CHAPTER 1015: FURY

Renard moved between the blades of wind. Those blades slicing past him with a shriek that sharp enough to flay bark from the trees and even cut them.

His lightning-wrapped body twisted and blurred, scattering lightning arcs that exploded against trunks and burning black scars across the forest.

Every step he made cracked the ground beneath him and left behind a smoking crater.

The forest itself seemed to writhe under the chaos. Branches splintered, roots tore apart, and the air filled with the smell of scorched earth and ozone.

Above, Arty hovered with a calm attitude. Her hand raised and her aura surging.

She continued to unleash volley after volley of blades of compressed wind that were raining down relentlessly. Her eyes were sharp and she was focused as if challenging him to keep dodging.

Renard’s teeth clenched, sparks crawling more violently over his skin. Each dodge made his anger coil tighter.

He could hear the forest screaming from the destruction but it wasn’t enough. His eyes narrowed up at her who looked aloft, smug, and acting as if untouchable, and frustration boiled into pure rage.

"Damn you!" he roared, lightning bursting from his chest as his whole body flared brighter.

He threw his head back and his hands snapping upward. A searing lance of lightning ripped from him. It cut through the air with impossible speed and the crack of that attack echoing like a giant whip.

BLARR!

Arty’s eyes narrowed slightly. Dodging wasn’t an option. She pulled her hands together then wind screaming around her as she forced it into a curved shield.

BOOM!

The bolt slammed into her shield with a deafening crack. Her body shuddered as the force rattled through her bones.

Pain flared as the lightning scraped through and burned against her skin leaving shallow wounds and a metallic taste in her mouth.

But she still held even though the still was broken.

Renard landed back on the ground with a wolfish grin splitting his face.

"Hah! I got you!" he barked, his chest heaving with satisfaction.

But his grin faltered when the smoke cleared.

Arty’s body emerged and was still floating and steady. She was wounded with her skin burned in some spots and her breathing sounds heavy but far from defeated.

She gritted her teeth, eyes glowing with renewed fire.

"That’s all you got?" she asked aloud. Then, with a flick of her fingers ten fireballs bloomed into existence around her in an instant.

Renard’s eyes went wide. "What—"

She didn’t let him finish. The fireballs streaked downward like meteors.

Renard cursed and was forced to blur into motion again, lightning burning across his limbs as he zigzagged through the forest.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

...

Fire detonated all around him with each explosion shook the ground, tearing apart trees and hurling fragments into the air.

But Arty didn’t stop. More fire bloomed in her hands, conjured as fast just as she thought.

Another volley screamed down at him. Then another. Each blast forced Renard to run, his own trail of lightning carving ruin into the forest as he tried to keep ahead of the endless barrage.

His patience snapped. His speed faltered into raw anger.

"Enough!" he bellowed, his voice cracking through the storm.

His body blazed with uncontrolled arcs of lightning and without a thought for caution he hurled himself upward, straight through the storm of fire.

Explosions rocked across his skin, searing wounds carving into his flesh, his clothes shredding from the heat. But he didn’t care.

Pain was nothing compared to his need to drag her down. His blood boiled with fury as he tore upward, determined to strike her even if he burned for it.

Arty saw him rising, her lips curling into a grin, sharp and merciless. "Come then."

In the same instant, she summoned not only fireballs but lances of wind as well.

Both elements flared around her in terrifying harmony then shot down at once, fire and gale fused into a storm of death.

Renard’s eyes widened in disbelief. "Impossible—!"

The barrage struck him midair. Fire roared across his body and wind blades slicing into his skin. The attacks hammering him out of the sky.

His lightning sputtered under the assault and his scream drowned out by the thunder of destruction.

His body crashed back into the forest, smashing through branches and slamming into the earth with terrifying force.

Around him, Arty’s storm rained down without mercy. Fireballs detonating, wind lances carving craters. The forest itself collapsed into chaos and ruin.

Renard lay in the wreckage, his body smoldering, the forest burning and broken around him, and Arty still hovered above with her aura blazing.

How did everything become like this? Was he really being crushed and beaten into the ground by this unknown girl?

No! Renard’s mind screamed against it, his body trembling with fury.

He refused to believe it and let this be his end.

With a guttural snarl he pushed against the broken earth beneath him and forced his battered body upright with smoke still curling from his scorched skin.

His hand fumbled to his pouch and pulled out a small vial filled with glowing green liquid.

He stared at it with teeth clenched. He did not want to use this before against her and to rely on it would mean admitting weakness and admitting that this girl’s power is stronger than him.

But what choice did he have now? Above him, Arty hovered like some untouchable force of nature. Her hands conjure flame and wind as easily as breathing.

She didn’t look like a girl anymore, she looked like a monster.

The thought of losing to her twisted his stomach with shame. If he went back to the Academy defeated his name would be nothing but a mockery. He could not allow it.

His hand shook as he popped the cork and without another thought he downed the entire vial.

The effect was immediate. His body flared and every wound sealing shut as if time itself had been rewound. The charred burns vanished, the cuts closed, his blood stopped spilling.

His Magic energy surged back fully. His reserves swelled beyond their limit and overflowed inside him.

Lightning exploded around him wrapping his entire body in a seething armor of light.

His head snapped up, his grin returning. His eyes gleamed with a mad light.

Arty’s brows furrowed slightly at the sudden shift in his aura.

She could feel the forest itself tremble from the pressure of his renewed energy.

"You thought you had me? You thought you could humiliate me?!" His voice roared through the chaos, filled with renewed confidence and bitter rage. "No one defeats me! NO ONE!"

The sky rumbled as if answering his fury. His body blurred, faster than before.

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