Chapter 443: Battle Training (3)

What was a dawn?

Some would say the beginning of the day or when the sun began to rise, to open yet another page of one's life. Some even say that it's the beginning of life.

Most people would have an answer to such question, of what dawn is.

But to the residents of those frozen lands, more specifically the villagers of village Vashara.

Close to none would be able to answer such a question.

Only one single person would be able to form an answer. And that answer would have come from the details of their ancestors.

And the person who had access to such information was none other but the priestess.

But even she was stunned when a warm light appeared on top of their mountain.

Even the cursed ones that she has been observing turned to look at the warm light.

"The former priestess didn't lie...our ancestors really saw the red light of dawn in their time." She mumbled to herself. Shortly after though she was distraught as few villagers panicked by the new sight while most gazed in wonder.

"Sigh..." shaking her head, she turned to resource the villagers in panic.

But before she did that, she took a last look at the crimson light with a smile hidden behind her mask.

***

Few seconds before the crimson dawn appeared...

"~Let your strength show my might! And let my enemies be scourged by your endless might! Element of scourging dawn!"

The three magic circles at the triangle corners started to spin as the arcanic letters started to gain a crimson bright red color like that of heated metal.

"[Scourging Dawn's Ray]!"

With the magic formation coming to an end, an endless amount of concentrated raging flames in the form of a huge ray spew with immense speed. Creating a flash of crimson light in the surroundings. Melting and burning everything on its path with but an instance.

It didn't even take 2 seconds for the raging flames to be in front of Danzel.

Despite its speed though, Danzel stared in front of the ray of raging flames and found the flames...

Slow.

"..."

As the flames were about to touch them, Danzel raised his free hand and directly grabbed the beam of raging flames.

The flames seemed to halt for just a split second before devouring Danzel whole.

That itself didn't stop the travel of the flames.

After a few meters away from where Danzel was, the flames hit the ground, spreading the flames to the surroundings and melting the stone itself, and creating magma itself.

And the spell didn't show any signs of stopping at all.

Shiro's mana was continuously fueling the destructive spell with mana, which for the scale and power of such a spell was no friendly upkeep for a 3rd-tier magic caster.

But that wasn't the case for Shiro.

For any above average 3rd-tier magic caster, [Scourging Dawn's Ray] was a huge use of their mana. If they weren't careful, constant use of that spell would burn a huge chunk of their mana reserves.

Shiro though had no such problem, at least not to such an extent.

But even she wasn't keen on wasting so much mana.

Moving her gaze away from the mana circle that was still pumping the raging flames, she looked towards the direction of the ray of flames. Which by itself wasn't something one of the 1st-tier could do, as gazing at such intense flames would hurt their eyes, if not damage them.

But for those of the 3rd-tier with strengthened bodies, it was put a mere annoyance looking at such flames.

"Even if it's Rue, that should be enough-"

Before she could finish her sentence, her vision changed for a split second, revealing inside those scourging flames a cracked undead gazing directly at her.

"-Huh!?" Shiro couldn't help but scream in confusion and take a step back.

And not long after seeing the cracked undead, the ray slowly started to split into two. And the middle where the ray was splitting into two was a lone figure, splitting the ray of flames into his sides with purely his hand.

"N-No way..." Shiro mumbled dumbfounded as she canceled her spell.

Leaving the flames to linger around the field.

There was a moment of silence where only the sound of the flames and the magma were still there.

But a second later, the sound of the latter vanished and it's place a different sound came.

From the flames inside, the ice started to spread at a quick pace, freezing the ground. And moments later, a shock wave of dead mana appeared from the middle of the flames, killing any lingering flames nearby, making the field as if the ray of raging flames didn't even happen.

And all that happend in putting an instance.

*Crack~Crack~

The sound of heavy footsteps breaking the newly created ice appeared, the owner of them being no other than Danzel.

His armor, or rather, the dark plating made by the enchantment has molten and started to drip to the ground, revealing the hole in his grayish-blue armor.

As drops of the molten dark platting were falling to the ground, the drops suddenly stopped mid-air.

