novelraw Chapter 61 : Team Match (3)
Chapter 61 : Team Match (3)
As Hwang Ji-su waved her hand, countless ice spikes showered toward Lee Yu-jin.
"Hmph!"
Yu-jin easily deflected the attacks with her sword infused with sword energy and charged forward in a straight line.
'Just like a heavy infantry.'
Su-hyeon thought.
Stubbornness meant steadfastness.
Yu-jin's charge, pushing forward without any fancy tricks, created an immense pressure by itself.
"Hmph!"
Ji-su created a massive ice lance and thrust it at her, but instead of parrying, Yu-jin jumped high and ran along the lance, using it as a foothold.
'Not a chance!'
Ji-su's response followed without the slightest error.
A thick ice wall rose up to block Yu-jin's path.
"Hmmph!"
Yu-jin's horizontal slash, containing a subtle technique, split the wall in an instant.
"Insane!"
"She cut through that?"
The watching cadets were shocked.
But.
Ji-su's real plan lay beyond.
"Freeze!"
Cold air enveloped Yu-jin as she launched a powerful attack and came over the wall.
Swooosh!
The air around her froze solid.
Crackle, crackle.
Frost rapidly formed on Yu-jin's limbs.
"She's caught for real."
"Is it over?!"
But before her body could completely freeze, Yu-jin released all the mana in her body and took a true stance.
Kwang-gwang!
The release of mana that made the air tremble prevented the cold from further invading her body.
'Staying in here too long is dangerous.'
Yu-jin's thigh muscles bulged significantly, creating an explosive dash.
Whoosh!
As Yu-jin charged forward, cutting through the air, Ji-su raised a large ice wall from beneath her feet.
"She's using such large-scale techniques so freely."
"If this were a winter map, it would have ended already."
'Even so, she's just buying time.'
Yu-jin remained unfazed.
Crack! Crack-crack!
Yu-jin stabbed her sword into the wall and climbed up the slope as if scaling a cliff, ascending the ice wall in one breath.
"Working hard, aren't you?"
Meanwhile, Ji-su created an ice slide behind her back and slid down like she was skating.
"Wow!"
The cadets admired Ji-su's skill at creating something so realistic in such a short time, as if she were sculpting an ice figure.
"Hmph."
After climbing all the way up the ice wall, Yu-jin calmly slashed through the slide.
As Ji-su jumped from the collapsing slide, Yu-jin kicked off the wall and flew toward her.
Swoosh!
Yu-jin's form approached instantly like an arrow.
However, Ji-su created an ice foothold in midair and pushed off it to escape Yu-jin's trajectory.
"Tch!"
Ji-su fired ice arrows toward Yu-jin's landing point.
"Whoa!"
"She can't dodge that!"
The timing was perfectly calculated.
Thud!
Yu-jin twisted her body in midair and landed facing the arrows, but.
Due to her body stiffening from the impact of landing that spread through her ankles and knees, she was hit in the calf by one of the flying arrows.
"Ugh!"
Yu-jin sighed as she looked down at her calf that froze instantly when hit.
'This will reduce my mobility.'
Her gaze turned toward Ji-su.
"How long do you plan to just run away?"
"You'd be better off dropping the lame provocations."
Ji-su shrugged her shoulders.
As the complacency on her face suggested, Ji-su's tactics were clearly working better so far.
'That means she's wary of close combat with Yu-jin. The moment the distance closes, the tide could turn.'
Su-hyeon thought as he watched.
'The current Yu-jin probably has at least one trick up her sleeve.'
As Su-hyeon tried to figure out what it might be, his eyebrows twitched.
"Could it be?"
The ice wall behind Ji-su had somehow become a dead end that prevented her from using her hit-and-run strategy by creating distance.
'Is she intentionally letting the ice walls form to slowly corner her?'
Su-hyeon's guess was soon proven correct.
Bang! Bang!
Despite having her mobility and stamina whittled down by continuous attacks, Yu-jin relentlessly closed the distance, and the once-wide map had now become a cage surrounded by ice walls.
"Now Ji-su has nowhere to go!"
"Was this her plan all along?"
