Free Web NovelChapter 205: Not On My Level
It released a thin arc of heavenly force that cracked Luke’s blade line open and forced him to retreat. The air around Renan shone with pale silver light, then darkened at the edges as he layered more power into the defense.
Rather than an ordinary block, it condensed to create a pressure field, a celestial barrier shaped from his own Grace. The power of it shoved Luke’s next advance wide before the attack could connect.
Luke gritted his teeth and changed tactics again.
The lightning warhammer appeared in his hands, its head crackling with golden electricity, and the change in weight almost dragged him off balance before he compensated.
He hefted it with both arms and swung hard enough that the strike tore a trail of electric light through the air. Renan crossed Black Gale to catch it, but the impact thundered through the arena, forcing the Specialist’s boots to grind into the floor.
THRAKOOOOM!
A burst of static and orange smoke exploded at the point of contact.
The crowd went loud with cheers, eyes widened, heads leaned. For one brief second, the crowd thought Luke had found his opening.
Then Renan’s eyes sharpened.
He twisted Black Gale under the hammer. "Heaven Surge," he whispered.
Instantly, the sword released a burst of heavenly force from the blade’s edge. Luke had the Constitution to not be flung backward outright, but the force was still strong enough to disrupt his stance and turn the follow-up swing into a wide miss.
Luke barely kept his feet. He dismissed the hammer, summoned Sunpiercer mid-motion, and lunged again before Renan could fully reset.
CLANG!
The sword lock that followed was brutal.
Orange smoke and silver-black mist curled around them as they drove against one another, blades groaning under the force.
Luke’s face was tight with effort, his whole body leaning into the contest, gravity gauntlets pulsing as he pushed harder and harder, trying to force Renan off the line.
Renan’s expression stayed almost maddeningly calm, though Lancet could see the difference now. He was no longer simply testing Luke. He was engaging him seriously enough that the heavenly magic around his body had begun to thicken, flickering in pale arcs across his armor as he absorbed the pressure and answered with controlled counters.
"He’s stronger," Kasto muttered, almost to himself. "Luke’s stronger than he was before."
Lancet didn’t answer right away because he was watching the same thing. Luke was better. Significantly better. Faster transitions. Cleaner hand-offs between weapons. Better footwork. Better timing. Even his frustration seemed to have sharpened into fuel instead of chaos.
But Renan still had the edge, and that edge kept becoming visible every time they clashed for more than a few seconds at once.
Luke used the Gauntlets of Gravity again and drove a punch upward into Renan’s guard.
Renan responded with a heavenly barrier that caught the blow and shattered into shimmering fragments rather than giving way outright. He stepped through the fading light and slashed hard enough to make Luke throw himself backward, barely avoiding a cut that would have opened his shoulder.
Luke landed in a crouch, chest heaving, and the next instant he was already moving again, Summons flickering through his hands in rapid succession as if he was trying to stay one step ahead of the outcome itself.
"I’ve got you on the run, huh?!" .He summoned the warhammer again.
Then dismissed it. Then Sunpiercer. Then the gauntlets. Then the hammer again.
He was fighting with urgency now, with grit, with the desperate determination of someone refusing to be humiliated in front of this many people. He was landing blows. He was forcing reactions. He was making Renan work harder than before. And every time he got a little closer, the crowd erupted louder.
"Luke’s still in it!" ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
"He’s not folding!"
Lancet could feel the atmosphere tightening. Luke was fighting like a man trying to prove something to the whole world, and maybe especially to himself.
But the more he pushed, the more Renan became dangerous in that calm, effortless way only true monsters managed. Black Gale cut across the arena in a blur, heavenly pressure folded around Luke’s next advance, and every time Luke tried to force the duel into pure aggression, Renan met him with a cleaner answer.
Luke charged with Sunpiercer.
Renan sidestepped and struck the blade flat with a heavenly slash that knocked the sword from Luke’s angle.
Luke tried to recover with the gauntlets.
Renan’s free hand flared with pale force and slammed the strike aside.
They stopped for a moment. Renan spun his blade and angled it to the side, silver magic swirling around it. "Do I look like I am running?"
Luke’s eyes narrowed. "Nghhh!!" He reached for the hammer.
But Renan lunged in and pushed him back with Black Gale and a sharp burst of "Heavenly Light!" The blast of glorious light struck the and sent him crashing into the broken ground of the battle floor.
