Brandon charged at Tsukuru with his trident extended, similarly to how he had done to Quinn with his spear.
However, unluckily for Brandon, Tsukuru was even faster than Quinn, having a higher Ability Stat.
Instead of merely dodging the trident, Tsukuru simply held his left dagger up vertically in the air in the trajectory of the trident as Brandon charged forward.
The dagger got caught in the space between the trident's middle and far-right point, stopping Brandon in his tracks.
Brandon's eyes widened.
'What?!' He thought.
Brandon struggled to move, but it was ineffective.
Despite him having more leeway than he did when Quinn had grabbed his spear, as Tsukuru had a lower Strength Stat than Quinn, he still could only manage to move the trident slightly forward, or slightly back.
It was as if it was caught on something.
Tsukuru smirked.
He twisted his left hand to the right, causing the trident to move with the dagger, wrenching Brandon off balance.
While Brandon was busy trying to re-orientate his center of center of gravity, Tsukuru acted.
He placed the dagger in his left hand back in his "Weapons" tab in his System, causing it to break apart into pixels, freeing up his arm,
Then, he ran toward Brandon, retrieving the dagger he had just placed in his "Weapons" tab in the process, making it reappear in his left hand in the form of clustering pixels.
When he reached Brandon, he swung both arms in an "X" formation, creating a "cross-slash" on Brandon's chest.
In Tsukuru's "Battle Mode" Vision, he saw Brandon's health bar go from full all the way down to one-half.
Seeing it, Tsukuru smirked.
He reactivated his "Scanner" function, as he looked at Brandon.
[Name: Brandon Richardson
Race: Human
Ability: Wind Element
Ability Level: 3]
Seeing the information, Tsukuru smiled.
'Looks like he's the total OPPOSITE of Erin.' Tsukuru thought. 'He should have stuck with the Elemental class!'
Brandon regained his footing, and glared down at Tsukuru.
He swung the trident in a long arc.
Seeing the attack, Tsukuru jumped back, leaping into the air.
As he did, he flung his left hand forward, throwing his left dagger like a projectile.
Using his System's "Auto-Lock" feature, the dagger struck true, embedding itself in Brandon's left thigh, and forcing him down on his left knee.
Tsukuru saw Brandon's health bar drop to one-third.
Brandon grit his teeth from the pain of his leg being stabbed.
"Damn it!" He yelled, violently yanking the dagger out, and throwing it behind him.
The dagger bounced twice on the floor, before clattering to the ground.
Eye twitching in annoyance, Brandon turned back to Tsukuru, only to see him right in front of him, as Tsukuru had begun running at him while he was distracted.
Tsukuru drove his now-empty left hand into Brandon's gut.
Brandon instantly felt intense pain from the impact, and Tsukuru saw the remainder of Brandon's health bar go to zero.
Instantly a set of overlapping System messages appeared in front of Tsukuru.
Unbeknownst to Tsukuru, he wasn't the only one affected by his Level Up.
Across the room, Erin was fighting against another girl using her new sword.
However, the second Tsukuru had defeated his opponent, she noticed her sword began to change.
Square, translucent pixels began to run across the blade's surface, starting at the pommel, and going upwards.
Erin noticed that as the wave of pixels passed over the blade's surface, the sword became significantly less rusted, as if someone had suddenly decided to clean and perform maintenance of it.
But that wasn't the only thing that had changed.
The Beast Energy from the blade had exploded.
Erin now felt significantly stronger than she did with even her Intermediate-Tier sword.
Erin looked down at the new sword in amazement.
'Did…did this thing just become an Intermediate-Tier weapon?!' She thought in astonishment, before her head instinctively snapped towards Tsukuru.
Back with Tsukuru, he began to read overlaying System messages that had appeared before him.
[Opponent has been defeated. 50 XP has been awarded. First time defeating a Level 3 Ability User. Bonus XP has been awarded. First Time Victory Bonus: 40 XP awarded. XP: 230/200. You have Leveled Up. You are now Level 3. XP: 30/400.
You have received 1 Stat Point.
You have received 1 Summon Point.
Your Pawn Grade Haunted Knight has received 1 Pawn Point. Pawn Points 5/5.
New Racial Slot Available. Racial Slots: 1/2]
[Your Pawn Grade Haunted Knight has been promoted to Elite Pawn Grade. Pawn Points: 0/15]
[Haunted Knight Beast Gear has been upgraded.
