As the four weapon wielding boys took their positions, they couldn’t help but bask in the situation a little. At this point they needed anything to take their minds off the danger they were in, even a little.

Men, by nature, want and like to protect something, usually women. And the situation right now was more or less that. It’s not like they were enthralled by the girls in their class. They would fully admit they were cute or beautiful, or that they might have had a few lustful thoughts towards them as they were all teenagers after all. But the situation was more primal than that. Right now they were all that stood between death and their companions. Mia was trying to do something but they had the chance to be the ones who protected everyone for once and that filled them with energy and a little pride.

Mathias positioned himself right in front of Null. Kaki at his back, Moon to his right and Luminus to his left. Their plan was to attack from all directions at once and go for a hit on Null. Trying to disarm him would probably be easier in some aspects but there was more of him to hit if you actually tried to do that.

Null gave a nod to the four, acknowledging that they could start and that they did.

Null materialized two swords, one on each of his hands. Those swords were a little different than the ones he used to pass his message about the rules earlier. These ones were more ornamental, more full of details. They would look better as pieces of art than swords if they weren’t made out of magic or at least infused with magic in some way. Nobody besides Null could really tell what those swords were made out of. The swords themselves were around 60 cm long. They were a perfect mixture of a rapier and a short sword, staying exactly in the middle of both designs.

All four of the boys of the special class moved at the same time but the first one to reach his target was Kaki. His spear had a longer range so his weapon was the first to make contact with the enemy. Null, without even turning around, parried the charge with his right hand, making Kaki turn slightly to the right.

The next one to arrive was Mathias, who put all strength in a single slash. One that was easily blocked by Null using the sword in his left hand.

Moon was next. As he approached Null, Kaki was beginning to be sent into his direction. Moon quickly jumped so that Kaki would miss him and the entire weight of his body would be on his blade once it hit something. Null, in a swift movement, moved his right hand up and blocked Moon’s attack, making him stop mid air for a moment.

Luminus was the last one to reach Null. Unlike the others, he wasn’t too keen on getting physical with the elf so he was using his psychic powers to attack. Since there wasn't a body backing the sword coming his way, Null decided to just disengage from the group. He was fully able to deal with floating swords if he used all his power but the objective here was to focus solely on his swordsmanship, something that he felt wasn’t keeping up with his other powers.

The four boys didn’t even flinch at the situation and began to surround Null again. Something that he found amusing. Rarely his enemies wouldn’t be stunned by his skills.

Against any type of common sense, at least from Null’s point of view, Kaki threw his spear with the speed of a bullet. It was heading straight at the elf and then straight to Mathias as the Null easily dodged the straight projectile. As for Mathias. He didn’t stop his charge. Not that he needed to. Luminus used his powers to stop the spear and send it back the way it came. This, along with the fact that Luminus himself was closing in on Null, made him rethink his choice of just dodging a little. Mathias and Luminus reached at the same time, with Luminus, this time using his own hands to swing one of his swords, going towards Null’s legs and Mathias towards the head.

Null couldn’t block both attacks and stay in a position where he could either dodge or block the other two, so he just jumped, making the two boys miss him completely. Only to find Moon face to face with him about 7 meters in the air.

In a moment of insight Moon found a loop on the rules Null had given. He couldn’t use any spells that affected anything other than himself, like the basic reinforcements all four of them were using, with some minor differences between them, but there was nothing about just using mana outwardly. Was it stupid? Yes? Wasteful? Absolutely! Did it surprise his enemy? More than he was hoping. Null could only defend himself from the impact and was sent flying down towards Kaki. Something completely unintentional on Moon’s part.

Kaki, now with his spear back in hand, took the chance given to him in stride and made diagonal upwards slash with it in hopes of covering a bigger area than if he just used a straight attack like before. Null had to quickly turn around mid air to block Kaki’s attack. Still, he was sent flying away from the group. Not that it mattered much, as he landed on his feet.

“Very impressive. Using the pressure of releasing mana to launch yourself into the air is not something I have ever seen before.” Null said to Moon.

“After seeing and being beaten by something, you tend to learn it after a while.” Moon said, alluding to his many experiences with Mia so far.

“Well, no matter. I will not be taken by surprise by something of that caliber again.” Null said in a tone of full superiority over the four boys.

“Not that we plan to do the same thing twice.” Mathias said as he nodded. They had a plan. A plan to beat Mia that was in the making for a while, but one they would have to use here. With some tweaks.

So far, the two clashes they had were only to survey and analyze their enemy. The enemy still wasn’t giving his all and that didn’t seem to change even with their little surprise attack. They had a chance to win this but it was going to take its toll. They really hoped that the strange group that was after them would give them time to rest. Because if they failed here, they wouldn't be in much of a condition to help for a while even if whatever Mia was doing actually be able to deal with Null.

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All four of the boys ran towards Null in something similar to an arrow formation with Mathias at the front, Kaki just a little behind him to his right, Moon in the middle and Luminus at the back.

Unlike before, they weren’t planning on jumping Null all at once. When they got near enough, Mathias went just a little further ahead and began to fight alone. His usual fighting style was to put as much power into his attacks as possible to finish the fight in as few moves as he could. Doing that made his attacks slower than most people but he had the skill to not let his attacks go to waste. This time howeverf, he was going all out. Fast attacks with all the power he would have normally. Of course this had a drawback. He was burning mana and stamina way faster than normal.

