Asher Versus The Protector Mages 2

The lead mage stabilized his breath before grinning condescendingly at Asher. Although he tried not to underestimate him, the man couldn't see as how Asher would beat him by just relying on his Dark Ice derivative alone.

"I don't know what gives you the confidence to take us on, but one thing I'm sure of is that you will die. No, I would still need to extract some questions from you."

Just as he finished talking, the man charged right at Asher immediately. He had been making use of his speech to attract Asher's focus and drop his guard down. Even though there was an entire stage gap between them, since Asher belonged to the mysterious organization -in the man's opinion-, it was best not to underestimate him and utilize whatever skill or scheme possible to end the battle quickly.

'The gap between a third-stage Guardian mage and a fourth-stage Guardian mage is large. It's not just a difference in stage but phase. It's impossible for him to last more than five seconds.'

The first round between the two had been more like a testing phase to figure out Asher's true strength so the man had been holding back at that time. However, now that he had confirmed Asher's strength, there was no need to hold back again even if Asher was weaker than he was.

The man swung his hand at Asher, sending a purple flame arrow at Asher. Compared to the previous flame attack, the purple flame arrow was much faster.

Asher tilted his head to the right and lunged towards the side, but in the end, he was a bit slow and had the left side of his hood burnt off. When he stood up again, his face was revealed but the black scarf still covered his mouth and with the wooden face he had made, it would be difficult to recognize him. There was also the fact that Asher's hair was now black instead of white.

The man frowned when he noticed that he didn't find Asher's face familiar but he didn't slow down with his follow-up strike.

He drew a circle of flames in mid-air before slamming on the empty centre.

Whoosh.

A vortex of fire burst out and struck towards Asher with a horrendous degree of heat. The vortex was about two metres tall and wide, and just like the fire arrow, was faster than the previous attacks from earlier.

In response to this, Asher scrambled to form a wall of dark ice three inches thick before him. For a third-stage Guardian mage, this move could be seen as wasteful since it consumed a lot of mana, but this couldn't be helped as Asher had no choice but to block since dodging was out of the question.

Boom.

The purple flame vortex struck the dark ice wall and broke through it, although losing about 70% of its power. The remaining force from both the explosion and the attack blasted at Asher and threw him back by seven metres.

Even at that, Asher managed to land on his foot and keep standing.

"Too weak." The man smirked.

"I don't know what tricks you have planned, but in front of absolute power, it is meaningless. Now, die."

'Seven Lantern Strike: Four Lantern Blast.'

Four mystical lanterns appeared beside the man; two by his right and another two by his left, with one a few centimetres above the other. The lanterns were blurry and had mystical carvings on them but they shone with a bright purple light.

This was a spell that was made available to the protector mages by the Purple Sun sacred land. As it required advanced mana control skills to use with the least criteria of strength for the user being that they had to be a fourth-stage Guardian mage of the fire element, not many had decided to practice it. The only reason the fourth-stage Guardian mage took it was that he felt it suited and amplified his Purple flame derivative.

Four beams shot out from the four lanterns and chased after Asher. They didn't have a homing feature but the speed at which the attacks moved made it seem impossible for Asher to dodge them.

Suddenly, Asher's figure blurred and disappeared from the spot.

"What?!"

The man widened his eyes in shock. Even his teammates were perplexed as to what had happened.

Before he could comprehend this, Asher appeared in front of him with only just a space of sixty centimetres or so between them; just a bit above half a metre. Never in his life did the lead mage think that Asher would not only dodge his killing move but appear so close to him. Because of this, he failed to respond right away, and to a battle expert like Asher, even half a second of delay was enough to turn the tables around.

Bam.

Asher punched the man right in his abdomen, not forgetting to send in a bit of his dark ice mana into his body.

Against a mage on a different phase level, it wouldn't be enough to kill him, but Asher never aimed for that. Instead, he hoped to slow down the man's movements and take control of the tempo of the battle.

After the first punch, Asher delivered another one with his other hand and another once again. In one clash, Asher had fired three punches and this sent the man staggering backwards.

"You..."

Even as he glared at Asher, the lead mage mobilized the flames within the four lanterns to target Asher. However, why would Asher give him the space to do so?

'Quick successive attacks with no breathing space. As long s I can control the tempo of the battle, victory is mine.'

Asher's eyes glistened as he pointed a finger at the man.

"Freeze."

The man suddenly froze, or to be specific, the mana flow in his body. The Dark Ice mana Asher left in his body was now acting like a poison.

Without the support of the man's control and mana, the four lanterns fell apart and burnt into nothing with a whoosh. The destruction of the lanterns also meant that there was no counter-attack aimed at Asher.

'Shit.' The man cursed as he could see Asher before him once again.

Since he couldn't use his mana, he decided to change to hand-to-hand combat. As a former graduate of the First Dawn Academy, it was only natural that he knew some martial arts.

Seeing his opponent change tactics, Asher remained expressionless and met him head-on.

'Idiot.' The man inwardly sneered.

With each advancement in stage, mages didn't only experience a growth in magical power but also in physical power. This meant that, even without his mana, the man still had a shot at defeating Asher, but with Asher now changing his battle style to go physical with him, the odds were now stacked in the man's favour.

Bang.

"Huh?" The man widened his eyes in shock as he could feel a tingling sensation of pain from his knuckles.

"Idiot." Asher said.

Looking at his hands, one would see that they were navy blue; a sign that they were coated with Dark Ice mana.

The lead mage not being able to access his mana at the moment didn't mean that Asher would throw away his advantage and battle like a 'knight'[1].

At the point of connection between the duo's fists, dark ice was spreading from Asher's hand and sealing it with the mage's, locking them both together.

On Asher's other hand, a spear made of dark ice formed which he immediately thrust at the man.

'Shit.' The lead mage cursed.

He was faced with two options now. The first was to block Asher's strike that currently placed his life at risk while the second was to stop the ice from sealing him together with Asher, at the risk of taking a hit from the spear. However, the man had already seen the effects of having his flesh pierced through by a dark ice weapon, which would end with his defeat so he couldn't take that risk. Even so, he couldn't let himself get sealed with Asher as that would make it impossible for him to distance himself from Asher and free his mana.

The man immediately made a decision and punched at the spear with his free hand. Even with the improved strength from his power level, if the attack connected, he would end up injured but the man didn't seem to be bothered by that prospect.

It was at this moment that the other fourth-stage Guardian mage rushed into the battlefield. As a fourth-stage Guardian mage, his speed far surpassed that of an average human being or even a top athlete, so even though there was a gap of over 100 metres between them, he would only require seven to eight seconds to cover the gap. The problem was that Asher had already launched his attack.

Just when the lead mage's punch was about to connect with the tip of Asher's spear, he suddenly changed his punch to a claw and grabbed at the head of the spear, applying force to it and preventing the dark ice spear from moving forward. Albeit with some difficulty, the man had managed to stop it just a few inches away from his body.

"Hehe." The man grinned.

"You're an impressive mage, but you die here."