Viktor's All-out Assualt.

Viktor rapidly closed the gap with Ayumu.

Brandishing his staff, Viktor decided to end this fight quickly. Meanwhile, his opponent...

"Axelaritar fortior!"

...began running away at full speed.

After casting an acceleration spell on himself, Ayumu escaped from Viktor as fast as he possibly could.

"What!?" Viktor exclaimed as he saw the distance between them widen. "You bastard! Stop running!"

"Sorry," Ayumu replied, "have no desire to get hit again. Either move your legs faster or stop complaining."

"Kh..." Viktor gritted his teeth angrily but continued his way towards Ayumu. Whenever he ran at his opponent, the boy just continued evading him. It was frustrating, but Viktor continued his pursuit.

The warrior knew that Fabian couldn't escape forever. After all, the arena was severely limited. And as long as that was the case, Ayumu was bound to run into the walls and give Viktor an opportunity to reach him.

Finally, after a solid thirty seconds of running around, Viktor was finally close enough to attack Ayumu.

"You're mine!" He screamed as he swung his weapon at the boy. In response, Ayumu shielded himself with the wall of earth. That wall blocked Viktor's first blow, but the warrior mage followed it up with a much wider, more powerful swing.

"Don't you think your feeble earth will withstand my attacks!"

With a loud shout Viktor struck the wall with his weapon. The blow was so mighty that the wall practically exploded, and clumps of dirt and dust flew every which way. That created a cloud of dust that limited Viktor's vision.

"Ab mano, ignir."

Simultaneously with the cloud's appearance a faint incantation resounded. Viktor caught it just barely. A stream of fire flew at the warrior. His position was still too unstable to quickly respond—he was paying the price for going for such a wide swing. Desperately, he tried to jump out of the way.

As he did, his shield glowed faintly. The barrier's hue changed from bright blue to a faint green, signifying that it was damaged by the fire spell

"What a play by Fabian!" the caster shouted in amazement, "he baited his opponent, used his wall as a smokescreen, and struck him with a counterattack!"

"Y-you..."

"Well, well. Looking at the state of our barriers, you would think I'm winning right now," Ayumu said in response to Viktor's growl.

Viktor almost snapped back at him furiously, but stopped himself at the last second. He knew that the boy was simply trying to rile him up. If he took the bait, he would be playing into his opponent's hand.

He had severely underestimated the boy's strategy. At first, Viktor thought that Ayumu was still trying to win the war of attrition, hence the boy's running strategy as he stalled for time. Despite Viktor's horrible mana mismanagement at the beginning he was still confident that he was ahead of Ayumu in their remaining mana quantity, if only ever so slightly. In addition to that, the acceleration spell that Ayumu used was slightly more demanding than Viktor's enhancement. Therefore, the warrior had thought that playing tag with Ayumu wasn't too bad of a plan.

But he was wrong. At first glance, Ayumu was doing exactly what Viktor expected him to. But instead of being passive, the boy was merely baiting Viktor into overcommitting into aggression. By chasing wildly after the boy, the warrior mage exposed himself to severe counterattacks. And because Ayumu was quicker with the acceleration spell, he could react to Viktor's attacks quite easily despite the difference in skill.

Viktor could just stop pursuing Ayumu, but if he turned off his enhancement spell the boy would also turn off his acceleration. And in that case they would end up in a stalemate. But who exactly benefited from that?

The whole point of this showcase match was for Ayumu to prove himself as the rightful wielder of roaring flash. Sure, objectively speaking, the fight had started pretty favorably for him, but despite his ingenious tricks, he had lost the direct confrontation of lightnings and had spent most of the time on the defensive. If he decided to simply wait and do nothing without even being attacked, that would be horrible optics for Ayumu.

In other words, waiting patiently and diligently was a good option for Viktor. That wasn't exactly his style, but his father's words rang in his mind repeatedly. Instead of being selfish, he had to make the most pragmatic decision and utilize every advantage he had. Even if those advantages were outside of magic and combat skills.

While Viktor was about to make his decision, he caught a glimpse of Ayumu's face. A slight smile played on the boy's lips as he watched Viktor.

