The sea parted with a deafening rumble, revealing the massive ocean floor.

Simon and Aizel descended into the abyss.

’Good heavens.’

Simon stared in sheer disbelief. He was actually setting foot on the bottom of the ocean. Seaweed lay scattered in chaotic tangles, and stranded fish flopped wildly across the seabed, still thinking they were in the water.

’Just what kind of magic did he use to pull this off?’

Despite orchestrating such an impossible feat, Aizel didn’t even look tired. He hummed a light tune, completely engrossed in solidifying the seabed, before turning back to face Simon.

"No one will bother us here, right?" Aizel asked.

"Y-Yeah, that’s true," Simon replied, casting a wary glance at the towering walls of swirling seawater. A spark of dread warned him it could collapse at any second. As a quick insurance policy, he pulled Deimos from his subspace and slipped him into the surrounding waters.

"This spot sits right in a subtle blind spot of Kizen’s detection barrier. I’m the only one who knows about it," Aizel explained.

’Of course you’re the only one who knows about it, Senior.’

They said all necromancers were twisted.

Aizel was no exception—in fact, he was far more twisted than most.

"Shall we get ready, then?" Aizel asked.

"Yes."

The two lightly warmed up on the barren ocean floor.

Simon didn’t quite understand the magical mechanics at play, but Aizel was preparing to fight him while actively maintaining this massive phenomenon. That alone was a massive handicap.

Granted, Aizel had simply created the venue out of necessity. He didn’t seem to care that he was taking a risk against a sophomore, nor did he think he was doing Simon any favors.

It was pure strength.

He might have been introverted, but he possessed absolute confidence in his abilities. To Aizel, the very concept of losing belonged entirely to the realm of the absurd.

’If he’s going this far, I can’t afford to lose either.’

Simon grinned, his fighting spirit flaring to life.

"I’m ready when you are!" Simon called out.

"Same here," Aizel replied.

"We’ll stick to the standard sophomore duel evaluation rules, right?"

"Of course."

Aizel casually gestured with his hand.

"Alright. Come at me whenever you’re ready."

Simon stared in awe, saying nothing. Seeing Aizel smiling so casually, beckoning him forward from the center of a raging sea, made him look far more majestic and imposing than when he hid behind his glasses and acted cold.

"Then I won’t hold back!"

Taking the promised first strike, Simon unleashed his jet-black.

Two skeletons burst from his subspace, immediately disassembling into individual bone fragments that floated in the air. As Simon spread three fingers wide, the bones sharpened into deadly blades, fanning out with a crisp ’Clack’.

"Your control over Restoration is impressive," Aizel noted with genuine admiration.

Simon kicked off the ground, charging forward. Taking that as a signal, the floating bones shot toward Aizel like bullets.

Deploying Bone Armor and rushing in the moment a match began was Simon’s favorite tactic in duel evaluations. It stood in stark contrast to the typical Summoning student, who would stubbornly buy time to draw out all their necessary summons and aim for a mid-to-late game advantage.

"You can only rush me like that because you have a solid foundation in jet-black martial arts, right?" Aizel observed, raising a hand.

It was the magic he could draw out the fastest.

He formed a slender, elongated spear of pure jet-black and sent it whistling through the air. Simon’s eyes widened.

’That’s no ordinary jet-black spear!’

A ring of compressed wind coiled violently around its tip.

Simon immediately thrust a few pieces of his Bone Armor forward to deflect the spear’s trajectory, physically twisting away from the resulting blast.

Aizel sprinted across the seabed, cleanly evading Simon’s bone projectiles. It wasn’t flashy martial arts, but his movements were razor-sharp and incredibly efficient.

Just as the two men danced around the projectiles, measuring the distance to cast their curses, one of the jet-black spears abruptly changed direction. It hooked straight toward Simon’s ankle. Simon had no choice but to leap high into the air to avoid it.

’I’m airborne.’

