Kaelen's body seemed to be completely thrown out of his control. Like all the Mana in the world was fighting against him, he not only found that he couldn't control his body, but even the Mana in the atmosphere itself slipped out of his control.

His eyes widened in shock and he realized that he would have to take this battle more seriously lest he lose, but Theron was a man that had been through more life-and-death battles than he could count. The idea that he would ever let the likes of Kaelen recover before he could finish him was ridiculous.

Theron's body flashed and he was already above Kaelen, Lyra's blue saber piercing into the ground right by his neck just as the latter tried to get up.

From an outsider's perspective, it almost looked as though Kaelen had cut into his own flesh, his jerking movement—a vain attempt at trying to stand—causing the blade pointed toward him to nearly slice his artery in two.

Theron crouched down by Kaelen, a dark blue radiance hanging around him, spontaneously forming into silky strands and then back into a foggy radiance of Aether. If one didn't know better, it would almost be accurate to say that he was already long since in the Cloud Realm.

Placing a hand on the hilt of the saber, Theron tilted it toward Kaelen's neck, cutting into the earth further. Kaelen flinched just a fraction of an inch before he didn't dare to move again.

At that moment, the Second Core Disciple's cold gaze was filled with hints of fear.

"You're in the Eighth Gold Resonance, you're so arrogant, and yet you're so pitifully weak. I wonder why you think you have the right?"

Lyra stood off to the side, her eyes opened wide with shock. She couldn't believe what she was seeing either. It felt like she was stuck in a fever dream.

Kaelen was stronger than her, at least by rank. Was this supposed to mean that Theron could defeat her as well?

With a grit of his teeth, Kaelen tried to put on a façade of toughness.

"I was careless."

He didn't explain himself further than that, nor did he bring out a laundry list of excuses, but in his view, that was all there was to it. He brought out his weapon late, he only continuously used one Spell, and he never attempted to use his Echo.

By the time he realized Theron's Echo was far more powerful than he was prepared to deal with in his base form, it was already too late.

However, all this did was confirm Kaelen's thoughts. Theron was a great talent, and that would mean that he would have priority for the resources—the few of them the Sect had left.

This was unacceptable to him, but he was also no longer in a position to deal with it.

By the time he recovered from whatever Theron planned to do with him, Theron would probably be officially taken in as a disciple by one of the elders. At that point, killing him would be the equivalent of offending one of them and it would end Kaelen's future one way or another.

Unless…

Kaelen's eyes flashed as he thought of something, but he didn't say another word, his forehead still resting against the ground.

Theron smiled as though he couldn't sense Kaelen's killing intent. Pulling the saber out of the ground, he tossed it at Lyra who deftly caught it by its handle.

Standing to his full height, he swung out a leg.

BANG.

Kaelen's eyes rolled to the back of his head in rage and humiliation, and then eventually unconsciousness.

It was just a single kick to his temple, but it was so powerful and so perfectly placed he couldn't resist it even if he wanted to. He ended up in a sprawl in the middle of the road, hanging from a place neither Theron nor Lyra would be pulling him down from any time soon.

Theron looked back toward Lyra with a smile.

"Thank you for your help, senior sister. I would have been in trouble without a weapon."

Lyra's lip twitched. Would he have? Somehow she doubted that. However, she had more pressing questions to ask.

"You… is that…?"

She kept looking at the dark blue Mana around Theron, feeling that she had simply never seen a Mana like this before.

Usually, Mana had very distinct shades, though there could be some alterations to it caused by certain Laws or Resonance Bloodlines. There were some that could control blue or even white flames, while there was also Theron's own Mandates that could turn his Water Mana into an icy white silvery blue or a deep violet.

However… Lyra was the Third Core Disciple for a reason, and her senses were usually sharper than most her age. She didn't sense a Resonance, and this Mana felt whole and cohesive, as though it manifested itself in nature like that.

The more she looked at it, the more familiar it felt, and yet the more unfamiliar it felt at the same time.

That was when Theron said something that made Lyra almost stumble and fall.

"This? My Echo is of a Dual Resonance Water and Dark Mana Beast." Theron grinned. "I got lucky. I don't even know its name."

"Dual…"

Lyra's eyes opened wide as the realization hit her.

The only way for an Echo like this to be accepting of Theron without tearing him to pieces was if he too… was a Dual Resonance Mancer.

Was this really how Dual Resonance Mancers were, though? Was it truly the case that their Mana was so seamlessly fused into one?

Why was it that this was the first time she had ever heard of such a thing?

It didn't feel like a Dual Resonance at all, but instead a completely new form of Mana, a Mana created and formed by Theron's own hands alone.

And then the illusion shattered the moment the Echo crumbled.

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