't have much to teach him in terms of swordsmans.h.i.+p, and he was a natural at wood magic, I did have some leeway and could impart to him the magic I truly specialized in.

"You…" Miura was shaking her head in disbelief. "I don't know who is more terrifying…you or those kids?"

"Hah!" I snorted. "Neither. We are such nice people, Adrian, Melina and I. What's there to be afraid of?"

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" Rossetti glared at me. Then she turned back to the arena and grimaced when she saw the crushed and broken bodies of the two girls in Nirvana's team. "I don't think those girls will be calling Adrian nice."

"They deserve it."

"…and you shouldn't be calling yourself nice either…"

"All right, I'm mean. Happy?"

"That's not what I mean…" Rossetti looked as if she had a headache, clutching her head as strands of her red hair fell through her fingers.

Nirvana realized how cornered she was, and her attacks intensified. Even if her team had already lost this match, she was determined to take out Melina at least.

"Just go down already!" she screeched, swinging her mace again. Melina hopped back, deflecting the heavy weapon by the narrowest of margins, and then ducking under the blunt weapon by bending her back backward. The brutal mace swung over her face, missing her by just a hair's breadth.

"Melina!" Adrian yelled as he approached. "Fifteen minutes are almost up!"

"So what?!" Nirvana snapped. "The time limit won't save you…"

She never got to finish her sentence. Even as she stepped in for another swing, she suddenly realized that the weight in her hands was suddenly gone. Her mace was lying on the ground, several meters away.

"…eh?"

No…it wasn't just her mace. Her hands were gone too, severed at the wrists. Nirvana stared at the stumps that were what remained of her hands, blood pouring out profusely.

"No…no way! Impossible!"

"You were saying something about breaking my limbs?" Melina asked as she advanced, her sword gleaming. "And making me lie on the ground, begging for you to stop?"

"That's…that's…" Tears were streaming from Nirvana's eyes as she backed away, still in shock. Her legs trembled so badly that she fell to her knees, unable to move. "Ah…ah…no, I was just…joking. You know how it is, right? Melina? We all brag and make threats at the beginning of the fight, but of course we don't have any intention of following through. Right? Right?"

"Weren't you going to send me to the infirmary?"

"I…I said that in the heat of the battle! I didn't mean it!"

f.u.c.k you. You were clearly doing your best to smash Melina's head in. Who were you kidding? If the situation was reversed, Nirvana would be the one crus.h.i.+ng Melina's limbs one by one in a s.a.d.i.s.tic manner and torturing her in front of everyone.

She was a f.u.c.king bully who reveled in abusing those weaker than herself. But now that she was on the receiving end of the violence, she was suddenly trying to beg for mercy.

"Please…Melina? Weren't we friends?"

"A true friend wouldn't have picked on me, bullied me, and tried to humiliate me in any way possible in front of everyone." Melina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, fire seemed to blaze in those ruby orbs. "You are no friend of mine."

"Ah…"

Before Nirvana could say anything else, Melina's gleaming sword flashed and both of her opponent's arms were gone – spiraling haplessly upward. The amputated limbs. .h.i.t the ground and rolled, blood gus.h.i.+ng out.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Nirvana screamed as she tumbled backward, tears spilling from her eyes as she stared at the ruined stumps of her arms. As expected of Melina, she had delivered a clean cut, but obviously that was of no comfort to Nirvana, who was quite literally disarmed.

"Earlier, you said you will break all my limbs, right?" Melina's blade trailed downward until the tip of it was pointed toward Nirvana's trembling thighs. "Allow me to return the favor."

"No…no!" Nirvana shrieked. "You won, Melina! I'm sorry, okay?! You won! I surrender! Please don't! Don't…!"

Melina regarded her coldly. "I wonder," she mused. "Would you have shown me any mercy if our positions were reversed? Would you have stopped if I begged you to?"

"Of…of course! You know me very well, Melina! I wouldn't hurt you!"

For a moment, Melina smiled, and Nirvana relaxed a fraction, looking relieved.

"Yes, I know you very well, Nirvana." Then Melina's eyes opened and flashed dangerously, and the arena was abruptly filled with killing intent. "For almost two years now, you've been beating me up, kicking me when I'm down and having your lackeys gang up on me. No matter how many times I begged you to stop, you refused, and beat me up even more. Yes, you are right. I know you too well."

"You can't do this! I surrender!" Nirvana glanced desperately at the referee, who remained unmoved. "The match is over! Stop her!"

"The match is over when fifteen minutes have pa.s.sed," the referee replied coolly. He glanced at the chronometer in his holographic screen. "There's still forty-eight seconds left."

"W…what?! N…no way!" Nirvana spluttered. "You can't do this!"

"You're still conscious," the referee reminded her. "You still have some mana left. Just because you lost your hands doesn't mean you can't cast any magic."

Nirvana could only stare at him, horrified, and the referee shrugged indifferently as he glanced at the chronometer again.

"Twenty-two seconds now."

Melina smiled coldly. "That's more than enough."

She then swung her sword downward. Nirvana shrieked, and then pa.s.sed out, her body toppling over. Her skirt turned wet, and a pool of liquid leaked out from between her legs. She had fainted from fear and even wet herself right in front of everybody.

And that was even before Melina touched her.

"…fortunately, I'm not you," Melina murmured as she sheathed her sword. The blade had stopped half a meter away from the now unconscious Nirvana, and it was clear to everyone that she never had any intention of cutting off the auburn-haired girl's legs. She just wanted to frighten her.

"Match over!" the referee announced, raising his hand and sounding the signal. "The winner is Team Adrian and Melina!"

Whatever words he had next were drowned out by deafening cheers from the astounded spectators.

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