However, Haruki's peaceful training didn't st. An unexpected visitor arrived to shatter his quiet routine.

  It was Nene Saikyo.

  Before his match with Kirihara, they had crossed paths in the waiting room and agreed to a spar. Haruki had assumed she'd forgotten all about it given how much time had passed.

  "Sorry, sorry! This one didn't mean to keep you waiting," Nene said as she hopped onto the training grounds. "This one is a member of the KOK A-Rank League, you see. I've been busy with the official challenge circuit tely."

  "The A-Rank League?"

  "Yes. It's where the strongest in the world trade blows. You'd probably find it quite exhirating, Haruki-kun."

  "I don't doubt it."

  The prospect of fighting the world's elite definitely interested Haruki. However, his current objective was the Seven Star Sword Art Festival. Until he finished the system's mission, he couldn't exactly leave to join a pro league.

  He looked at Nene, then at the reinforced but still retively fragile barriers of the training hall. "Are we doing this here? This pce might not survive us."

  Nene gave a mischievous smile. "As long as there's a heart that seeks battle, any pce is a ring. But to avoid making Kurono-chan cry over the repair bills, let's make a pact."

  "Kurono-chan... you mean Chairperson Shinguji?"

  "That's the one."

  "Understood," Haruki nodded. "What kind of pact?"

  "To prevent us from leveling the entire campus, let's decide this in a single exchange. One strike to determine the winner," Nene proposed. "Well? Do you have the confidence, Haruki-kun?"

  "No problem."

  Haruki agreed immediately. While his style wasn't traditionally built around one-shot bursts, he wasn't about to turn down a challenge from a top-tier warrior. Besides, he had an ace up his sleeve that thrived on explosive output: Bloodlust.

  They stepped onto the dueling ptform and moved to opposite ends, mirroring the start of an official match. Nene didn't pn on taking it easy on her student. She manifested her Device—a pair of ancient-looking bck iron fans.

  The fans themselves looked modest, but the pressure radiating from Nene the moment they appeared was staggering. It far eclipsed the intensity Stel had shown when she was going all out.

  "Awaken."

  Haruki raised his right hand, manifesting the spectral bde Onibi. By channeling the resonance of his Ghost Power, he managed to push back against the tidal wave of mana Nene was emitting.

  But the pressure didn't stop. It continued to build, condensing into a physical weight that made the air itself hum. Nene was gathering her power. She really was intending to end this in a single, world-shaking blow.

  Haruki Aizawa was about to face the world's third-ranked Bzer.

  At their first meeting, Nene had just seemed like an eccentric teacher. But after a quick search of the academy archives, Haruki had realized exactly who she was. In this world, Bzers are ranked from A to F, rgely based on their innate mana capacity.

  Stel was an A-Rank. Ikki was an F-Rank. These ranks usually dictated a Bzer's ceiling. However, even among A-Ranks, there was a hierarchy. The League of Magic Knights (KOK) maintained a global ranking system for professionals.

  Nene Saikyo, known as the "Yaksha Princess," was currently ranked Number 3 in the world. She was an outlier among outliers, a pinnacle of human combat capability.

  The gap between Nene and someone like Stel wasn't just a hurdle; it was a canyon. If Stel was a raging forest fire, Nene was an unmoving, eternal mountain.

  And right now, this top-tier knight was preparing to strike Haruki with everything she had.

  Rumble!

  The Mana Shields of the training hall shattered instantly under the mere pressure of her presence. The air turned heavy as lead, and Haruki felt a sickening sense of distortion in the space around him.

  "In case you didn't do your homework, this one will tell you," Nene said, her face partially hidden behind her fan. "My iron fans allow me to manipute gravity. By compressing it to its absolute limit, I can pin down anything in my domain. Even an A-Rank like Stel wouldn't be able to move a muscle in here."

  "..."

  Haruki had indeed read about her Noble Art, Ground Bind Array. He could feel his stamina being sapped by the sheer force of the artificial gravity. He couldn't even lift a finger. He was like an insect trapped in amber.

  He had no way to counter gravity with normal swordsmanship or resonance. His only choice was to break the ws of physics with raw, violent vitality.

  Without a second's hesitation, Haruki ignited his life force. He surrendered his reason and kicked open the gates of his soul.

  BOOM!

  In Nene's eyes, the boy who should have been immobilized suddenly began to radiate a terrifying, crimson aura. His eyes turned a demonic scarlet, and a boiling heat erupted from his body.

  Haruki lunged. Like a berserk locomotive, he tore through the gravity field, shattering the invisible chains of the Ground Bind Array through sheer, unadulterated force.

  "What?!" Nene's eyes widened. She had never seen a student—let alone a C-Rank—simply brute-force her gravity.

  She didn't panic, though. She instantly shifted her mana, compressing the gravity around her into a pitch-bck shield. The density was so high it was effectively a miniature bck hole—an absolute defense that should have been impenetrable.

  Or so she thought.

  Haruki raised his arm, his spectral bde now wreathed in a thick, surging torrent of blood-red energy. It wasn't a Device, but in that moment, it was more real than any soul-weapon.

  The entire training hall seemed to boil. The wind stopped. The air screamed.

  As Haruki brought the Blood Bde down, Nene could only watch in shock as her "impenetrable" gravity shield was cleaved in half like wet paper.

  CRACK!

  A violent explosion of crimson energy followed the strike. The shockwave didn't just bst Nene out of the arena; it pulverized the entire training facility, leaving nothing but a crater of smoking rubble.

  Chairperson's Office.

  Haruki Aizawa stood in the center of the room, looking remarkably bored for someone who had just leveled a building. Beside him, Nene Saikyo was pouting, her kimono slightly dusty but otherwise unharmed.

  Chairperson Kurono Shinguji sat behind her desk, massage her temples as if trying to ward off a migraine.

  "I don't think I even need to ask," Kurono said, her voice dripping with exhaustion. "The two of you turned a high-tier training facility into a pile of toothpicks. The shockwave was felt three blocks away."

  "Hey! It wasn't my fault!" Nene protested, waving her arms. "This one was just defending herself! I used a shield! A shield! He's the one who hit it with a blood-red nuke!"

  Kurono shot her a skeptical look. She knew Haruki was strong, but she had never seen his "Bloodlust" state. In her mind, Haruki was a brilliant swordsman, but he was still a student with C-Rank mana. There was no way a student could cause that much destruction on his own.

  The logical culprit was Nene, the woman with the third-highest mana pool on the pnet.

  "Nene, you've been nothing but trouble since the day you got here," Kurono sighed. "As punishment, you're banned from using the training grounds for the next month. And you're prohibited from leaving campus without my express permission. You're grounded."

  "Ehh?! No way! That's not fair!!" Nene wailed, looking like a child who had been told she couldn't have dessert. She had been dying for a rematch with Haruki, and now she was sidelined.

  Kurono ignored her and turned to Haruki. "As for you, Haruki-kun... you were involved, but I'm willing to believe you were 'dragged into it' by this idiot. However, property damage of this scale cannot go unaddressed."

  She leaned forward, her eyes sharpening. "The Student Council is currently short-handed due to the selection matches. They need someone with actual combat experience to help maintain order and assist with the logistics of the tournament. You will serve as a temporary assistant to the Student Council for the remainder of the semester. Consider it your community service."

  Haruki thought about it. The Student Council meant access to more data on opponents and a front-row seat to the best fights in the academy. It was better than being banned from training.

  "Fine," Haruki nodded. "I accept."

  "Good. Report to President Todo tomorrow morning. Don't be te."

  ***********************************************

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