"Realistically, this was the only way for Yu-jin, who still can't use ranged attacks, to create a battlefield favorable to herself."
Su-hyeon grinned at Seo Jun-seong's interested comment.
'Your interest is showing, man.'
Meanwhile, Yu-jin and Ji-su finally faced each other as the distance between them closed.
"Nowhere left to run."
"Say what you want."
Ji-su lowered her stance as she looked at Yu-jin's body, frozen and injured in several places.
Crack!
After deflecting another flying ice lance, Yu-jin rushed toward Ji-su and swung her sword.
"Tch!"
Ji-su parried with an ice spear she had refined from cold energy.
However, even a frigid spear frozen solid enough to break steel couldn't withstand Yu-jin's pure sword energy.
Clang! Clang-clang!
Each time it met the sword, pieces of the spear were mercilessly chipped away.
'Ugh!'
Ji-su's face contorted.
'Damn! As expected, it's a troublesome ability.'
Mana Penetration.
Not only did Yu-jin's invading mana cause damage to her body.
It also disrupted the flow of mana and the manifestation of her characteristic.
'Damn, it really is a troublesome ability in close combat.'
Though it had many conditions attached.
In the end, it was Yu-jin's ability that had inflicted severe damage and brought down the powerful Ma-in Lee Yong-ju.
"Yu-jin is amazing."
With her swordsmanship learned from the Sword God, enhanced by an ability that disrupted the opponent's interior and mana with each touch, the true value of the swordswoman Yu-jin was properly revealed.
"At this rate, isn't Yu-jin going to win?"
"But Ji-su is fighting better than expected too."
"True. She's pretty good at close combat as well."
Ji-su's ice manipulation ability was a powerful characteristic that could finish an opponent with just one freeze.
If she could exploit an opening well, Yu-jin might actually be the one to lose.
'If I grab and freeze her, I win.'
Ji-su thought.
There was the problem of difficulty in engaging in ultra-close combat through weapons, but.
In fact, that was a much more powerful attack than releasing cold energy to freeze someone.
And.
To Yu-jin, who anticipated Ji-su's intention, it was a bait perfect for setting a trap.
"Ah!"
Yu-jin deliberately slipped and her stance faltered.
'Now!'
Not missing the opening, Ji-su strongly deflected Yu-jin's sword, then dropped her weapon and extended both hands.
"Got her!"
"This is the end!"
Just as exclamations erupted among the cadets.
Yu-jin also dropped her sword, deflected Ji-su's hands with her wrists, grabbed Ji-su, and slammed her to the ground with a technique reminiscent of a back throw.
Crash!
"Kuhak!"
As Ji-su momentarily entered a groggy state with the air forced out of her lungs.
"My victory."
Yu-jin pointed her confidently reclaimed sword at her.
"...Match over!"
"Wooaaah!"
"No way!"
"Amazing!"
"Yu-jin won!"
Shock, admiration, excitement.
Amidst all kinds of emotions welling up.
'That kid.'
Only Su-hyeon, who recognized the technique Yu-jin used, smiled secretly.
Exposing a fake opening and then using a martial arts technique to counter.
It was exactly the same pattern she had experienced from Su-hyeon multiple times.
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
"Hey."
"Don't say anything."
Hwang Ji-su responded in a subdued voice to Kwon Seung-yeon's concerned tone.
"......"
The proud Ji-su had been defeated in front of everyone.
Setting aside entrance scores, she had thought she would never lose in a one-on-one match.
But her final defeat was clearly the result of falling into Yu-jin's trap.
The fact that she had been outmaneuvered by someone she had considered rather straightforward gave Ji-su an even greater shock.
'Is this how Yu-jin fights?'
The way she stubbornly pushed forward to overcome her range disadvantage and cornered Ji-su against the wall was steadfast and very much like Yu-jin.
But the way she displayed a fake weakness to induce Ji-su's response and then beautifully countered it was unlike Yu-jin.
'I honed my abilities over and over. I trained for all kinds of situations as if they were real battles. But was that not enough?'
It was hard to accept that fact.
'What was the difference between Yu-jin and me?'
She desperately wanted to know.
'Maybe...'
