When the horns hidden in Baiyi’s helm sprang out, his Sanctus armor finally recovered a little bit of its original badass look. One could even call this a transformation sequence if they liked. Its perfect timing even made the sudden event seem quite epic!
‘Fine, so the reason why the tables have turned is that of something that looks like deus ex machina. But eh, who’s counting?’
“Hm. It appears that you have an acute sense of seizing chances whenever they present themselves — a surefire indication that you’re a battle veteran,” Grant muttered. “However, in a battle where prestige takes precedence,along with the limited amount of techniques I can perform out here, I believe that this is merely a struggle before death.”
The three rune rings surrounding Grant suddenly lit up the area around him, indicating his intention to retaliate!
However, a brief wave of nausea immediately hit him, and the spell he had begun to conjure dissipated.
This was the sign of a psychic attack!
‘Impossible!’ Grant’s heart skipped a beat. How could the opponent’s psychic energy possibly be more pervasive than his? ‘Just how powerful is his psychic energy? Is it on par with a Demigod-level fighter? Was he a Demigod-level fighter when he was alive?’
Panic had disrupted Grant’s tempo. Instead of actively counterattacking, Grant found himself barely dodging Baiyi’s offensive, inducing more near misses.
The truth was, despite the difference in their rankings, Grant was not completely better than Baiyi, even in sorcery alone. In terms of total mana output and strength of psychic energy, Baiyi was not on Grant’s level. The duel had now become a fast-paced battle, and the two sorcerers had only dispatched small, low-grade magic spells that had not expended much mana. Since both opponents were no longer trying to cause the other to experience a “blue screen of death” 1 , the total amount of mana which opponent had played no significant role in determining the victor.
It was incredibly hard to notice the effects of psychic energy in an actual battle. It did not possess any attribute that could deal physical damage. It was mostly used as a supplementary tool in battle. Sorcerers use their psychic energies to scan; lock onto their targets, in order to guide spells to strike them, and to disrupt their foes’ psychic energy. Merely pushing one’s psychic energy at an opponent was a very primitive way to employ it, and this would have dealt zero effects to sorcerers of decent caliber. One could only use this method to bully little girls like Mia.
In the past, when Baiyi was still struggling to give the horns on his helm a purpose, he decided to turn them into an extension of his psychic energy; this was inspired by someone who was considered a demon in the past 2 . He had also done it hoping to use Psionic Inundation someday, but he had forgotten all about it. He had only remembered when he was reminded by one of the Voidwalkers a few days before, during strategy preparations.
Baiyi never really considered this ‘gardening trick’ as anything practical. This was especially true when one’s opponent was at the holy level. However, as the fight continued, Baiyi began to believe its viability.
First, Grant started the battle with a ninth-grade magic — a spell that exceeded what Baiyi could cast at his level — and this expended a great deal of psychic energy. Afterward, Grant tried to destroy that ninth-grade spell, and this also cost him a great deal of psychic energy. In the ensuing battle, Grant’s dynamic, hi-speed spells chipped away at his remaining psychic energy, bit by bit. And not long after, his psychic energy was so low, even Baiyi could detect it.
This mistake was common for advanced-class sorcerers. Since they venture into battle with state-of-the-art gears, a large reservoir of mana, expansive psychic energy, and the ability to finish fights very quickly, advanced sorcerers almost never put any care into the amount of psychic energy they expend. Only in long battles, or battles of attrition war, would advanced sorcerers ever have to worry— other times, only the rookiest of all sorcerers would need to worry about their psychic energy reservoir.
And the same applied to VP Grant, who was no doubt advanced enough to ignore any possibility of his psychic energy being exhausted. Although he had used a lot of his power, his energy was not close to being completely exhausted, either. He could still carry on performing highly-taxing spells in this battle, over a long period of time. The only downside to it was non-fatal lethargy he would experience at the end of the day.
Nevertheless, consumption was still consumption, and it showed in Grant’s overall power. Baiyi was already much more powerful than Grant was in terms of psychic energy, and with the help of his “antenna”, Baiyi had finally reached the point where his strength could cause an impact.
This was precisely what Baiyi utilized. He used a technique the level of a parlor trick to forcefully interrupt Grant’s chanting!
Unfortunately for Grant, he had not foreseen this turn of events. To be fair, no one could have foreseen Baiyi from using this weak attack on a heavyweight. It was as if someone had won the MMA championship by scratching their opponent’s itch to death. No sane man would think of using a childish move in a serious fight! How much would one have to look down on a Holy-level sorcerer to think of using Psionic Inundation? That is insulting!
