A fierce wind swept across the eastern wing of the Great Plains, carrying the dust of magical clashes into the air. Bell Cranel and Ais Wallenstein stood side by side. Their positions shielded Heith Velvet, the Freya Familia healer who remained frozen behind them. Before these two new-generation heroes, Dina and Vena twirled their wind swords with an incredibly steady rhythm.
"Ais and Bell, right," Dina said. Her voice was flat, but her eyes were fixed intently on the blonde woman before her.
Vena smiled faintly at Bell. Without a word, she twisted her body and distanced herself to the right, automatically dividing the battlefield into two tactical zones.
Dina did not attack immediately. She stopped the swirling wind on the blade of her weapon, then slowly shifted her footing. She lowered her center of gravity, rotated her wrist, and raised the wind sword parallel to her shoulder. The stance was highly specific. Flawless, efficient, and radiating the elegance of a fighter completely attuned to the air currents around her.
Witnessing that movement, Ais's golden eyes widened instantly. The Ariel magic howling around her body flickered unsteadily for a fraction of a second. Ais recognized that stance very well.
Noticing Ais's shocked reaction, Dina merely offered a faint smile.
"Surprised, aren't you?" Dina said calmly. She didn't lower her guard in the slightest. "After all, in our timeline, it was your mother who taught you this sword technique directly. And we sometimes watched her practice in our Familia headquarters."
Hearing that statement, Ais lost a bit of her composure. Her grip on her sword, Desperate, tightened until her knuckles turned white. Memories of her past—of her father swinging a sword, and the gentle figure of her mother—immediately swirled in her head. Ais had always believed that her current sword style was the sole legacy of her parents, something she had pieced together herself from childhood memories. Hearing that someone else knew the perfect form of that technique firsthand shook her rationality.
On the other hand, Bell, standing not far from Ais, also reacted. Hearing the words "mother" and "our timeline" spoken by Dina, his brain instantly connected the fragments of information. Bell remembered the figure of a pale-green-haired woman named Sylphie at the Barbatos Familia church in the past. Bell still didn't know specifically that Ais was the biological daughter of the wind spirit Aria and the hero Albert.
Bell opened his mouth. He wanted to ask further about the connection to confirm his conclusion.
However, before Bell could utter a single syllable, Dina cut him off directly.
"Hold your questions, Bell Cranel," Dina interrupted firmly. Her eyes glanced briefly toward the sky, right at the towering Tower of Babel in the distance. "This is still an official battle, after all. Every move and word of ours is being watched by many pairs of eyes. Both by the gods on the thirtieth floor of the Tower of Babel, and by thousands of adventurers and citizens of Orario out there. This is not the place to discuss family history."
Dina refocused her gaze on Ais. "We can talk about that later, after this fight is over."
Giving Ais no extra time to recover her mental state, Dina darted forward.
Dina's speed was beyond the normal limits of a conventional Level 5. She manipulated the air pressure around her to eliminate friction. In the blink of an eye, Dina was right in front of Ais.
Clang!
Ais responded purely using the combat instincts she had forged for years inside the Dungeon. Desperate clashed violently with Dina's wind sword. The physical impact of the two weapons created a shockwave that swept away the dust around them.
The sword duel between Dina and Ais had officially begun.
Ais launched a barrage of counterattacks. She channeled Ariel magic into her arm and leg muscles, pushing her speed to the absolute limit. She unleashed a flurry of alternating vertical and horizontal slashes, trying to pierce Dina's defense.
However, Dina parried every slash with incredibly efficient movements. The wind sword in her hand moved like flowing water, deflecting the momentum of Ais's attacks to the side without having to absorb their full destructive force.
"Your sword technique feels incomplete and heavily modified," Dina remarked amidst the exchange of slashes. She tilted her head to dodge Ais's thrust, then struck the back of Desperate's blade with the hilt of her weapon. "Did you develop it yourself to survive inside the labyrinth?"
Ais did not answer. She gritted her teeth and launched another spinning slash.
"You're using too much shoulder strength. Your stance is too wide because you rely too heavily on your wind magic for instant acceleration," Dina corrected directly.
As Ais slashed from above, Dina didn't back down. She stepped inside Ais's defensive range, using the exact same footwork technique Ais had learned, but with a much smoother transition. Dina caught the blade of Desperate and pressed against Ais's center of balance.
Little by little, through the clash and pressure of their weapons, Dina began to teach and correct Ais's posture. She demonstrated Albert's sword technique—the technique Aria taught little Ais in Venti's timeline, which Dina occasionally saw when she visited the Barbatos Familia church courtyard.
Ais was forced to acknowledge the fact in her mind. Her sword technique was indeed incomplete. She had lost her parents when she was too young. All this time, she had modified the remaining memories of her father's techniques to make them suitable for killing monsters inside the Dungeon. Those modifications made her movements ferocious and aggressive, but they lost the essence of their original elegance and anti-personnel efficiency.
The more Dina moved, the more familiar Ais felt. The footwork corrections, the angles of parrying, and the way Dina rotated her wrists. Everything was incredibly precise. Ais realized that what Dina was using right now was truly her father's sword technique in its perfect form.
Ais slowly began to adapt. Unconsciously, she adjusted the width of her stance and reduced her brute force, following the flow guided by Dina.
