"Oi," Elias called him with a condescending tone. "You're the Lancet kid, right?"
Lancet stood frozen. He knew this guy was Theo's brother, and after what happened today, there was only one reason he would be here.
"What do you want?" Lancet asked, standing his ground.
"Hehe. Tough guy, eh? You think because you managed to get a cheap win on one Kane that you can do it to another?" He leaned forward, his mad eyes flashing with malice. "No one disgraces our family and gets away with it."
Lancet looked up at him. 'The Kane family is poor, so what is he talking about? Well, they did end up growing to be a powerful family in the novel. But this idiot doesn't know that yet.'
"Hekkkk! I'm talking to you, you Class Group-D trash!" Elias suddenly shot his hand forward with the force of a cannonball, slamming directly into Lancet's stomach.
All the air left Lancet's lungs in a violent rush. He was launched backward, flying through the air before crashing hard into the rusted iron gates of the Bronze Dorms.
"Gah—!" Lancet spat blood, his vision swimming. The pain was blinding, radiating from his ribs.
Before he could even slide down the gate, Elias was there. The Golemancer grabbed Lancet by the collar of his uniform and slammed him against the iron bars.
"You think a flashy trick makes you untouchable?" Elias sneered, his fist pulling back. Lancet saw the rock around his knuckles shift, coating his hand and creating a meager stone gauntlet.
"This is a lesson to not mess with the Kanes!" He drove the stone fist into Lancet's jaw.
The world spun. Lancet collapsed into the dirt, coughing violently. His ears were ringing, and the taste of his own blood flooded his mouth. Elias wasn't giving him a chance to breathe, let alone concentrate.
"What are you waiting for, dipshit?" Elias asked, stepping over Lancet's beaten body. "Summon her! I know it was all lies! Why would the great Astensia become a summon for slum trash like you?!"
Lancet gritted his teeth, his vision blurred with tears of pain. He dragged his hand across his face, cleaning his blood.
Elias stepped on him over and over again, his boots sinking into his flesh and striking his bones. "Arrgghh!" he cried.
"Nothing, huh?!" Elias laughed. "Just as I expected. Get wrecked, you trash!"
He lifted his stone-covered feet to slam into Lancet's mid-section again. But just then, Lancet outstretched his hand and cried, "Summon!"
The sky split open and the pillar of golden light crashed down, creating a concussive force of the Grace sent Elias flying backward, and crashing on a wall.
When the light snapped away, the Ironwill Knight stood between Lancet and his attacker. Astensia did not look serene this time. She took one glance over her shoulder at Lancet—bleeding, bruised, and coughing in the dirt—and she turned to Elias.
Her eyes burned with anger. Her divine aura almost turned to killing intent, leaking from her armor. The air pressure around her became so dense it was hard to breathe.
Elias's eyes widened. "A-A-As… Astensia. It's really her. Shit."
"You dare strike my Master?" Astensia growled.
"Your Master? How can this slum trash be your Master?" Elias wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, but another dripped down. He was scared to his toes.
"Stand up and fight!" Astensia demanded.
Elias, still flabbergasted, could not allow himself to be defeated by a slum-based Class Group-D. His pride led him to believe that regardless of the powerful legendary Heroine before him, he was still stronger than Lancet.
He narrowed his eyes, recovering his composure. "It doesn't matter!" He slammed both palms onto the ground. "You're still just one Knight. You can't take down all three of my strongest Golems!!"
"I summon Flamestone, Iceberg and Volcano!"
The earth tore open in three distinct places.
From the first crater, a towering monstrosity of absolute-zero ice pulled itself out, freezing the moisture in the air into falling snow.
From the second, a roaring giant of condensed, red-hot fire erupted, scorching the cobblestones black.
From the third, a hulking behemoth of molten lava dragged its heavy limbs free, dripping magma that melted the iron gates behind it.
Those three Golems were all ranked Grand, the fourth tier of Summon rankings, only two below Mythic, the pinnacle of summons.
Elias stood behind them, and pointed to Astensia. "Tear her apart!"
Iceberg, the Ice Golem, was the first to strike. It turned its fist to a mace of ice, swinging it down like a glacier to crush Astensia into paste.
Astensia merely brought up her divine shield.
⸢ Shield Bash ⸥
The collision sounded like a thunderclap. The moment the Ice Golem's fist met the crest of the Blessed Shield, the kinetic force rebounded perfectly.
The shockwave rippled up the Golem's arm, and in a fraction of a second, the entire icy construct shattered into a million harmless, glittering snowflakes.
Elias's jaw dropped. "What—"
The Fire Golem roared, unleashing a torrent of condensed flames hotter than a furnace, intended to melt Astensia inside her armor.
