TLed by NolepGuy
Chapter 134
Pandora August.
The secret technique of the August family, Sword Shard Ashen Rain (劍片灰雨).
A secret technique that manipulates thin fragments of swords like ash.
The storm of these sword fragments can tear through human skin and muscle in an instant.
Thus, those who face the August family often end up in a horrific state, with their skin completely shredded.
Pit! Pit-pit!
As evidence, small wounds continued to accumulate on Haring’s body.
Her skill, Invisible, was optimized for ambushes and surprise attacks.
Of course, in a direct confrontation, Invisible was not very effective.
Especially against someone like Pandora, capable of omnidirectional attacks.
Pandora casually strolled forward with his hands in his pockets.
Each time he moved, the sword dust swirling around him kept pressuring Haring.
Haring, at some point, had dispelled Invisible and was parrying the sword dust with her dagger.
This was because she knew well that Invisible was meaningless against Pandora.
“The Ragren family is one I respect in my own way. After all, the Poison King, one of the Ten Strongest Under the Heavens, belongs to them, and their poison is effective even against the World Erosion Species.”
Pandora adjusted his glasses as he praised the Poison King.
“But it seems the daughter is a different story. Utterly pathetic. Do you think there will be many surprise attacks in the World Erosion? Or more direct confrontations?”
Pandora smirked as he watched her fail to penetrate his sword dust.
Haring’s stamina was already greatly depleted from her prior battle with Libra.
Particularly, her wrists, which had been bound by chains, were in bad shape.
Because of her injured wrists, she couldn’t properly wield her dagger to fend off the sword dust.
Pit!
And Pandora had no intention of leaving her injured wrists alone.
Blood spattered as sword dust grazed her wrists.
“Ugh.”
Haring bit her lip, retreating once more.
But she realized she had no more room to retreat.
Her feet had reached the edge of the arena.
“No matter how I think about it, I just can’t understand.”
The storm of sword dust began to rage even more fiercely.
Amid that storm, Pandora looked at Haring and asked,
“Haring, junior, at this crucial time when even the Imperial Faction must unite and pool their strength, why is an imperial noble helping a Starlon noble?”
Pandora’s expression made it clear he couldn’t comprehend this.
As someone who revered the Empire, such actions were utterly unacceptable to him.
However, Haring’s expression remained unchanged.
“In the World Erosion, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the Empire or Starlon.”
She simply relayed what she had personally experienced and heard from others.
“I just know that someone like Kraush is the most trustworthy in the World Erosion.”
The day she faced Decarabia alongside the Twin Sprout.
Haring had fought Decarabia with everything she had.
And Kraush had responded to her full strength with strength of his own.
If she had to fight in the World Erosion, she wanted to stand back-to-back with someone like him.
And above all, she wanted to support Kraush so that he, who would undoubtedly give his all, wouldn’t falter.
That was Haring’s genuine conviction.
‘I won’t let him end up like my brother.’
She would never let what happened back then repeat itself.
Haring’s eyes glowed vividly with a purple hue.
Pandora, observing this quietly, let out a short laugh.
“Ah, I see.”
In that moment, the storm of sword dust came to an abrupt halt.
The sight of the wildly spinning sword dust freezing mid-air was more oppressive than expected.
“I wasted my time trying to knock some sense into you.”
With those words, the sword dust poured down on Haring all at once.
The moment when tens of thousands of sword fragments converged, Haring’s body would surely be torn to shreds.
However, Pandora intended to teach Haring a bitter lesson through this opportunity.
To show what happens when an imperial chooses to prioritize someone from another nation over their own.
Just as Haring’s body was about to be ripped apart by the sword dust,
purple poison energy rose from her body.
By the time Pandora noticed it, it was already too late.
Haring had leapt into the midst of the Sword Shard Ashen Rain without a moment’s hesitation.
“What, are you insane?!”
Seeing her engage in an act tantamount to suicide, Pandora was flustered, but he quickly realized now was not the time to stop the Sword Shard Ashen Rain.
Because the poison energy emanating from Haring’s body was dissolving the incoming sword fragments.
Pandora’s eyes widened in shock.
