"Fire Embers!"
"How’s that possible! How can you use Fire Embers, the skill only Fire Donna can use!"
Makkany shrieked in disbelief.
The black embers floating around Ayrin and Ciaran cut apart the crimson, burning vines he’d formed with his arcane skill, dispersing them into many strips of flames. Even the surrounding trees and vegetation caught fire, yet he couldn’t touch Ayrin and Ciaran.
This was clearly a freshman who’d joined the academy not long ago. He’d also displayed huge flaws in his mobility during his matches against Divine Shield Academy and Iron Forest Academy. Yet, within a short time frame, the degree of his agility even surpassed arcane masters with two open gates, and he even displayed a taboo skill like "Fire Embers."
What kind of talent was that, how fast his progress!
But such a thought floated only an instant in his mind.
"I don’t want to die!"
"I don’t want to die here!"
He desperately turned around and fled.
"Just let him run." Ciaran shook her head, glancing at Ayrin. The latter was clearly waiting for her instructions. "He can’t heal his wound… So there’s no need to waste any strength, just leave him to die with fear and regrets."
Ayrin looked at Makkany fleeing for his life.
Makkany only fled a dozen steps away before collapsing like a suddenly crumbling wall. No further sound came from him.
The crimson vines alight with fire wilted away one by one, into so many piles of ashes.
"We won!"
"We beat that guy!"
After staring blankly for a moment, Ayrin yelled out loud in joy.
"Moss, how are you doing?"
"Why aren’t you saying anything?"
After shouting twice, his face twisted by pain while he shouted Moss Moss, Ayrin finally realized Moss was bound so tight his face had gone purple, about to kick the bucket.
"You, why are you so dumb?"
Even while helping Moss getting rid of the vines, Ayrin chided him at the same time, "Since you’re so big, instead of being bound like this, can’t you just become smaller? Then you’d directly break free."
"You think that I’ll grow big or small just with a snap of the fingers?!" At this moment, Moss really had the urge to fight with Ayrin to the death. But then he almost wept the next moment, "Did we really beat a guy this powerful?"
"Yeah." Ayrin laughed out loud and scratched his head. "That said, it seems you didn’t help all that much, you were immediately bound here!"
"Ayrin, will it kill you to talk a little less!" Moss really wept this time.
"Haha, don’t lose hope. Even in the same arcane team, there will always be someone who’s the strongest, and always someone who isn’t as strong." Ayrin patted Moss on the shoulder and comforted him.
Moss’ vision went black. He screamed at the top of his lungs, "Ayrin, are you really comforting me or are you trying to beat me down on purpose!"
"Haha, of course I’m comforting you. I’m just telling it as it is."
"Ayrin, you vile person, I absolutely have to surpass you!"
"Teacher Ciaran! I never thought you were so strong. You defeated that guy even in such circumstances." Moss was so angry he was about to spit out blood, but Ayrin didn’t pay any attention to him. He looked at Ciaran with adoration and shouted, "That said, why was that guy also that strong, why were his skills all so weird?"
Ayrin felt that it was easier to endure the stabbing pain on his back when he shouted and screamed like this.
"Makkany isn’t an ordinary opponent. He also has a nickname in the world of arcane masters, the ‘Demon Vine Grandmaster’." Ciaran looked at Moss and Ayrin, explaining, "He has some elven blood, and furthermore, it should be the bloodline of these elven ‘Forest Sentinels’ from back then. That’s why what he trains in is very specialized on the arcane skills that can bring out the variant elemental vines from the power of his bloodline. Before, back when he was in team Divine Shield, the team he was part of also once made it into the top eight in the national tournament."
"A guy who once vied for the title of ‘Brave under the starry skies’, a guy who’s already this powerful, but he still chose to rely on the power of evil." Ayrin glanced at Makkany’s corpse, his disdain piled on top of loathing.
"Moss. Ayrin."
"Hm?"
"You both did very well. This time, the fight already went far above the original mission. If not for your remarkable performance, I would have paid a very heavy price even if I’d ended up defeating him."
"Don’t say that. There’s still a huge gap compared to teacher Ciaran, and also that guy. If I had to face that guy by myself, I couldn’t even have withstood two arcane skills of his," Ayrin said, a little dispirited. But he immediately stirred himself up after that and brandished his fist. "That’s why I have to train even harder!"
