"This… To think we would have faced something so exciting just a few minutes into the battle." Diego shouted before looking at Sanae. "I'm sorry, Teacher. But would you like to say something about the fight?"
"Kai Carter has yet to launch his attack." Sanae paused for a moment to give the time for them to realize before continuing. "Anyway, he is trying to show you the power of the Golden Group. If you take another look at it, you will notice how the Golden Group actually takes care of each other.
"Before Kai Carter can hurt them, one of them will be taking that hit in the ideal form, slowly sealing his movement. This will give you an illusion of them suppressing him, which can stress your opponent. Even the Magical Beast will realize this and start doing something different. That's when you can kill it in one strike.
"In other words, you need to make sure that your allies are safe while fighting your enemy. This is a principle," explained Sanae while staring at Kai's movement.
"I see. Do you hear it, everyone? Your allies are the priority because you can keep fighting as long as you have allies." Diego shouted while shifting the focus to someone else. "Let's go see someone else.
This time, it was Michelle's time to shine.
Michelle encountered her enemies with a serious expression. Unlike Kai, she had no intention of holding back, so she quickly summoned both swords.
She looked at the five people before her and said, "I need all of you to go down in five minutes."
"Are you looking down on us?" Maria Smith, the leader of Tempest Group, narrowed her eyes.
"I am not. However, I have a job to do and I don't want to waste my time." Michelle smiled as she summoned Dark Michelle. "You handle the other four. I'm going to handle her alone."
"Sure thing." Dark Michelle shrugged before four scythes emerged from her back as she smiled. "Let's play with me."
She jumped toward the group before Maria appeared right before her, trying to knock her down with her spear. However, Michelle came and struck her spear, using her Shadow Slash to cut the spear handle.
Snap.
Maria widened her eyes as she saw her weapon snapped on the first attack. "Impossible."
When the other four wanted to help her, Dark Michelle sent each of them a scythe, blowing them away.
"What power!"
"What's that?"
"A clone?"
They were confused because this had never happened before. In other words, this was new magic that Michelle created herself. And the strength behind that magic was far more powerful than anyone could think of.
Seeing that her other self had controlled the situation, Michelle jumped toward Maria with her swords, ready to cut her down.
"Kh!" Maria gritted her teeth and threw her spear toward her before using her magic, which was fire magic, and turning that fire into a spear.
Even though she felt that her hand was melting, she endured it and wielded that spear while slowing down the burn.
"Interesting." Michelle smiled and bent down, slashing both swords on the ground. "But that's useless."
"Shadow Slash."
"!!!" Maria frowned when she saw the incoming Shadow Slash and decided to dodge it. She raised her hand as a magic circle appeared above Michelle's head.
"…" Michelle sighed and placed her hand on the ground as her shadow expanded before coming out of the ground, creating a roof above her.
The fire ended up hitting that roof and exploded.
'It couldn't even reach her?' Maria gritted her teeth as she never thought that Michelle had become this strong. It seemed that the success of Kai wasn't because of his ability alone. Michelle must have contributed to it.
She sent another Shadow Slash toward her.
Maria tried to fight it instead and threw her spear.
The fire spear exploded and blew away the Shadow Slash.
"It's working. I will—Gah!" Before she finished her thought, something seemed to hit her from behind as the pain began spreading all over her body. She looked down and found out that she had been stabbed by a scythe. "What?!"
She looked at Dark Michelle, who turned out to be aiming for her instead of the other four. She looked at Michelle, who already went toward the other four, preparing to attack them.
"You… You tricked me." She couldn't finish her words as she died with regret.
Michelle, on the contrary, focused on her objective and killed the other fours.
This battle ended within three minutes, even faster than Michelle's prediction. The time completely stunned everyone that witnessed it because they never thought Michelle was this strong.
However, they also didn't know what to think about her trick. It was kind of unhonorable to do something like that.
Diego, who noticed the unrest in the students' hearts, quickly opened his mouth and directed everything to Shirotsuka Sanae. "Oh! I'm surprised. Michelle Graham manages to beat the Tempest Group in an instant. What's this concept, Teacher?"