He hadn’t anticipated her launching a direct assault.
Yet, even for a direct descendant of the Ragren family, accustomed to poison, such a reckless act would inevitably cause her harm.
And Pandora’s prediction was correct.
The poison energy from Mandel Poison that Haring used was so potent that it was damaging her body as well.
Her skin blistered, and the wounds exposed to the poison energy caused her immense pain.
An all-out charge without looking back, sacrificing her own body.
This method was eerily similar to someone else’s.
Chiiiiiiiiik!
The sword dust from the Sword Shard Ashen Rain began to melt away completely.
Pandora, who had maintained the upper hand within the Sword Shard Ashen Rain until now, was finally fully exposed.
Pandora’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Haring, who had pierced through the Sword Shard Ashen Rain, was now right in front of him.
Haring stomped on the ground and launched herself straight at Pandora.
With her dagger laced with poison, her arm extended toward Pandora.
Just as victory seemed within her grasp,
Clang!
What echoed was the sound of a sword.
Before her thrusting dagger,
a sword forged from the gathered fragments of the Sword Shard Ashen Rain appeared.
Pandora raised an eyebrow in disbelief, peering over his glasses.
Pandora hadn’t been hiding within the Sword Shard Ashen Rain.
He had merely manipulated it, thinking that would suffice.
For Pandora, it had never mattered whether Haring closed the distance.
He was confident even if she opted for a direct confrontation.
“…Didn’t I mention something about direct confrontations earlier?”
Clang!
Pandora’s swung sword deflected Haring’s dagger.
With her heavily injured wrists, Haring couldn’t overpower his strength.
Tang!
As her dagger clattered to the ground, Haring hastily tried to regain her stance.
But Pandora had already extended his other hand toward her.
In that hand, a concentrated mass of sword dust was gathering.
Sword Shard Ashen Rain (劍片灰雨).
Second Style.
Sword Shard Bullet (劍片灰彈).
KABOOM!
With an explosive roar, Haring was swept away by a bullet of sword dust.
Haring’s body was flung into the air.
And before her body could hit the ground, someone caught her.
Haring’s eyes fluttered open faintly.
She barely made out the sight of deep, dark blue hair.
Outside the arena.
Before she could touch the ground, Kraush had caught her.
“Now, rest.”
Hearing those words, Haring slowly closed her eyes.
Kraush lightly lifted Haring and handed her over to a Theology Department student who had been waiting in advance.
Kraush turned his head.
There, Pandora, looking far better off compared to Haring, smirked derisively.
“Struggling for no reason.”
Kraush began to climb onto the arena slowly.
“Do you really think that?”
When he posed the question, Pandora’s eyes narrowed lazily.
It was a reaction asking what he meant.
But at that moment, Pandora felt the scene before his eyes split apart.
At the same time, his pulse became irregular, and his breathing started to grow ragged.
“Gahk.”
Clutching his chest, he coughed up saliva mixed with blood.
Only then did he realize something was wrong with his body.
Not knowing when it had happened, his eyes filled with confusion.
However, Kraush pointed toward his arm.
“It must’ve been when you retrieved the sword dust.”
Pandora’s eyes quickly darted to his own hand.
Among the sword dust, a thin, sharp wire-like thread was visible.
The thread was connected to the sword dust and wrapped around the tip of his finger.
Drip, drip—
Blackened blood, a telltale sign of poison, trickled down from his fingertips.
It was proof he had been poisoned.
When Haring first used Invisible.
Her aim wasn’t to hide herself but to conceal what she was doing.
Amid the storm of sword dust, she had scattered the Ragren Family’s signature hidden weapons, which released poison upon contact.
As a result, the wires, which were invisible due to Invisible, roamed freely within the storm of sword dust.
Thus, Haring chose a head-on strategy.
She baited Pandora into returning the sword dust even once.
And that bait had worked perfectly.
It was the best move she could make in her weakened state.
Haring had executed it flawlessly.
“Urgh—ugh!”
Pandora vomited onto the ground, the contents of his stomach spilling out.
He pressed against the floor, seemingly in unbearable pain.
“Referee, start it.”
Regardless, Kraush nonchalantly informed the referee to begin.
