Allen VS Rudy, Rudy's Foresight

No sooner had he spoken than Allen kicked up the dirt at his feet, launching himself like a cannonball toward Rudy.

Then, an actual "cannonball" appeared right in front of him.

It was a dense barrage of Water Balls, each nearly a meter in diameter, packed together in the air like blue balloons forming a solid wall of spherical bricks. And this wasn't just a thin wall.

The Water Ball spell continued, and the wall's thickness steadily accumulated.

Allen smiled, narrowing his eyes as he gripped his sword.

The wind seemed to quiet considerably.

He's got some spirit, but this time I won't just rely on Sword God Style. Do I need to cut through the Water Balls while maintaining high speed? And I need a deep enough attack range... A Round Heaven Slash won't cut it. So...

North God Style — Battle-Hardened — Standard Form Two.

Dirt fragments exploded from behind Allen's feet as his right leg lifted, and his body twisted in mid-air. The blade swung in a full circle around him as he rotated, building momentum for a cleaving strike. As he unleashed it, the wall of Water Balls was right in front of him; he could even see the sun's reflection glinting on their surfaces.

Fighting Spirit surged.

Round Heaven Slash!

Fighting Spirit enveloped the blade, and the sword light seemed to extend immensely.

The water wall was horizontally cleaved, and Allen burst through the gap!

He shattered another Water Ball coming at him, weaving back and forth through the now significantly wider gaps between the Water Balls. One by one, the Water Balls exploded around him, rippling across the grassy ground.

Amidst the ripples, Allen stepped on the water, moving forward, his speed increasing rather than decreasing.

He looked up at Rudy in the distance, who was continuously firing Water Ball spells from his palms. At the same time, Rudy's body bounced like a balloon, rapidly retreating. He was using a series of Air Blast Magic spells to quickly widen the distance between himself and Allen.

No wonder the Water Balls are noticeably scattered; Rudy can't aim properly while leaping. Leaping Air Blast Magic, then. He casts it twice during one leap: once to create a reactive force that propels him, and a second time on his feet to dampen the impact and help him leap again.

But it's not fast enough.

The scattered, inaccurate Water Ball spells couldn't stop Allen's advance. His dynamic senses were pushed to their limit; Water Balls fruitlessly exploded around him, turning into torrents on the ground. Yet, he moved like a butterfly skimming across a lake, maintaining his momentum without the slightest hesitation.

The distance between them had already closed to fifty meters!

Rudy, seeing this from afar, gritted his teeth.

"Water Spout! Ice Pillar!"

Allen instinctively dodged an Ice Pillar under his feet but realized no ice had formed. He looked up at Rudy.

A massive cylindrical stream of water swirled around Rudy's body, instantly pouring down! The immense volume of water almost submerged the ground, forming a shallow river, and then a sudden Ice Pillar appeared beneath Allen's feet.

"Rock Bullet!"

Rudy flung his hand, launching a Rock Bullet compressed into a blade shape. With a thwack, it sliced the Ice Pillar into a walkable ice sheet. He then stepped onto the ice sheet, raised his hand, and yelled at Allen.

"Rock Bullet!"

Allen turned to dodge, but again, no Rock Bullet came. He looked up to see Rudy in the distance merely shouting a fake warning. In reality, he was using Air Blast Magic, leveraging the reverse inertia to slide rapidly away across the grassy water with the ice sheet under his feet.

It was more than twice as fast as just using Air Blast.

Allen was dumbfounded.

He can do that?

Suddenly, a Rock Bullet attacked. Allen deflected it with his sword. The Dragon Saint Battle Qi Core Embryo in his abdomen abruptly contracted and expanded, squeezing out gurgling streams that melted into the original Fighting Spirit throughout his limbs.

He sliced through an incoming ice spear, plowing high waves across the water in front of him, and sprinted forward. Rock Bullets kicked up layers of dirt behind him, but they couldn't lock onto his figure.

Fighting Spirit surged wildly, and Allen's speed was so great he was almost a blur!

In just a few breaths, the distance between them closed again to thirty meters!

Rudy saw that the Rock Bullets couldn't hit Allen, but there was no panic on his face. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he shouted.

"Allen, watch closely! This mixed magic!"

"Mud Pit!"

As soon as he spoke, a flicker of understanding crossed Allen's eyes.

As an original fan who had read the novel, how could he overlook Rudy's signature magic? However, the current Rudy couldn't instantly cast a wide-range Mud Pit. In the novel, at the end of his childhood, when fighting Paul, he used a two-meter diameter Mud Pit spell.

Allen chuckled, flicking his sword to slash at his feet. The wind pressure parted the rapidly liquefying ground, and he stood firm, leaping high to escape the Mud Pit's range. Then, he cleaved an insidious ice spear that flew at him.

He landed five meters away.

One foot sank into the mud pit.

"?"

Allen looked at his legs, stuck in the mud, and gazed at Rudy in surprise.

Rudy, in the distance, had stopped his rapid retreat. He excitedly yelled at Allen.

"My Water Ball Spell and Water Spout Spell aren't just for your amusement! Look around you! This is a special large-area magic I prepared just for you!"

Allen shattered an ice spear that attacked him as Rudy spoke, his eyes narrowing as he quickly scanned his surroundings.

The hillside below was already a muddy mess.

Rudy couldn't instantly cast a wide-range Mud Pit now, but what if the conditions were prepared in advance?

During the battle, the massive amounts of water from the Water Cannon and Water Spout had completely soaked the ground below the hillside. Rudy was just one "catalyst" away from completing a large-scale Mud Pit spell.

The entire area below the hill was now covered in mud.

Allen silently watched his legs sink into the mud, while in the distance, Rudy suddenly unleashed a series of massive Ice Pillars that impaled the surrounding area.

"But!"

Rudy crossed his arms, chuckling.

"Even if you're trapped by the mud and your movement speed slows down, I still can't pose an effective threat to you. You can perceive all my magic with your Water God Style and then cut through it, right?"

Allen narrowed his eyes at him and smiled.

"So?"

Rudy waved his hand, releasing Fireballs that shattered the surrounding Ice Pillars. After the ice and fire collided, they carried the thick water vapor from below the hill, forming wisps of mist.

Rudy drew his finger to his eye.

"So I'm going to blind your senses!"

He then bent down, touching the ground with both hands, keeping his gaze fixed on Allen, and chuckled with a rather smug expression.

"Intermediate Magic—Geothermal! Combined Magic—Dense Fog! Natives of the Sword and Magic World, feel the charm of physics!"

Allen felt heat rising from deep within the mud. Mists steamed up from the swampy ground below the hillside, and soon the surroundings became foggy.

Tsk, he's so smug he's even speaking his thoughts aloud. Does he really think I don't understand?

He twisted his neck, raised his long blade, and aimed it at the squatting figure in the mist, who was still touching the ground and gradually becoming obscured. He asked with a smile, "But if I kill the magic caster while you're casting Geothermal, the magic will stop, won't it?"

Rudy's eyebrow twitched wildly.

"...What do you mean by that? Even if you could get close, I could just cast magic and run away."

Allen held his blade to the side of his ear, adopting a throwing posture, and spoke to Rudy, word by word.

"The North God Style has Swordsmanship that involves throwing the blade. If this were a fight to the death, the moment you squatted down, you would have already died."