After unleashing another hundred sword strikes in less than a second—practically every single one of them parried by the old adventurer—the captain of the Royal Knights yawned between one attack and the next.
Fortore didn't like the idea. His opponent was neither an enemy of his queen nor a woman, so under normal circumstances he would have preferred to expend as little effort as possible on him. But it had become obvious that he would have to focus more seriously on the man standing before him.
That realization irritated him almost as much as the fight itself.
After all, from Fortore's point of view, this entire battle was little more than an unnecessary delay. He wanted to put an end to this tedious match with another man as quickly as possible and move on to something that actually interested him.
So, after finishing his yawn, while continuing to attack his opponent without pause, Fortore cast in an utterly neutral voice,
"Hellish Steam."
Then he simply continued attacking with his ordinary sword.
The instant those words left Fortore's mouth, however, Brasto's eyes widened.
"Tch."
'Damn it. He's already decided to start using his Derived Magic…' the adventurer thought.
His gaze briefly dropped toward his enormous bandaged weapon.
'And this still isn't ready yet…'
"Fine! I've got no choice but to hold out!" Brasto exclaimed with a smile. "It seems this overgrown kid still doesn't want to go all out anyway!"
He continued parrying every attack Fortore sent toward him while trying even harder to find an opening to strike back.
Brasto knew exactly what had just happened.
Fortore had effectively placed a timer on this match.
Brasto knew enough about the spell to understand that the longer Hellish Steam remained active, the worse the battlefield would become for him. If he wanted to turn the situation around, he would have to do it before that invisible countdown reached its end.
No matter how hard Brasto tried, however, he still couldn't land a single blow.
The same remained true for Fortore, who had yet to properly strike the old adventurer.
Until, roughly one minute later, a clear cut suddenly appeared across Brasto's face.
Fortore's sword had finally reached him.
It was the first clean hit landed by either fighter since the match began.
But blood wasn't the only liquid now visible on Brasto's face. Several beads of sweat were rolling down his skin as well.
'But that isn't normal! Thanks to Master Brasto's extraordinary control over Physical Enhancement—and therefore mana in general—his stamina is far beyond superhuman!' That was undoubtedly what a certain young adventurer sitting in the stands would have shouted if he had been able to see the sweat forming on his master's forehead.
But those words never left the boy's mouth.
Both Brasto and Fortore were now surrounded by a thick mist of steam.
And it wasn't merely covering the two fighters. It was steadily spreading throughout the entire arena.
Probably to protect Chiacchera from the steam, Pinusal had created a dome of light around both himself and the announcer.
The moment Brasto felt the pain of the cut across his face, he tried to escape the mist. Fortore immediately prevented him from doing so, cutting off the escape route with another burst of speed and forcing Brasto to remain inside the rapidly thickening steam.
"I feel sorry for Master Brasto. The fact that he has lasted this long is proof of his skill, but now that Hellish Steam has been activated, this match is about to end—and obviously with a victory for my beloved Fortore," declared the golden-haired elf.
"First of all, stop talking nonsense! Master Brasto would never lose that easily!" snapped Larc, the young adventurer stil covered in bandages. "And besides, what are you even doing here already? Didn't your rival beat you up pretty badly?"
"As usual, Larc, your intelligence falls short of even a monkey's," Emeralda replied.
She was clearly in worse condition than Larc himself, but her usual arrogance remained completely intact.
"Do you honestly think there's any injury capable of stopping me from watching a match between my respected master and, above all, my beloved Fortore?"
Her voice became respectful when mentioning Brasto and positively affectionate when she spoke Fortore's name.
"Tch. And here I was hoping I could watch this match in peace…" Larc muttered under his breath.
Emeralda immediately glared at him.
"What did you say, Larc?!"
Panic appeared in the boy's eyes.
He whistled innocently a couple of times.
"Nothing…"
Then he immediately changed the subject.
"But what do you mean when you say the match is about to end? It's true that, if I push Physical Enhancement to the limit on my eyes, it looks like Master Brasto has taken the first hit of the match. But that's just a scratch. Something like that isn't going to stop him from fighting."
Emeralda released a deep sigh.
"Stupid monkey… The problem isn't the wound itself. The problem is that my beloved Fortore has already managed to hit Master Brasto at all."
Larc remained silent.
"As you know, Master Brasto's stamina is incredible, so a simple lapse in concentration caused by ordinary exhaustion can't explain why Fortore has begun landing hits. The real reason is the steam that's slowly filling the arena."
For once, Larc ignored the insult to his intelligence and listened carefully.
He had already been wondering what exactly that strange mist was.
"It's steam produced by one of my beloved Fortore's Derived Magic spells: Hellish Steam," Emeralda explained. "Naturally, it isn't ordinary steam. Its temperature rises continuously for as long as it remains in the air."
She looked toward the arena.
"A few minutes have already passed since Fortore activated it. For Master Brasto, who is standing inside the thickest part of it, fighting right now must already feel like fighting beside the mouth of an active volcano. That's why, if you look closely enough, you should be able to see beads of sweat on—"
Larc immediately pushed the amount of mana concentrated in his eyes even further.
It hurt.
A lot.
But because the steam around Brasto still wasn't completely opaque, the young adventurer managed to see several translucent beads of sweat sliding down his master's forehead, along with the cut on his cheek.
"So the reason my beloved Fortore has finally managed to strike our master isn't fatigue," Emeralda concluded. "It's the heat."
Larc shot her an irritated glare.
"I still don't understand why you think the match is already over. Fighting next to the mouth of a volcano is definitely difficult, especially against someone like Fortore, and Master Brasto has never been particularly good at casting spells that grant heat resistance."
