"Boom!"
Camilla's overwhelming Might crushed the entire arena.
Some of the maids, whose willpower was still lacking, were merely brushed by the fringes of that "Demon Wolf's Might" and found themselves crushed breathless.
But this berserk Might couldn't touch Dark's mind in the slightest.
His gaze sharpened as his longsword, empowered by Swords Dance, cut through the air like a storm toward the Demon Wolf's shadow manifested from the Fenrir Spear!
"Roar!"
Under the astonished gazes of most onlookers, the massive, terrifying shadow of the Demon Wolf was instantly shredded apart by young master Demon's soaring, rainbow-bright strike!
But in that same instant, the Fenrir Spear burst out from the shattered wolf-shadow and shot straight for the hand gripping Dark's sword.
Excitement flashed in Camilla's eyes—this thrust had brought back a familiar feel.
Dark, mid-swing with his blade already descending, had no way to dodge.
No—he didn't dodge at all.
His longsword whipped up a storm of wind and struck the spear's shaft earlier and faster than the thrust could land.
"Clang!"
The spear's body swung wide in an instant.
The raw power in Dark's strike had clearly surpassed Camilla in her current stance.
Fighting with nothing but a single spear, she was already at a disadvantage.
But she rode the momentum, letting her spear-hand trace a small circle outward before whipping it savagely toward Dark's shoulder!
"Thud!"
The lightning-fast shift caught Dark off guard before he could react.
The blow caught his left shoulder square on, denting the silver-white armor.
The impact sent him skidding sideways, and only by stamping down hard did he manage to stop himself.
Having clawed back her disadvantage, Camilla didn't press the attack. Instead, she leveled her spear tip and said, excited, "Again!"
"Bring it!" Dark surged forward.
The Swords Dance's effect had faded, but his fighting spirit hadn't.
...
The ferocity of the fight had far exceeded anyone's expectations.
Off to the side, Diana and Aurora had both clapped their hands over their mouths.
Both girls had been born with divine strength, their six chakras open from birth, but that was a gift from their parents' fate, not something earned through their own effort.
Neither had ever grown proud because of it.
They understood very clearly what strength won through effort actually meant.
As Magic Guide Masters, whether fighting up close or commanding Magic Guide Spirits, they naturally relied on Magic Guide Cards.
Dark's "Moon God" stance was the kind of thing that stirred longing in anyone who saw it.
It felt far more immediate, far closer, than the admiration they held for the Valkyrie Alvit.
It made one wonder—wouldn't it be wonderful to have that kind of "Armament" too?
Even as the thought crossed their minds—
the battle on the field had already stretched past a dozen exchanges.
Fighting only by commanding a Magic Guide Spirit from a distance would always fall a step short.
Only by joining the fight yourself could you feel that crushing pressure at close range.
No duelist had ever become a Duel Master without understanding real combat.
Dark, deep in the fight, was clearly adapting to its rhythm with startling speed.
He no longer flinched from the spear tip flashing past his eyes, no longer froze for long after a sudden burst of pain.
The whole flow of the battle grew smoother by the moment.
"Roar!"
Another wolf's howl split the sky.
Camilla's cheeks had flushed, her blood running hot.
"Watch closely!"
She gave a sudden sharp cry, her spear-hand twisting hard. As the shaft spun, the black incantations engraved on it snapped into view.
The runes hovered in the air, layered thick and strange.
Camilla's stance shifted with them, and she roared out, "Hazy Moon Secret Art: Phantom Demon Spear!"
In that instant, the "Moon-Condensing Might" erupting from her "Moon-Condensing Wheel" surged back together within the spear.
Moonlight flowing across the shaft wove together with the curse-script, and for a heartbeat the spear itself blurred out of focus.
This was clearly an Ultimate Move born from fusing her own Might with the power of her divine weapon!
Alarm flared in Dark. He snapped his sword back into a guard, his blade-hand tracing a quick circle centered on the "Moon God Mirror" set into his chest.
The instant the circle closed, the Moon God Mirror released a wash of pure moonlight that filled the shape, condensing into a great mirror of light before him.
Almost the moment the mirror of light finished forming, Camilla's spear was already crashing in.
In an instant, the Fenrir Spear split into countless afterimages, all of them slamming into the mirror of light!
"Boom!"
The "Moon God Mirror," an Ultimate Move with total blocking capability, was smashed to pieces under that storm of countless spear afterimages!
