Never Die Villain

"Then let’s see what you’ve accomplished in all these months, Ilya Belozersky."

Ilya didn’t even bother responding, throwing the ice javelin beside him forward as the blizzard simultaneously pushed him off the ground.

Tristan raised one hand as the weapon crossed the distance between them, and rather than putting up a barrier, a thin layer of mana appeared in front of his palm.

The ice javelin struck it.

———!

Its trajectory changed.

Instead of continuing toward Tristan, the javelin quickly veered to the side and buried itself in a nearby tree, sinking deep enough into the trunk that cracks spread through the bark.

Ilya’s eyes followed it for only an instant before Cold Sense warned him of another movement, and he allowed the blizzard to throw him sideways just as a blade of compressed mana passed through the space where his neck had been.

Ilya landed several meters away.

"That wasn’t wind magic."

"No."

Tristan extended two fingers.

The mana blade that had already passed Ilya curved through the air.

Ilya immediately felt it coming through Cold Sense and ducked, allowing the spell to sweep over his head before the blizzard pushed him forward.

He crossed the distance toward Tristan quickly, forming another ice javelin along the way before launching it directly at his chest.

Tristan moved his hand slightly. Once again, the javelin changed direction.

This time, however, Ilya was watching carefully enough to notice what happened.

Tristan hadn’t taken control of his spell, nor had he destroyed or deflected it through brute force. The ice javelin had continued traveling with almost all of its original momentum.

Only its direction had changed.

"Refraction..."

Tristan smiled. "You’ve been studying."

"Unfortunately."

Refraction Magic was uncommon enough that Ilya had only encountered it a handful of times in the books he had been reading over the past several months.

Rather than creating a particular element, it manipulated the path through which magical phenomena traveled, allowing a sufficiently skilled practitioner to alter the direction of a spell without needing to overpower it directly.

It was also considerably more complicated than Tristan was making it look.

"You should pay more attention to your surroundings."

Ilya felt three disturbances through Cold Sense.

He moved immediately.

Three mana blades descended from different directions, with one coming from above and the other two curving around the trees on either side of him.

The blizzard launched Ilya backward before the attacks could converge, but Tristan adjusted their trajectories again, causing all three to turn and continue following him.

"Tsk."

Ilya accelerated.

The mana blades followed.

He shot between the trees with the blizzard carrying him several meters off the ground, repeatedly changing direction as Tristan’s spells pursued him through the forest.

Whenever Ilya made a sharp turn, the blades followed shortly afterward, and even when he put a tree between himself and one of them, the spell simply curved around the obstacle instead of crashing into it.

So this was Tristan Amaury de Bellacourt.

Now he understood what all the fuss was about.

The blizzard suddenly threw him upward as the three mana blades converged beneath him, causing the spells to collide and burst apart.

Ilya immediately formed several ice javelins above the trees and sent them toward Tristan from different directions, forcing him to deal with multiple trajectories at once rather than a single straightforward attack.

Tristan didn’t move.

Thin planes of mana appeared in the air around him, and each javelin changed direction the instant it crossed one of them.

One flew harmlessly into the ground, another shot upward into the canopy, and the last two curved around Tristan before turning back toward Ilya.

"Ah..."

Ilya dropped beneath his own javelins as they passed overhead, but Tristan was already preparing another spell before he could regain his position.

"Fulmen."

Lightning erupted from his hand.

"That’s similar to Elise’s... No, it’s way stronger..."

Ilya immediately threw himself aside with the blizzard.

He expected the bolt to continue past him once he escaped its trajectory, only for it to strike one of the translucent planes Tristan had positioned in the air and abruptly bend downward.

Crackle——!

Ilya twisted away before it could reach him, but another plane appeared along the lightning’s new path, redirecting the bolt a second time and sending it straight back toward him.

Ilya’s eyes widened as Cold Sense warned him of the attack coming from behind.

The blizzard surged beneath him and hurled him upward before the lightning could reach his back, leaving the bolt to pass beneath his feet and tear into the ground.

Ilya continued rising for several meters before forcing himself to a stop, finally getting enough distance to look down at the network of translucent planes Tristan was beginning to establish throughout the forest.

"So they can redirect the same spell more than once..."

Magic wasn’t always about fighting.

