The Villain Who Invests in a Witch to Survive Chapter 105 : Chapter 105

Chapter 105: I’m Taking Them

Ryan pushed Windstride to its limit, and the trees flew backward through the forest.

As the distance closed, the sounds of fighting, angry shouts, and that increasingly distinct girl’s voice—panicked yet desperately trying to remain composed—grew clearer and clearer in his ears.

“…Rex! Watch the left!”

It was Lillian Rosedale.

Ryan’s gaze sharpened, and his speed increased by another degree.

After only a few leaps, he had silently reached the edge of a clearing where the trees were thinner. Using the cover of a massive ancient tree, he peered inside.

The situation in the clearing was clear at a glance.

Lillian and Rex were standing back to back, and both looked utterly bedraggled.

Lillian’s platinum ponytail had completely fallen apart, and her face was sared with dirt. Several new scorched black marks and cuts had been added to her exquisite pale-blue light armor, and the glow of the slender sword in her hand had grown dim.

Rex was in even worse shape. His training uniform had practically been reduced to strips of cloth. Several fresh cuts had been added across his exposed arms and chest, and the blade of the broad greatsword in his hand had already lost a few chunks along the edge. He was breathing in great gulps, and the arm gripping the sword was visibly trembling.

And yet their opponent was only one person.

He was a young man of about eighteen or nineteen, dressed in the dark-red uniform of the Interdiate Departnt. His features were ordinary, and his eyes were cold.

He carried no weapon at all. He rely stood there casually, but a dense and active fluctuation of fire Mana swirled around him. The explosion Ryan had just heard had clearly been his work.

Several traces of scorched fire and frozen frost still remained around the clearing, evidence of the brief clash that had already taken place.

“Your reactions are not bad. You were able to dodge my Chain Fire Shots.” The Interdiate Departnt student spoke flatly, without much emotion in his voice. “But the ga ends here. Hand over your runes, or I will help you hand them over—with the Distress Rune Stones on your bodies.”

Lillian’s face was pale. Her ice-blue eyes were filled with anger, defiance, and fear buried deep beneath both.

She bit her lip and said nothing, only tightening her grip on the slender sword in her hand.

Rex, however, let out a furious shout. Though his arm was trembling, he still stepped forward, placing himself even more firmly in front of Lillian, and pointed his greatsword at their opponent. “If you want the runes, you’ll have to get through first! Miss, get out of here!”

“You idiot! What am I supposed to do if I leave?!” Lillian cried out.

The Interdiate Departnt student seed to find the scene rather dull, and shook his head.

“aningless resistance.”

He raised his right hand, fingers spread slightly apart, and blazing fire-elents quickly gathered and compressed in his palm, forming a rapidly spinning fireball that emitted a dangerous red glow. It was far larger than any normal Fireball a third-year student could cast, and its Mana fluctuation was much stronger as well.

“Fla Explosion Spell.”

He spoke the skill na softly and was just about to launch the fireball.

And at that critical instant—

Whoosh!

A streak of icy blue light, like a cold moon tearing through the dim forest, shot out from the trees at the side without warning, aid directly at the wrist of the Interdiate Departnt student’s right hand, where he was condensing the fireball.

The expression of the Interdiate Departnt student changed slightly. He had clearly not expected anyone else to be hidden nearby, much less soone who would strike with such ruthless precision.

He was forced to interrupt the spell. Most of the fireball dispersed at once, and he retreated sharply while sweeping out his left hand. In an instant, a simple shield of fla appeared before him.

Ssshh!

The cold blue light struck the flaming shield and exploded into a mass of mist where ice and fire intertwined, producing a harsh corrosive sound.

The Interdiate Departnt student let out a muffled grunt and retreated three full steps. His flaming shield flickered uncertainly before finally collapsing.

He looked down at the sleeve of his left arm. A slit had been cut through it, and tiny crystals of frost had ford along the edges, sending a biting chill into the flesh beneath.

He turned his head sharply, his eyes dark and heavy as he looked toward the direction of the attack.

Ryan stepped slowly out from behind the ancient tree. He rely stood there calmly, his gray-blue eyes fixed on his opponent, as though that sharp burst of ice-cold Mana had been nothing more than a casual flick of his hand.

“My apologies, Senior. You’re too late.” His tone was calm and even. “Their runes are mine.”

“Heh.” The Interdiate Departnt student shook out his arm, dispelling the last trace of lingering cold. A sneer, irritated at being challenged, appeared on his face. “A third-year brat, and your mouth is certainly big enough. That little sneak attack just now was mildly interesting, but that’s all it was.”

The fire Mana around him beca active again, and the air itself began to warp slightly from the heat. “Rember my na. Kyle Raylatt. I’ll show you exactly what lies between the Interdiate Departnt and little brats like you who are still laying their foundations.”

Before the last word had fully fallen, Kyle moved.

He did not chant any complicated incantation. He simply lifted a hand and spread his fingers toward Ryan.

“Chain Fire Shots!”

Three orange-red fireballs, each the size of a fist and solid as molten stone, shot out in a triangular pattern. They were astonishingly fast, their trajectories viciously angled, sealing off Ryan’s escape to both left and right. A wave of scorching heat swept over the entire clearing in an instant.

This was a standard mage’s opening suppression. The degree of Mana compression, the firing speed, and the area control all far surpassed any fire spell Ryan had seen from a third-year student in the past two days.

A full year of specialized training in the Interdiate Departnt had laid its quality bare in the foundations of basic magic.

Faced with that swift, overwhelming pressure, Ryan did not try to take it head-on. The footwork beneath him suddenly turned elusive, like willow fluff drifting in the wind. His body swayed through the weaving gaps between the three fire shots by the narrowest of margins.

The fire shots slamd into the ground and the trees behind him, blasting out blackened craters and igniting roaring flas.

At the sa ti, Ryan’s hands were already moving in front of him.

The index and middle fingers of his left hand ca together, tracing through the air with lightning speed to draw a simple but stable pale-blue rune. His right palm turned upward, cold air gathering there, and in the span of a breath three translucent ice spikes with razor-sharp edges ford into being.

“Go!”

The ice spikes shrieked through the air, shooting toward Kyle from different angles. They were no slower than the fire shots from monts ago, and each carried a bitter freezing aura.

Kyle’s eyes widened in slight surprise, as though he had not expected a re third-year student to cast so quickly, nor to control ice magic with such precision.

But his reaction was swift. With a sweep of his left hand, a curved flaming shield appeared before him once again.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The ice spikes struck the flaming shield and instantly vaporized, filling the air with thick white mist. The light of the shield also dimd sowhat.

The hissing sound of ice and fire clashing rang out without pause.

“You’ve got so ability after all. No wonder you dared to stick your nose into this.” Kyle let out a cold snort. Once the shield vanished, he did not retreat. Instead, he charged forward. His feet slamd into the ground, and his whole body shot toward Ryan like a cannonball. As he rushed, both fists erupted with blazing fire, as though he were wearing a pair of flaming gauntlets. The surrounding air crackled under the heat.

Magic and martial skill cultivated together.

And specifically, a close-combat style that used fire magic to reinforce the body itself.

This was one of the classic directions of specialized developnt in the Interdiate Departnt: combining Mana and flesh to unleash a burst of power and sustained combat ability far beyond that of a pure mage or a pure warrior.