Shards of mirror scattered in every direction.
Dark's face showed through the scattering fragments, his eyes lit with excitement. For the first time, the Honedge in his hand resonated with him, giving off a faint trace of holy presence.
Having been fully absorbed by the Moon God Mirror, the "Hazy Moon Secret Art: Phantom Demon Spear" spent itself and dissipated, leaving the real spear shaft visible once more.
Somewhat caught off guard, Camilla stared at the silver mirror set in his armor, her understanding of Dark's divine Armament deepening.
"My turn."
Dark murmured the words, and moonlight-power poured from the Moon God Mirror, rushing toward the Honedge in his right hand.
In the blink of an eye, moonlight energy had gathered along the length of his blade!
Both of them wielded the power of the moon, and both were keenly sensitive to its purity and intensity.
Sensing the threat, Camilla retreated at once, putting five or six meters between them in a blink.
Dark suddenly raised his sword, and a thread of moonlight shot skyward along the blade's line, lighting up the heavens with a sudden glow.
A moment later, a clear beam of moonlight plunged down, aimed straight at Camilla.
Camilla whipped her spear around at once, spinning the rune-bound Fenrir Spear into a wide, unbroken circle like a shield of light.
The bucket-thick pillar of moonlight slammed into that shield, quickly worn down by the spinning force—but it still punched through and struck her body.
The accompanying shockwave sent Camilla staggering back, her mind rattled into a moment of dizziness.
She threw her head back and saw the sky ablaze with moonlight, pillar after pillar condensing rapidly like a meteor shower, plunging straight down!
"Ultimate Move: Demon Wolf Devours the Moon!"
Feeling the deadly threat hidden within that "Moon Eclipse," Camilla stopped holding back. She thrust her spear violently skyward, and the Demon Wolf's Might poured into the Fenrir Spear, taking shape as a massive Demon Wolf five or six meters tall.
Unlike the earlier wolf-shadow, this one seemed almost alive, letting out a low growl.
Then it surged upward, racing skyward, and opened its bloody maw wide against the falling pillars of moonlight.
"Awooo!"
The wolf's cry rang on and on.
The Demon Wolf swallowed every last drop of the "Moon Eclipse" Dark had unleashed.
"BOOM!"
The moonlight power detonated inside it, shattering the wolf into scraps of mana.
Fragments of moonlight and mana rained down from the sky as Dark and the "Silver Wolf Knight" Camilla faced each other from a distance, both of them slightly out of breath.
This far into the fight, the two of them had reached a genuine standstill of power!
...
Standing on equal footing with a "hero" who had built such a towering reputation during wartime should have been an immense honor.
But Dark didn't feel that way at all.
Camilla had used only the "Fenrir Spear" weapon card from start to finish. Even if she wasn't well-versed in Armaments, she surely had armor cards of matching strength—she simply hadn't used them.
Beyond that, she almost certainly had no shortage of other powerful trump cards.
And if, given all that, he still couldn't force her to go all out, then what was even the point of fighting?
Dark tapped a finger, but didn't call on the Moon God's final Ultimate Move—
"[Moon Palace]." That indiscriminate healing, sustain-type move would only work against him in a fight like this.
"Since the whole point of this is testing Armaments, let's try this one!"
And so, for the first time since the Easter Dueling Festival, Dark brought out the "Wishful Die" once more!
...
Watching Dark draw a new Armament card, Camilla's expression turned grave.
This was the one Magic Guide Card she'd never seen before—what surprise would it bring?
But when Dark summoned the "Wishful Die" out, she noticed both Alvit and Claire wearing strange expressions.
"Is there something odd about this Armament?"
Camilla's guard shot up at once. Her eyes sharpened, her stance settling into readiness without her even realizing it, spear angled low, her Might drawing tight.
Seeing her wariness, the corner of Dark's mouth curved up. He flicked his fingers, and the white die—etched with eighteen symbols of different colors—leapt into the air.
"Wishful die, wishful die, bend to my will, show your power now!"
Mana poured out of him like a flood, and the "Wishful Die" drank it in like some insatiable white tiger, absorbing it without restraint.
One after another, the eighteen elemental symbols on its faces lit up, white light and black light twisting together, eighteen shades of color spinning and glowing like a blaze of neon.
Every eye in the arena locked onto that rainbow blaze of light.