There were many different paths a practitioner could pursue, and the ability to personally cast powerful spells was only one measure of accomplishment.

Combat ability naturally received the most attention, especially when discussing famous wizards.

But there were scholars who spent most of their lives researching magical theory, developing spells, improving existing formulas, studying mana phenomena, or creating techniques that they themselves might never be capable of performing.

A wizard who reached only the Third Circle in their lifetime could still possess an extraordinary understanding of magic.

Their lower Circle might prevent them from supplying the mana or maintaining the circulation necessary to cast a Fifth Circle spell themselves.

But that didn’t necessarily prevent them from studying the principles behind one, identifying flaws in an existing formula, or even developing an entirely new Fifth Circle spell for another wizard to perform.

That was the distinction between magical power and magical scholarship.

Tristan, however, was considered exceptionally talented in both.

He had the potential to become an outstanding combat mage, but his understanding of magical theory had earned just as much recognition from the professors at the academy.

In fact, the only student who had consistently been regarded as more talented was the late Imperial Prince, Siegfried, whose talent for combat magic couldn’t properly be measured.

Outside of that particular comparison, there were very few areas of magic where Tristan was considered lacking.

Yet again, another golden child of the era.

But what of Ilya Belozersky?

"...!"

In the world of wizards, he was an unpolished stone that had only just begun to shine.

The blizzard slammed down.

Tristan barely had time to react before an immense force crashed into him from above, interrupting whatever spell he had been preparing and forcing his entire body toward the ground.

His knees buckled under the sudden pressure as the earth cracked beneath his feet, but he immediately reinforced himself with mana and raised a barrier overhead despite having no idea what exactly he was defending against.

"I still don’t understand..."

Ilya didn’t answer.

Tristan was better than him at magic. There was no shame in admitting that when Ilya had been studying the subject for less than a year.

But Ilya had something Tristan didn’t.

"Ugh...!"

A Domain.

Whoosh——!

The blizzard converged around Tristan from every direction, packing more and more force into the space around him until even someone incapable of perceiving the storm could tell that something was wrong.

Tristan immediately created several translucent planes around himself, preparing to redirect whatever spell Ilya was about to send his way, but no projectile came.

Ilya clenched his hand.

"Avalanche."

The accumulated force of the blizzard was released all at once.

Tristan disappeared beneath the impact as Avalanche crashed into him, shattering his barrier and ripping him off his feet before sending him hurtling backward through the forest.

He crashed through branches on the way and nearly struck a tree, managing to throw up another barrier just before the collision sent cracks spreading through the trunk.

Ilya still wasn’t finished.

Before Tristan could reach the ground, the blizzard caught him again and dragged him back into the air.

He immediately tried to break away, twisting his body and gathering mana around his hands, but the the force only increased until his arms were pushed apart and his entire body was left suspended several meters above the ground.

"What the hell...?"

Tristan strained against it again, this time managing to move one arm several inches before the blizzard shoved it back.

Whatever composure he had maintained throughout the fight was beginning to crack, especially when several ice javelins started forming around him.

"You’re quite vindictive, aren’t you?"

"You figured that out a little late."

"I was under the impression you didn’t care about these things."

"I didn’t."

Ilya raised his hand, and the ice javelins slowly turned toward Tristan until every sharpened point was aimed directly at him.

"I’m trying something new."

Tristan stared at the javelins surrounding him, then let out a breath as mana began gathering around his body again.

"Of course you are."

The javelins fired.

"Lux refracta, vias divide. Septem lineae, caelum reflecte!"

A brilliant magic circle burst into existence behind Tristan.

It was enormous, easily several times wider than his outstretched body, with multiple rings of densely packed runes rotating in opposite directions around a complex formation at its center. The moment the circle completed itself, dozens of translucent planes unfolded throughout the air around Tristan, catching every ice javelin before they could reach him.

Ilya’s eyes widened.

The javelins changed direction all at once.

"A third circle..."

The blizzard ripped Ilya away as his own attacks came flying back toward him, but Tristan’s spell didn’t end there.

The enormous magic circle continued rotating behind him as the translucent planes spread farther through the forest, appearing between the trees, above the canopy, and along paths Ilya had previously been using to move.

Tristan slowly raised his head.

"Speculum Caeli!"

The outermost ring of the magic circle turned.

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