Chapter 465: The Grand First-Year Combat Festival: The Genius of Burnwick II

The noise from the crowd gradually began to settle, although the excitement hadn’t disappeared. Thousands of eyes remained fixed on the fighting platform, waiting to see what had happened to Prince Charles Aethelmont after Ravenor’s sudden attack.

For a moment, the thick smoke made it impossible to see anything.

Many spectators were already wondering if the Prince of Britannia had fallen victim to the same Flame Alchemy that had ended Ravenor Burnwick’s previous matches almost instantly.

The attack had appeared without warning, and even the experienced Alchemists watching from the stands had found it difficult to understand how Ravenor activated it.

Then the smoke began to thin.

A faint yellow light appeared within the dark cloud.

As the smoke slowly drifted away, the figure of Prince Charles became visible. A layer of yellow light surrounded his entire body, forming a smooth force field that had protected him from the flames.

"Ah, that was close."

Charles raised one hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

His breathing was still steady, but there was a clear trace of tension in his eyes. The attack had come far too close for comfort.

The instant he heard the snap and felt the ground beneath his boot growing hotter, Charles had immediately understood what was about to happen. He had no time to think about where the attack was coming from, so he had relied on his Light Alchemy and formed a force field around his entire body.

It had been just fast enough.

The ground beneath his feet, as well as the area surrounding him, had been scorched black by the flames. Small pieces of the platform were still glowing faintly from the heat, while thin trails of smoke rose from the cracks in the burned surface.

The flames gradually weakened before disappearing completely.

"The Prince is okay!"

Patrick shouted, his voice carrying even more excitement than before.

"This is the first time someone has been able to escape the Young Lord of Burnwick’s Instant Flame Burst! Just amazing, really amazing! Will this be the real fight we’ve been waiting for? Are we finally going to see Ravenor’s true strength?"

His expression was filled with anticipation as he leaned closer to the microphone.

The audience responded with another wave of cheers, but this time the excitement was different. Charles had survived Ravenor’s famous opening attack, and that alone had changed the atmosphere inside the Arena.

Back on the fighting platform...

Ravenor remained exactly where he had been standing before the battle began.

He hadn’t even taken a single step.

There was no surprise on his face after seeing Charles survive the explosion. His scarlet eyes simply remained fixed on the Prince, as though the result had been within his expectations from the beginning.

Then...

Ravenor tilted his head slightly to the right.

His eyes shifted toward something moving past him.

A thin blade of yellow light flew through the air.

The attack passed Ravenor by only a few inches.

Because the Holographic Screens had enlarged the moment for the audience, many people were finally able to see the light blade clearly.

Several spectators gasped when they realized just how close it had come to Ravenor’s head.

"Tsk."

Charles clicked his tongue.

He had already moved.

His boots pushed against the platform as he jumped away from the spot where he had been standing.

The instant he left the ground, another explosion erupted behind him.

BOOM!

Flames burst upward from the exact place his foot had touched only moments earlier.

Charles twisted his body in midair before landing farther away, and the moment his boots touched the platform, he immediately pushed off again.

"This is going to be very hard."

He increased his speed by circulating Cognis through his legs.

His movements became faster and lighter as he ran across the platform, but he couldn’t simply choose any path he wanted. Every place where his feet had touched the ground became a possible target.

One explosion after another erupted behind him.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Charles kept moving.

He didn’t stop to look back at the explosions.

Every time he felt the heat beneath his feet, he immediately changed direction, using his Cognis-enhanced legs to push himself away before the flames could reach him.

The scorched marks continued spreading across the fighting platform behind him.

"But it’s not like I can’t attack you from afar either, Ravenor."

Charles muttered under his breath.

He suddenly turned.

His body shifted sideways while his feet dug into the platform, allowing him to stop his momentum without completely losing his balance. At the same time, he raised both hands toward Ravenor.

Ravenor still hadn’t left his original position.

His scarlet eyes moved slightly to the left, then to the right.

Two light blades were approaching him.

