For them, it looked like white specs of fireflies had come to lighten up the moonless night. And it took only that one second of collective distraction for Axel to unleash the most potent attack he could muster at his current state. Using all the comprehension of elements water, thunder and shadow, using his runic eyes to their full might.
He controlled the three swords with his mana, pouring massive amounts of reserves into the tools, overclocking their abilities to the maximum, finding a way to combine the three differentiating elements into one and controlling the three swords, holding them slightly upwards.
Axel’s expression turned grave as he took in a deep breath. The world itself went eerily quiet for a moment, resonating with his focused intent, as the swords slashed downward at an impossible speed through his swift control of mana. He declared with a tone of serene finality,
"Wave of Thunder Shadow."
Red lightning and a blue water wave shot out at the exact moment as the swords slashed downwards, then another wave of dark, shadowy substance came out of the shadow blight sword. On the path of its projectile, it mixed with blue water and turned it grey. Then, the red lightning collided with the black water, and the black water continued to expand into a gigantic wave. Spots of red lightning were created within it, which made it look even more wrong than it already was.
And all of this happened in just a few seconds. By the time everyone came to their sense, their survival instincts kicking in, what they witnessed was a goddamn 5-meter-long tsunami of black water appearing in their vision out of nowhere. And there were red spots of lightning dancing around it as if unable to mix that water and discharge.
As the gigantic wave crashed into the three-story-tall fortress walls, sweeping away all the seekers fighting Axel, the pressure from the wave was strong enough to break down the steel door. The grey water, supercharged with red lightning, crashed into the inner area of the fortress, breaking down the flag pole eventually.
After the attack had done its job, Axel’s more than 5000 mana reserves all vanished at the use of that one decisive move, the grey water and the red lightning in it, all dissolved into nothing as the energy input was cut off. The sound of the violent water waves was gone.
Axel saw his overwhelming win with that one move and smiled. He wanted to turn back and look straight in the eye of the valkyrie, but as the aftereffects of using all the active attributes of 5 highest caliber of runic weapons hit him like sledge hammer made out of a rock mountain. It felt like numerous needles were being poked in every inch of his skin.
The mana pathways in his magic circuit had to endure 10 times the overload, so they were seriously damaged; there were internal injuries to his various organs, and severe internal bleeding was happening, most likely. All the muscles in his body groaned in pain; his eyes felt like they were about to pop out due to the overuse of his runic eyes with so much mana. All in all, his entire existence was in so much pain that it might even make a 2nd phase seeker go mad.
Every inch of his body was screaming at him to let go, to close his eyes and fall down, but the demon inside of him didn’t let him take the easy way out; he remained standing as the sole victor of the battle against a whole section of students on his own. But regardless of his iron willpower, his body had had enough, his brain forcefully shut down all activities out of survival instincts, because there was indeed a chance of death considering his condition.
Just as his body was about to hit the ground, two slender, jade-white hands grabbed his shoulder, stopping his body from hitting the ground with a graceful movement. Her black dress waved in the silent breeze, perhaps imitating the turmoil in her own heart. Her expressionless, divine face bore a trace of an unknown emotion. She muttered in an inaudible whisper, "That wasn’t too bad. I suppose."
Professor Regina and Gareth both instantly appeared right at that place; they both had a grim expression on their faces as they inspected the body of Axel, in the arms of the valkyrie. Gareth looked at Regina, and the mage professor nodded, she instantly casted multiple spells at him and barely stabilized his condition.
She then immediately took him away using teleportation. The valkyrie remained there, standing, despite Axel’s body being taken away. Her hands remained frozen for a moment, as if she were still holding onto his shoulders and keeping his unconscious body from falling.
Gareth looked at her with a trace of pity, he opened his mouth as if wanting to say something but no words came out of his mouth because of too much hesitation. Eventually, he said it, even though he felt he shouldn’t.
"You do know that they will never let you do that? They will never allow it, and this will only become more painful for you both, perhaps."
The valkyrie broke out of her trance, hearing that. She looked at the master forger in confusion for a moment, then stated expressionlessly, "I don’t know what you are talking about."
Gareth shook his head with a tired sigh and went back to the teacher’s platform. He saw that Professor Alfred was on his knees looking high in the sky with a lost expression, muttering continuously, "This can’t be.....can’t be....cannot be.....should not be.....possible in any way. Combining the attributes of different runic tools at that level."
Even the other professors had that lost expression on their faces, lost in their own thoughts. Gareth sighed again; it was an understandable reaction, truth be told, even for beings as powerful as them.
The runic eyes, wielding five tools at once, boosting his mana and primary stats to that horrendous level, even the combat proficiency he showed almost felt like he was used to combatting on that level of power, or even fighting that many enemies at once, making weapons powerful enough to have such complex level of abilities even as a first phase seeker.