BAM!
The body of the Springfield M1903A slammed straight into Tristin’s face.
The prince’s head snapped sideways from the impact as the heavy sniper rifle struck his cheek like a metal club, catching him before he could properly react.
"Urgh!"
Tristin staggered half a step.
For someone who had been standing there with such a smug expression only moments ago, getting smacked across the face with Felix’s own sniper rifle was probably the last thing he had expected.
And Ezra didn’t waste that opening.
More Cognis immediately flowed from his hands into the Circuits running through the two black metallic threads attached to the Desert Eagle and Kel-Tec PMR-30.
The thin threads tightened.
For an instant, they bulged slightly as the magnetic force running through the Magnetizum alloy changed.
Ezra reversed it.
The pulling force shifted into repulsion, causing the threads to release what they had caught before immediately retracting.
Both lines snapped back toward him.
Fast.
Very fast.
The Desert Eagle tore itself free from the Springfield and flew toward Ezra’s left hand, while the Kel-Tec PMR-30 that Gareth had slapped away earlier suddenly changed direction as its own thread retracted.
In that same moment...
Gareth was already in front of him.
He didn’t know exactly what Ezra was doing with the strange gloves, but he wasn’t going to stand there and wait to understand it.
His Colt 1911 rose.
At this distance, there was almost no room to miss.
The muzzle aimed directly at Ezra’s shoulder.
Gareth’s finger tightened.
But Ezra’s movements hadn’t stopped since the moment he threw the Kel-Tec.
Everything had been a connection.
Throwing the handgun.
Having Gareth knock it away.
Using the Desert Eagle to catch Felix’s Springfield.
Pulling the sniper rifle from Felix’s grip.
Striking Tristin with it.
And now...
The Kel-Tec returned.
The handgun snapped through the air and landed perfectly inside Ezra’s waiting hand at the exact moment Gareth fired.
Bang!
Ezra’s Kel-Tec answered.
Bang!
CLANK!
The bullets struck each other between them.
Both boys continued firing.
Bang! Bang!
Clank! Clank!
Their arms shifted with every shot, neither keeping the muzzles completely still as they adjusted their aim around the other’s body.
Gareth stepped forward.
Ezra shifted backward.
Bang! Bang!
Bang! Bang!
Clank! Clank!
Gunfire filled the space between them.
Several bullets collided in midair, while others tore past shoulders, arms, and faces close enough for both boys to feel the air they displaced.
Gareth’s expression became more focused.
He brought up his second Colt.
Ezra’s other hand moved at nearly the same time.
The retracting black thread returned the Desert Eagle to him.
Both fighters were now dual-wielding.
Gareth aimed both Colt 1911s.
Ezra raised the Kel-Tec and Desert Eagle.
Their fingers moved.
BANG!
Bang! Bang!
The Desert Eagle round struck one of Gareth’s Colt rounds head-on.
But unlike the earlier collisions between their matching handguns, this one didn’t end with both bullets simply losing their momentum.
The Desert Eagle carried more force.
Clank!
Gareth’s bullet was knocked violently away from its original path, and Ezra’s round continued.
Gareth’s eyes widened slightly as the damaged bullet spun toward his shoulder.
He immediately stepped aside.
The round passed beside him and buried itself in the ground.
His boot scraped across the soil as he smoothly shifted his weight and regained his stance.
Why is his bullet so much stronger?
Gareth glanced briefly at Ezra’s Desert Eagle.
The answer was obvious enough to him, once he thought about the difference in bullet hardness, but there was something else bothering him.
Ezra wasn’t simply firing.
His timing was becoming much better.
He was using the difference between which handgun had the stronger bullet instead of treating every handgun the same way.
That was what Gareth concluded on, but before he could press forward again...
"HOW DARE YOU!"
A violent surge of Cognis spread across the battlefield.
Ezra’s eyes immediately shifted.
Prince Tristin was coming.
Coming really fast.
The earlier calm and royal dignity on his face had almost completely disappeared.
A red mark had formed across his cheek where Felix’s Springfield had struck him, and the swelling made his otherwise graceful face look far less charming.
More importantly...
He was furious.
Tristin rushed forward and thrust his left hand toward Ezra.
At this same time, Felix moved with him.
The two boys had apparently decided that standing back and allowing Gareth to carry most of the close-range pressure wasn’t working anymore.
Well, that was Felix’s choice, since Tristin was just charging due to anger.
At that moment...
All three would attack from different directions.
Tristin rushed at Ezra from the center.
Gareth remained close enough to pressure Ezra physically.
While Felix repositioned closer, switching from a sniper to an assault rifle, where he could attack from an angle without Gareth blocking his line of fire.
Ezra’s dull black eyes moved between all three.