Raising his sword, the molted drops started to gather around his sword by the use of its enchantment.

"React, or you will die." Danzel said with a chilling voice.

Gathering only bits of mana, he swung down his sword and send out a low-efficiency wind blade, carrying the molten drops while shaping them into needles. Which with his strength and the mana made them essentially like bullets.

"!!!"

Raising her hand in response, Shiro made a barrier made out of light construct around her just as the wind blade and metal spikes were about to hit.

*Bugh~Bugh~Bugh~

The air blade disappeared in an instant the moment hit the barrier and the metal did nothing to the barrier either. Which made Shiro sigh internally in belief.

A moment later though, the remaining metal pieces hit the surroundings.

*Crack! Crieak! Teegh!

Each spot where a needle found it's way cracked or even carved the stone of the mountain. The constant sound of stone being cracked made Shiro shake at the idea of not activating her barrier in time.

'If those had managed to hit me, my body would have been reduced into holes...' she unconsciously gulped her saliva from worry.

~Bugh!~Bugh~!

Shiro flinched at the sound of being attacked once more, gazing in front of her, she watched how Danzel was continuously sending out wind blades with molten drops.

"R-Rue! What kind of training is this!? How is this supposed to teach me anything!" She yelled in frustration, but seeing Danzel coming closer with his ethereal eyes on her, she tightened her grip on the staff and raised it on top of her head.

"Piercing light! Take form and appear! [Light Spear]'s!"

With the golden mana crystal on her staff glowing, several balls of light appeared which took shape as long needles which flew at incredible speed towards Danzel.

"The light element?" The undead said as he put his sword in front of his face.

As soon as the light needles were in Danzel's range, he swung at them with his blade full of dead mana, completely destroying the first needle.

Every light needle was destroyed by a swing of his weapons even when 10 of them were coming at the same time.

Or at least that's what Danzel thought at first, as when he swung his sword at the last light needle, it did indeed break, but not completely.

Or rather, he only destroyed half of the light needle, as that one was designed by Shiro to be 2 separate needles that were put together to look like one, with a slight difference in direction.

So when his sword met with the first part of the needle, it did indeed break, but the one that came from behind continued its path, barely passing his sword and flying directly to his face.

And the light spear almost succeeded in piercing his skull.

Almost.

As when it was about to pierce his skull, Danzel raised his hand and let the light spear pierce his palm, despite its distance.

"...Not bad, alas, it's still lacking." Danzel said with his cold voice as he looked at the dark smoke his pierced hand was making, being the result of the light element burning the miasma in his body.

Which in turn inflicted him with physical pain, something that he rarely experienced.

"Annoying."

Raising his dead mana to his hand, the light needle broke down by the opposition of the dead element.

"Tricks like this can only push you that far." Danzel gazed at Shiro while fuelling his killing intent.

Each second passed the next step was made.

And as Shiro took a step back, Danzel took 2 steps forward, making it clear that it running away would be pointless.

That fact and his continuous release of killing intent together with his death aura surrounding his body, Shiro felt pressured to believe that maybe this wasn't training at all...

Her heart ached being reminded of the pain she felt but a moment ago.

Her mind started thinking of what spells she could use to win or achieve what Danzel wanted her to do. In a matter of two seconds, she considered several spells thanks to her high intelligence attribute.

Albeit she crossed each scenario as she remembered that one of her most powerful spells had no effect against him.

'Spells in the form of physical objects won't do, they would be slow. Light magic should be effective against Rue, but I know none that would be strong enough to harm him in a serious manner. I also need to hold the barrier, so any big spells would be too slow and be easily dodged even if I managed-'

Her mind suddenly came to a halt as she suddenly realized.

That being of the fact that although Danzel was moving closer, he only walked in a straight line without dodging.

Originally she used [Scourging Dawn's Ray] because although the casting time is a bit long, she could continuously change her aim mid-spell and hit him.

"But if he really doesn't attempt to dodge, then I could use that element..." Shiro mumbled as she grabbed her staff with both hands, preparing her next spell while concentrating on keeping the barrier up.