Forcing an opponent into the air where evasion was nearly impossible and sniping them with projectiles was Combat 101.

’If that’s how you want to play!’

Simon decided to counterattack. Jet-black condensed around his right hand like a spiked knuckle duster.

’Hongfeng Original—Bayonet’

He unleashed a sweeping strike aimed directly at Aizel’s lower body.

Even Aizel, who had been effortlessly sidestepping the Bone Armor, was forced to jump to avoid the blow. With both of them now airborne, Simon flipped his body into a rapid tumble and flicked his fingers.

Pieces of Bone Armor flew into his path, forming midair footholds. Simon planted his feet against the floating bones and kicked off, launching himself directly at Aizel.

’The timing is perfect!’

No matter how devastating Aizel’s dark magic was, if Simon could force him into a close-quarters brawl, he had a real chance of winning.

The gap between them vanished. Simon’s fist, wrapped in the ’Drunken Strike’ he had learned from Hongfeng, hurtled toward Aizel’s face. But just as it was about to connect—

Aizel vanished.

If he had repelled himself with jet-black magic or used Spiritification, Simon could have adapted. But he had simply ceased to be there.

Simon’s fist crushed empty air as he sailed past.

Simon landed, his boots skidding across the seabed, and whipped his head around.

’Teleportation?’

He spotted Aizel standing casually several dozen yards away.

"Your combat sense is quite something," Aizel praised.

"I never expected you to use your Bone Armor as midair stepping stones to charge again. Are you really a sophomore? Just looking at how you fight, you seem like a veteran who’s crossed the line of death countless times."

Simon gritted his teeth and threw his arms wide.

A massive subspace tore open behind him. Skeleton Mages bombarded the area with ’Dark Blaze’, while Skeleton Archers unleashed a volley of jet-black-infused arrows.

Despite Simon pouring out his most devastating firepower, Aizel dodged every blast and arrow with leisurely grace, as if taking a pleasant stroll with his hands clasped behind his back.

’However.’

Simon’s goal wasn’t just to show off his firepower.

Explosions inevitably created thick smoke that obscured the battlefield. Under the cover of that smoke, he deployed three ghouls from his subspace and sent them rushing in.

Simon opened his fist.

’Rino’s Golden Line!’

He visualized a sharp line cleanly severing the three magic circles binding the undead.

The ghouls let out bloodcurdling shrieks as they went berserk, charging forward like runaway steam engines. The moment they reached Aizel’s back, Simon clenched his fist.

’Corpse Venom Explosion!’

A massive green explosion erupted with a deafening roar.

It was an unavoidable, wide-area attack perfectly timed to catch his opponent off guard. Simon lowered his hand and peered into the billowing smoke, but—

"Excellent."

The whisper right beside his ear made his hair stand on end.

Before he even realized it, Aizel had appeared directly behind him.

Simon instantly spun into a vicious roundhouse kick, but Aizel vanished again, reappearing even further back as if to mock him.

"Honestly, I didn’t have high expectations, you know," Aizel said with a casual shrug.

"I could only picture a future where I was forced into the Student Council President position, had my true nature exposed to the whole school, and dropped out. But after fighting you..."

His pupils narrowed to predatory slits.

"I have a faint, tiny glimmer of hope."

With a deep, resonant thrum, four magic circles unfolded cleanly behind Aizel’s back.

It was Aizel’s signature ultra-high-speed dark magic casting, bordering on chantless. He casually raised both arms.

"Here I come."

Simon doubled over with a dry cough as an intense, invisible impact slammed into his abdomen. He immediately corrected his defensive stance, but the second he raised his arms to guard his chest—

Invisible blows battered his arm, his shoulder, and then his knee.

’Ugh!’

Simon staggered, glaring straight ahead. Aizel had shifted into a fighting stance. As the senior moved his fist slightly, a sharp, stinging impact erupted against Simon’s arm with a loud ’Pop’.

’Martial arts? No, that’s impossible!’

