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.

this swing. But as expected, Noel used his Ignition Sword again, blasting

had hit her with

with a light-hearted tone as the wind blew away

standing next to the tree with

looked back for a second and realized Stella directed the explosion to the sword so that it knocked off the tree.

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 to experience all that stuff. That's why no matter how hot-headed I will be, I'll keep

the people in the Zero Squad had tried to fix their mistakes so

didn't have time to get

but feel gratified that these people still tried to do their

his sword

smirked and jumped forward, trying to catch

prepared for this since he used his Sword Fire

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

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 had to jump

advantage of the situation to run away, looping around the

Stella smirked, moving toward the tree. When she was about to strike it, she stopped and looped

that time, he heard Noel's

"Yeah."

Suddenly, Noel's

never thinking someone who

waited for a bit before slicing down the tree because