"Jeong Su-hyeon, Ahn Jun-tae. Hong In-hyeon, Kang Geon-woo. Step forward."
"Yes."
Ji-su's gaze turned toward Su-hyeon as he walked to the capsule.
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
Swoosh!
The wind blade that Hong In-hyeon shot assaulted Su-hyeon and Ahn Jun-tae.
"Hide behind me!"
Su-hyeon easily blocked the attack by forming his mana into a shield.
"Wow!"
The cadets, now seeing Su-hyeon's fighting firsthand after his impressive performance during the Ma-in attack, marveled at the shield he created.
"When did he learn that kind of magic?"
"I know, right? He used to carry a shield around."
"It might not be magic. Since he can use sword energy too..."
"Isn't that too unfair then? Among us, only Yu-jin can use things like sword energy or fist energy."
"That guy, did he hide his strength during admission?"
"So cool, Su-hyeon."
"All of a sudden?"
The match was drawing even more attention than Yu-jin and Ji-su's fight.
"Keep just blocking like that!"
In-hyeon, who had risen into the air by creating wind, shot attacks from above their heads.
"Quite cautious, aren't you."
Su-hyeon remarked.
In-hyeon's presence, expanding the battlefield into a three-dimensional range and firing ranged attacks, was quite troublesome for the two.
"Take this!"
A fireball that Jun-tae shot flew toward In-hyeon.
However.
Fire is a substance in a plasma state with extremely little mass.
For In-hyeon's wind, which could easily blow away even rocks, preventing fire from approaching wasn't even a problem.
"You fool!"
Instead, the wind In-hyeon created sent the fireball back.
Bang!
The accelerated fireball pounded heavily against the Mana Shield.
"Damn it!"
Jun-tae clicked his tongue.
'Without Min Hae-na's concrete, it's not easy to counter In-hyeon's advantage.'
But.
Su-hyeon didn't force himself to come up with a strategy to overcome this weakness in this fight.
'If I use a defensive approach, he'll eventually have to come in and attack.'
Su-hyeon, knowing well that both In-hyeon and Geon-woo's goal was to settle the score with him, stepped forward.
"Let's stop this boring war of attrition."
"What are you saying?"
In-hyeon snorted.
"Is what you really want a strategy where Kang Geon-woo rushes at me while you harass and check from afar, slowly wearing me down until you win?"
"!"
In-hyeon's lips twitched as his weak point was hit.
"So?"
"Let's go like our previous match."
"Why should we fight in a way that favors you?"
Geon-woo objected.
"We can easily win if In-hyeon takes care of Jun-tae and then we gang up on you."
"If you feel satisfied winning that way, then do it."
"!"
Su-hyeon's calm provocation was working on both of them.
"But since this is practice, not an evaluation, would winning in such an obvious way be helpful?"
"No matter how plausibly you put it, the fact remains that you're making specious arguments to induce a fighting style favorable to you."
"I won't deny that."
Su-hyeon shrugged.
"You shouldn't underestimate Jun-tae too much."
"Ha!"
In-hyeon laughed.
"Fine. I was getting bored with this trivial strategy anyway."
"...This actually worked?"
Su-hyeon chuckled at Jun-tae's dumbfounded reaction.
'This is only possible if you understand the personalities of those two.'
"How about we make the rules tournament-style? Each of us fights one-on-one, and the final winners have the last match."
"Aren't you fancy. What if both of you collapse before that?"
"Then it would be our complete defeat."
Su-hyeon shrugged, and.
"Unbelievable guys."
Kim Cheol-han, watching through the screen, clicked his tongue.
"They've only grown more cunning."
With the match not affecting their grades, and with the precedent set by Yu-jin and Ji-su, they were just doing as they pleased.
Although this was increasingly diverging from the original intention of a team match.
'If they want to establish their own hierarchy, there's no reason to stop them.'
After all, what matters is the result of the actual evaluation.
Kim Cheol-han signaled his tacit approval of the four's actions through his silence, and.
"Rock, paper, scissors!"
"Yes!"
The matchups were decided as Jeong Su-hyeon VS Kang Geon-woo, Ahn Jun-tae VS Hong In-hyeon.