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.

swing. But

her with this. It seemed his strategy of

answered with a light-hearted tone

the tree with her

and realized Stella directed the explosion to the sword so that it knocked off the

realized my weakness. If I were not so hot-headed that I ended up overlooking things, I wouldn't have had to experience all that stuff. That's why no matter how

wasn't the only one who had gotten stronger. Stella and all the people in the Zero Squad had tried to fix

have time to get stronger due to

couldn't help but feel gratified that these people still tried to

a deep breath and pointed his sword at her neck again,

again, shall we?" Stella smirked and jumped forward, trying to catch Noel off guard by moving before he could

since he used his Sword

on Stella's sword started rampaging as if trying to overwhelm Noel's fire, not wanting to lose

sword reddened as if it was heated up. If this continued, her sword would become soft and eventually become

the situation to

Do you think the same trick will work on me twice?!" Stella smirked, moving toward the tree. When she was about

he heard

"Yeah."

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

never thinking someone

had waited for a bit before slicing down the tree