"It's simply the difference of experience and skills." She sighed. "First of all, her strength is already above them the moment she summons that clone of hers. However, the main part is when Michelle actually said that she was going to handle her while her clone took care of the other four.
"Her opponents believed that was the case and fought her with that thought in their mind. If they had more experience, they would be able to see through that simple lie and Maria Smith didn't need to die.
"Unhonorable? I don't think so. On the battlefield, you need to come up with anything you can to win. Although this is a bit contradictory with what I've said earlier, I will pull an example of Ria Ross for this.
"When she and one hundred people fought against an S Rank Magical Beast in the past… The fight that made her famous. Her comrades prepared to die and held the frog down, so she could kill that frog. Why? Because they have been fighting for hours without casualties because Ria Ross had been keeping the frog at bay.
"However, the situation would become worse since the S Rank Magical Beast had millions of followers. If they didn't hurry, this situation would become disastrous.
"Knowing it, her teammates decided to sacrifice their lives, so she could kill it. This is what I mean by doing everything you can. There will be a time you need to choose whether to protect your honor or life.
"I can't express my admiration to those who fell in that battle and I don't have any intention to mock them by telling you as an example. When you go to the battlefield, make sure you have the heart to do something like that.
"Even Kai Carter has tried to sacrifice himself to win in many battles. Setting oneself as a bait… I think that's not unhonorable at all. It's clever." She smiled and finished her explanation. This was always a debatable topic, but she thought she had explained it pretty well.
"Thank you for your lecture, Teacher." Diego thanked her before switching to another person. "Let's take a look at Kudo Ayaka then."
This time, Ayaka had been surrounded by all five people, trying to attack her from all directions. However, Ayaka's agility seemed to be better and every time she swung that heavy spear, she would blow someone away.
Her battlefield was near Evan, so he could see his fighting progress. Although Evan was suppressed this whole time, he still managed to escape with his speed that had been boosted by his magic.
Even Grace Group became frustrated to see Evan running away like a coward. However, they forgot the fact that Evan was a healer instead of a fighter. It was normal for a healer like Evan to run away since Evan didn't have single offensive magic due to the limitation of his magic.
Yet, the Grace Group suffered injuries because of his bullets and explosives.
Suddenly, Ayaka raised her hand diagonally and summoned a magic circle. "Go!"
A fire pillar emerged from the magic circle before curving to the ground due to gravity.
"Watch out!" One of the Grace Group's members shouted, noticing that fire magic.
The group halted their movement as the pillar hit the ground, turning it into blazing soil.
That was when Evan bent his knees to use the flame to cover his body before changing his bullet to an explosive one and shooting it toward one of them.
Bang.
The bullet flew. The flame completely blinded them, and when it reached the woman, it was too late.
The bullet exploded and killed a single of them while injuring two others.
"Nice assist." Evan smiled. This help truly overturned the entire battle.
Meanwhile, the Slayer Group realized that they might have been prohibited from killing someone from the other group that wasn't their opponent, but it didn't say anything about helping them.
Ayaka just reinforced Diego's words about a team needing to take care of one another.
"Damn. We were too careless. Suppress her right now." The leader of the Slayer Group shouted.
Ayaka saw their movement and smiled before turning around and running from them as if she had no intention to fight them right now.
"Don't give her time. She might help Evan Young again or vice versa."
They nodded their heads and watched out for a bullet coming from Evan's direction.
Suddenly, Ayaka turned ninety degrees to the left, completely changing their direction.
"Chase her."
When they changed direction, Ayaka smiled and pointed her hand again to the sky, preparing for another cannon.
"She is going to attack them again. Block her!"
All four of them quickly jumped to block Ayaka's attack the moment she launched her, but it turned out to be another trick.
With them in the air, there was no way for them to dodge anything before they landed.
Hence, Ayaka gave them a big surprise as a magic circle appeared where they were supposed to land. It was her Magic Bomb that she'd planted not long ago. And the timing was perfect.
"Surprise."
The group's face became pale as they gritted their teeth.
Boom.