They moved at the natural speed of light, making them extremely difficult to perceive with ordinary senses. Plus, their movement through the air created changes in pressure that were so faint and low in frequency that most Alchemists would never notice them.

However, Ravenor didn’t need to rely on hearing.

His Cognis had already spread around his body.

He first formed a layer around himself, creating a spherical field that surrounded his entire body. Then, without changing his calm expression, he expanded that Cognis outward.

The field spread across the fighting platform.

The entire battlefield became covered by his perception.

To ordinary spectators and even the lower-ranking Alchemists in the Arena, almost nothing seemed to change.

The platform still appeared to have its normal colors.

Dust continued drifting through the air, pushed around by the movements of the Prince. The yellow glow of Charles’s Light Alchemy moved rapidly across the battlefield as he ran while maintaining the force field around his body.

Occasionally, the spectators could catch sight of one of the light blades when it passed through a darker section of the platform or crossed a shadow.

But for the most part, however, that was all they could see.

Of course...

The situation was completely different for the High-ranking Alchemists present inside the Arena and those watching the battle from different regions of Britannia.

To them, the moment Ravenor expanded his Cognis, the entire fighting platform seemed to gain a scarlet-red filter.

The two light blades immediately became visible against the field.

Ravenor’s perception had exposed their movements despite their camouflage against the bright sunlight shining over the Arena that morning.

His feet moved.

There was no wasted movement in his steps.

Ravenor shifted his body to one side, then turned his shoulder slightly as the first light blade passed through the space where he had been standing. Before the second blade reached him, he moved again, allowing it to pass harmlessly by.

He didn’t need to jump.

He didn’t need to run.

A simple change in his position was enough.

The two light blades continued forward and disappeared beyond him.

Charles stopped running.

His chest rose and fell as he stared at the faint scarlet-covered battlefield created by Ravenor’s Cognis.

"He could do something like this too?"

Charles looked dumbfounded.

He had known Ravenor was strong, but seeing the young man perceive his Light Blades while also maintaining his Flame Alchemy attacks and increasing his perception range made the difference between them feel even greater.

"Ah... ah... ah..."

Charles breathed heavily.

The heat had been increasing since the beginning of the match. Even though his Light force field protected his body from the worst of it, the repeated movement and constant use of Cognis were beginning to drain him.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead again.

His fingers brushed across his skin, coming away damp.

Then the reality of the situation finally settled in.

He had already used his Light Alchemy to defend against the Instant Flame Burst.

He was using Cognis to enhance his legs.

He had created multiple Light Blades.

And Ravenor was still maintaining his wide-range Cognis perception while effortlessly avoiding his attacks.

Charles stared at the unmoving figure on the other side of the platform.

"Hahaha."

A small laugh escaped his mouth.

"Just how many Alchemies are you maintaining right now..."

Ravenor still stood in the same place.

Charles’s helpless smile slowly faded.

"You monster."

He said it calmly.

For a brief moment, Charles wanted to surrender.

He could already understand the difference between them.

Ravenor had barely moved since the beginning of the fight, yet Charles was already using several Alchemies simply to survive and create an opportunity to attack.

If he continued like this, he would eventually run out of Cognis.

Unlike Ravenor who was doing the same thing yet he didn’t look exhausted in the slightest.

But Charles remembered something.

Something far more important than whether he could win this fight easily.

The children of the King and Queen of Britannia were expected to display strength and perform well inside the Royal Academy. Their actions were being watched by nobles, officials, and citizens across Britannia, and the people who had chosen to support Charles were also watching him now.

Perhaps that responsibility hadn’t felt important enough before for the past Royals.

But now, standing before Ravenor, Charles understood that he couldn’t simply walk away.

He needed to show why the students who had chosen to follow him and support him had made the right decision.

Charles slowly brought his hands together.

Clap!

His palms met.

Cognis surged through his veins, traveling toward his arms before gathering heavily inside both palms.

The air around him began to tremble.

A Light Alchemy Circle slowly appeared between his hands.

"Ahhhh!"

Charles pushed his palms forward.

The two light blades that had previously been attacking Ravenor suddenly stopped their movement.