Aizel was disguising his attacks as physical strikes, but his martial arts were clearly inferior to Simon’s.

Simon’s focus locked onto the magic circles hovering behind his opponent. There was no way Aizel had just left them open as mere decorations.

Channeling jet-black into his feet, Simon bolted to the side. He heard the sharp ’Pop’ of empty air bursting right where he had just been standing.

’This is definitely...!’

A heavy blow smashed into him. A clean hit.

Struck squarely in the head, Simon staggered backward. His vision spun wildly, accompanied by a sharp ringing in his ears.

However.

Right before he collapsed, he drove his back foot into the dirt, barely holding his ground.

He dropped his stance sharply to evade the follow-up attack. A violent burst of wind exploded just above him, aggressively whipping his hair around.

’To the side!’

Simon executed a short dash and ducked low just as blasts of wind erupted from his front and back.

Aizel’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief.

’I thought using ’Fulgor’ against a sophomore was overkill, but don’t tell me...’

His mouth broke into a joyful, thrilled smile.

’Did he actually see it and dodge?’

Simon wove through the invisible Fulgor blasts as he sprinted toward Aizel, a fierce spark of determination in his eyes.

’Compared to the Fulgor Professor Jane used during my supplementary lessons, this is nothing!’

Fulgor wasn’t the type of dark magic fired as a projectile from a magic circle; instead, it manifested directly in thin air.

If a fighter could catch the faint precursor right before the spell manifested, dodging it wasn’t impossible.

Granted, the Fulgor activated by Aizel’s specialty—jet-black wind magic—was reputed to be so stealthy that rumors claimed it left no precursors at all. But Simon was seeing the subtle shifts clearly, and he was dodging them all.

"Amazing! Truly amazing!" An ecstatic Aizel thrust both arms forward.

"Then how about this?"

The magic circles behind his back instantly doubled in number. At the exact same moment, Fulgor unfolded in every direction around Simon.

It was an omnidirectional Fulgor combo—impossible to dodge, even if he could see it coming.

A rapid chain of explosions tore through the area, sending violent shockwaves sweeping across the seabed.

It looked like a direct hit, but Aizel tilted his head in confusion.

’A few of them didn’t go off?’

Dark blue jet-black crackled like electricity through the lingering smoke. Simon was panting heavily, but a confident grin stretched across his face.

"Why don’t you keep going?"

It was the anti-Fulgor tactic Professor Jane had taught him: Cancel Spark.

Jagged currents of jet-black sparked all around him.

Whenever Aizel created a precursor to Fulgor—a ’wind hole’—in Simon’s blind spot, Simon pinpointed its exact location and fired a spark directly into it.

The moment the spark and the wind hole collided, the magic attempting to manifest was completely nullified.

"Ahaha!" Aizel laughed brightly.

This junior truly exceeded all his expectations.

Wind bombs detonated in every direction Simon ran. Attacks erupted from the front, back, left, and right, but Simon danced through the onslaught with incredible agility.

The distance between them was now barely sixteen feet.

’His senses are sharp, but he still isn’t completely used to Cancel Spark!’

As the gap closed, Aizel attempted to overwhelm him with sheer volume.

But then, a sharp ringing echoed in his head. Aizel’s mind suddenly grew hazy as a heavy, unnatural drowsiness washed over him.

’Sleep?’

He hadn’t even noticed when it happened, but he had been hit by a curse.

And for it to be a curse capable of piercing through the heavy curse resistance he had layered on himself the moment the battle started...

’The famous Sleep of Senior Phantastus! Good heavens, when did he learn this?’

Simon continued his relentless charge.

Though his concentration had plummeted from the sudden drowsiness, Aizel swung his arms without letting his fatigue show.

An even greater number of wind holes unfolded around Simon.

But this time, Simon didn’t use Cancel Spark. He abruptly halted his charge, lifted his leg high, and slammed his foot into the ground.