Chapter 520: The Grand First-Year Combat Festival: Copy Genius vs Unbreakable Steel III

Ravenor’s eyes flinched as the air around him seemed to be pulled toward Veda.

It wasn’t an actual vacuum, but the pressure created by Veda’s stance and the way he drew his hand backward made the surrounding air feel as though it had been dragged toward him.

Veda’s fist tightened hard.

His right leg moved slightly backward while his left leg bent forward, giving his body a low and stable position.

His shoulders settled.

His arm pulled farther behind him.

For someone who didn’t understand the technique, it might have looked like Veda was simply preparing to throw a punch.

But Ravenor knew better.

This was the perfect ultimate attack of the Steel Dragon Arts.

At the First-Year seating section...

Vera’s plain black eyes locked onto her brother.

She knew this stance.

She knew this exact moment.

And the sight brought a faint feeling of déjà vu.

This was the same attack Veda had been preparing to use against her during their fight for the title of Heir to the Ashenlocke House.

The same stance.

The same preparation.

The same quiet pressure that gathered around his body before the final strike.

Back then, Vera had understood what was coming.

Now, she was watching Veda prepare the same attack against the Heir of the Burnwick House.

Her eyes remained fixed on the platform.

She didn’t join the others around her in their conversation.

She simply watched.

***

Back on the fight platform...

Ravenor’s thoughts moved sharply as he considered what he should do.

His first thought was to use his usual attack and blow Veda away from the ground.

It was the most natural response.

Create Flame Alchemy beneath Veda.

Ignite it.

Use the explosion to disrupt his stance before he could release the punch.

But Ravenor immediately canceled that thought.

First, the amount of Alchemy Circle Ignition he would need to create an explosion strong enough to push Veda’s stance and attack off course was impossible.

He had already shown how quickly he could execute Flame Alchemy.

He could snap his fingers and ignite an attack almost instantly.

But even that speed had a limit.

By the third time he snapped his fingers, Veda’s punch would already have landed on him.

There was no time.

Ravenor’s scarlet eyes narrowed.

His next thought was to shift his body.

Move backward.

Maybe avoid the punch entirely.

That thought was canceled as well.

Even if he moved backward, the impact of the punch would still affect him.

Veda’s attack wasn’t something that could simply be avoided by taking one step away.

And if Ravenor moved in a way that left his body unbalanced, Veda could immediately follow with another attack.

That was the real danger.

The Steel Dragon Arts didn’t depend on a single strike.

The entire Art revolved around taking attacks into the body and then transferring those accumulated impacts into a more powerful strike of its own.

The more punishment the user absorbed, the more dangerous the eventual counterattack could become.

Ravenor understood the Steel Dragon Arts very well.

That was exactly why he knew how dangerous his current situation had become.

He looked at Veda.

The Young Lord of Ash remained in the same stance.

His fist was pulled back.

His body was still.

Yet Ravenor could feel the pressure building.

He truly is an Unbreakable Steel, huh?

The thought crossed Ravenor’s mind.

His decision was made.

And this entire thought process had happened in less than a millisecond.

Veda’s fist tightened even harder.

Then he launched it forward.

It wasn’t simply a punch anymore.

His fist shot forward like a missile.

The movement was so fast that the air seemed to split around his arm.

For the low-ranking Alchemists watching from the stands, light was almost the only thing they could see.

Non-Alchemists couldn’t even see Veda’s hand moving.

They couldn’t follow his body either.

To them, the entire attack happened too quickly.

It felt like someone had taken a section out of a theater movie they were watching and removed it completely.

One moment Veda was standing there.

The next...

BOOM!

That was all they saw, and that was all they heard.

Veda’s fist slammed into a solid Flame wall.

Ravenor had waited until the punch was only inches away.

Then he snapped his finger.

A Flame Alchemy ignited.

The flames that had remained around the fight platform from the small explosions earlier began moving.

The fire created by Ravenor’s lighter was pulled toward the forming Alchemy Circle as well.

The scattered flames gathered together.

They flowed through the air and compressed around Ravenor.

An Adept-rank Flame Alchemy.

As Veda’s fist closed in, the flames that had been compressed together expanded into a ball of fire.

The Flame shield formed directly in front of Ravenor’s body.

Then Veda’s fist struck it.

BOOM!

The impact was enormous.

The flames inside the shield, which flowed in a circular motion, shook violently from the force of Veda’s punch.

Ravenor’s eyes widened slightly, while his boots scraped across the ground.

He was pushed backward.

Not one step.

Not two.

His body was forced backward rapidly as his boots struggled to maintain contact with the platform.

The ground beneath him cracked.

The broken pieces of the platform were pushed backward with him.

Snow scattered through the air.

Rocks rolled and bounced across the damaged surface.