In reality, using the technique to win a battle was not feasible. This is because a normal Legendary-level, or even Holy-level, sorcerer possessed similar amounts of psychic energy; hence, when both sides expend the same amount, neither opponent would gain an advantage over the other. This technique had only worked for Baiyi because he was an atypical powerhouse, who was only limited in certain conventional aspects. Hence, it was not really Grant’s oversight that had allowed this to happen.
That was why it did not really matter if Nota’s scream had happened or not. If Nota had not screamed, before long, the situation would progress to the same stage, and Baiyi would still have been able to use this to his advantage. Nota’s scream only sped up the process.
Grant mustered enough courage to try chanting another spell, but Baiyi quickly overwhelmed the VP with another wave of psionic blast, nullifying the new spell.
That knocked Grant’s confidence down another peg. He no longer dared to chant spells; instead, he took a leaf from Baiyi’s book and stuck to dodging the incoming attacks with his agility, albeit without the same grace that the soul armature showed.
“What’s going on?” Someone from the crowd asked. “Why isn’t VP Grant countering his attacks? If the VP could just start attacking again, his level advantage should be gain him an advantage, right?”
“What do you know? This is an educational duel, man! VP Grant is showing us how a pro performs evasive maneuvers in a high-tier battle. Isn’t he cool?”
“I know, right! After all, this Hope is still the Church’s guy. VP can’t let him look too bad; that would be too uncourteous, yes?”
It was quite fortunate that Grant could not hear the crowd’s comments, or he might very well suffer heavy internal injury from the ‘optimism’ they were displaying! However, Grant did regain his composure. He slowly came to understand his problem and came up with a solution to it; he realized that he should focus on recovering his psychic energy back to above the safety line before trying to retaliate.
‘I must put this situation down into our textbook as a case study!’ Grant thought as he deftly evaded Baiyi’s slowed attacks, relying on his protective gears, pre-enchanted magic, and his array of techniques.
However, Baiyi did not plan to give him the time he needed. As he chased after the maneuvering Grant, Baiyi whispered to Nota, “Now, as we have planned, you take the lead in offense!”
“R-right! I’ll do my best!” Nota replied in her soft, shy voice.
Suddenly, formations rose in front of Baiyi’s face, and a variety of low grade spells shot out from it. From afar, it looked as if Baiyi was spitting out the attacks.
Baiyi had stopped casting spells with his hands, however. Instead, he used them to swiftly form a series of hand seals in quick succession; this was how he planned to end this battle.
Since Nota had taken over the offensive, Grant could feel the pressure lessen. Overwhelmed with joy, he guessed that Baiyi’s mana had run into some sort of technical problem. Despite nursing that conjecture, Grant was still wary and did not dare launch his own attacks.
Instead, he waited and turned behind to glance at to his pursuer. It was at that moment he saw Baiyi making those hand seals.
“No no no!” Grant panicked. He quickly took an attack stance. However, Baiyi had finished his secret technique and spoke in a baritone voice.
“Six Realms Five Planes — The Divine Figure of Kurikara.”
After Baiyi’s incantation, his body split into two identical copies, then from two to four, and from four to eight. In front of each clone was a formation, and each of them was forming a deadly spell!
“Illusions? Mirage?” Grant wondered as his heart lurched. He used the little psychic energy he could muster and scanned all the Hopes, and his face paled. All of them were emitting real mana vibrations! Their incantations are real, and each one of them could easily take his life!
In other words, Hope possessed the ability to cast eight different spells at the same time!’
‘No goddamn way! Grant conjured his own formation in defiance, aiming his attack at one of the clones; however, before he could finish his incantation, his head was once again assaulted by a searing headache, and his spell was dispelled!
‘Holy f*ck?!’ Grant’s experiences and beliefs were being trampled at this very moment. ‘No one, absolutely no one, could possibly cast eight spells at the same time… and still possess the strength to disrupt someone else’s spell! This is just illogical!’
‘What the hell is this monster? Is he even human, or a demon? Or is he the avatar of some divine power?! ‘
Grant watched his own psyche crumble. He no longer had any fight in him to face this otherworldly enemy. He only wished that his opponent still remember that this was supposed to be a friendly match aimed for education.
Hence, Grant raised his hands in defeat and lowered his prideful head. He could not possibly defeat a monster like this. ‘ F*ck me; I just met a monster who can perform eight spells at the same f*cking time! This is way out of anyone’s imagination!’
“Well fought, Vice President Grant,” Baiyi said to the Holy-level Grand Sorcerer as he vanished the clones and dispelled his secret technique.