CHAPTER 249: TEN METERS, REMEMBER?

When the black smoke cleared, Caius wasn’t surprised to see Cynthia standing unscathed. Once again, her durability was sure to remain no matter how determined she was to make this fight fair.

And that was because it could never BE fair.

And she knew it.

After all, they were to duel until exhaustion, which Caius was sure to arrive at first because he was at a lower Magic Circle. Again, just as he had thought when it all started, this seemed like a duel he was not meant to win, but Caius still believed he could make something out of the situation.

For example, because Cynthia was keeping herself from using her incredible higher circle reflexes and senses, the black smoke robbed her of sight for the one precious second that allowed the few ~Dark Missiles~ darts to catch up with her.

If she acted as she would at her true Magic Circle, Cynthia could still have reacted to the darts but her pride didn’t let her cheat. At least not in this way.

Caius could tell the moment that the magical energy of his darts spread all over Cynthia’s insides and began to erode the incredibly ample Mana reserves of hers.

Cynthia raised a hand and moved it around, harnessing her Mana and taking note of it getting sapped away. It wasn’t at a pace where she was really in any danger of running out but that was only because of her Circle. Faced against a true fellow Third Circle Mage, this spell of Caius’s would have gotten better results.

Cynthia smiled at Caius then,

"You have impressed me," she said, "I’d like you to know that."

Caius didn’t answer. The fact that she wasn’t attacking him at the moment gave him the time to ’catch his breath’. After all, in the disadvantaged position that he currently was in, acting irrationally would hurt his efforts rather than help.

Besides, it just really seemed like the smarter thing to do for now to wait to see just how much Mana his Dark darts would be able to erode from Cynthia’s reserves.

"This spell is nasty. Just nasty," Cynthia said shaking her head but she didn’t sound like she meant it as an insult. In fact, she sounded like she was praising him.

"The dark magic ingrates itself into the victim’s form so quickly and so powerfully. It becomes wrapped with the very essence of their Mana reserves.

Humans don’t possess a ’core’ that houses their Mana because it just circulates all through our body as freely as our blood. Freer actually because Blood still has the heart to pump and serve as the core of the circulation. Mana is free of such a constraint.

And yet, despite the lack of the constraint of a core, your spell acts like there is one. It engages Mana in every part of the victim’s body making it so that expelling it would require almost as much Mana as it would erode if allowed to run its course."

As she said all this, Cynthia turned her wrist this way and that, and her voice went from sounding like she was giving Caius praise to a bit more adoring. It wasn’t clear if she was aware of the change.

She continued,

"Your spell has an active limit like any spell. But I can’t feel any connection from it to you which means it has been imbued with enough Mana to work its, well, Magic. This frees you of the burden required to keep it running and leaves you free to cast other spells to pile on the pressure to your opponent.

That’s an important part of the plan involving this spell, isn’t it? You cast it, it begins to reduce your opponent’s mana reserves and you attack them to get them to expend their mana even faster, and also give them no room to get rid of it.

I just wonder why you haven’t done that to me, yet."

"Hmm?" Caius intoned. He had gotten a bit engrossed in her analysis of his spell and his plans with it that he didn’t at first understand her question.

Cynthia shrugged.

"The darts have been in me a while. You’ve given me so much time to get rid of it and just stood there without attacking me. Why?" She asked.

Caius smiled lightly. The original answer was that he was biding his time and waiting for the darts to take more effect rather than expend his limited reserves on spells that wouldn’t do what he needed which was to get Cynthia on her back.

But of course, he couldn’t say that. Mostly because that no longer sounded like a smart plan because, as she pointed out, he had given her time to rid herself of it. Even if she hadn’t done so yet.

Which prompted the next statement he made,

"Probably for the same reason you’ve taken so long to expel the darts," he said,

"This is a teaching moment. More accurately, you’re clearly winding up to teach me something with your analysis of my spell. I’m just paying attention as any good student would."

"Hmm," Cynthia said and cocked her head to the side,

"Am I winding up teaching you something? Not really, I don’t think. I haven’t expelled the darts because I find the spell fascinating.

I wonder if its impressive properties are because it’s a Unique Element or your genius."

She said the last sentence like it was rhetorical and she didn’t wait for Caius to respond to it before she said,

"Well, I suppose I did let myself get carried away. Today might be our last time in a Professor-Student capacity. I should spend it being an Academic."

With that, Cynthia dropped her hand and sprang forward. The gust of wind that followed her movement pointed at the use of a movement spell. Only Caius hadn’t seen her cast one and he had a suspicion that it was the same movement spell she had been using to avoid the ~Dark Missiles~ darts earlier. That it just hadn’t stopped being active even after she was struck by his ~Erratic Fireball~ spell and got slammed by ~Black Hand~.

That would point to an incredible mental fortitude to keep a hold of a spell throughout all that or it could also point to just how much she outclassed Caius that his attacks didn’t even break her concentration on her spell.

Either way, Caius had a movement spell of his own prepared.

~Hellsong Dash~

The spell circles appeared at his ankles and a flame boost directed forward propelled him backward so he could give himself a bit more time to spellcast.

He could still sense that his Dark darts were inside Cynthia’s body.

During her analysis, she had stated she couldn’t detect a connection between the darts and Caius which intrigued him because it definitely was there. He wasn’t supplying the spell his mana—on that she was accurate—but he was still connected to it. And through it, he was connected to the very essence of her Mana reserves. Just not on a level where it was useful to him.

Anyway, Caius could still feel the darts sapping at Cynthia’s reserves as he began to form seals when the energy in the air suddenly changed and he lost his connection to the darts as they were finally expelled from Cynthia’s body.

Cynthia herself was suddenly in front of him. They were only separated by a foot.

"Ten meters, remember?" She asked and she waved her hand causing a spell circle to flash for a split second before powerful winds were conjured and wrapped around Caius’s body in a tight clench he had no hope of breaking free of.

With another wave of her hand, even more nonchalant than the last, Cynthia used her wind spell to send Caius flying and slamming into the wall with a *Bang!*

"Nghhh," Caius groaned as he hit the ground thereafter.

While he had been in the air, he understood what had happened;

Cynthia had only dashed toward to close the distance between them so she could then be within her rights to cast above the Third Circle. At which point, she first used a higher movement spell to close the distance even more just so he could see her face and her smile...

... One final taunt before attacking him with a spell he had no hope of competing against.