The ground was shaking more violently with each second, and the green mana circle grew so bright that it completely overshadowed the circle itself, its shape no longer visible.
Eleanor screamed at Aeon,
"Why don't you make her lose consciousness?! If this continues, I'm afraid the enchantment will explode and release all the mana at once—even if a professor comes here, they won't be able to save us!"
"If I make her lose consciousness, her soul will fall into a state of chaos, and part of her soul will scatter outside her body forever," Aeon replied, still focused on compressing all his aura into the small sphere in front of his palm.
He had clearly seen Janette's condition. At first, he hesitated to make her unconscious, but after seeing how her senses were connected to the mana, rendering her unconscious would be like killing her. So that was not an option. All he could do now was give it everything he had.
Eleanor turned her gaze toward Janette, then toward the enchantment that threatened at any moment to unleash a deadly attack. She thought for a moment before looking back at Aeon.
"What about striking the enchantment's core points? That would be enough to weaken it, or even throw it off balance and break it."
Aeon shook his head left and right.
"I've considered that possibility. If I make a mistake in execution by even a hair, the enchantment will explode. That will cause a severe backlash for Janette—I don't know how severe, and I don't want to risk it."
Eleanor muttered under her breath with annoyance,
"But you didn't hesitate to destroy my enchantment during the entrance exams..."
Aeon was surprised that Eleanor would bring this up at such a critical moment, then couldn't help but laugh.
"Well, that's because you were in a hurry—you didn't even try to hide the core points of your enchantment's formation, which made it easy for me. It was as if you were asking me to destroy it, otherwise I'd be letting you down... And the second reason is that you trusted Arthur so much that he would stop me, while he was hesitating to reveal his power. I exploited that trust and his hesitation... so don't blame me."
She listened seriously to Aeon's words, and before she could respond, Aeon spoke again.
"And the third reason is... you are very strong, so I took a somewhat extreme measure against just a spoiled little girl... I am actually ashamed of that... Damn it, get ready—the enchantment is about to attack now!!!"
Eleanor listened, blushing slightly when he described her as very strong... then she frowned when he called her a spoiled little girl. Just as she was about to reply, she saw Aeon sharpen his stance again, his voice serious with a hint of concern.
She turned her gaze toward the enchantment... The ground had already stopped shaking, and silence fell over the arena. Suddenly, a very thick wooden vine emerged from the enchantment—so thick it would take several people to wrap around it. The vine seemed endless as it came out of the circle, then began to whirl wildly around the arena, destroying everything.
It struck the ground so hard it shook as if in an earthquake, then headed toward one of the arena's walls. Fortunately, the walls were metallic and reinforced with magical formations, or it would have destroyed them too.
As the vine grew longer, it gradually approached the corner where the trio was hiding.
The vine was like a raging dragon, making Eleanor pale with fear—if it struck her, she didn't know if anything of her body would remain.
She turned her gaze toward Aeon and was surprised to see him unpanicked, his expression strangely calm for such a situation.
She suddenly screamed, "Aeon!!!"
The vine had suddenly turned its tail toward them, as if it had sensed them and decided to attack them out of nowhere.
But Aeon did not panic. He slowly directed his hand toward the vine's tail.
It was approaching at tremendous speed.
When it was about 50 meters away from them,
Aeon suddenly roared ferociously:
"AURA MISSILE!!"
The sphere that had been compressed in front of his palm to the point that air was swirling around it and space was faintly bending—
It pulsed faintly, then exploded, releasing a bluish-white beam approximately five feet wide toward the wooden vine.
The moment the beam touched the wooden vine, it obliterated it, vaporizing it into ash—not even ash remained. Any part of the vine touched by the beam was erased from existence.
The beam continued onward until it struck the upper part of Janette's enchantment, hitting the formation's core eye. The moment it destroyed the core eye, the enchantment shattered like glass.
The beam continued, striking the metallic wall of the training arena with tremendous force, causing the entire arena to shake. Several formations lit up on the wall trying to repel the beam, but many formations broke.
Just as Eleanor thought the beam would pierce the metallic wall, a large red formation suddenly lit up and absorbed the white beam as if it had never been there—then it vanished.
"Eleanor! ... A shield, hurry!" Aeon's shout snapped Eleanor out of her brief daze.
Suddenly, she saw the remaining wooden vines that had been hanging above the arena begin to crack and start falling toward the ground.
Some pieces were the size of houses, very thick, and weighed several tons already.
Eleanor quickly formed a defensive enchantment of the blue rank.
"Shield of a Thousand Flames."
Above the trio, chains of blue fire suddenly formed and began to wrap around them in a sphere. The number of chains was indeed a thousand, twisting with extreme tightness.
When Aeon saw this shield, he finally relaxed, then lost consciousness.