Heaven's Greatest Professor

Although he mentioned that he received an impressive Grade A in potential, she couldn\'t fathom him having such defensive capabilities as well. From the very beginning, the cloak seemed nothing special, but now that June laid her silver eyes on it, she learned it was far from being anything ordinary.

For one thing, all of its specialities were hidden from her prying eyes, which spoke volumes about the magnitude of its realm. She would have to study it very closely to get anything out of it.

Truly, the wielded human she found in some unknown village was giving her one surprise after another.

June withdrew and maintained distance, keeping the impasse for a little longer. Warden\'s display so far should have impressed the Elders enough to consider him truly as an aspect for the academy. After all, she was genuinely impressed, and her scale was already quite high.

The battle was finally taking a toll on his body. Although his channels were full of energy, it burned through him to implement them. He had been at full capacity for over a quarter of an hour. The diabolical energy already began to tear through his skin.

Another mystery was the power. It wasn\'t simply darkness, as darkness lacks the destructive force of the dark purple energy. June had her suspicions. But with no evidence, she would rather not draw conclusions.

June could still play with the same intensity for half an hour more, but she was unsure where his limit lay. She was prepared to end the confrontation, but at the last moment, she held her move, finding him doing something suspicious.

"Are those runes?" June\'s [Silver Eyes of Dawn] peered into the motes of energy Warden left on the scorched ground. He tried his best to keep them hidden and even managed to do so without most people\'s notice. Perhaps even her eyes wouldn\'t have picked up if he hadn\'t shown and taught her runesmithing.

June was intrigued. The idea of ending the match vanished from her mind as she let him lay those runes, or rather those scripts, on the ground. She didn\'t know his mastery in Runesmithing had already reached such a quality.

But then again, he didn\'t need to learn it from scratch. The mastery was there; Warden simply forgot the way to implement them, if that made sense.

Intrigued, June decided she would let him show his secret weapon.

"You weren\'t joking when you said the garden has high fences protecting it," he taunted, flinging his body above a Lightning Serpent.

June\'s eyes narrowed, and she didn\'t bother to reply to him. The human was enduring, even though June showed no sign of weakness. While her star fire began to eat through his force field, Warden scribed those scripts on the ground under his foot. His Will and Intent were sharp and without hesitation.

"But have you ever seen a goat caring about how high fences are?" Warden laughed, blood coming down from his nostrils. His arms and body were already seething with blood, but his smile was brilliant, as if he felt no pain.

June didn\'t know if the insufferable man simply wanted to taunt her into making a mistake or was serious about courting her. Whatever it was, it was a fool\'s errand. There was no way she would fall for—

A sharp force thrust into her body, ignoring all the wards she implemented. She was flung away backwards, but then another similar force equal in magnitude plunged from her back and contested with the other force. Not just from the back, it was from omni-direction. Warden had mapped the whole field and riddled them with scripts.

Gravity?

June was immobilized in the middle of all the scripts. Her [Silver Eyes of the Dawn] glowed in silver light, but she was still unable to figure out how the rune magic could completely ignore her wards and attack her.

From the expression Warden held, it seemed to be news to him as well. But there was a sign of relief as well.

He approached her, wasting no time, as he wasn\'t aware of how long his script could hold against her.

June found her Will could contest with the script, while her eyes looked for the weakness. Unfortunately, she simply couldn\'t study those scripts in the middle of a fight, not when Warden was barking through her wards like they were mere scrapes.

June sighed; thankfully, none of the elders seemed to have noticed the intricacies of the runes. It was as good a time as any to end the fight.

"I\'m really sorry for this," she told him and attacked.

***

Victory was within his grasp and Warden couldn\'t believe it. He hadn\'t thought his array would be this effective, much less against an opponent like June.

Warden broke through her layers of ward one after another, each step bringing him closer to her immobilized form. Then a sensation slapped in the back of his mind.

"I\'m really sorry for this," she said telepathically.

Warden didn\'t even give her permission to create a link, yet she managed to transmit her voice. Dread crawled in his mind, as he hurried to her, extending his sword to the limit to land a blow.

But all turned futile as a devastating force thrust into his mind, breaking through his defences as easily as he did with her wards.

He lost his grasp over [Void Shroud], and all his scripts as he fell to his knees. The blade fell from his palm and soon darkness claimed him.