They turned around.

The blades flew back toward Charles, returning to the Light Alchemy Circle forming before him.

At the same time, the environment around him began to react.

Wind swept across the fighting platform as particles of light from different parts of the Arena were drawn toward Charles.

The lights coming from the various models of Starlixs and Paras, the Zphones held by spectators, and even the Holographic Screens were pulled toward the Alchemy Circle.

The battlefield seemed to brighten around Charles as countless points of light gathered toward him.

"AHHHHHHH!!!"

Charles shouted, as he continued forcing more Cognis into the Light Alchemy Circle.

The strain immediately became visible on his body.

The veins along his arms tightened, and his breathing became rougher. His face twisted from the effort as he pushed his Cognis beyond the level his body could comfortably maintain.

Then blood began to drip from his nose.

"The Prince is about to perform a Meister Rank Light Alchemy."

Liliana suddenly spoke through the table microphone in the commentator’s section.

Her voice remained calm despite what was happening on the battlefield.

Patrick turned toward her in surprise.

"How?"

Liliana looked toward Charles.

"By utilizing almost all the Cognis stored within his stars, along with the Alchemy Accessories that store Cognis, he can actually manage to perform one Meister Rank Alchemy."

She paused briefly.

"But it’s really risky because he is pushing both his body and his Cognis to their limits."

"Ehn..."

Patrick stared at Charles.

His expression slowly became more serious.

Only moments earlier, he had been watching Lyra cut off her own arm to win her battle.

Now a Prince was pushing his body toward the possibility of death simply to create a chance to defeat his opponent.

What the hell is going on with these First-Year children?

Patrick couldn’t find an answer.

Back on the fighting platform...

The Light Alchemy continued taking shape.

A huge yellow light blade slowly formed above Charles as more and more Cognis was poured into the spell.

Its shape became clearer with every passing second.

The surrounding light gathered around its edge, while the two smaller Light Blades that had returned to Charles were absorbed into the larger construction.

Ravenor watched the Prince without interrupting him.

He could have stopped the attack.

He knew that.

Yet he didn’t move.

Instead, he calmly watched Charles continue gathering his strength.

"That is a good conviction, Your Highness."

Ravenor spoke.

His voice remained as calm as it had been from the beginning.

"That is why I will go with your flow."

Ravenor finally moved his hands.

A small lighter appeared in his left hand.

Click.

The lighter opened, and a small flame appeared.

Ravenor’s right hand moved.

Snap.

His fingers snapped.

A spark of scarlet Cognis ignited.

Cognis flowed from the spark and reached toward the flame of the lighter, pulling it outward until the flame began forming a circular shape around him.

A Flame Alchemy Circle appeared.

The fire gathered inside it, twisting around itself before beginning to compress.

At almost the same time, the huge Light Blade above Charles was finally completed.

The weapon of light stretched across the battlefield, its surface shining so brightly that even some spectators had to narrow their eyes.

Charles’s legs suddenly gave out.

He dropped to his knees.

The impact made his body shake, but he didn’t allow himself to fall completely.

His breathing was rough, and blood still hung beneath his nose.

Even then, he slowly raised one hand toward Ravenor.

His arm trembled under the strain.

"GO!!!!"

Prince Charles shouted.

He pushed his hand forward with the last of the strength he could gather.

The enormous Light Blade responded to his command.

It shot forward.

The blade moved across the fighting platform at incredible speed, and its sheer size forced a powerful wave of air outward.

Wind exploded around the battlefield.

Dust and loose particles were swept away from its path as the blade raced toward Ravenor.

The force was strong enough to make the protective field surrounding the audience vibrate.

The barrier shook slightly as the violent wind struck it.

But nothing more happened.

The force fields protecting the crowd had been constructed for battles exactly like this, and they absorbed the pressure without difficulty.

Inside the Arena, however, the battlefield had become something completely different.

One side had produced a massive blade of light capable of displaying the power of a Meister Rank Alchemy.

The other side had Ravenor Burnwick, standing calmly before it with his Flame Alchemy Circle already formed.