When her necklace broke, Isabelle first looked stunned as if she couldn’t think at all. Then she began screaming.
“AAARGH NO! MY BABY!” her screams also alerted Granolf, who had absolutely no idea what was going on. He was just preparing to defend against any attack professor Crumb would throw at him when his companion suddenly fell to her knees and started crying loudly. The old lady who looked composed earlier had completely changed in temperament.
Because of this surprise, Granolf was wide-open for an attack momentarily, sadly professor Crumb wasn’t able to take the opportunity.
The reason was that he was equally stunned, he didn’t connect the attack to Villin at all since he knew very well that the boy shouldn’t have any spells capable of harming teachers.
It took a few moments for the men’s gazes to land on the small pile of dust that was a necklace but seconds ago. Granolf first thought that professor Crumb somehow managed to sneakily attack the necklace but upon seeing his similarly stupified gaze he realized it wasn’t him, then his gaze landed on Villin. He could see the boy looked pale and he looked rather unsteady on his feet.
With the breaking of the necklace, the emotions that had been blocked for five full years assaulted her at once. This included all the emotions that came from the death of one of her kids less than a year ago. In this state, it would take days for her to somewhat recover if she didn’t find another necklace with the same property.
This meant the situation turned into a one-versus-one. At least that was how it seemed.
“Well done boy, now let your old teacher take care of this one.” professor Crumb smiled widely once the situation became clearer.
With these words he pointed his wand toward Granolf, moments later green fire began spouting out of it engulfing the area in front of it.
Granolf, who had also somewhat recovered from the surprise at this point, waved his wand forward as well, using a wind spell to push the fire out of his way.
Still, the spell didn’t pass without casualties. The green fire had been spread across a wide area, even though Granolf easily deflected it, Isabelle didn’t.
Granolf had never been the true target of the spell, it had always been the crying Isabelle. When the flames came towards him, Isabelle managed to gather the strength to point her wand towards it but no spell came to her. Her mind was in disarray and she was completely incapable of making even the smallest connection in her web.
As her cries turned to screams neither men sent out a spell. Both of them simply waited, Granolf had no intention to attack, and professor Crumb simply wanted to wait until the screams stopped.
With his ally burning to death, Granolf didn’t flinch in the slightest. If he wanted to, he could’ve easily saved Isabelle from the green fire but he chose not to. He was still intimidated by professor Crumb’s magical strength and wanted to use each bit of his own strength to protect himself and stall.
He didn’t realize that at this point in time, Villin had used the regular version of Mentallage on professor Crumb and he spoke about a potential plan he had.
Villin was nearly completely out of magical energy and even using the regular version of Mentallage took a considerable toll at this point in time. The only true attack he had was his puppet, connecting to it took nearly no magical energy and the puppet itself held enough mana to use its attacks.
After ten seconds, professor Crumb used his second attack, it was also his first serious attack, and a prelude of the fight to come.
The attack looked extraordinarily straightforward, a simple blue streak that headed for Granolf, but in actuality, it was the most powerful attack Villin had ever seen.
If it were to hit a wall, it wouldn’t cause a massive explosion, nor did it emit a bunch of magical energy. It was a spell that was made to pierce through any defenses his opponent set up.
Yet, at the same time, it showed his weakness. After using an attack like this, he could no longer pretend to be all-powerful and his true strength would become clear.
Seeing the spell coming towards him, Granolf did not dare to underestimate it. Within mere moments dozens of projectiles came out of his wand heading for the professor’s singular spell, translucent shields appeared before him as well, set to stop the spell. With all of his battle experience, he knew very well what sort of spell this was.
The dozen projectiles Granolf sent out didn’t cause the professor’s spell to pause for even a moment, it simply pierced through them. Still, Granolf’s spells did their job and a tiny bit of Granolf’s own magic power entered the streak, allowing him to slow it down a tiny bit. Then it arrived at the shields before Granolf, there were four barriers in total. The first managed to pause the spell for an eighth of a second, the second for a quarter of a second, once the third shield paused the spell for half a second and it became clear the barriers wouldn’t be able to completely stop the spell. The floor itself began to rise up and shielded Granolf. When the spell hit the floor that had risen up, the spell was finally stopped.
Even though it looked like Granolf was on the backfoot, in actuality he dealt with the situation perfectly, using the minimum amount of magical power required to shield him from the spell. This meant that in general, since professor Crumb expended more magical power than him, he would be considered the ‘winner’ of this initial exchange.
He also knew professor Crumb had to actively control the spell to its target and wouldn’t be able to cast a second spell before it dissipated, because of this, he dared to delay the spell using the shields.
In total the first clash took three seconds, yet when Granolf used transfiguration to lower the floor again, he realized he made a mistake. Even when the floor had risen before him, he made sure to use magic power to keep an eye on professor Crumb, yet when he put it back down, he was about to be attacked, a puppet had made its way to just one meter away from him.
Villin, who he had completely ignored, had made his move. Even though the wall was only up for about a second, Villin was prepared to make his move. Earlier he talked about the professor stating that if he could blind Granolf for two seconds he would probably be able to wound him to some extent, or have him use up a lot of unnecessary magic power.
Sadly, Granolf was only ‘blinded’ for a second and the puppet hadn’t fully reached its destination. If the puppet self-destructed at this point, professor Crumb would also be forced to deal with the explosion and the advantage gained would be minuscule.
Instead, Villin did what he thought would help most. As soon as Granolf spotted the puppet it breathed large red flames all in the direction of Granolf.
Due to the proximity and the fact he had no idea how powerful the flames were as they weren’t the effect of a spell he could recognize, Granolf was forced to use some of his precious magical energy to bend the flames upward, stopping it from touching him.
While this was still going on, professor Crumb sent a chain of spells Granolf’s way, who once more was forced to waste magical energy, having to get rid of the puppet while taking care of professor Crumb’s attacks.
With the breaking of the puppet, it was time for the real battle to begin.
Granolf who had now felt the energy within the professor’s spells was no longer fearful of him as he realized the quality of magical energy they had was similar. This also allowed him to realize that the ‘domain’ professor Crumb had created was akin to a balloon and so he easily burst it, once more getting control of the area around him properly.
Each of them had their own domain around them, this would usually stop environmental spells from working completely, ones such as Villin’s ‘Vinea Tenura’ and ‘Syrtim Celer’. Sadly, this wasn’t neutral domain. The enchantments on the walls and floors of Decorus didn’t only make them stronger, it also allowed Decorus teachers to properly transfigurate them even if it was within someone’s domain.
Still, Granolf mostly used transfiguration defensively, transfigurating the floor closest to him since it could be done almost instantaneously.
Spells like the one professor Crumb opened with no longer got cast. Currently what mattered was speed and precision. Every second over a dozen streaks of light was sent out, some heading for their opponent’s spells and others for the opponent themselves.
Yet, slowly but surely professor Crumb was on the backfoot. His domain weakened allowing Granolf to use transfiguration on the ground and walls close to him easier and quicker than before.
Villin could feel the professor’s energy weakening quicker than it should looking at the spells he cast. All of the spells sent were much stronger than the ones he used but he could clearly see the difference between Granolf and professor Crumb right now.
Granolf had only slowed down slightly, his breathing was still stable and he was capable of dodging properly when the situation required.
Professor Crumb’s breathing had quickened slightly but noticeably, he also couldn’t dodge as much as Granolf since Villin and Marvin were behind him.
Yet, after four minutes of constant spellcasting, most of which canceled each other out, professor Crumb made his first mistake, he misjudged one of the spells Granolf sent out and it passed by him, heading straight for Villin.
