Published at 29th of December 2025 8:53 am

Chapter 971: Bloodline/Axis Arcanum.

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Alec clearly wasn’t about to play around with Afolayan now that his speed had increased.

Afolayan was dashing at such a terrifying speed that the sound of his aftershock came only after he had already reached his target—yet even with that, he still couldn’t defeat Alec.

As he rushed in to continue his attack on Alec again, a smile blossomed on his face, he had been restraining himself against Lucas because he hadn’t wanted to end the fight too quickly, he wanted to enjoy himself for a little more longer, but now that he was fighting Alec, he could finally use his full strength without worrying about the battle ending too easily.

Still, he wasn’t the only one who’d been holding back.

This time, when he struck, Alec was more prepared, as he raised his katana to block , and as Afolayan stared into his face, he noticed Alec’s eyes glowing with a faint blue hue.

In that moment he stared at him Alec tilted his blade slightly, causing Afolayan’s claws to slide down along its edge as he dashed past him again.

But this time, Alec didn’t move too far, as his left foot slid back half a step, tracing a small half-circle as he shifted his stance, with both his hands gripping the katana’s hilt, while he angled the blade, Afolayan was still turning to face him when he slashed upward in a clean vertical motion from a low position.

[> Mid Tier Skill – Counter <]

Alec’s image flickered, and he appeared a few meters towards the direction he had just dashed away from just less than two seconds ago, this time, it was Afolayan’s neck that had been cut.

Though Alec had only grazed it, but his intent had been delivered.

‘I just killed you,’ that was what his attack seems to imply , it just felt like the message behind that slash to him.

When Afolayan turned back and saw Alec standing there calmly, as if he hadn’t just traded blows with him using nothing but pure sword technique, he couldn’t help feeling a mix of anger and satisfaction.

Alec’s katana was coated in a stream of Qi that was almost invisible to the naked eye, but the true experts could see it, they could tell Alec had held back the full lethality of his sword, warning Afolayan that anything more would’ve left him bleeding out on the arena floor.

“You can’t continue this match anymore,” the judge’s voice drifted into Afolayan’s ears as he watched Alec slide his bone katana back into its scabbard.

“Yeah, I know, I know,” he replied, cancelling his transformation as his body shrank back to its normal size, even though he had clashed with Alec who was much stronger than lucas, he still didn’t feel satisfied as it did end very swiftly.

He felt there was more to Alec than just his sword skills, but since this was a tournament and not a life-or-death battle, he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to keep fighting as recklessly as he liked with his life on the line.

However, since it had been judged that Alec could have landed a killing blow on him, even though he was dissatisfied with the outcome, he still had to stop.

Though in his mind, he remained convinced that in a true life-or-death battle, with everything on the line, he would be the one taking Alec’s head.

“I surrender!” instantly Sefu said, the moment she saw her captain lose, and with both Arthur, and Brandon, looking her way, she swiftly surrendered and walked down from the stage as the judge descended and announced them the winners of the match.

Immediately, cheers erupted from outside, but the executives from the other kingdoms in the spectator seats all noticed something, even though an academy from the Northern Kingdom had won, most of the Northern Higher up present didn’t react to the win—completely opposite to how happy they had been when the Battle Mage Academy had won.

With the King of the Northern Kingdom who had problems with the War God Mage Academy present, they clearly couldn’t celebrate the way they wanted, they could only suppress whatever they felt inside.

Only a few people who didn’t care whether the king might take offense clapped or openly showed their appreciation.

As Alec and his team were walking away, he noticed something else, the cheering from the crowd outside wasn’t as loud as when the Battle Mage Academy won. Still, he believed that he and his team had at least given the remaining Northern academies the morale boost they needed.

Then the seventh match began after a group of mages had entered the battlefield infusing their mana into the stage to accelerate its regeneration process as it had been damaged beyond recognising state, after a few minutes it was back to it peak’s state while the mages looked drained,

With that there was nothing between the Bloodline Academy and Axis Arcanum again as the battle started.

Axis Arcanum immediately showcased overwhelming strength and versatility, with each and every member of their team able to merge different elements to create new hybrid elemental attacks.

They were all basically geniuses, with the weakest among them still being dual-element mages who followed the magic path wholeheartedly, their vice-captain, Darren Keld, was a triple-element mage, and their captain, Serena Vael, was a quad-element mage.

This alone showed how much effort Axis Arcanum had put into finding dual-element mages with enough talent to merge their elements into something greater.

In fact, to the dean of Axis Arcanum, weapon combat skills didn’t matter as much, they believed that the more elemental affinities a mage possessed, the stronger he or she could become—

and the more potential there was to be tapped into.

That was their philosophy, and they gave Bloodline Academy an extremely tough battle.

The Northern academy mages outside the stadium had started boasting after War God Mage Academy’s victory, loudly claiming that Bloodline Academy would put on an even more dominant performance.

However, that dominating match they had hoped for didn’t happen the way they wanted. It turned into a very narrow win for Bloodline Academy.

As soon as the battle began, the Bloodline Academy charged at the Axis Arcanum mages in their transformed states, trying to end the battle as fast as possible—everyone except Damien, Carmilla, and Dragov.

For the two Sorin siblings, not transforming was just because it would turn them into bloodsuckers and they risk losing control in that state, while Dragov Dragonmir clearly felt it wasn’t necessary yet.

But about three minutes into the match and the Bloodline Academy had already lost around five members, it was then they realized there was a real chance they might lose.

At that point, Dragov decided to get serious and entered the second stage of his bloodline transformation, trying to defeat Serena quickly so he could support what was left of his team. However, he soon realized that with the way things were going, he was heading toward defeat, as he just couldn’t gain the upper hand even with the transformation.

Serena was able to merge three elements together, making the level of destruction she could unleash completely different, every move from her felt like an all-out attack from him.

Pushed that far, Dragov then activated the third stage of his bloodline transformation, fully transforming, and he was finally able to defeat her and in a minute later.

There might only be a one-stage difference between the second and third stage transformations, but the power boost and available techniques he had access to were on another level entirely; the moment Dragov entered his full dragon-human state, he was not only able to overpower her, but defeat her with ease.

One of the elders of Axis Arcanum in the crowd kept grumbling that Dragov only got lucky because Serena still hadn’t managed to merge four elements yet.

But he was immediately roasted by an elder from Bloodline Academy, who told him to keep quiet and not undermine Dragov’s victory, and if Serena was truly worthy, she should have learned whatever she needed to win against Dragov, instead of relying on him to make excuses for her.

After that exchange, other elders from both institutions chimed in and things quickly grew heated between both academies’ executives as they kept throwing verbal jabs at each other, they clearly couldn’t throw punches because of where they were, so they settled for words instead.

While they were busy arguing, Dragov who is now free, moved around the arena helping the remaining members of his team defeat the Axis Arcanum mages.

With Serena no longer on the stage, he reverted his bloodline transformation back to the second stage and was still able to make quick work of them, after he’d helped everyone else, he turned to see that Damien had managed to win by a slight margin.

Though he was healing, his regeneration ability seemed painfully slow.

He didn’t look much better than Darren, who was lying on the ground defeated, in fact to many of the watching mages, that particular fight felt more like a draw, because Darren had basically given up after seeing the rest of his team fall once their captain was defeated.

He eased up, ending the hard-fought stalemate, knowing he was too exhausted to keep fighting against what was left of the Bloodline Academy team.

And that was how the seventh match came to an end.

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