Destruction.
What happened during the match could only be called utter destruction.
Since the three of them were friends, after exchanging some greetings, Nero, William, and Elijah began their match.
William and Elijah knew they couldn't defeat Nero in a one-on-one fight, so they decided to team up and eliminate him first.
The poor fools had no idea that even their combined effort would be futile against that monster hiding in the human skin.
William unleashed a fury of relentless thrusts and slashes with his spear, trying to keep Nero on his back foot for as long as possible.
Using that time, as Nero parried and returned William's attacks, Elijah chanted a few spells in the High-Elven tongue to cast magic.
As soon as he was done, he signaled William and the young elven spearman instantly hopped a few meters back to safety.
Before Nero had a chance to react, several huge chunks of concrete broke off from the ground and flew to stick to Nero like iron fragments to a giant magnet.
In the blink of an eye, Nero was entrapped in a huge earthen sphere made of concrete shards.
As if that wasn't enough, Elijah chanted another spell and this time iron shackles erupted out from the ground and wrapped themselves around the giant concrete sphere in which Nero was imprisoned.
Not one, but Elijah had cast two imprisonment spells to stack up on each other.
The concrete sphere wrapped in iron shackles made it almost impossible for Nero to break out of… almost.
If in his place it was any other cadet, well, maybe aside from Kai, Quinn, me, and a few others, their bones would've already cracked under the entangling pressure of Elijah's imprisonment spell.
However, unfortunately for the half-dwarf, on the receiving end of his spell happened to be none other than the monster himself, Nero Dekrauf.
Before any of them had a chance to follow up with an attack, the ground under their feet, or what was left of it at least, rumbled loudly.
In the next moment, it felt like something was trying to break out of the metal lump of a ball that was created as the result of Elijah's magic to keep Nero sealed.
When the rumble died down, the top portion of the metal chains wrapped around the concrete sphere began to greatly heat up.
Their rough, bleak black structure turned slightly orange then burning red a few moments later.
As everyone held onto their breaths, a pillar of white, incandescent light broke out from the ball of iron shackles and shot toward the sky.
The concrete sphere exploded as the iron chains gave away to the pressure at which the pillar of white light erupted.
Shards of smoldering concrete and lumps of molten iron flew away in the air before being pulled down by gravity and raining on the other two cadets like crashing meteors.
Even from my vantage point, I could see the faces of Elijah and William twisting in disbelief and their mouths moving slightly to curse under their breaths.
They tried to dodge the rain of attacks, which were the result of Elijah's spell being backfired against them.
The half-dwarf was visibly puzzled. He couldn't understand how his two mid-level trap spells were so easily broken?
Unless… the Swordsman of End used an extremely high-level spell or a level four to five weapon art!
Both of those thoughts were unnerving. I mean, I can't blame the guy. From Elijah's point of view, his spell didn't even leave Nero any air to properly breathe let alone chant a spell or perform a weapon art!
After all, he was being crushed from all sides, goddamnit!
How then?! How did he do it?! How did he break free, in just a few seconds no less?
Well, Elijah didn't have any time to find answers to such questions.
He was already moving toward Nero, skillfully evading the flaming shards of iron and concrete raining down on him.
William also followed suit. He raised his spear, shattered the flaming shards that threatened to burn or squash him, and charged at Nero.
Only after the dust and debris settled, it turned out that the pillar of light, which was now slowly diminishing, was coming from Nero's sword, its tip pointing at the heavens.
As the bright pillar of light finally died down, Nero looked at the two oncoming attackers and smirked.
His radiant blade was white-hot after conducting that amount of light. Nero simply pointed it at Elijah and slightly muttered a chant under his breath.
Instantly, particles of lustrous white light appeared around Nero like shimmering snowflakes and trailed to accumulate at the tip of his blade and formed a luminous orb.
Elijah's eyes widened but before he could even move a muscle, the orb of light facing him broke out in a radiant white beam at him, leaving destruction in its wake.
Fortunately, the half-dwarf brought his imposing battle hammer in front of him to shield himself from Nero's attack.
However, Elijah's hammer exploded into a flood of shrapnels as soon as its hammer's huge, metallic face came in contact with that beam of light.
Elijah's eyes widened in terror. Before the beam could touch him, however, it quickly dissipated, frittering away into harmlessly beautiful shimmering snowflakes-like light particles.
Nero dismissed his spell in the nick of time. If not for that, the beam would've exploded through his skull like a hot knife to butter.
That act of mercy and Elijah's incapability to protect himself from what could've been a decisive blow counted as the half-dwarf's loss.
The announcer declared his elimination, but the match was yet to end.
William circled around all this mayhem and valiantly lunged at Nero from behind, not caring for the elimination of his friend one bit. It was just one less opponent for him.
Nearing the Swordsman from behind, William violently pushed his glimmering spear forward at Nero's back, who was momentarily off-guard after putting Elijah down.
But as it turned out, Nero's guard was never down. Instead, he had led William into a trap.
The black-haired swordsman spun around on one foot and dealt a swift horizontal slash at the incoming striking red spear.
The movement of Nero's blade was nearly as fast as the speed of light, and just as sharp. Before the audience, or William himself, had the chance to even blink an eye, the match was over.
Nero's sword cleaved through William's spear— which was probably created by the best of eleven blacksmiths— as if it was made of cardboard and the cold steel of his somber blade found itself sharply pressed against the throat of the eleven spearman in the next moment.
The announcer declared Nero as the winner of the match, much to the loud support of the jubilant crowd who stood up to cheer for the Swordsman of End's solid victory.
Ten minutes. Two of the strongest cadets in the academy only lasted for ten minutes against this monster.
"Haa," letting out a sigh, I rose from my seat and walked to the pavilion. As Kent wished me good luck, I waved him a hand and continued to walk away.
Let's just get this over with.
