As the two arcs of energy collided, Azzy's soul skill completely destroyed its counterpart and continued to proceed toward the real target.
Leah's face darkened and she began to pour more soul energy into her bracers to power up the translucent barrier.
Eventually, the arc of death energy struck the barrier and the death energy invaded it while leaving behind a huge amount of cracks on the surface.
At a rapid pace, the oval-shaped barrier, which managed to block Azzy's soul-skill attack, now started to be corrupted by the death energy and was turning black into color.
Leah saw it and pumped up more of her soul energy into the barrier but saw that the corrupted energy was blocking her assistance. As a result, she cut off the connection to the golden bracers, dismissing the defensive barrier.
Seeing an opening, Azzy quickly dashed forward and swung the death scythe at his opponent.
Leah, in response, timely caught the scythe with an extra pair of arms grown from the hydro armor around her. She let out a smile, "How is the battle so far, Azrael?"
Azzy calmly answered, "You know the answer. My abilities aren't for spar but for real battles."
"I know." Leah nodded and then said, "That's why you should bring out the ones that can be used for a spar. I'm talking about Ruby."
Pouring soul energy into the death scythe, which further corrupted the flexible hydro hands and forced Leah to back away, Azzy replied, "Make me."
"You bet…" Leah turned serious once again as she push forth her arms and created a blast of concentrated natural energy.
Because of the Eyes of God, Azzy had seen the attack clearly but he doesn't have enough distance or time to dodge it. He was hit in the chest. Although he crashed onto the floor more than ten meters away, there was little to no injury inflicted on him.
But, what surprised Azzy was how this princess used the natural energy as a part of her body.
Through the Eyes of God, he also realized that the golden bracers were nothing more than the medium to continuously store, absorb, or emit natural energy. Standing onto his feet, Azzy complimented her right away, "It looks like your mastery over the natural energy exceeded mine."
"Nah, I wasn't as gifted as you." Leah shook her head, "unlike you, I would need this equipment to maintain the steady flow of natural energy."
Azzy cannot say that he learned it through ancient Buddhism techniques. Hence, he kept his mouth shut and fell into thoughts.
If it is someone else, there would be no problem, but since it is his friend and partner who he was sparring with, he couldn't heavily injure her. He should think of a way to win this match without hurting her too much, whether it is physically or mentally.
While Azzy was formulating a strategy in his mind, Leah made her move.
This time, she charged forward with the Excalibur sword while pouring her soul energy as well as the natural energy into the weapon.
Azzy's body moved in reflex and his death scythe blocked the Excalibur but the force happened to be stronger. He got pushed back once again. Seeing that her attacks are working, she attacked him at her full strength, pushing him back until he reached the wall of the dome-shaped training hall.
Just as his back was about to hit the wall, Azzy pushed away the Excalibur with perfect timing and spun around, pinning Leah to the wall instead.
*Woof*
At the same time, the black lightning wolf let out a powerful bark, releasing a net of lighting vertically through its mouth. It passed through Azzy and tightly bound the princess whose back was facing Azzy.
The black lightning energy, which also has the powers of Protos energy, paralyzed her body organs, hindering her ability to move the sword for now. As the match turned around in Azzy's favor, he said, "So, Leah, ready to admit the defeat?"
Leah snorted in response without trying to get free, "you wish."
Azzy shrugged his shoulders, "well, then, I should knock you out, I guess."
"Nice try but you failed to catch something, Azrael," said Leah, letting out a smile all of a sudden. Knowing her well, Azzy thought that she was biding her time and he proceeded to conjure the Protos spears that will put an end to this spar.
However, he didn't expect Leah would suddenly turn into water and dropped onto the floor before slipping past the lightning net and transforming back to her human form. Only the Excalibur was inside the prison.
"What the…" Azzy was taken aback by her ability as the realization dawned upon him, "that's right. The hidden soul skill: Merge will let the Arcana Master use all the unlocked abilities of his Arcana."
Leah then raised her arm and shouted, "Excalibur."
As the legendary sword vibrated and cut through the lightning net and returned to her hand, she raised the sword, "Azrael, you should stop trying to fool around. I'm different from the opponents you faced so far. I will neither underestimate you at any moment nor am I weaker than any 8-star realm Arcana Master."
Azzy felt like her opponent is someone he cannot half-heartedly fight as he does with his friends at the academy.
Getting a little bit serious, he dismissed the death scythe as well as the black wolf, surprising Leah a little bit, before saying, "You are strong. I will give you that. To respect your strength, I will use a trump card that I usually reserve for the battles. So, get ready to face it."
Leah was prepared for the soul absorption and his unique Sage arts but she didn't expect Azzy would summon a human skeleton.
"Soul skill: Rise of the undead."
As Azzy unleashed his soul skill, a skeleton rose from the ground. One can say that it belongs to a human if this skeleton doesn't possess wings too. It is Cardinal Ophanim's skeleton.
Neither Leah nor even Excalibur could guess the realm of the skeleton as it doesn't possess soul energy. Hence, they can only find it after exchanging blows.
But, seeing that Azzy was very confident about defeating her with this skeleton, the princess assumed that it probably belonged to an expert that has higher physical strength than Azzy.
Either way, it doesn't matter as the skeleton is a part of Azzy's powers and she planned to test the extent of her full strength.
The natural energy rushed out of the bracers and enveloped the Excalibur along with her own purple-colored soul energy, indicating that she was ready.
Azzy took a step back and ordered, "Go and knock her out."
The skeleton flapped its wings and flew toward her at a speed of mach 4, reaching her in just a fraction of a second.
With the Eyes of God, its movements were in slow motion to Azzy, but for Leah, the speed was almost in the same league as her royal teacher, Aurelia.
Before she even swung down the sword, the skeleton already hit her, blasting her more than a hundred meters away. She crashed onto the wall and fell down with her ribs fractured as the winged-skeleton slowly landed on the floor.
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