The wind created by the collision spread outward, throwing loose snow and dust toward the edges of the fight platform.

The Flame shield trembled around Ravenor as it absorbed the force.

Yet even with the barrier protecting him, Ravenor continued sliding.

His boot scraped across the ground hard enough to leave a long mark behind him.

He was pushed all the way toward the edge of the platform.

For a moment, Ravenor’s heel came dangerously close to the boundary.

Another small movement and he could have fallen out of the fight platform.

Then...

Ravenor sensed another thing.

A huge fluctuation of Cognis erupted from Veda’s direction.

His scarlet eyes immediately moved toward him.

"AHHHH!!"

Veda shouted.

He had moved his right leg from the backward stance and stomped it firmly onto the ground as he returned to a normal standing position.

The platform cracked slightly beneath his boot.

Cognis flowed through his veins.

It spread across his body and leaked through his skin in the form of faint white lightning-like strands.

The white Cognis flickered around him.

Veda’s expression had become more serious.

He already understood that fighting against Ravenor, while trying to conserve his Cognis use was not helpful, since Ravenor’s instant Flame bust was a big problem.

And from the way Ravenor comfortably used the Alchemy.

His Cognis wasn’t getting drained that much.

Veda controlled his Cognis toward his Space Bag.

Several Gun Alchemy materials immediately shot out from the space bag.

Black steel bars and Orichalcum bars flew into the air under the influence of his Cognis.

The metal pieces rose above him and began hovering.

They rotated slowly at first, then steadied as Veda’s control kept them suspended.

The crowd watched.

They had seen Veda use Gun Alchemy before.

But after that exchange, the sight of him beginning another creation carried a different weight.

Veda brought his hands together.

Clap!!

More Cognis sparked from his body.

The floating materials remained suspended above the platform as the Gun Alchemy Circle began forming.

Almost at the same time Veda’s hands came together...

Snap!

Ravenor’s hand came together.

The crowd had remained almost silent throughout the beginning of the match after Ravenor had shocked everyone with his extremely fast Flame Alchemy.

Yet this wasn’t the first time they had seen him use that attack.

He had already used it throughout his previous fights.

The difference was the speed.

The speed of Ravenor’s Alchemy ignition felt unnatural to many of the spectators.

It is one thing to know that someone could execute an Alchemy technique quickly.

And it is another thing to watch the same technique appear almost before the opponent had time to react.

And now Veda Ashenlocke, the Young Lord of Ash, was pushing Ravenor to use the same level of Alchemy ignition.

A few seconds earlier...

Ravenor had looked completely in control.

Now, he was being forced to respond.

Ravenor’s eyes remained on Veda.

The white Cognis continued flowing around the Young Lord of Ash, making the air around his body seem to tremble.

I never felt anything toward Veda Ashenlocke before.

Ravenor thought to himself.

His gaze remained fixed on Veda.

The first time I heard of him, during our first coming-of-age ceremony, he was just a cheerful child who was friendly with everyone around him.

The image came back to him.

A younger Veda.

A child who smiled easily.

A child who spoke with others without caring much about their status.

A child who seemed completely different from the boy standing before him now.

The second time we met, during the next coming-of-age ceremony...

Ravenor’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He could remember the sight of Veda clearly.

He had been a complete shadow of that cheerful boy.

The smile had disappeared.

The brightness had faded.

He had looked like someone who had stopped expecting good things from the people around him.

I was told he became like that because of his mother’s death.

Ravenor continued thinking.

But I found out it was around that time that the Ashenlockes finally discovered that one of the twins was more talented while the other wasn’t.

His eyes remained on Veda.

I guess that’s why he was treated so badly.

Ravenor knew what had happened.

He knew enough to understand why Veda had changed.

But none of it had ever been his concern.

He had never involved himself in the Ashenlocke family’s affairs.

There had always been too many things happening around the powerful Duke Houses for him to care about every problem inside another family.

But none of that was ever my concern.

His thoughts became more focused.

The only thing that truly caught my attention was a promising genius like myself.

From the moment Ravenor had been taught how to awaken his Cognis and received guidance in controlling it, he had understood that he possessed unusual talent.

He had awakened his Cognis second only to Diane and Vera.

That alone had been enough for people to consider him a genius.

But his talent wasn’t limited to Cognis.

Before then, he had already been able to showcase intellectual brilliance.

He had also demonstrated strong hand-to-hand combat through his family’s martial art.

His talent had continued to develop.

His reputation had followed.

Eventually, he had earned the name...

Copy Genius.

Ravenor’s scarlet eyes remained fixed on Veda.

As someone whose future already seemed set toward becoming a top Alchemist, Ravenor had always believed he only needed to concern himself with people who possessed the same level of talent as himself.

And now...

He was standing across from someone who didn’t meet that standards in the slightest.

Yet, something about him felt different.