Moss rolled his eyes.
"Teacher Ciaran, what did he mean by you guys being the group of Evil Six back then?" Ayrin couldn’t help but ask. "Also, what he said at the beginning about some lord Dias who tried to assassinate you, what does that mean?"
"Liszt, me, Ashur, Rui, Minlur, Carter, we were one of the strongest teams among all the academy teams back then. When we participated in the Hegemonical Cup of Starry Skies Braves, we ended up ultimately losing to Donna’s River Bend Academy and only became vice-champions, but that was merely because of the tournament’s format. The opponent we met in the previous round was too strong, the wear and tear we suffered too great. In ordinary times, we had always been without rivals in contests between school teams.
"Back then, we loved to stir up trouble, and we’d run to other schools and fight their school teams because of some contradictions. There were also many school teams who ran to our academy and came to fight us. But in the end, we more or less always rampaged through them. That’s why back then, all the school teams called us six the Holy Dawn Evil Six."
Ciaran looked peacefully at Ayrin and Moss, saying, "Maybe it was precisely because we were too much in the limelight. The Evil Dragon followers also paid attention to us and considered us targets they had to eliminate in advance. Hence, not long after the end of the tournament that year, a team of five assassins came to find us. The one leading the team back then was precisely the Evil Dragon follower called Dias."
"That fight… We weren’t their match. Ultimately, Ashur used ‘Tide Vortex’ and sucked all the arcane skills they used onto himself. We counterattacked in that split instant and killed four of them. That guy Dias ran away by himself. Ashur sacrificed his life in that battle, bearing the injuries from the five of them."
"It’s the one called Dias who thought he could casually kill you, but he never thought you almost killed them all instead. Among the ones he brought, one of them was his own brother. That’s why, now that he’s become a mighty figure among Evil Dragon followers, he wants to find you for revenge." Ciaran stayed calm on the surface, but Ayrin could still feel her deep sadness. He looked at the red scarf wrapped around Ciaran and said in a soft voice, "That’s why, teacher Ciaran… This red scarf you wear, it’s to commemorate teacher Ashur who died in battle for your sake?"
Ciaran nodded. Sucked in a deep breath. Gazed at the distant sky.
Even if so much time had gone by, it seemed she could clearly see the image of Ashur standing like a shield in front of them.
When the darkness before dawn twisted and whirled, the Evil Dragon's forces gradually unfurled, a world-destroying crisis, despair uncurled, the flickering flame of hope on the verge of extinction. Arise and fight, brave warrior! Fight with courage! Brave warrior! For the living and the homeworld! Strive and struggle! Brave warrior! For your friends and family, and also for the world! …" For some inexplicable reason, Ayrin remembered Holy Dawn Academy’s school song. He couldn’t stop himself from softly reciting it at this time.
Thinking about teacher Ashur, who he’d never seen before, standing full of resolve in front of his comrades, he suddenly felt a new layer of meaning from this school song.
"Teacher Ciaran, I never thought you guys back then were so strong you rampaged through the other schools." Ayrin suddenly lifted his head again and looked at Ciaran. "That said, we also have the Evil Six right now."
"You guys?" Ciaran stared.
Ayrin counted on his fingers and said in all seriousness, "Chris, Moss, me, Belo, Stingham, and also Rinloran. If the six of us become a team, we’ll be particularly strong in the future as well, for sure. And we’ll also become the group of Evil Six the same as you."
"You finally counted me in." Moss let out a breath, his pride surging on its own.
However, Ayrin immediately added, "There’s only Moss who’s a bit worse, he only has his physical strength to speak of. He still has to train hard."
Moss’ vision went black. He couldn’t stop himself anymore. He clutched Ayrin’s neck and roared, "Ayrin, would it really kill you to talk a bit less!"
"Will they really be a new group of Evil Six?"
Looking at Moss and Ayrin, Ciaran’s inner grief quickly vanished. She couldn’t repress a faint smile floating at the corner of her mouth.
"They couldn’t even get rid of our group of Evil Six up until now. With another new group of Evil Six, I wonder how much of a headache these Evil Dragon followers are going to have."
She smiled faintly. An eerie cold, resolute fighting spirit once again ignited inside her. "Dias, you already became a Bishop in the Church of the Evil Dragon? I’ll definitely… definitely kill you with my own hands!"
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