The referee looked flustered, but according to the combat rules, one could only leave the arena if they admitted defeat or were knocked unconscious.
Pandora still hadn’t admitted defeat.
And he wasn’t likely to declare his loss voluntarily.
After all, if a noble of the Empire uttered the word “defeat” against Starlon, it would spell ruin in more ways than one.
Knowing this well, Kraush told the referee to start.
“O-Oh, yes, start!”
Perhaps thinking it would be better to end things quickly, the student referee immediately announced the start.
At the sound of the start, Kraush pulled his foot back.
“You must’ve hoped to sap my strength.”
At the same time, the Annihilation Erosion within Kraush began to stir.
The tempering process that started within his body caused his heat to rise steadily.
And as that heat grew more intense, the spectators began to sense that something was wrong.
One by one, they started retreating, unable to endure the heat.
Fwoooosh!
The black flame surged violently, engulfing the arena.
And Pandora, standing right in front of that black flame, grew increasingly pale.
Crack!
Pandora’s glasses cracked under the unbearable heat.
The suffocating heat burned away oxygen, making it seem as though suffocation might come at any moment.
Kraush slowly raised the Rain Thunder Prime.
Then, a golden scabbard of thunder energy began to form over the blade of Rain Thunder Prime.
Crackle!
The sound of thunder energy bursting forth collided with the Annihilation Erosion within the scabbard, its power growing ever stronger.
A chill ran down his spine.
This was dangerous.
Taking that head-on would be truly dangerous.
Beyond his cracked glasses, Kraush’s face came into view.
Inside those eyes, resembling his sister’s, the light of reason had disappeared.
It was then Pandora realized.
That Kraush was Charlotte’s younger brother and an even more reckless figure than her.
His gaze, filled with nothing but the intent to kill, bore down on Pandora.
Balheim.
The emotionless eyes of those born in that accursed place were akin to those of a grim reaper.
Kill.
That man might actually kill him.
“W-Wait a second—”
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Pandora hastily raised his hand, about to declare his defeat and beg for his life.
“I’ll do as you wish.”
Kraush didn’t let him finish his sentence, merely curling his lips into a smile.
And then, the thunder energy scabbard shattered.
Crackle!
Annihilation Erosion.
Third Form.
Sky-Thundering Annihilation.
A storm of black flame and thunder energy swept through the arena in an instant.
The spectators screamed and rolled on the ground before the destructive force, which was on an entirely different level from Pandora’s sword dust storm.
Sizzle, crackle—
The arena, scorched by the black flame.
Pandora lay collapsed on the ground, his head tilted back, unconscious.
His shattered glasses lay beside him, and his body, charred by the black flame, was in complete disarray.
Perhaps because he’d glimpsed death at the end, the hem of his pants was damp.
This was the result, even though he hadn’t taken Kraush’s Sky-Thundering Annihilation head-on.
‘Still the same as ever.’
Kraush clicked his tongue, recalling how Pandora had been mercilessly defeated by Arthur.
Because Pandora had once tried something similar with Arthur and ended up being thoroughly defeated.
From his perspective, Arthur, a local noble who had suddenly risen to prominence within the Imperial Faction, must have been an eyesore.
‘If he at least had any kind of skill, I could have beaten it out of him and taken it.’
Unfortunately, Pandora didn’t even have that.
However, someone else present here certainly did possess a skill.
Kraush, who had extinguished the Black Flame rising from Rain Thunder Prime, lifted his head.
It was because someone was walking through the smoke.
The figure emerging was none other than Arsolder Freya.
With a rugged physique befitting a child of Freya, he grinned broadly upon meeting Kraush’s gaze.
“Charlotte’s little brother, I was itching from the wait.”
Kraush cracked his neck lightly as he looked at Arsolder.
“Have you ever beaten Charlotte?”
When Kraush posed the question, Arsolder blinked.
Then, he burst out laughing heartily.
“No, your sister’s way too strong. I couldn’t beat her.”
“I see.”
Arsolder seemed entirely unconcerned about his loss.
Watching this, Kraush chuckled briefly.
“Then you won’t beat me either.”
“Let’s see you lose to both siblings.”