How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?-Chapter 402 - 122 : Fair Duel

"I quietly walked behind you, so I could be alone with you in this scene," Charon said, leaning on his sword.

"Charon, I originally thought you were just a petty man. But it seems I overestimated your morals after all," Winnie said, lifting his gaze to stare calmly at Charon. "You... are an outright scum. A trash who would ruthlessly kill classmates and kin alike.'

"Winnie, the real trash will rot here forever today, no one else will ever know," Charon snarled.

"Heh." Winnie gasped without a trace of emotion. "I really wonder... why."

"Why, even after I've tried my best to deviate from the path, tried to become an ordinary person. "

"Why do you still see me as a thorn in your eye, a splinter in your flesh? Why can't you just coexist peacefully with me??"

"Ordinary person? Winnie, do you really still delude yourself into thinking you can be normal?" Charon mocked. "Don't think I don't know, weren't you the first person that cursed blade targeted when it rampaged through the academy? You're the one who led it here, right??"

"Don't slander me without proof. And regarding this matter, I'm even more curious, exactly who told you? What's your source?" Winnie raised an eyebrow.

"Winnie, if you don't want others to know, don't do it yourself. Did you really think the evil you've done could stay hidden forever?"

"After that, you still think you can be 'normal'??"

"Charon, does it matter whether that sword came after me first? Are you seriously saying that in your eyes, when a victim gets stabbed, we should blame the victim??" Winnie frowned.

"Flies don't buzz around uncracked eggs, Winnie. Shouldn't you reflect on why that infamous, detestable cursed sword only sought you out and not anyone else?" Charon shot back. "It's obvious, like attracts like. Things steeped in infamy only seek out others of the same kind."

"What the hell kind of bullshit is that??" Finally pushed over the edge by yet another baseless attack and false accusation, Winnie had enough. Has it been so long since he cursed that people now thought he was well-mannered?? "Because some demonic cursed object came after me, I'm automatically the guilty one? Is that your idiotic logic? Did you throw your brain away before thinking??"

With the complete awakening of the Varelis bloodline, his temper had improved somewhat compared to before. Why? Perhaps because Vanessa had started affecting his temperament. But that didn't mean the Camella's Curse king had retired from the battlefield.

"By that ridiculous logic of yours, you'd falsely accuse millions of innocents," Winnie coldly retorted.

"Don't worry. No matter how many innocents get wronged, you won't be one of them, Winnie. I know exactly what kind of person you are." Charon raised his sword, the tip pointing straight at Winnie. "Today, I will uproot you, the blight upon the Camella Kingdom."

"You're going to declare me guilty based solely on your own words? Is that how it works?"

"You deceived and manipulated the princess herself, what greater crime is there than that?" Charon declared with righteous indignation.

"Pfft. Pfft." Winnie suddenly burst into laughter. "I see now, Charon. Deep down, even you know you're just fabricating an excuse to kill me. You're lying to yourself, telling yourself this is for the future of the kingdom and its people, and for Lady Mirexia."

"Charon, you're not just trash, you're trash who refuses to admit you're trash. A cowardly piece of trash who can't take responsibility. Even with your heart completely rotten, you still put on this facade of righteousness, forcing everyone, and even yourself, to believe you're a hero of justice, a savior of the Camella Kingdom."

"Is it that if you don't do this, you'd ignore yourself? You're nothing but a maggot from a toilet, yet you insist on dressing yourself up as something noble. You... truly make me sick," Winnie sneered.

Charon's eyes burned with killing intent. In mere breaths, the finely crafted golden-hilted broadsword was thrust right before Winnie's brow.

Winnie raised his arm to block. A magnificent set of armor instantly clad his body, and his vambrace intercepted the descending broadsword.

"Clang, clash!" Sparks violently erupted as the broadsword struck Winnie's vambrace, revealing the sheer force behind Charon's strike.

