The cloud began to harden as it shifted beneath both of their feet, forming into a solid platform for both the Divine Joker and Luciferis to fight on.
"You're super arrogant!"
Luciferis jumped forward, his eyes shifting to a faint blue and his sword turning a frosty white as he slashed straight at Fool's neck. But it didn't have an effect.
"Nice nice... Amazingly clean slash, picture perfect. I wonder if anyone except that man could even match your technique!"
The Divine Joker grinned under their mask as a burst of wind emanated from them, launching Luciferis backwards as he caught himself with his sword just in time, preventing a fall.
"What man are you talking about, huh?" Luciferis asked as he saw Fool shift their clothes into a suit of colorful armor and a sword just as wild, it was composed of exotic shapes and seemed to be made of fur.
"He's... Not a simple man, I suppose you might know of him, the Demon of Corrupting Light, not even the gods in their current shape can match him and his subordinates."
"Why have you even kept him alive? Kill him?"
Luciferis was bugged by his question all of his previous life, he hadn't been able to ask anyone this because he was far too busy killing. But now he could.
"Ya think it's that easy? He's insanely strong. He can rip out a person's Vitin Landscape and make it his own! He has the memories and skills of an innumerable number of people!"
'It definitely seemed like it... Back then, he was a one-man empire, strategizing, fighting, all on his own.'
"Anyways! We're getting derailed!" Fool swung his sword in the direction of Luciferis, a massive gust of Vitin the size of a small house burst forward faster than lightning.
But Luciferis narrowly managed to dodge it, yet he could still feel the immense destructive power such a simple attack held. It was a normal slash.
'Rank XVII and above have a passive skill that lets them pull off things like this; this one is especially strong; it's almost potent enough to destroy a hill or maybe a mountain. And they aren't even trying yet!'
Fool was staring at Luciferis through the gaps in their helmet, utterly shocked and looking like he had just seen a frog grow wings and hunt an eagle.
"You... What the fuck? How'd you dodge that?!"
Luciferis chuckled awkwardly, maybe he showed off more then what was necessary, but if he hadn't, he would've died.
"Yep..."
"Well doesn't matter that much. I'm stll killing you."
"I know." Luciferis braced himself, his breath turning frosty.
"But I don't intend on going down without a fight."
(...)
Luciferis was falling to the ground, the left side of his body completely broken and burnt. He had tried to fight against the Divine Joker but had gotten utterly destroyed; it isn't like he expected to win anyway.
'Damn... Bastard only targeted my left side because it was my dominant side. How'd he even know that? I use my right side for fighting.'
[Luciferis Has Failed To Achieve A Rank-Up. He Will Be Transported Back Into The Real World. Good Luck For Your Next Attempt At A Rank Up. The Will of Vitin Smiles Unto You.]
Just before Luciferis hit the ground, the world went black as he felt like he was getting carried into the real world once more.
'I swear to god failure has a crush on me. Keeps coming back to me.'
He slowly opened his eyes to the sound of William grunting as Luciferis slowly sat up in the bed, looking at William, who was in the dead middle of the room, swinging his sword coated with a layer of flowing white Vitin while he was surrounded by different books.
"What are you doing?" Luciferis asked in confusion, inspecting the room they were in, it was super luxurious as expected, it also had swords and a whole shelf of books filled with books about Vitin and swordsmanship.
"Training... The Headmaster dropped by and told us that there is gonna be a 'warming up' ceremony with the 7th Years, and I know what kind of ceremony it's going to be. Probably a spar, or hell, an actual fight."
He panted for air, putting his sword inside the sheath as he turned to look over to Luciferis.
"And the 7th Years are all near Rank X, maybe a bit higher. And Lady Josephine used to be their Guild Leader."
"Guild leader?"
"Yeah, apparently every Year has its own Guild, through which they help each other study and get stronger. Like every Guild has it's own resources and stuff, hell, they even have assigned blacksmiths and potionmakers."
Luciferis raised an eyebrow. Were they seriously playing politics inside a school? Was it to teach resource management to the students? Then just make exercises or activities for that.
"Young Master Number 1, please drink this tea."
Mime had almost appeared beside Luciferis, scaring the boy like usual.
"Oh uh... Thanks?"
Luciferis reached for the teacup; it was piping hot, yet it became colder as soon as his fingers touched it.
"Oh? Quite 'cool', Young Master Number 1." Mime chuckled to themselves before helping Luciferis up from the bed, the boy's body much colder.
"You achieved a small boost in Elemental Vitin because you understood yourself more? In your sleep as well. That is quite impressive. Wonder what kind of dreams you had."
"Probably about that vampire girl, you kept mumbling her name."
"That is true. You were continuously murmuring her name, that is quite cute indeed, but she is almost 29 in human years, you know?"
Luciferis' eyes widened in surprise, his jaw almost falling to the ground completely from the shock. Erythromara barely looked 20. Vampires age differently from humans.
"If she's 29 in human years, that means she's almost 100 years old chronologically, right? That's still a baby for vampires."
William sat down on his own bed just a few feet away from Luciferis as he stared at the bookshelf, filled with useless manuscripts now that he had awakened.
"I've noticed that all of them are useless, but I'm going through every one of them just in case they are good."
"True, if you find any on Cold Elements, tell me."
Luciferis chugged down the tea, it was perfectly made like he thought. But he didn't have the time to actually sit down and enjoy it. He had another goal right now.