That goddamn magical genius. Smiling to provoke me into action. Just you wait, I'll erase that grin from your face by doing what you expect the least...

And so, Viktor decided.

***

Ayumu was evaluating the state of the battle. The first things on his mind were Viktor's mana reserves and his opponent's next course of action.

Frankly, Ayumu had no clue how much mana Viktor had. But the same wasn't true for Viktor. The previous fight, Ayumu was the only one who ran out of mana. Meanwhile, Viktor didn't even look like he was remotely close to extinguishing his reserves. In other words, the difference between their mana pools was probably very significant. By Ayumu's estimates, Viktor's mana capacity was possibly as much as twice the size of his own. He doubted it was more than that, but it was unlikely to be significantly less.

If Ayumu's calculations were even close to accurate, then so far, Viktor had expanded less than half of his reserves. Meanwhile, Ayumu expended about a third of his own. Relatively speaking, the battle of attrition was in his favor. But when accounting for the difference in their original mana capacity, he was still behind in absolute numbers.

And Viktor definitely knew that. For he knew exactly how big Ayumu's mana reserves were.

Ayumu waited for Viktor's next move. He was sure that the arrogant boy would choose to wait. He would prioritize the lineage over his pride and commit to a boring, surefire strategy. And once he became confident of that...

...Viktor rushed at him at full speed.

"Axelaritar fortior!" Viktor chanted an acceleration spell.

What!?, Ayumu thought, He's fully committing to offense?! Even with a mana advantage?

Right now, Viktor had not one but two powerful spells up: acceleration and enhancement. The mana drain for utilizing both of them at the same time was massive. Viktor still had a sizable mana advantage. To throw all of that away in a crazed gambit was beyond Ayumu's predictions.

It was possible that the boy had merely miscalculated and Viktor was already behind on mana, but that seemed highly unlikely. With how demanding the double buffing was, Viktor had no more than ten minutes to finish this fight. Therefore, victory was in Ayumu's bag. If he could survive the upcoming assault that is.

As Viktor rushed at Ayumu, he also started another incantation.

"Ab manō fulmar ferrit!"

He's casting on the run as well!? Ayumu screamed internally as he began responding with his own spell.

"Mure dereme ante me voco! Elle mure—"

Ayumu wasn't able to finish his cast before Viktor launched his spell, and a bolt of lightning rapidly flew at the boy. Luckily, even though he couldn't complete the entire incantation, he was still able to summon the wall with the first part of the spell.

A wall of earth appeared and blocked the lightning. As it did, Ayumu managed to complete the rest of his cast.

"—cun manīs modeo!"

Once again, he grabbed the wall of earth in his left hand. This time it was slightly bigger than the previous one due to not having as much time for visualization, but he could always shrink it afterwards. Expect it was highly unlikely  that Viktor would give him an opportunity to do so.

Immediately after the lightning crashed into the wall, Viktor quickly jumped over the earth spell and swung his staff at Ayumu. The boy lifted the wall with both hands and tried to shield himself from the blow. The staff collided with Ayumu's earth shield, but that wasn't enough to stop the blow. The weapon broke right through the wall, completely destroying it in the process.

Not only was the wall annihilated, but it failed to even slow down Viktor's momentum.

What?! Ayumu screamed internally as the golden staff reached his magical barrier. The transparent shield glowed yellow, defending him from the damage, and Ayumu was sent flying by the blow. 

"Ugh!"

He flew through the air a dozen meters before finally crashing into the ground. Once he landed, his shield glowed again, this time with orange. That tint change signified that the barrier was rapidly approaching its critical state. There was no guarantee that it would withstand another blow of that strength.

Something similar happened in their previous duel, but this time, Viktor didn't mock the boy after landing the blow, instead—not wanting to give Ayumu a single chance to recover—he rushed at him at full speed and started another incantation.

"Ab baculō—"

Another lightning!? Ayumu thought. As he did, he responded with a cast of his own. 

"Aud fortior—"

"—fulmar ferrit!"

"—ab manō sovit!"