Null wasn't using any spells besides the one that gave him his swords, so he had to depend on the strength of his body for everything in this fight. He could parry or block one or two of those attacks but that would quickly overwhelm him. With that in mind he began to weave between the barrage of slashes Mathias was doing. He had a few close calls but his experience in fighting people way above Mathias' skill level helped him see where an attack was going. Without any spells augmenting him, Null had to be careful as he wasn’t fast enough to dodge everything coming his way if he didn’t see it coming.

After about two minutes of Null almost comically dodging Mathias’s attacks he got bored of the situation and decided to scare the boy in front of him a little. When Mathias left himself a little more open than normal due to a heavier attack, Null used his swords to both slash his cheek and pierce his shoulder. In his eyes, these kids weren’t really battlefield ready. They were kids who rode on the back of their power against a weak enemy. The army they fought was extremely weak compared to what it could have been as Null himself got anyone who had any potential to be useful out of there and sent to a training camp for the Steps. Not that there weren’t any powerful people left but they were even worse than the boys as they didn’t even try to have any technique and just coasted on the power their rank provided. Had Mathias and the others never met Mia, that might have been true, but at this moment Null got what was coming to him.

Mathias didn’t flinch or even blink when he was hit. He used the opportunity to hit Null’s head with all the strength he could muster. Null had to quickly defend his head with left arm, using the sword to make sure he wasn’t actually hit. The attack still shook him as he got a little disoriented by the impact. Before he could get a hold of himself again Kaki suddenly appeared on his right and smacked the tip of his spear on his face, making him lose all sense of balance as well as the fight as he was cleanly hit. Before he could admit he lost he felt something he didn’t think he could feel again. The feeling that he was about to get killed.

Like sharks sensing blood in the water, the four boys smelled the chance to end the fight and went for it.

Luminus grabbed Kaki and Mathas with his psychic powers and moved them around Null so he and Moon had a path to Null while still leaving Mathias and Kaki able to attack.

Moon, completely ignoring the rules of the fight, used a spell to impact Null’s head a little more. A black sphere of darkness formed around his head and shrunk at high speed, disorienting him even more once the impact happened. Moon also tried to slash Null’s chest but by pure instinct the enemy elf managed to block the slash by sacrificing his left arm, who was left with a really deep wound.

Lastly was Luminus who dashed forward to stab Null in the heart. The elf, like before, moved by pure instinct and managed to change where the stab went, only stabbing one of his lungs.

The pain made him able to think straight for a moment, turning on the enchantments on his clothes a little. He quickly used his right arm to try and slash Moon who was in front of him but Luminus once again used his powers to move everyone around making Null’s attack, a simple downward slash, go towards Mathias who was more than ready to take it. Since Moon was using spells too, Mathias used one to firm himself to the ground, making him barely move an inch when he got hit.

Kaki nodded at Luminus and jumped over Null. Luminus stopped Kaki mid air where he tried to stab the elf in the head but Null was moving way too frantically so only his right shoulder was hit and not doing much damage as the clothes Null was using pushed Kaki back with as much strength as he put in his attack.

Moon and Luminus dashed forward at the same time. Moon jumped over Null like Kaki and Luminus flipped him mid-air so he was facing Null’s directions when he reached Kaki. Then, using his power to the maximum, Luminus connected Kaki’s feet to Mathias' sword and Moon’s feet to Kaki’s spear. Like a multistage rocket they all went forward. Mathias pushed Kaki who pushed Moon, who used all that force and weight sent into him on a slash that went straight at Null’s right arm.

Luminus quickly followed that with an attack of his own, directly on the opposite of the arm that was being slashed at by Moon.

Null clothes were sturdy enough to not allow his arms to be severed but without conscious effort to actually turn ‘on’ his clothes completely, they didn’t protect him much besides that. The attacks didn’t sever his arm but now it was completely crushed.

Time froze for Null after the last attack. He knew that one way or another he would ‘die’ in this fight, the question is his mind was how he wanted to go? Like the gentleman knight he was and following the rules he set up for himself or as a powerful man who would carve fear into these kids for breaking the rules?

As much as he thought himself to be above pettiness, he couldn’t allow himself to lose like this. He stopped holding back and the power of his original body began to flow into the one he was currently using. Normally that would be a problem as these bodies couldn’t handle all that power and would explode, but since that was exactly what he wanted, there was no problem. The boys wouldn’t die from the explosion but it would hurt a lot. As for the boys themselves, they quickly understood what was happening and prepared themselves for the blast. A blast that never came.

As Null’s body began to glow with mana, Mia suddenly shouted and all the mana around of her just vanished for a moment. A moment that the boys used to the maximum effect.

The moment they heard Mia they ignored everything and went for the kill ignoring any red flags that might have popped in their heads. Null was too shocked by what happened to do anything. Before he could recover from the shock of what just happened, his head, torso and legs were all cut and stabbed by the four boys, ‘killing’ him instantly.

The boys collapsed on the ground as the spells that were on them were also dispersed by Mia; their last attack had been made with pure physical strength. Their blades also temporarily lost their enchantments and became really heavy so their last attack took a little more than normal from them.

As for Mia, she fell face first onto the ground. Her feet and mouth were bleeding. Shishen was on her way too. They didn’t know what Mia did but it looked like it took a lot out of her, enough to hurt.