Basic-Tier Knight Sword has been upgraded to Intermediate-Tier Knight Sword.
Basic-Tier Knight Gauntlets have been upgraded to Intermediate-Tier Knight Gauntlets.]
[A new Skill is now available.
New Skill Video Glitch - Lv. 1 has been acquired.]
Like with Quinn, Tsukuru decided to look at the description of his new Skill later.
He looked down at Brandon on the ground, clutching his gut from where Tsukuru had punched him.
Brandon stared up at the boy in pure hatred.
"Thanks." Tsukuru said, as he turned and began to walk away. "That certainly was…entertaining."
Unknown to Tsukuru, those words had been the last straw for Brandon.
He had now been defeated by two low-Levels, two days in a row.
And learning that the said low-Level found his defeat "entertaining" had crossed a line.
Brandon grit his teeth, and clenched his hand around his trident.
Meanwhile, Tsukuru was halfway back to Quinn when he heard screaming from behind him.
Confused, he craned his neck back.
It was then that Tsukuru saw Brandon charging towards him, trident extended.
"YOU…BASTARD!" Brandon snarled, fire in his eyes.
Tsukuru's eyes narrowed in surprise.
Then they narrowed.
'Son of a…' He thought in irritation.
He gripped his hand around his dagger, intending to do what he had done before, jam his dagger's blade between the space between the trident's segments, using it to hold him in place.
However, before he could lift up his arm to execute the maneuver, something else happened.
As Tsukuru and Brandon were roughly a foot apart, the sound of electronic interference filled the Weapon Hall, causing everyone to turn to the source of the noise.
They all watched as translucent pixels began to appear in the space between Brandon and Tsukuru, the sudden appearance of the pixels causing Brandon to freeze in his tracks.
The pixels clustered together into a slender, humanoid figure.
There was a bright flash of light, and when it faded, everyone's eyes widened.
In front of Tsukuru was an armored individual, who Tsukuru, Quinn, and Layla all instantly recognized as his "Haunted Knight" Summon.
However, she looked different now. Compared to when Quinn and Layla had seen her yesterday, she was noticeably taller.
While before she had been a few inches shorter than Layla, the Haunted Knight now appeared to be slightly taller than Erin.
Additionally, her armor was significantly less rusted, now looking much more cleaned and polished.
While there were still patches of rust in sparsely-placed locations, such as along the edges of the armor.
However, it wasn't the appearance of the Haunted Knight that had everyone so shocked, it was her position.
Holding her longsword in both hands, she had her hands positioned with the point of her sword slanted slightly downwards, with the point pressed against Brandon's neck.
Across the room, Erin stared at the figure in between Tsukuru and Brandon.
After a moment, she then looked down at the sword in her hands.
Her sword looked identical to the one the figure was wielding.
Meanwhile, back with Brandon, he felt a sharp pain, like a needle poking him, as the sword created a surface-level wound, a single drop of blood dripping down.
The whole hall was in stunned silence.
However, for Tsukuru, he had a feeling of deep dread, as the memory of her swinging her sword and decapitating Riley in the forest yesterday flashed in his head.
If he didn't do somethingfast history would repeat itself.
And there was NO WAY Shizuka could cover this up.
Not in front of a whole Combat Class and a Sergeant.
However, the person who was the most on edge was Sergeant Leo, himself.
In his wireframe vision granted by his Ability, he saw the knight had a red aura, denoting her to him as a Humanoid Beast.
'A Beast?!' Leo thought, as his grip tightened on his sword.
As Quinn looked at the Knight, he attempted to use his Inspect Skill.
[Haunted Knight
Intermediate-Tier Beast
HP: ?????]
Tsukuru's eyes frantically darted from student to student.
He had intended to keep his Video Summons a secret for the time-being.
But, due to Brandon's recklessness, his secret had been blown wide open.
But that was the least of his concerns at the moment, as his Summon was in perfect position to KILL Brandon.
That sword was technically an Intermediate-Tier Beast Weapon.
All the Haunted Knight had to do was thrust forward, and she would pierce his throat, killing him on the spot.
If that happened, Tsukuru was unsure if the Military would consider it "murder".
Sure, Shizuka was a Sergeant, but her protection could only go so far.
"Stand down!" Tsukuru yelled, causing everyone in the room to turn to him.
Hearing the words of her creator, the Haunted Knight turned her head towards him.
The somewhat rusty armor made a creaking noise that filled the room.