"Winnie, I won't take advantage of you. Let's fight fairly and squarely, let's see how many exchanges you can endure," Charon said, then suddenly kicked Winnie in the abdomen, sending him stumbling back several steps.

Winnie felt a surge of nausea in his gut. But Charon gave him no time to recover.

"That was just a warm-up, Winnie." As he spoke, Charon swung his broadsword repeatedly, each strike now wreathed in roaring flames. Even from a distance, Winnie felt the searing heat on his face.

[Flame Slash]

A plain and unadorned warrior magic. A basic warrior skill, and an upgraded version of [Minor Flame Slash].

Metal doesn't insulate heat, and [Armour Fortress] can't block magic.

Once magic is involved, Winnie, clad in [Armour Fortress], becomes as fragile as butter, crumbling at a single touch.

Fair fight??

He doesn't even have a weapon, and his mana is nearly exhausted, this is what he calls a fair fight??

Facing the flame-wrapped descending blade, Winnie, limited in agility and with no room to dodge, could only counter with a magic clash.

Each scale of his [Armour Fortress] became coated in frost, as if armored in a sculpture of ice.

[Ice Steel]

With a violent crashing sound, the flaming blade heavily struck Winnie's shoulder, shattering every ice fragment covering him. At the same time, the [Excellent]-rank elemental affinity burst forth, and the ice element extinguished the flames on Charon's broadsword.

A flicker of surprise flashed in Charon's eyes.

In his original plan, Winnie's mana should have been utterly unable to block that strike.

This kid... seems he actually has some tricks up his sleeve.

Charon didn't stop his assault. Since [Flame Slash] had been neutralized, he knew his sword couldn't penetrate Winnie's [Armour Fortress], he'd have to rely on magic.

Although outdated by countless generations, [Armour Fortress] still had its uses, such as forcing the enemy to use magic attacks, thus interrupting their combo. After all, ordinary physical attacks were largely ineffective against [Armour Fortress].

Charon raised his golden-hilted broadsword once more. A storm of flame surged, coiling around the blade.

This technique was...?

Even before the elemental gathering fully took shape, Winnie felt that terrifying heat.

It seemed Charon's specialty, like Aesphyra, was also fire.

This was bad, fire was exactly the element that countered his own mastery of ice.

And more importantly, Charon's cultivation rank was higher than his.

Each stage above Warlock was a huge gap, massive differences in magical power and mana capacity. In simple terms, advancing a rank meant increasing raw stats. If someone had only stats but no mechanics or technique, they'd be crushed by someone with a higher rank, because the opponent's stats far surpass theirs.

How unlucky could he be? To be perfectly countered by Charon.

No, wait. His bad luck hadn't stopped for days.

In that very instant, Charon's broadsword erupted with violent fire-elemental energy. A fiery whirlwind wrapped around the blade as it slashed down toward Winnie's head.

This was, [Bursting Flame Hurricane Slash]

If Winnie remembered correctly, this was the advanced version of [Flame Slash].

After all, a single spell couldn't be cast repeatedly, but spells of the same type can be chained together.

Clearly, Charon had learned many fire-elemental slashing techniques, each strike a blazing inferno.

Now, Winnie had only two choices: continue clashing with magic, or evade.

But wearing armor affects Winnie's agility, even if the perfect fit minimized that drawback.

So Winnie made a bold decision: he dispelled [Armour Fortress] and rolled sideways.

The explosive fire hurricane raged wildly, leaving behind a snake-like charred scar across the earth. The massive force sent waves of heat blasting outward.

Winnie knew full well that even if he dodged the direct strike, he wasn't safe. Without countermeasures, the shockwave alone could roast him into charcoal.

At the critical moment, Winnie pulled out a pendant glowing with faint red light. One hand shielded his face, the other aimed at the incoming fire wave.

"Boom, boom!!" Winnie was blasted backward by the searing blast. But the gem in his hand absorbed some of the core heat. And whether by luck or not, his Carillian Academy uniform just happened to have fire-element resistance.