Once.
And that was enough for him.
His attention first settled on Gareth.
He’s reloading.
Gareth’s hands moved quickly, but Ezra wasn’t watching the magazines.
He was watching his legs.
There.
A slight shift.
Gareth’s lead foot had already angled toward one side.
He’s preparing to move where he thinks I’ll dodge after avoiding the prince’s Light Blade.
Ezra’s pupils moved toward Felix.
Felix had abandoned the Springfield M1903A after losing it.
Now holding an AK-47 in his hands.
The rifle stock settled against his shoulder.
But before Felix even raised the muzzle completely...
His eyes moved.
Only slightly.
A quick glance toward one particular area beside Ezra.
Which Ezra noticed immediately.
He’s aiming for a different place.
The two were coordinating, using Tristin crash out which would force Ezra to dodge.
Gareth would close off the most natural escape route, and Felix would fire into the position he expects Ezra to choose.
Simple, but annoying.
And very dangerous.
But that wasn’t the most important problem.
Ezra’s awareness expanded.
The forest around him seemed to change.
Not physically.
But inside his mind.
His senses spread outward until the world became something different from what his eyes alone could see.
Darkness seemed to cover everything within his perception.
Against that darkness, the environment appeared like a rough white sketch.
Trees.
Branches.
Leaves.
Moving bodies.
The trembling ground.
The wind, passing through the canopy.
Every vibration produced information.
Even farther away, the violent battle between Cyrus and Basil entered the edge of Ezra’s perception.
Explosions.
Breaking trees.
Heavy impacts.
Sound waves traveling through the forest.
Too much noise.
Ezra ignored it.
He didn’t need to sense Gareth, since he could see him, and he didn’t also need to rely entirely on sound to follow Felix either.
Since his eyes could track the AK-47.
What Ezra needed was something much smaller.
Something that had nearly killed him several times already.
The Light Blade.
His concentration narrowed.
He filtered the larger noises away one after another.
Gun movement.
Footsteps.
Breaking branches.
Distant explosions.
Breathing.
Clothing rubbing against skin.
All of it became less important.
Ezra searched for one specific disturbance.
The faint sound created when Tristin’s Light Blade moved through the air.
It was difficult.
Really difficult.
Since the blades were slim, and the particles making up their bodies allowed Tristin to hide them inside the reflected rays of sunlight passing through the forest.
The environment made that ability even more troublesome.
The canopy above them and around them was thick, even though part of the trees had been destroyed, the number was still enough.
Tall trees blocked most of the afternoon sun, allowing only narrow beams to escape through the gaps between leaves and branches.
Those rays struck tree trunks, rocks, leaves, weapons, and even the dust floating in the air.
Light reflected everywhere.
And Tristin used those reflections as camouflage.
A Light Blade could hover inside one bright ray and become almost impossible to notice.
Then it would move.
Once it crossed a darker section of the forest, its shape would briefly become visible again before entering another reflected ray and disappearing from normal sight.
That was why Ezra had struggled to track the attacks earlier.
The blades weren’t truly vanishing.
They were hiding.
But camouflage didn’t remove their physical presence from the world, since they still moved through air.
And movement created disturbance, but very little.
But now that he focused all his attention on the smallest noise around him...
That little disturbance was enough.
There.
Ezra heard it.
A faint cutting sound.
Signaling the second Light Blade incoming.
Straight toward his heart.
But this time...
Ezra didn’t immediately dodge.
Tristin’s eyes narrowed, as the blade continued moving forward.
Ezra waited.
Closer.
The golden tip touched his academy cardigan, tiering through the fabric.
Still, Ezra waited.
The blade pushed deeper and sliced through part of the academy training uniform beneath it.
Then it reached the black long-sleeved armor suit Ezra wore as inner protection.
Tsssk!
Golden sparks flashed, as the Light Blade scraped against the armored material slightly.
Only then did Ezra move.
His upper body shifted backward.
The blade passed him.
A narrow tear remained across his outer clothing, but the attack hadn’t reached his flesh.
Tristin frowned angrily; he couldn’t believe how Ezra could swiftly evade his light alchemy attack.
But Ezra already knew the answer.
He had needed the blade closer.
Close enough for his senses to clearly register the exact disturbance it created while moving.
And now...
He memorized it.
The pitch noise.
The tiny change in airflow.
And the vibration produced by the blade’s passage.
Once his boot touched the ground...
The world inside his mind changed again.
Ezra filtered everything else, and that was dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
Felix was still armed and Gareth was still close.
Ignoring the sounds produced by those two meant deliberately weakening part of his awareness against opponents who could seriously injure him.
But it was a risk Ezra needed to take.
Because once that noise disappeared...
The Light Blades appeared.
