System vs Rebirth

"Amazing." Duke Lorelei smiled.

"Tsk. It's still too short." Noel clicked his tongue. He thought he could reach him this time, but his control wasn't at that level yet.

"To think it would need our rune and abilities for him to draw his sword halfway. It seems that we have to go all out for him to fully unsheathe that sword." Anna stood next to him, ready for the second round.

"That's right. If you have the ability, force me to fight you seriously." Duke Lorelei provoked them again, showing that he was nowhere near his peak.

Noel and Anna exchanged looks. They seemed to reach a tacit understanding about their next plan.

The Empowerment Rune in their body got activated, boosting their physical abilities. The surge of strength was noticeable even by the Sword Arbiter.

In that instant, both of them disappeared. Their movement was much faster than earlier, startling him.

The Duke took a deep breath, sending them with his Spiritual Energy instead of his eyes. One of them got caught by the Spiritual Energy and the Duke immediately jumped toward this person, which turned out to be Noel.

Circular Sword Strike.

Noel waved his sword, creating a circle around his body. The Duke ended up striking this circle, which soon expanded, pushing the duke back.

The duke slightly closed his body so that he could gain another surge of strength from his lower body before using it to break the circle apart.

After that, he closed in to lure out Anna.

All of a sudden, Noel smiled as though everything had gone according to the plan, causing the duke to be wary. His sword ended up hesitating, allowing Noel to push him back with his swing.

The duke never thought he would fall for such a trick at this age.

"You youngsters are really good at giving this old man a heart attack." Duke Lorelei smirked.

Rune Blast, crashing the ground underneath them. With this,

immediately approached him from behind once the duke

Noel hadn't done it yet. He created

feel the energy from the rune trying to affect him, but because he had never experienced this before, he was too late in releasing his energy to resist the control of the rune. As a result, the Enhance Forward Rune tossed him in Anna's direction, closing

also jumped forth, surrounding the duke. His black flame gushed out of

"Come forth, Flame Devil."

from what I can see, he is loyal, so…' The duke thought about it

struck this sword but failed to knock

she had done enough just to hold the sword here so that the Sword Arbiter wouldn't be able to stop Noel's

Anna was because he wanted her to stop it. This way, he

strength, but it was too late. The energy that had been contained within the

the duke swung the sword above his head and released the residual energy to split the Flame Devil

over thirty meters. If he ever unleashed this

up breaking the ground underneath him as blood started to

ended up knocking the sword energy from the duke and flew into the sky before destroying each other. The destruction caused a shock wave loud enough to be heard by the people inside the town and strong enough for the gust to destroy all the grass within

"So, this is the number one Arbiter, who

injured, her hands still felt numb from the

noticed anything special, but Noel could see how the energy flowed in that sword. It was so smooth as though it had memorized the

Ardagan, who was a living spirit. But when he thought about it, Ardagan was just a normal sword if he ignored his

The duke had been releasing the energy contained in that sword, but had he actually controlled his energy this whole time? If he didn't have to control his energy and just let it flow as the sword had memorized it, wouldn't it mean he could focus on anything else other than controlling the

Ardagan again and asked inwardly, 'You have

that I'm only responsible for

do something else. "Duke Lorelei. If you

duke furrowed his eyebrows. It seemed that Noel had noticed something, so he permitted it. "If it's interesting, then sure. But if it's not, I'm going to attack

gathered the energy

to do anything else other than swinging his sword. Now that he had defined the kind of anger he wanted to have after the sparring with Anna, Ardagan should be able to

to do something that he couldn't do before, especially

using the Sword Transmutation, gathering a massive amount of energy. It looked like a

was