Carillian Academy uniforms all had elemental resistance, but only against one element. Most students chose resistance to common elements like fire, lightning, or wind.

Winnie had just happened to pick fire resistance.

Thus, although he was blasted by the spell's aftermath and sent flying, he only suffered burns, not a fatal wound.

Consider this: it was a full-power magic attack from a Warlock-level opponent, using a high-tier spell. The residual blast alone could kill every ordinary person in a schoolyard.

Winnie rolled to the side, ignoring the searing pain from his burns, and glanced at the low-grade fire resistance pendant in his scorched palm.

This beginner's item he'd dug out from a goblin cave had saved his life again.

Last time, from that out-of-control Dragon Knight squire. This time, from Charon.

But this time, it wasn't so lucky. Shattered by the magical shockwave, the pendant broke into several charred fragments.

Exposed areas of Winnie's body were badly burned. Clenching his fist, his nails digging into his palm, he couldn't suppress the pain. Yet even so, staggering, he stubbornly stood back up.

Charon's strength... must be intermediate Warlock.

Gritting his teeth, Winnie analyzed through the pain.

"So that's it. Your uniform just happened to have fire resistance?" Charon sneezed at Winnie's battered state. "You're damn lucky. Without that resistance, you'd be dead by now."

"But this is just futile struggling." As he spoke, Charon concealed his sword behind his back. The temperature in the area suddenly became terrifyingly high.

Blazing winds howled. Then, as Charon drew his sword forward, a fireball as large as a carriage formed beneath his blade, covered in jagged flames.

[Heaven's Fire Punishment]

"To make me use this technique, I'll grudgingly admit you're worthy of battle," Charon declared. The spiked fireball the size of a carriage surged towards Winnie, melting a path through the ground as it advanced. Rolling forward, its flaming spikes alone were enough to make one's scalp crawl.

Winnie knew he couldn't dodge this time. Charon had unleashed his ultimate technique, [Heaven's Fire Punishment] was undoubtedly one of the strongest spells he could currently cast.

Winnie didn't know if he could block it. But he had no choice, he'd have to try. He'd use one of his strongest spells.

An ice demon mask formed over his face. The chilling eyes blazed with cold light, and an endless stream of frostfire spewed from his mouth.

[Frost Snow Flame]

The spiked fireball carriage and the frostfire collided. One side scorched the earth into molten slag, the other froze everything into ice. The two overwhelming magical forces clashed, and for a moment, neither could gain the upper hand.

Seeing this, Charon's brows furrowed deeply.

This was one of the strongest spells he could unleash as a Mid-tier Warlock. According to his plan, this move should have finished Winnie.

Fire countered ice, and he was a full minor rank above Winnie, his magical power far exceeded Winnie's.

With Winnie's [Excellent]-rank ice affinity, he definitely shouldn't be able to withstand [Heaven's Fire Punishment].

The only possible explanations for this stalemate: either Winnie's ice affinity had improved again, and he possessed enchanted items greatly boosting it, or Winnie's ice spell was of a very high tier, one with high elemental affinity requirements.

The higher the learning requirements for a spell, the more its power surpasses spells of the same rank. That was common knowledge.

In truth, Charon guessed correctly on both counts.

Winnie had both.

He wore an accessory granted by the King of Camella, specifically designed to amplify his ice magic mastery. It was even [Excellent]-rank ice element. Combined with [Frost Snow Flame]'s [Excellent]-rank ice element requirement and high fire affinity prerequisite, he was able to match Charon, who was one rank above, blow for blow.

Yet even though they were evenly matched, mana would eventually run out.

Charon could afford it. Most of his earlier combat relied on sword techniques, he hadn't consumed much mana. Plus, being a higher rank, his mana capacity was far greater than Winnie's.

Winnie was different. After prolonged battles, his mana was already low. And with [Frost Snow Flame]'s monstrous mana cost, he was running out fast.