Ayumu then swung his left hand to the side. A powerful gust of wind launched out of his hand and blew him away from the scene of the clash. He then successfully recovered his stance midair and began running as soon as he landed on his feet. Luckily, he still had the acceleration spell up and wasn't close to the edge of the arena. 

Viktor pursued him, still strengthened from the buffs. The warrior seemed fully intent to put an end to this fight in the span of the next few minutes.

This is bad, Ayumu thought, His faster casts and wider range of offensive options allows him to attack, attack, and attack again. There's no way I can keep up with him in a head-on exchange of spells!

As Ayumu ran, he began casting a spell.

"Ab manō fulmar ferrit. Elle fulmare cun manō modeo..."

Seeing that Ayumu started an incantation for a controlled projectile, Viktor responded with a normal lightning.

"Ab baculō fulmar ferrit!" 

He didn't need to mirror Ayumu. All he needed to do was to clash the spells and destroy Ayumu's incantation with a much more efficient cast. And if Ayumu decided to prevent the lightnings from colliding, he would have to avoid the attack through some other means and put himself in danger. Regardless of what he did, by the time he would deal with his spell, Viktor would have already reached him for the finishing blow.

"...et ferre cun fulmo modeo!"

It was then that Ayumu completed his incantation.

What?! Control with lightning...?, Viktor thought, the final part of the spell is complete gibberish!

The cast seemed completely nonsensical to Viktor. While the length of the incantation impressed him, there was no point if the spell didn't have any actual threat. At best, it would be no different from a normal controlled lightning. Either way, it wouldn't change the outcome.

As Viktor's spell launched from his hand, Ayumu responded with one of his own. The two lightnings collided, but Ayumu's had just enough power to survive the clash. That was within Viktor's expectations. The way it was right now, Ayumu's spell would never be able to seriously damage Viktor's barrier.

And so he rushed at the boy. In response, Ayumu reached for his belt and grabbed one of the throwing knifes.

Seeing his opponent utilize the weapons for the first time somewhat surprised Viktor, but he was far from being stunned by the development. He was always expecting those weapons to come into play. The only question was when.

Ayumu made a massive swing and threw the knife at Viktor. But his technique was shoddy, and the projectile failed to reach a velocity that would present any danger to Viktor.

To bluff like that... your desperation is obvious, Fabian!

Viktor simply ducked his head slightly to dodge out of the way. The throwing knife harmlessly passed by the warrior's head.

After the first knife, Ayumu tried to throw another one at Viktor, but didn't have enough time. The distance between the opponents shortened rapidly, and Ayumu was forced to reach for the sword on his belt.

Just before the golden staff reached him, the boy blocked the blow with his blade. The weapons clashed, but Ayumu didn't have enhancement activated so he failed to hold his balance and was essentially blown away by Viktor's sheer strength. His barrier glowed ever so slightly, showing that he took some damage in the process.

As his feet slid across the ground, Ayumu pulled his left hand towards himself. It was a gesture that allowed him to control his lightning. But Viktor wasn't having it.

Is it the controlled projectile? I will not buy your bluff! You're done for! Viktor shouted as he prepared for the final blow.

Ayumu's lightning had almost been destroyed just a few seconds ago. The chances of it recovering enough to pose any threat to Viktor were practically zero. Any power it could have regained could be shrugged off since Viktor's barrier had barely gotten damaged this fight.

After all the running and chasing, Ayumu had finally reached the edge of the arena. His back was literally pushed against the wall.

Viktor rushed at his opponent to finish him off.

But as he swung his weapon, he had a gut feeling that something was wrong. His instincts told him that Ayumu still had a trick up his sleeve. But his mind screamed that it didn't matter. If he retreated now and gave Ayumu time to recover, he would waste valuable time and mana. And if his reserves ran out, he was completely doomed.

But if he did play it safe, he could figure out the last trick Ayumu had prepared. And then he would still have a chance to defeat the boy. His mana capacity would last him a few more minutes.

Bet everything on one last strike? Or retreat and reevaluate the plan?

In that single moment, desire to win and doubt collided within Viktor, he hesitated for just a moment. And that moment would decide the outcome of the fight.

Ayumu smiled ever so faintly.