Chapter 18
The night air around the rocky area was cold.
Section One and Section Three were probably still fighting behind them.
Yet the noise reaching this place seemed distant, as if they were hearing it from underwater.
Moonlight outlined the rocks in white.
The shadows of two boys stretched across the ground.
Five steps.
Too far for a wooden sword to reach.
Too close to relax.
Isaac spoke first.
"Name."
"..."
"I should at least know the name of the bastard who knocked out seven of my search team without making a sound."
Theron quietly looked at Isaac.
A face younger than he remembered.
But those eyes were exactly the same.
"Theron."
"Theron..."
Isaac repeated the name as though tasting it.
"I don't remember anyone called Theron in Section Five."
He shrugged.
"Doesn't matter."
The wooden sword slid from his shoulder and pointed toward the ground.
"I won't need to remember it after today."
Before those words even finished...
Whoosh!
Isaac shot forward low to the ground.
Fast.
He reached maximum speed with the very first step.
There was no preparatory motion.
It was acceleration only someone with true talent could perform.
Whizz!
The sword swept upward from near the ground.
Theron's wooden sword shot precisely toward the end of its path.
CLACK!
Wooden swords collided.
But Isaac's blade was already moving into the next attack.
He used the rebound from the first clash to rotate and swing toward Theron's opposite shoulder.
Clack! Clack!
Theron blocked twice in succession.
He had successfully defended.
But...
...It's heavier than expected.
His palm tingled.
That was not the strength a fourteen-year-old should have.
Isaac was already instinctively using the elasticity of his entire body to concentrate power into a single point.
Whoosh!
Isaac's assault continued.
High.
Low.
Then high again.
An instinctive sword style that constantly broke its own rhythm to make the next path impossible to read.
Theron retreated while deflecting everything.
Block.
Redirect.
Half-step back.
There were no flashy counterattacks.
Yet Isaac's eyes gradually narrowed.
...What is this?
Something felt wrong.
He was clearly the one attacking.
But the longer the fight continued, the more it felt like striking a wall.
Theron's sword was already waiting wherever Isaac's sword was supposed to land.
Once might be luck.
Twice meant skill.
But this...
He's doing it every time.
Isaac withdrew his sword and jumped back.
The distance returned to five steps.
"...You."
Isaac controlled his roughened breathing and glared at Theron.
"What are you?"
Theron tilted his head slightly.
"I already told you. Theron."
"I've never heard about anyone like you in Section Five."
Isaac's gaze sharpened.
"And that third swing just now."
He pointed his wooden sword at Theron.
"You're the first person who's ever stopped it."
Then he shook his head.
"No. You didn't stop it."
"You were already waiting there before I even swung."
That was what made an instinctive fighter terrifying.
After only a few exchanges, Isaac had already understood the essence of the problem.
"I've never met you before."
Isaac pointed the tip of his sword at Theron.
"But somehow..."
"It doesn't feel like this is our first meeting. It's annoying."
Theron did not answer.
He could not.
Of course it doesn't.
I watched your sword grow for more than ten years.
A voice from the past flashed through his mind.
Theron. I'll guard your back.
A man standing back-to-back with him amid the smoke of a battlefield.
A comrade who had crossed hundreds of death lines with him.
No one in the world knew how Isaac's sword began and how it eventually developed better than Theron.
But the Isaac in front of me isn't that man yet.
Theron quietly suppressed his emotions.
The Isaac before him was fourteen.
Right now, he was not a comrade.
He was a wall Theron needed to overcome in this test.
And there was one more problem.
He's rougher than I remember.
The foundation of his sword was the same.
But the texture was different.
Compared to the perfected sword Isaac would eventually possess, this version was half a beat too impatient.
Its finishing movements were raw.
That was natural.
This was the sword of an unpolished gemstone.
If I rely too heavily on memory... he'll cut me.
Just like terrain.
Memory was only a reference.
What mattered was the opponent directly in front of him.
Theron adjusted his grip.
Isaac smiled.
"Whatever. You don't need to answer."
Crack.
Isaac rolled his neck from side to side.
"After exchanging a few blows, I realized something."
His body lowered.
It was different now.
The playful look disappeared.
His feet gripped the ground.
A low vibration spread through the air around him.
Mana.
Still rough and immature.
But definitely the release of mana.
"You're holding back, aren't you?"
"..."
"Blocking everything while studying me?"
Isaac's eyes narrowed.
"That's a pretty irritating habit."
Then Isaac lowered his stance even further.
"You'll pay for that arrogance."
He released a short breath.
BOOM!
The ground exploded.
If Isaac's earlier charge had been fast...
This time, it looked like he disappeared.
However...
Lower front.
Theron's body made the decision before his eyes did.
CLAAACK!
Their wooden swords crossed with enough force to sound like metal.
Theron was pushed back two full steps for the first time.
Numbness shot from his wrist into his shoulder.
So this is the weight of his mana-infused sword.
Theron could block it.
But if he kept doing so with his current body, his wrist would give out first.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Isaac's attacks poured down like a storm.
One strike.
Two.
Three.
Theron gradually began losing ground.
He backed toward a rock.
Shifted sideways.
Redirected again.
"Why?!"
Isaac's wooden sword tore through the cloth near Theron's shoulder.
"Try acting arrogant like before!"
Reading the attack and physically following it were two different things.
Theron could see the path.
But his current body could not completely follow the speed of a mana-enhanced Isaac.
...No choice.
Theron quietly steadied his breathing.
His original plan had been to finish this fight without using mana.
The Dark Tempelst Mana Method was a card no one on the island could be allowed to see.
But Isaac was not someone Theron could defeat while hiding every card.
Not all of it.
Just one layer.
Only enough that no trace would remain.
Theron closed his eyes and opened them again.
Within that single blink...
