NOVEL NEXT Chapter 88: Queen
"Well. I guess the American way is not any better than the Chinese way," Professor Wu muttered, sipping his tea dejectedly as the battlefield lay in ruin.
Dozens of upperclassmen were downed. The five Pillars were either unconscious or too injured to continue. The forest itself bore the scars. Craters, split trees, smoldering vines, frozen puddles steaming in the aftermath.
"Are you forgetting something?" Professor Bai Lian chuckled, folding her fan delicately. "Our current third-year batch isn't the strongest just because of the five Pillars."
"We still have the Queen," Professor Huang said softly, eyes gleaming.
He leaned forward, his grin wide and unsettling. "Truth be told, I've often wondered… what would happen if that Damien Bloodbane fought her? I always dismissed it as a silly fantasy. A two-year gap in the teens? Unfair, of course. But now... hehehe..."
His laugh echoed across the instructor's platform like the cackling of an evil miser.
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The wind shifted and caused Damien to freeze even as his instincts blared a full warning.
He spun toward the treeline to face the new threat, but it was far too late.
BOOM.
A blast of white-blue fire exploded from above, hitting both Athena and Jiang Xiao Yu mid-motion. The detonation was silent for half a second, and then the crack of compressed heat and frost tore through the battlefield like a sonic shock.
The two girls were launched backward, their bodies colliding hard against a cliffside, clothes smoking, skin half-frozen, half-burned.
They didn't get up.
Damien's heart twisted in shock, but mostly anger.
But he forced himself to remain calm, eyes scanning the smoke as the air filled with a new kind of tension.
From the drifting frost and flame walked a girl in black combat robes trimmed with royal crimson. Her hair was pinned in an elegant high twist, streaked with glacial blue and ember red. Her eyes were definitely a pair to remember.
One was the color of molten gold, the other a deep icy silver, and they were sparkling with disdain.
She moved with quiet command, and the air around her danced with steam and chaos. Every step left behind scorched grass and frozen roots.
She was called many things.
But to Pearl Institute?
She was simply the Queen.
A rare genius. The only known student in a century to possess a dual elemental affinity in both fire and water. Polar opposites which were supposed to be impossible.
But she had made the impossible possible. And not just that, she had merged them perfectly.
Her signature move, the Icefire Blast, was a phenomenon that defied elemental law. It ignited and froze simultaneously. Pain and paralysis in a single flash.
Genius was too light a word to describe her!
And now she was here.
Damien stared at Athena and Jiang's unmoving forms as a strange emotion swirled in his heart.
For decades in the Super Soldier Basic Training Program, he had fought alone.
Now that he had team mates, which were both taken down right before his eyes, he was in unfamiliar territory.
But he quickly calmed down.
Unfamiliar or not, one thing was the same.
He had to take down the enemy.
That, he can do.
His fists clenched.
The Queen smiled faintly.
"You were busy with the Pillars," she said softly. "I took the opportunity to clean up your support."
Her voice was calm and aristocratic, with the the confidence of someone who had never lost a fight she cared about.
"Don't worry," she added, gaze resting on Damien. "They'll live. Barely."
She raised her hand.
A ripple of steam pulsed outward.
"I've been watching you. I thought you were impressive. But I wanted to see what you'd do without your toys."
Damien didn't speak.
He stepped forward.
She stepped forward to match.
The air between them shimmered with tension.
Water and fire danced around her arms now, coiling together like mating serpents, fighting and merging and fighting again.
"Show me, Damien Bloodbane," the Queen said softly, as flames curled along one arm and frost danced on the other. "Can a monster like you bleed?"
The moment the Queen raised her hand, Damien moved.
No signal. No hesitation.
He became a blur, his feet slamming into the ground with explosive force as he lunged across the battlefield. His fist rocketed toward her with bone-cracking speed, aimed directly at her center.
She parried it with a half-step pivot and a flick of her wrist.
BOOM.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the air, blasting leaves off nearby trees. The ground beneath them split from the force, and the queen was forced back three steps.
Her eyes were already wide in surprise.
She didn't expect him to be so strong without the use of his energy to augment his power.
Damien was already following up, two jabs to the ribs, a sweep at her ankle, a rising elbow to her chin. Fast. Sharp. Relentless.
Boom.
Explosive fire propelled her movements and razor sharp ice made them deadly.
She blocked the two jabs with ease and avoided the ankle sweep, twisting and bending her spine backward to avoid the elbow before launching a snap-kick into his ribs that sent him flying ten meters into a tree.
He hit it hard but landed on his feet, crouching and unharmed.
His eyes narrowed.
The Queen was fast, and she was good.
Very good.
"My turn." The Queen said with a bloodthirsty smile.
She launched forward in a spiral of fire and frost, her limbs trailing glowing contrails of energy. Her strikes were graceful and completely unreserved, each one delivered to textbook perfection.
A palm aimed at his throat. A knee toward his liver. A spinning heel kick wreathed in flickering heat.
Damien ducked. Blocked. Countered.
He moved like steel in a forge. Solid, direct, refined.
But she moved like lightning in a storm. Wild, precise, unpredictable.
Each clash sent tremors through the forest.
And in less than a minute, Damien realized they were at a deadlock.
No matter how fast or how hard he struck, his fists couldn't tear through her Icefire-enhanced guard.