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.

her tongue and formed a wind barrier to block this swing. But as expected, Noel used his

her.' Noel smirked, believing he had hit her with

you thought…" To his surprise, Stella answered with a light-hearted tone as the wind blew away the smoke from the explosion, revealing

to the tree with her sword fully pulled out

directed the explosion to the sword so that it knocked off the tree. Stella

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

Stella and all the people in the Zero Squad had tried to

have time to get stronger due to not

gratified that these people still tried to do their

took a deep breath and pointed his sword at

Stella smirked and jumped forward, trying to catch Noel off guard by moving

this since he used his Sword Fire

trying to overwhelm

disappointing as she could see her sword reddened as if it was heated up. If this continued,

the situation to run away, looping around the tree

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

he

"Yeah."

instinctively ducked down. Suddenly, Noel's sword cut through the tree,

Stella started sweating, never thinking someone

there. Noel had waited for a bit before slicing down the tree because he had prepared