Not to his eyes, but to his senses.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Ezra’s pupils narrowed.
The blade that had just attacked him moved back toward a ray of sunlight, hiding its visible form again.
Two more were already hovering near Ezra’s position.
Waiting.
The remaining three stayed closer to Tristin.
One of those was the Light Blade Ezra’s Desert Eagle had cracked slightly, earlier.
Ezra understood immediately.
Three for attacking.
His attention shifted toward the prince.
Three for defense.
Tristin kept half of the six Light Blades near himself.
If Ezra fired at him again, those blades could immediately move to intercept the attack, exactly as one had done when the Desert Eagle round had been heading toward Tristin’s forehead.
The other three were his offensive weapons.
A balanced formation of Attack and defense.
But there was something even more important.
Tristin wasn’t controlling all six simultaneously.
Ezra had already noticed that despite having six Light Blades available, the prince only actively manipulated one at a time.
That weakness connected directly to Tristin’s current Alchemist Rank.
He was technically an Adept Alchemist.
That alone gave him an advantage over Ezra.
But his third Star was still only at the beginning of its construction.
And he hadn’t completed it.
More importantly, he wasn’t constructing a Perfect Star that would give him the level of control expected from a Full Alchemist of the Adept Rank.
And Tristin’s strategy required control.
A lot of it.
He needed to materialize six Light Blades, hide them among the reflected sunlight, maintain their positions, choose the correct one to attack or defend, and then guide that blade at extreme speed without losing control over his Cognis.
That limitation explained everything.
The six blades were dangerous, their speed was terrifying and their camouflage made them even worse.
But Tristin couldn’t freely command all six at once.
Ezra’s black eyes settled on the prince.
For the first time since the three-on-one battle began, the Light Blades no longer felt invisible and dangerous.
Because inside the dark world formed by Ezra’s senses...
All six of them had finally entered his awareness.
The moment Ezra understood the arrangement of Tristin’s six Light Blades, Gareth and Felix acted.
They had no intention of giving him time to think.
Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire erupted from two directions almost at the same time.
Gareth fired a single round from his Colt 1911, while Felix followed with a short burst from the AK-47, sending several bullets toward the space directly in front of Ezra.
At first glance, their shots seemed to overlap without much thought.
But it wasn’t
There was an understanding between Gareth and Felix that had been built from fighting together.
Both had watched Ezra’s movements since the battle began, and both had reached nearly the same conclusion about where he would move next.
Gareth’s first shot wasn’t even the most dangerous one.
Its timing was meant to hide another.
The Colt roared at nearly the same instant as one of Felix’s AK-47 rounds, allowing the louder combination of gunfire to cover the approach of the bullet that truly mattered.
If Ezra followed the escape route Gareth and Felix had predicted, that hidden round would meet him there.
It was a simple trap.
Force him to move.
Predict where he would go.
Then place the real attack there before he arrived.
Unfortunately for them, Ezra had already stopped depending entirely on his hearing for their attacks.
Ezra, who was still in a leaning position from just weaving the second light blade, leaned more backwards as the first bullet passed across his front.
At the same moment, Cognis rushed into the Circuit running through the glove on his right hand.
His wrist snapped toward the side, releasing the Kel-Tec PMR-30 on the hand.
It spun rapidly through the air toward a tree several meters away.
Felix’s eyes caught something following it.
The thin black line flashing beneath the broken sunlight.
His expression immediately changed.
"He’s going to use that black thread again!"
Gareth reacted without hesitation.
He changed direction and rushed toward Ezra instead of continuing to fire.
The Kel-Tec passed around a thick branch of the distant tree, and the black metallic thread connected to Ezra’s glove followed it, wrapping around the branch while the handgun became the anchor at the other end.
The thread tightened.
Ezra’s body was about to be pulled away, when Gareth reached him first.
His hand shot forward and caught Ezra’s left arm.
Got you.
Gareth tightened his grip.
If he could stop Ezra’s arm before the magnetic thread dragged him away, then Ezra would lose the mobility advantage those strange gloves had been giving him.
But the instant Gareth grabbed him...
Ezra’s black eyes shifted toward him.
Gareth immediately felt something was wrong, but the feeling came too late.
Ezra didn’t fight against his grip.
He used it.
His body was already being pulled toward the tree by the tightening magnetic thread, so instead of resisting Gareth’s hold, Ezra turned his wrist and shifted his shoulder in the same direction.
His hand closed around Gareth’s arm.
Reversing the grip.
Then Ezra twisted.
Gareth’s eyes widened.
His own forward momentum combined with the force pulling Ezra sideways.
His shoulder turned first.
Then his waist.
Before Gareth could properly plant his feet, Ezra redirected the entire motion through the arm he had grabbed.