Astensia stepped into the inferno. Rather than burning her, the flames parted around her, unable to even singe the divine enchantments of her plate.
She reached out, her gauntlet glowing with pure Will, and grabbed the Fire Golem by its stone-hot throat.
"Seize," she commanded.
With a squeeze of her hand, the Golem'sneck shattered into pebbles, its head falling and rolling over.
The Ice Golem stomped forward, turning its second hand to an ice blade. As it swung, Astensia blocked with her sword, then lifted her leg.
Iceberg's eyes widened in fear.
Putting all her strength and will, Astensia thunder-kicked the stone summon, cracking its chest and sending hurling so fast that when it struck the wall, it was hard to distinguish which stone was part of the wall and which stone was the poor Golem.
"No! Iceberg!" Elias cried, helpless. He threw his hands forward desperately. "Volcano! It's up to you! What are you waiting for?! Kill her! Melt her to slag!"
The Lava Golem, the slowest but most devastating of the three, lumbered forward. It opened its maw to spew a wave of molten rock.
Astensia's Blessed Blade glistened, ready to stroke.
"You are not even like the Demons I used to slaughter," Astensia declared. "You are nothing but mud and heat!"
⸢ Divine Severance ⸥
She swung the greatsword horizontally, creating an invisible arc of magic that passed cleanly through the Lava Golem.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, the top half of the molten behemoth slid perfectly off its bottom half. As the two pieces hit the ground, the divine energy in the cut instantly cooled the magma, turning the unstoppable Golem into two lumps of dead, black obsidian.
Silence fell over the front yard.
Astensia dragged her blade to the side, returning it to its scabbard with a sharp clack. She turned her piercing, frozen-ocean eyes to Elias. She didn't take a step, but the sheer weight of her gaze made the prodigy's knees buckle.
"Do you have more mud to throw, bully?" she asked coldly. "Or do you want me to do to you what I did to your toys?"
Elias was trembling. "Toys? Those Golems were my life's work! Do you… do you know how difficult it is for a Golemancer to prove himself in this school?"
He looked up at her, his teeth vibrating. His mana was depleted, his greatest summons destroyed like children's toys, and the Heroine that did it hadn't even broken a sweat.
"You're... you're both crazy!" Elias stammered, scrambling backward like a frightened crab. He got to his feet, casting one last terrified look at Lancet. "Stay away from me!"
He turned and bolted, abandoning his pride, his brother's revenge, and his dignity, fleeing out of the Bronze Dorms.
Astensia watched him go, her expression filled with disdain. Then, her aura immediately softened. She turned quickly, rushing toward Lancet, who was still trying to push himself up from the dirt.
"Lord Lancet," she said, her voice laced with deep concern. She knelt beside him, reaching out with a gauntleted hand to help him up. "I apologize. I should have acted faster. Let me assist—"
Her fingers brushed Lancet's shoulder.
Suddenly, her hand flickered. The solid steel of her gauntlet turned translucent, breaking apart into ribbons of golden light.
Astensia's eyes widened in surprise as she looked down at her dissolving form. She looked at Lancet, understanding washing over her features.
"Ah. Your Grace reserves..."
"Wait," Lancet gasped, clutching his ribs as he reached out to her. "Astensia, I—"
"I am unharmed, Master," she said softly, offering a reassuring, loyal smile even as her face began to turn into starlight. "Rest. We shall speak again."
With a soft rush of wind, she evaporated completely, drawn back into the Summon Space.
Lancet hit the dirt with a heavy groan.
⸢ System Alert: Grace Depleted. 0/120 MP remaining. Summon forcefully unanchored ⸥
He lay there on his back, staring up at the darkening sky, his body aching from the blunt force trauma. He coughed, spitting another glob of blood into the grass.
He was omnipotent. He was a god of creation who could rewrite history and birth Platinum legends that could dismantle Academy prodigies in seconds.
But as he lay there, unable to even sit up, the brutal reality of his situation crushed him.
His Architect Class was a divine, world-ending gun. But he only had one bullet, and a rusted, leaky magazine.
If Elias had brought four Golems instead of three, or if he had just stalled for thirty more seconds, Lancet would be cooked.
Astensia wouldn't have been defeated; she would have simply vanished because Lancet's "Dull Rank" body couldn't hold onto the magical fuel required to keep her in reality.
"Dammit..." Lancet rasped, clutching his bruised stomach as he finally forced himself into a sitting position.
He didn't just need Creativity Points to make more heroines. That was the secondary problem.
The primary problem, the absolute bottleneck of his godhood, was his Grace.
He wiped the blood from his chin, his eyes hardening with a new, desperate resolve.
"I have to retain more Grace," Lancet whispered to the empty front yard. "No matter what it takes."