NOVEL NEXT Chapter 528: Changing Tides
Almond and Lil faced two Blacksmith Warrior Dwarves high in the sky.
"It's two versus two, so feel free to switch and combo during the fight." The red-eyed dwarf said.
"We will do the same." The green-eyed dwarf added.
Almond and Lily blinked and smiled.
2 vs 2?
Bring it on.
"Let's start."
Swoosh!
In the next moment, four streaks of light began streaming and clashing in the sky.
Then, the space around their battle cracked with rifts while Lily's Dreadolons debuffed both dwarves to oblivion and then rapidly struck by Lily and Almond while they bounced off from one rift to another without getting any chance to fight back.
Three seconds later, Almond and Lily stopped on their own while both dwarves floated wobly, completely stunned briefly before regaining their composure.
"Powerful!" The eyes of both dwarves lit up. They were happy to have such powerful allies in this war. They knew Almond and Lily held back in the lethal department, or they would have died many times in those three seconds.
Another dwarf arrived, his expression amazed as he gave a stone tablet to Almond and Lily. "Show your combat power. It should be measured now."
Almond and Lily looked at their combat power in status, and the moment they touched the stone tablet, their combat power also appeared on it.
It was over 9999!
The other parties stretched their senses to look at the tablet.
"Fifty-four thousand and fifty-two thousand respectively….this similar level of power as the top ten in the leaderboard!"
"Holy! Are they that strong?!"
"What rank did they get in the overall Grim Student Examination?"
"Needs names for that! What are their names?!"
Admiral Rudra and others were smiling as they heard people bonkering over Almond and Lily's combat power.
They also didn't know what their combat power was, but they just knew it was in the top tier.
Most of the people here had a Combat Power of an average of 30,000. But 40,000 was considered above average, and 50k+ was big potential.
But this also made other Grim Students fired up because the journey was only starting.
The Academies would provide a foundation to their path of power as long as they continued to work hard and survived without getting expelled.
….
Soon, the meeting was over, and all seven elite teams from seven different academies departed to their position in the battlefield of the war that was about to begin in one hour.
The dwarven city floated above rivers of living fire, its forges burning brighter than the stars that fed them. When the horn of battle thundered, the molten clouds parted — revealing fleets of Harapixies descending in perfect formation, crystal-winged ships slicing through the haze.
They were no twisted creatures, but an ancient race of artisans and tacticians — proud, intelligent, and fierce. They were accompanied by rival Grim Students from other academies, and this war was going to decide who would rule over this growing dimension.
The dwarves and Grim Students on their side were spread around the city within of kilometer area as all of them soon saw the fleets of enemies.
In one of the valleys in the frontier area, Regalons saw them coming.
Admiral Rudra moved first.
No weapons, no armor — only the weight of his will. He clenched his fists, and the air trembled; every rune, every enchantment within reach, shattered like glass under invisible pressure. When a Harapixie magus hurled a storm of molten runes toward him, Rudra stepped through it. The spell folded, collapsed into silence, and his next punch cracked open the mountain ridge behind his enemy.
Every motion was raw dominion — bones ringing like anvils, each strike carrying enough power to split the world's crust. He was the iron heart of the squad, the breaker of illusions, the embodiment of unyielding might.
Behind him, Big D extended his hand toward the horizon. Space rippled outward — and stars bloomed where his fingertips brushed the air. Light folded, twisted, and condensed into spherical nodes that floated around the team, bending every incoming attack away in a dance of warped gravity. When he retaliated, he didn't throw blows; he collapsed constellations. The battlefield became a cosmic sea, his enemies reduced to drifting fragments of light.
Overhead, Kexell soared. His draconic body shimmered with molten sigils, his scales a blend of curse and vitality. Arrows pierced his wings, only to be swallowed by the same energy that birthed them. He fed on pain. He grew stronger the more he was struck. Each roar poured corruption into the air — draining strength, courage, and magic alike. His curse wasn't death. It was endurance — unending, suffocating endurance.
Below, two warriors carved parallel paths through the chaos.
Hiroshi's katana sang like wind over glass, every slash an afterimage of precision. He moved as if guided by instinct older than time, cutting through dimensions, his blade arriving before he did.
Silvester, by contrast, was a tidal force. His long sword carried depth — a weapon that shattered ground and folded space beneath its weight. Each swing was a judgment, heavy enough to bend the rhythm of battle around him.
Liang fought among them like liquid lightning — no form, no pattern. He shifted between offense and defense as if reading his opponents' thoughts, bending momentum to his own design. One moment, he was a wall, the next a storm — blending styles until he became impossible to predict.
Then came Arjun. He stood still, bow drawn, flame gathering at the edge of infinity. Each arrow ignited before leaving the string, trailing spirals of red-gold that melted armor and air alike. When he released the arrow didn't fly — it erased. The Harapixie fleets disintegrated in streaks of silence, turned to embers by a fire that devoured even light's memory.
Viktor was the glacier in this inferno. With every step, he froze molten rivers solid. When he swung his axe, the world slowed — a frozen pulse of inevitability before it erupted into shards of ice large enough to shatter skyships. His body swelled, towering over the battlefield in giant form, eyes glacial blue and unflinching. Nothing could move him, and everything that touched him froze.
And through all of it, Julian advanced — a titan of rhythm and ruin. His heavy sword cleaved through fortresses, his strikes sending waves of pressurized air that disintegrated everything in their path. Each movement was steady, calculated, deliberate — the patience of a god wielding inevitability as a weapon.
At the heart of it all stood Almond and Lily — twin comets circling through the chaos.
Almond's weapon shifted like liquid logic — a sword that became a rifle, a scythe that became a storm. Each shot bent angles, folded sound, struck from behind, even when fired forward. His combat was art through calculation — every motion mapped in layers of geometry that bent the universe to his rhythm.
Lily flowed opposite him — a whisper of grace and light. Her chakrams danced in wide spirals, each curve leaving radiant fractures in space. They sliced through Harapixie barriers like silk and returned to her hands through warped dimensions. When she fought beside Almond, her arcs intertwined with his trajectories — the two of them weaving a symphony of destruction so fluid it felt choreographed by creation itself.
The Regalons attracted the attention of the strong Grim Students on the enemy side, and soon, they clashed.
This was a battlefield, and death was not uncommon, but Grim Students could escape if they wanted to, if they did it in time by canceling the mission.
For a hot minute, Almond and Lily matched with two strong opponents on par with them.
They were canceling each other's skills, trying to catch each other off guard while coming up with new techniques with their assets on the spot to counter their foe.
But Almond and Lily proved superior and defeated them, forcing them to give up the mission, or they could die, since nobody would hold out on this battlefield.
The strongest allies of Harapixies were defeated and expelled from the battlefield.
By dusk, the dwarven banners stood unburned above rivers of hardened glass.
[ Mission Complete – Changing Tides (A+) ]
Side: Dwarven City — Victory
[ War Leaderboard For Grim Students ]
Almond — 53,948 pts — Rank 1
Lily — 52,003 pts — Rank 2
Rudra — 51,840 pts — rank 3
Kexell — 51,130 pts — Rank 4
Big D…
…
With the mission completed, Regalons returned, but as soon as they returned, all ten of them got a notification.
It was a private message telling them to come to a certain facility of the academy.
The sender's name was John Wicked.