System vs Rebirth

"Wha—!" Stella was dumbfounded as she became hot-headed again. "What are you doing?"

She hurriedly chased after him while gritting her teeth.

It might look like he was running away, but Noel knew Stella's personality. So, instead of letting her become comfortable with her serious mode, he would prefer to fight her in this state since she was easier to manipulate.

Noel looped around a tree to use it as a shield.

"Do you think I will fall for this trick? I know you're going to use this tree as your shield to launch a sneak attack. All I have to do is to slice it through!" Stella smirked and waved her sword, striking the tree.

*Clink!*

"!!!" Stella widened her eyes when she heard the clicking sound. She looked at the tree and realized it was only half-cut. In other words, she couldn't penetrate the tree with that swing.

"What? Although Stella hasn't used her full power, she shouldn't have any problem cutting a tree!" Zion gasped.

"Take a look behind that tree!" Jonathan pointed at the rune behind the tree.

It was Noel's Hardening Rune. This was the rune he got after completing the previous mission in the valley.

Yes, he had opened the Spirit Enchantment System, so he could boost everything around him, including the tree.

Now that Stella's sword was stuck in the tree, Noel looped around and struck her from the opposite side.

formed a wind barrier to block this swing. But as expected,

had hit her with this. It seemed his strategy of riling her up

thought…" To his surprise, Stella answered with a light-hearted tone

standing next to the tree with her sword

Noel frowned, never expecting this from Stella. He looked back for a second and realized Stella directed the explosion to the sword so that it knocked off the tree. Stella shouldn't

his doubt by saying, "You would have got me if it was a month ago. Thanks to a certain accident, I realized my weakness. If I were not so hot-headed that I ended up overlooking things, I wouldn't have had

only one who had gotten stronger. Stella and all the people in the Zero Squad had

didn't have time to get stronger due to not being able to overcome her

feel gratified that these people still tried to do their

and pointed his

and jumped forward, trying to catch Noel off

he used his Sword Fire to block Stella's

to overwhelm Noel's fire, not wanting to lose again

for her, the result was still disappointing as she could see her sword reddened as if it was heated up. If this continued, her sword would become soft and eventually become molten lava, so she

took advantage of the situation to run away, looping around

trick will work on me twice?!" Stella smirked, moving toward the tree. When she was about to strike it, she stopped and looped

time, he

"Yeah."

body trembled as she instinctively ducked down. Suddenly, Noel's sword cut through the tree,

Stella started sweating, never thinking someone who had just graduated could be

for a bit before