Chapter 64: Victor’s Shock

The RootBear let out a rough, guttural growl at the sight of the barbarian Amazon, eyes locking onto her with pure, savage killing intent.

To the beast, she read as nothing less than a brutal hunter torn straight out of the ancient animal kingdom, a predator built to sit at the very top of the food chain. That alone was enough to send its aggression spiking even higher.

At this range, it stood clearly, hopelessly outmatched by the sheer, foreboding presence of its opponent, even while braced on all fours.

The referee finally shook off the brief daze that had gripped him at the sight of the new summon, snapping the starting whistle to his lips and blowing hard before scrambling well clear of the platform.

Since this particular summon had never been formally registered with the school, he had absolutely no idea what kind of danger stood waiting if he lingered too close.

The RootBear roared with ferocious intent as it exploded into a sprint, each heavy footfall splitting fresh cracks across the platform floor in its wake. Muscle rippled visibly beneath its thick fur as it thundered forward like a runaway freight train, closing the gap between them with terrifying speed.

A faint smile tugged at Mark’s lips as Penthesilea advanced to meet it, each heavy stride sending a fresh tremor rolling through the platform beneath her. She moved with the eerie, flawless precision of some perfectly calibrated war machine, every motion calculated, every step deliberate.

She hadn’t bothered summoning her weapon this time. Mark had noticed the exact same pattern with Cassandra whenever their battles played out on ordinary school grounds.

Their signature weapons only came out during genuine life or death stakes, dungeon raids, real battles demanding their full, unrestrained power.

Which could only mean one thing. Neither of them considered this particular match worth their full strength. By their own standards, this was little more than a light warm up, a casual exercise barely worth the effort.

It was, in its own way, another quiet lesson in exactly what an Amazon’s true worth and power actually looked like.

It spoke volumes about just how vast, vicious, and genuinely extraordinary their nature ran, especially set against the far more modest scale of an ordinary combatant’s battle.

The instant Penthesilea closed the distance, the RootBear reared up onto its hind legs, towering past nine feet, clearly hoping its superior height might finally tip the fight in its favor.

Penthesilea only smiled wider, driving a brutal punch straight toward its exposed chest, only for the blow to be deflected aside by the long, curved claws extending from both its paws.

The bear countered instantly, slamming its skull forward into her with bone rattling force, staggering her back a step before unleashing a second roar powerful enough to visibly shudder the surrounding air.

The barbarian Amazon rode the momentum backward before launching herself skyward, dropping into a brutal, descending axe kick. The strike caught the bear square across the spine, driving it straight into the platform with a thunderous, booming crack before it ever had the chance to dodge clear.

She wasn’t finished. Fist after fist rained down in a relentless barrage, each blow landing with bone deep force, before she finally seized the staggered beast by the scruff and spun, once, twice, building momentum before hurling it bodily through the air like a discarded ragdoll.

Victor’s eyebrows shot upward.

The RootBear tumbled violently across the platform, claws finally biting deep into the stone to arrest its own momentum. Its eyes flared a sudden, vivid green as it hauled itself back upright onto all fours.

It slammed both forelimbs down hard against the ground, and four massive vines erupted from beneath the platform in response, thick as coiled serpents, more than capable of crushing the life from anything unlucky enough to get caught.

They lashed out, snaring the barbarian Amazon and coiling tight around her torso and all four limbs at once, locking her in place. More roots surged up as the bear slammed down again and again, adding restraint after restraint with every fresh stomp.

Penthesilea strained hard against the binding, but the vines only multiplied faster than she could tear through them, wrapping tighter, squeezing harder, every coil straining to crush whatever it had caught in its grip.

Victor folded his arms with a satisfied, approving smile, while across from him, Mark stayed perfectly calm, simply relaying a quiet, focused mental command.

"Penthia, Super Mode. Now."

Blinding shafts of light tore through the gaps in the writhing plant cage as it continued clamping down harder around her. Then, from deep within, something cracked. And kept cracking. Until it finally shattered outward entirely.

Penthesilea surged upward in size, climbing rapidly to a full fourteen feet, muscle and raw strength expanding visibly with every passing second. She tore the restraining vines apart like wet tissue paper, scattering the shredded remains across the platform in every direction.

Her eyes blazed as they locked back onto the RootBear. The beast answered by slamming down even harder, summoning fresh waves of veined roots and serpentine vines erupting straight up from the stone.

Penthesilea shredded through them just as easily as before, barely slowing, surging forward instead to drive a devastating shoulder bash straight into the underside of the bear’s jaw.

The RootBear reeled hard from the impact but recovered fast, still hopelessly outmatched in raw height, yet still lunging forward with its mouth wide open, jagged canines bared, teeth easily capable of crunching straight through solid lead or hardened steel plating.

Penthesilea caught both sides of its jaw bare handed, crimson blood already welling up and streaming freely from the torn, scarred flesh of her palms. With her considerable size advantage over the beast, she drove it downward instead of giving ground, wrenching hard at its jaw in opposite directions.

With one final, guttural grunt of effort, she forced the joint completely out of alignment with a sickening, echoing crack, then followed through with a brutal kick that sent the massive bear rocketing straight toward Victor.

Victor barely managed to trigger Exchange in time, saving himself from being flattened by his own summon. The RootBear crashed down and rolled limply across the platform like discarded deadweight, jaw hanging slack and useless, body still, save for a faint, involuntary twitch running through its frame.

Victor’s expression collapsed entirely at the sight. His gaze snapped back toward Mark, burning now with raw, undisguised hostility.

"This match isn’t over until I decide it’s over. Nothing in the rules says a summoner can’t step in personally."

His body surged and hardened as he activated both Symbiosis and Echo simultaneously, breaking into a hard, driving sprint straight toward what he assumed was the weaker, more vulnerable target. Mark.

Then something dropped in behind him, carried on a sudden, violent rush of wind.

Victor’s expression twisted the instant he registered the towering, foreboding shadow of the barbarian Amazon looming directly over him.

"Don’t even think about it, pest."

Penthesilea’s voice cut through the air, cold, level, utterly unshaken.

An icy chill tore straight down Victor’s spine. His legs buckled beneath the sheer, crushing pressure radiating off the towering Amazon, forcing him down onto his knees before he could even think to resist.

Still, one detail rattled him more than anything else that had happened so far.

This summon could actually speak.

Victor sat frozen, utterly dumbstruck, unable to move a muscle. It was a genuinely bizarre phenomenon, one that could only mean these particular summons carried intelligence rivaling, maybe even exceeding, that of an ordinary human being.

And if something like that was genuinely possible, there had to be considerably more waiting to be understood about them.

His thoughts immediately spiraled toward the deeper relationship between a summon and its raw potential. Maybe, past some critical threshold, sufficiently powerful summons eventually developed abilities that broke clean past the usual limits, not unlike the infamous Dark Summoner himself, whose own summon had reportedly carried ancient knowledge and the terrifying ability to speak with the weight and presence of some forgotten god.

For the first time, real doubt crept into Victor’s mind. Mark’s summons, he realized, were almost certainly hiding far more secrets beneath the surface than he’d ever dared imagine.

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A/N: I hope you had a nice read. And I’ve been saying it, but if you’ve reached at this point, don’t forget to leave a review.

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