Elemental Cats

After Toz's two attacks, Dyra stopped hesitating. She still couldn't figure out why Toz was so arrogant or why the other pirates let him run his mouth like that. Maybe he was simply a disposable pawn or something. In that case, Dyra would have to dispose of him.

Dyra threw out her fist after blocking Toz's upward slash. Since Toz would be struggling to keep his balance after getting his sword knocked down, there shouldn't be any problem when trying to bash his face.

However, Toz was unexpectedly able to dodge Dyra's blow by following his sword and ducking under her arm.

Dyra, who wasn't ready for her strike to miss, had put all her weight behind her fist. And when her attack didn't reach its target, she revealed an opening. Dyra quickly corrected her loss of balance by taking a step forward. But that brought her straight into Toz's fist rocketing into her abdomen.

She noticed the fist and tried to use her other arm to block Toz's attack, but she was too slow, and Toz knocked the air out of her with enough force to lift her from the ground.

Despite losing her breath, Dyra used the force of Toz's blow to jump back and distance herself again. She was still an eighth level fighter. Toz knocking the air out of her was slightly troublesome, but it wouldn't completely impede her movements.

After backing away and making sure Toz wasn't pursuing, Dyra inspected where Toz had struck her. Toz had hit her with significant force, and Dyra had felt the blow. But it hadn't left any real damage. Despite knocking the wind out of her and lifting her up off the ground, there might not even be any bruising left behind after the blow.

Dyra felt some incongruity between how Toz fought and his strength. He was obviously fast and quick-headed enough to battle with someone at her level. He could even land critical blows. But his blows didn't deal any damage.

Dyra wondered if he had a unique inclination and praised herself for being cautious. Toz had admitted to being something like a sword fighter, which meant he might only be using a sword on the side as a support to his actual inclination.

After deciding to analyze Toz's attacks and patterns, Dyra rushed forward, aiming to launch an assault and prevent Toz from attacking her again.

Before Dyra could reach Toz with her assault, Toz decided it would be easier to ask Dyra directly rather than try to figure out through fighting her why she knew his level.

"Before we continue, I'm curious about something."

Dyra hesitantly stopped charging toward Toz, but she didn't drop her guard since it might just be a ploy for Toz to ambush her. But if she played it correctly, she could turn the situation around and counter-attack Toz, so she didn't refuse the invitation to talk in the middle of battle.

"What?"

But she still made sure that Toz knew she didn't have much patience for needless chatter by growling her question.

"What makes you so sure I'm not high level?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"You don't have to. It's just that no one else in your party could tell, so I was curious about how you could."

While talking, Toz signaled Brunswick to ask him to analyze the situation and the truth of whatever words Dyra said.

However, Dyra's look toward her protector told Toz how she knew his level.

"That old lady told you?"

Dyra tried not to show any reaction, but by staying silent, she silently affirmed Toz's question.

Toz looked at Brunswick, just in case, to see if he had anything to add. He was surprised to see a couple of tears of blood streak down Brunswick's eyes.

Brunswick flinched, and his head jerked back. He crouched down, clenching his eyes shut, trying to ignore the jarring pain that appeared as soon as he tried to peek at Dyra's follower.

Toz turned a ferocious gaze toward the old lady and pointed his sword at her.

Dyra felt shivers as Toz's laidback attitude disappeared. A stone-cold glare replaced his half-hearted smile. Dyra had been keeping her eyes on Toz, even when he looked away. But she sensed something had happened, so she threw a quick glance in the direction Toz looked before pointing his sword at her protector.

She only saw the man with swirling eyes crouching on the ground, with the grey-haired and green-haired pirates tending to him and the other three taking up aggressive or defensive stances toward the other delegates.

The situation was quickly devolving into a full-on conflict, but before Dyra could do anything to get the meeting or her fight with Toz back on track, the entire platform trembled as mana spread out and pressed down on everything.

The pressurizing mana was only the teaser, as instantly after it spread out, a cloud of mana swirled around Toz.

The mana condensed into a dark blue lightning bolt overlaid with Toz's outstretched arm and sword.

Orange sparks sizzle off the lightning bolt of a condensed mountain of mana.

The light around the bolt grew in intensity. In only an instant, it was bright enough to force Dyra to squint. But before she knew it, the light disappeared. She could still sense the amalgamation of mana around Toz's arm, but there was no light or anything there aside from blurry and unstable tremors in the fabric of space.

Dyra's eyes had a hard time processing what they saw, and she blinked.

When she reopened her eyes, only the emptiness that happens when there's no mana was left. The lightning bolt was nowhere to be seen or felt.

Dyra instinctively looked in the direction Toz pointed before creating the lightning bolt. She had a feeling the barrier put in place to prevent spells from reaching the spectators wouldn't be very efficient against Toz's magic.

However, unlike her expectations, the barrier was completely intact. But the same couldn't be said for the other side of the barrier.