Luke bounced off small craters, but found his feet, although he staggered uncontrollably.
Lancet leaned forward, squeezing his lips, unable to hide the intensity in his stare. Luke was giving everything he had, and it was working just enough to make the fight look close.
But that was the problem. It looked close.
Lancet could tell that Renan wasn’t even fully exposed yet. He’d never been. The Heavenly Knight was still preserving enough of himself to end this whenever he decided the lesson was over. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
Kasto cursed under his breath. "Luke, don’t get stubborn now."
Luke did not listen. He never did when the thing he wanted most was within reach.
He hit the floor, rolled, came up with the gauntlets, then switched back to Sunpiercer in the same breath.
It was a pretty inspiring move. Luke’s athleticism and control of his Summons was impressive.
His next charge was cleaner than the last. He put gravity into his step, weight into his shoulders, and hammered forward with a downward cut that cracked the stone at Renan’s feet.
"You’re fast," Renan said as he blocked, slid, and countered with a heavenly thrust that would have pierced Luke’s chest if the Arsenal had not dismissed the blade at the exact right moment and summoned the hammer to intercept from below.
The impact shook the whole arena.
Even so, Renan’s balance never broke.
"Really fast," he added as their eyes locked. "You’ve likely learnt these techniques from the past wielders of your Weapon summons."
Suddenly, he simply stepped over the broken rhythm of the attack, raised Black Gale, and let the blade gleam with a deeper, colder silver than before.
"But you’re just not on my level."
Lancet saw it then.
The moment the fight changed.
Renan had decided enough.
The next exchange was faster than the ones before it. Luke came in hard, fists weighted by the Gravity Gauntlets and sword flashing in quick transitions, but Renan slipped through the opening with a clean pivot and unleashed a sequence of heavenly strikes that forced Luke backward in three sharp bursts.
First the guard. Then the shoulder. Then the flank. Luke gritted his teeth, tried to recover, and drove himself forward with a roar, but Renan’s final counter caught him cleanly across the chest and threw him to one knee.
The crowd exploded.
Luke pushed himself back up immediately, face flushed, eyes burning. "I’m not done!"
Renan looked down at him, expression calm but no longer indulgent. "I know."
Luke surged again.
Renan met him halfway.
Black Gale swung down in a hard crescent of silver-black light, and Luke brought both the gravity gauntlets and Sunpiercer up together to block. For one unbearable second, the weapons held. Orange smoke, heavenly force, and crackling gravity all smashed together at the center of the clash.
Then Renan pushed, and Luke’s stance shattered. He was driven backward through the broken stone, boots carving twin lines into the floor as he struggled to stay upright.
Lancet knew the end was coming.
Luke tried one last charge, the warhammer appearing in his hands again, electricity surging across the head of it, his whole body drawing up for one final all-or-nothing blow.
But Renan swiftly stepped in, a look of finality in his eyes. Black Gale flashed and was the first to strike.
Luke’s weapon vanished into light before the hammer could land, then the rest of his body followed, the system’s elimination flare wrapping him in white and pulling him out of the arena in a blink.
When the light cleared, Luke was on the floor, battered, panting.
He tried to crawl forward, saying that it wasn’t yet over. "I’m not... I’m not done yet!"
For Lancet, it was a heartbreaking sight. For others, it was just a pitiful one. Luke’s head fell on the stone and he fainted.
For a moment the underground arena was perfectly silent.
Then the stands erupted in a wave of noise so loud it felt like the broken walls themselves might collapse under it.
Renan stood alone in the center, Black Gale lowered, chest rising and falling once, as if he had merely completed something expected. Luke’s fury, his growth, his stubborn refusal to stop—all of it had forced the fight to last longer than the last one, but the result had still gone exactly where Lancet had known it would.
Kasto let out a long breath beside him."Damn."
Lancet stared, watching the slumped body of his former friend and roommate. "Luke..."
Luke had gotten stronger.
A lot stronger.
But Renan Falconhart was still Renan Falconhart.
And now the duel Lancet had been trying to avoid was no longer an idea waiting somewhere in the future.
It was coming.
Lancet straightened slowly, feeling the weight of that realization settle across his shoulders like a cloak he had been pretending not to wear.
Below, Renan lifted his eyes toward the stands.
Lancet met them.
The crowd was still roaring around them, but the sound faded into the background of a much more important understanding.
Renan raised his sword towards him; "Please come down, Lancet. Let us finally have our duel."