For Felix, the sight was painfully familiar.
Gareth’s body suddenly left its stable position.
His legs rose high.
The forest turned upside down in his vision.
Again?
Felix blinked.
For a brief second, all he could remember was the final stage of the Trial of Steel.
Ezra had embarrassed him with a similar reversal back then.
And now...
His closest friend and combat partner was experiencing it himself.
Even Gareth looked stunned.
He had approached Ezra intending to stop him from escaping.
Instead, the ground was rapidly coming toward his face.
BAM!
Gareth slammed face-first into the forest floor.
Dirt and dry leaves burst outward beneath him.
But Ezra couldn’t spare even a second to glance at the result.
A golden light appeared above him.
Tristin had jumped.
The prince came down with one of his Light Blades gripped directly in his hand, its narrow golden edge aimed toward Ezra’s body like a sword.
"LOWLINE!"
The blade descended.
Ezra activated the Circuit in his glove.
The magnetic force running through the thread reversed.
His body was suddenly pulled backward toward the Kel-Tec anchored around the distant branch.
He shot away from Gareth, and Tristin’s Light Blade missed him.
BOOM!
The prince landed where Ezra had been standing.
His boots struck the forest floor with enough force to throw dirt outward, while the Light Blade stabbed into the earth beside him.
Tristin immediately looked up.
Ezra was already several meters away.
But Ezra wasn’t simply escaping.
His Desert Eagle rose.
BANG!
BANG!
Two heavy rounds tore toward the prince.
Tristin’s expression hardened.
He pulled the Light Blade free and swung it across his body.
Clank!
The first bullet was cut away.
His wrist turned.
Clank!
The second was slashed aside before it could reach him.
"Get back here, Lowline!"
Tristin burst forward.
Whatever graceful image he had maintained earlier was disappearing with every passing second.
The red mark from the Springfield remained across his cheek, his uniform had already picked up dirt from the battle, and anger now controlled most of his expression as he chased Ezra through the damaged forest.
Felix wasn’t far behind in supporting him.
The muzzle of the AK-47 sharply followed Ezra’s moving body, as his finger pressed down.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The rifle shook against his shoulder.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A stream of bullets chased Ezra across the forest floor.
Ezra’s boots scraped against the dirt as he changed direction.
One round struck the ground beside his left foot.
He shifted.
Another tore through the edge of his cardigan.
Ezra lowered his body as two more rounds passed over his shoulder, then pushed hard from the ground.
The magnetic thread tightened at the same time.
Instead of merely jumping...
Ezra allowed the pull to add to his momentum.
His body rose sharply toward the tree.
The Kel-Tec remained wrapped around the branch above him, acting as the anchor that drew him upward.
Bullets followed.
Bang! Bang!
Pieces of bark exploded from the trunk beneath his boots.
Ezra reached the branch.
The instant his foot came down, he changed the magnetic force again.
The Kel-Tec released from its position and snapped back toward him, freeing the thread from around the branch.
Ezra caught the handgun, but before he could properly settle onto the tree...
Clap!
The sound of Tristin’s hands meeting reached him.
Ezra immediately looked.
Tristin had stopped a bit far beneath him.
The prince’s palms were pressed together while Cognis gathered around his hands.
An Alchemy Circle formed.
The Light Blade Tristin had been holding responded first, then three of the other materialized Light Blades moved.
Golden streaks crossed the forest.
One after another, the three blades gathered around the Light Blade in Tristin’s hand.
Their structures began merging.
Light folded into light.
The shorter blade lengthened and its edge widened.
The golden glow around it became stronger as the three additional Light Blades were compressed into the weapon Tristin already held.
Within moments, the narrow Light Blade had transformed into a long sword of condensed golden light.
Ezra’s eyes narrowed.
The weapon was different now.
Larger.
Heavier in the amount of Cognis gathered within it.
And unlike Tristin’s earlier attacks, there was no attempt to hide what came next.
Tristin gripped the long Light Sword and raised it above himself.
His furious eyes locked onto Ezra.
"Die!"
He swung downward.
The sword didn’t need to physically reach Ezra.
A massive slash of golden light erupted from its edge.
This time...
Ezra could see it clearly.
The crescent-like attack tore upward through the forest, cutting through branches and leaves as it rushed toward the tree where Ezra stood.
The air screamed around it.
Ezra didn’t wait to see what would happen if it reached him.
His knees bent, then he jumped from the branch.
At the same time, his arm snapped outward again.
The Kel-Tec PMR-30 flew from his hand once again.
The handgun spun through the air toward another tall ancient tree farther away, dragging the thin black metallic thread behind it as Ezra turned his body in midair.
Behind him...
The golden sword slash reached the tree.
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