His expression hardened.
"But there's nothing Master Brasto can't overcome! And besides, he still hasn't revealed every card he has!"
"That part is true," Emeralda admitted. "If everything remained exactly as it is now, the match would probably continue for quite a while. And knowing Master Brasto, he would almost certainly find some way to turn things around."
Then she smiled confidently.
"Unfortunately for him, this isn't even close to the highest temperature my beloved's steam can reach."
Her eyes remained fixed on the arena.
"Soon, the steam will cover practically the entire battlefield, making it almost impossible for us spectators to see anything. And by then, the temperature around Master Brasto will have risen so much that it will be like trying to fight while completely wrapped by molten lava."
Emeralda's confidence only grew.
"Even if he activates every heat-resistance ability he knows, simply breathing will eventually become almost impossible."
A heavy gulp escaped Larc's throat.
He immediately focused on his master again while he could still see him.
There was obvious fear in the young adventurer's eyes—fear that his beloved and deeply respected master might actually lose.
But there was something else as well.
Hope.
And absolute confidence that Brasto would never be defeated easily. Even in such a terrible situation, Larc still believed his master could win.
"Fire Resistance! Heat Resistance!"
Brasto finally cast the two spells.
He would have preferred to don't use them
Ideally, every bit of mana he spent during this match would have gone into Physical Enhancement.
But he no longer had a choice.
The concentration required to keep blocking most of Fortore's attacks was enormous, and inside his heavy armor, the rising heat was making it increasingly difficult to maintain that level of focus.
The thickening steam created another problem.
Even with his eyes reinforced by Physical Enhancement, Brasto was finding it harder and harder to see his opponent.
Because of those two factors, Fortore had begun landing more direct strikes against his armor, which was gradually accumulating visible damage. And if Brasto had waited much longer before using his heat-resistance spells, simply inhaling would soon have burned his throat and lungs.
By that point, the incandescent steam had already covered more than half the arena. Escaping it while simultaneously defending against Fortore's attacks—something Brasto had been attempting ever since the heat became truly oppressive—was now practically impossible.
But with Fire Resistance and Heat Resistance active, Brasto could temporarily fight almost as well as he had at the beginning of the match.
Temporarily.
Sooner or later, Hellish Steam would become hotter than the protection those spells could provide. When that happened, Brasto would once again find himself fighting not only Fortore, but the very air surrounding him.
Even so, the old adventurer stubbornly continued parrying the Strongest Knight's attacks.
If he could hold on just a little longer, his own ace would finally be ready.
The bandages wrapped around Brasto's enormous weapon were becoming more and more tattered.
Small sections of gleaming blade were beginning to appear beneath them.
Another minute passed.
Because of the terrible visibility—which hindered only Brasto, since Fortore was completely unaffected by his own steam—more of the knight's sword strikes began landing.
Thanks to Brasto's armor, none of them caused any serious injury.
The armor itself, however, was beginning to suffer considerable damage.
Still none of this was enough to remove the boredom and irritation from Fortore's face. If anything, the fact that Brasto was still refusing to fall only seemed to make the knight more impatient.
He wanted this match, one that did not interest him in the slightest, to end as soon as possible.
So rather than wait for Hellish Steam to become hot enough to guarantee his victory, Fortore decided to take another step.
After launching another sword strike, which Brasto successfully parried, Fortore moved backward for a moment. Then he released one hand from the sword he had been gripping with both hands.
"Vapor Blade."
A moment later, Fortore closed his empty hand as though another sword's hilt had suddenly appeared inside it.
Brasto knew that spell too.
He had never personally seen it before, but Emeralda had described it to him.
It created a blade composed entirely of extremely hot steam. Probably hot enough to overcome both spells that were granting him heat resistance.
Although "seeing" it wasn't really the correct word.
The blade was almost completely invisible, especially while surrounded by the enormous quantity of steam already filling the arena.
Holding the invisible weapon, Fortore immediately launched another attack.
The Steam Blade swept toward Brasto, practically indistinguishable from the rest of the scorching vapor surrounding them.
At first glance, an invisible sword should have been extremely difficult to defend against.
Brasto couldn't directly see where the blade was coming from, nor could he see its exact length.
But less than an instant before it reached him, Brasto had already positioned his enormous bandaged weapon directly in its path.
He had spent more than enough time studying Fortore's fighting style. And thanks to his vast experience against countless kinds of opponents, he needed only to observe the position and movement of Fortore's hand and arm to determine both the invisible blade's trajectory and its approximate length.
The Steam Blade collided with Brasto's bandaged weapon!
Or rather—
It passed through it.
Brasto had overlooked one simple possibility.
An obvious one, if he had stopped to consider it for even a moment.
He had been too focused on the blade's invisibility and extreme temperature. His enormous weapon, regardless of how durable it might be, was still a solid object. It couldn't parry something as insubstantial as steam.
So the vapor blade passed directly through Brasto's weapon and struck his armor head-on.
The armor neither broke nor melted, unlike what had happened to Ferdinand.
There were two reasons for that.
First, Brasto already activated Fire Resistance and Heat Resistance.
Second, his armor was forged from a metal with an exceptionally high melting point.
Even so, the section struck by the Vapor Blade immediately turned bright orange, like a sword freshly pulled from a blacksmith's forge.
Fortore didn't hesitate.
He immediately exploited Brasto's brief surprise at having failed to block the attack.
With a movement faster than any he had used so far in the match, Fortore thrust his other sword directly into the glowing section of Brasto's armor.
This time, the blade pierced through.
And for the first time in the match, Fortore inflicted a serious wound on the old adventurer.