The maids strained their eyes wide, bracing against Camilla's Might—diminished now but still pressing—as they waited eagerly for what the young master would do next.
This duel between Dark and the "Silver Wolf Knight" had completely overturned their guesses about his true strength.
In pure swordsmanship alone, the young master might fall short.
But when it came to a real contest of strength, he was second to no one.
Thinking back on it, just last year, before he'd even started school, the young master had been a boy without the strength to wring a chicken's neck. Less than a year later, he'd become someone this formidable. The world really was a strange, wonderful place.
Having lived in the estate for years, they all felt it deeply.
Maybe someday, when the young master stepped onto a dueling stage again, they'd be able to ask for time off just to watch.
Lost in that thought, the maids suddenly noticed the eighteen-sided die had stopped spinning.
One by one, the glowing symbols on its faces went dark, until only a single face remained lit.
None of them could read what it meant, but every one of them held her breath just the same.
Amid a chorus of startled gasps, a long, glowing blue dragon suddenly coiled its way out from that single face of the die.
The Wishful Die itself dissolved into a streak of light and trailed close behind the emerging dragon.
The dragon of blue light circled once through the air, then dove down, spiraling and weaving around Dark.
Dark stood with his sword raised, the dragon coiling around him, and a power unlike any "Might" she'd seen before began to swell rapidly.
"Dragon-type—Dragon Dance!"
Dark's battle spirit surged, as though a dragon itself had taken hold of him.
[Dragon Dance: Perform a mysterious, powerful dance that raises base Attack and base Speed by 50%!]
As a Dragon-type move, Dragon Dance was clearly the same category of Ultimate Move as the Normal-type Swords Dance.
But the moves the "Wishful Die" unleashed hadn't been much altered—they were basically the original moves straight out of Pokémon.
In the original games, Swords Dance always raised Attack by 100%, while Dragon Dance raised both Attack and Speed by 50%.
Each had its own strength.
And unlike the Honedge's current version of Swords Dance, which only lasted for a single strike—
the boost to Attack and Speed here would remain in effect for as long as the blue dragon's light held.
A full 2,000-point boost to base Attack pushed Dark's attack power back up to 7,800.
But the more important gain was his speed.
A flat 50% increase in base Speed was, frankly, an absurd shift.
Feeling a lightness wash over his whole body, Dark leaned slightly forward—and vanished from where he stood in an instant!
The world blurred past in his vision, and the signals reaching his brain came in fragments.
That speed had even slipped beyond his own control!
"Crack!"
The feeling of blade meeting shaft reached his nerves first; the sound of it only registered a beat later.
A ripple of excitement stirred inside Dark as he whipped around.
Camilla, who had blocked that impossibly fast strike purely on the strength of her battle-hardened instincts, went pale. Her fingers clenched tight on reflex, and the black incantations on the spear's shaft surfaced once more.
Without a moment's hesitation, she spun the spear around, and a surge of mana far greater than anything she'd shown before burst from the Fenrir Spear as the wolf-shadow wrapped itself around the shaft.
As she turned the spear, it trailed a pitch-black afterimage that unfurled fast, like a curtain being drawn.
But in the next instant, Dark, already spinning back, struck out with his second blow—"Combo Slash"!
"Boom!"
A sound like muffled thunder erupted in an instant!
The additional 2,000-point boost from Combo Slash pushed this strike up to a terrifying 9,800 in strength.
With nothing but the "Fenrir Spear" alone, there was no way Camilla could withstand a blow like that.
The wolf-shadow wrapped around the Fenrir Spear was crushed as easily as rotten wood, and the vast mana held within it was snuffed out in an instant.
Once its mana ran dry, cracks spread across the entire shaft, and with a crack it shattered into pieces, the last of its mana scattering like starlight.
Camilla barely had time to blink before there was nothing left in her hands to hold.
She curled her fingers slightly, and that hollow, empty feeling dragged up memories of the war's dangers.
"When was the last time someone shattered my weapon?"
She stood rooted to the spot, lost in thought.
The whole arena had gone silent.
...
After shattering the "Fenrir Spear," Dark skidded forward a considerable distance before finally coming to a stop.
He angled the Honedge down toward the ground, his silver armor gleaming, as the blue dragon of light coiling around him began to fade.
The recoil left his fingers numb, but the thrill inside him was only just beginning to surface.
____
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