In her mind, Ais wondered why Dina was bothering to teach her in the middle of this battle that would determine Orario's fate? The answer was simple. Back when the Evilus fleet took the elves hostage in the battle of Hjaðningavíg and left Dina helpless, it was Aria's spiritual manifestation that appeared as a wind shield to protect those hostages. Dina was repaying her great debt and respect to the wind spirit by refining her daughter's sword technique.
Meanwhile, in the second combat zone just a dozen meters away from them, Bell Cranel was struggling fiercely to hold his ground.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of metal clashing against solid air rang out relentlessly. Vena's wind sword collided continuously with the Hestia Knife in Bell's hand. Sparks of energy burst forth every time the two weapons met.
Even though Bell was hiding his true status which had reached Level 7, he was still at a disadvantage fighting Vena. This battle was purely a clash of physical and technical specifications. Vena possessed a newly updated Level 5 status, but with the passive effect of the Anemo Calyx, her maneuvering speed and reaction reflexes were on par with a Level 8 monster.
Vena attacked from various illogical angles. She used the air as invisible footholds in mid-air, allowing her to turn abruptly without having to touch the ground. Her attacks were highly aggressive, brutal, yet extremely measured.
If Bell had only relied on his base agility, his head would have been severed in the first ten seconds. However, thanks to the tactical teachings and torturous training from Alfia during his time in Venti's timeline, Bell could still keep up with the rhythm of the fight.
Bell's red eyes darted rapidly. He used the Initiative technique to predict the trajectory of Vena's shoulder muscles and eye movements. Instead of trying to match Vena's absolute speed, Bell chose to minimize his movements. He only parried at crucial points, tilted his body as slightly as possible to dodge wind slashes, and countered with short thrusts to force Vena to keep her distance.
Vena smirked. She was enjoying the solid defense displayed by the white-haired youth in front of her. Vena increased her body rotation, unleashing a horizontal slash aimed at Bell's waist. Bell responded by jumping backward while crossing the Hestia Knife in front of his stomach to withstand the remaining sharp airwaves.
After that intense exchange of attacks, Dina and Vena simultaneously halted their assault. They both leaped several steps back, re-establishing the combat distance. The two elves' breathing was still perfectly steady, showing no signs of physical fatigue or Mind depletion.
Dina looked at Ais, while Vena stared at Bell.
"Is this all you two have?" Dina asked with a testing tone. She let her wind sword return to a steady swirl.
Vena crossed her arms, giving a condescending yet sharp look. "If this is all you can show, you can't defeat the two of us. Not with half-baked agility and a technique that's still searching for its true form."
Dina raised her weapon, pointing the tip of her wind blade at Bell and Ais. "After this, we will get serious," Dina warned in a cold tone. "We have seen your baseline limits. From now on, we will show you no mercy."
Hearing the warning, Bell steadied his breathing. He didn't take Dina's words as an empty bluff. The air pressure around the two elves began to change, becoming heavier and denser.
In his mind, Bell had to acknowledge an unavoidable tactical fact. Fighting pure speed types like Dina and Vena was extremely difficult. Bell himself was a speed-type fighter; his agility was very high, and his leg strength was his main asset. However, when facing an enemy who was not only faster but also capable of manipulating the structure of the air to move from blind spots, base agility was no longer enough to achieve victory. Fighting head-on against the Anemo Calyx would only drain Bell's stamina until he made a fatal mistake.
"We need a strategy to defeat them, Ais-san," Bell whispered without turning his head, his eyes remaining locked on Dina and Vena's positions.
Ais nodded slowly. Her breathing was slightly ragged after being forced to abruptly correct her technique. She tightened her grip on Desperate. "They are too fast. Ordinary wind magic can't catch them."
Bell racked his tactical brain. They needed an anomalous variable that could overturn the enemy's specification advantage in a single brief moment. A strategy that could provide absolute breaking power to pierce Dina and Vena's speed defense.
And that strategy centered around one name: Sanjouno Haruhime.
The Renard girl was the biggest trump card the Orario alliance possessed right now. Haruhime's Uchide no Kozuchi magic could instantly boost her target's Level. Currently, Haruhime was still hidden under heavy guard in the rearguard of the Hestia Familia formation, protected by Welf and Mikoto to avoid detection by enemy radar.
Bell made a logical assumption. Dina and Vena came from another timeline, and that timeline was fifteen years in the past. In that era, Haruhime was still a baby, and her level-boosting magic should have been unknown. Bell figured that Dina and Vena knew absolutely nothing about Haruhime's specific abilities. If Bell and Ais could hold out long enough and create a communication opening to request magic support from the rearguard, they could deliver a surprise attack with their statuses forcibly boosted.
"We can't get into a battle of stamina," Bell whispered with a sharp gaze, throwing away the thought of defending. "If I'm not mistaken, they have a nearly limitless supply of Mind and stamina from the air. Defending passively is the same as waiting for defeat."
Ais nodded slowly, tightening her grip on Desperate. She understood.
"We have to counterattack as hard as we can," Bell continued, formulating his tactical core. "Pressure them. Make them focus one hundred percent on the two of us. Don't let their eyes wander from this fight for even a second. We must hide the fluctuation of Haruhime's magic in the rearguard with the explosion of our attacks. We just need to hold on until that level-boosting magic activates."
Ais confirmed the aggressive strategy. She raised her sword again, channeling Mind into her Ariel magic until her wind armor howled much fiercer than before.
Across from them, Dina and Vena had finished their preparations. The air on the Great Plains churned once again. The second stage of the clash on the eastern wing was now poised to reach its true destructive level.
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