"I didn't expect that besides your strength, even your judgment would be so surprising, Alan. Among the new generation of wizards, I'm afraid no one can surpass you." Peter couldn't help but express his admiration at this moment, but he quickly changed the subject. "It's too much of a pity for a young man with such a promising future to die here. Would you consider joining me? I guarantee you'll make further progress within the Silver Spears."
"You can barely protect yourself right now, so don't make such boasts." Alan glanced at him mockingly. "Besides, helping the German Ministry of Magic at a critical moment seems to be most beneficial to me, doesn't it?"
"Then there's nothing more to say!" Peter also knew that for a greedy businessman like Alan, the immediate benefits were the most tempting, but whether he could obtain them would be decided by their actions.
"Suck!"
Peter pointed his wand at Alan from a distance, and soon a strong suction force formed in a conical area in front of his wand. Even Alan, who had profound mastery of control magic, was firmly pulled, finding it extremely difficult despite his desperate resistance. Facing this situation, Alan did not panic. After a struggle proved fruitless, he simply gave up resisting and even accelerated his charge toward Peter instead of retreating. As he charged forward, Alan adjusted his posture and then, using the momentum of his advance, unleashed a series of consecutive slashes.
"Thunderous Sword - Storm Blade!"
Eclipse, empowered by Wild Thunder, shimmered with mesmerizing lightning. With each swing, Alan cut out silver sword waves with a faint blue glow, which continuously spiraled as they advanced, forming a horizontal tornado composed entirely of lightning and sword light.
Edmund, observing from below, could even see the shadow of Andre's Blade Storm in this tempest, clearly indicating that Alan had learned from Andre and used this intuitive spell. Facing the rapidly approaching lightning storm and Alan, Peter did not hesitate in the slightest and pointed his wand upward.
"Rise!"
Under Peter's control, the direction of the gravity guiding Alan changed again, suddenly transforming from suction to an upward force. This instantly caused Alan, who was charging forward with all his might, to lose his balance in mid-air, staggering as he was pushed diagonally upward. However, he remained calm at this moment, quickly increasing the magic output to his Flying Cloak and exerting downward force, stabilizing himself with a Levitation Charm, and not directly hitting the ceiling above.
And when he looked at Peter again, he immediately discovered a pleasant surprise: although his Storm Blade sword technique was also affected by gravity, the deviation was almost negligible, and it continued to rush toward his opponent's position. Although Peter simply ducked slightly to evade the Storm Blade's attack, this also allowed Alan to discover his opponent's weakness.
*It seems Peter's gravity control has little effect on Wild Lightning. That's right, the influence of gravity on electric potential is indeed negligible. So, the most troublesome thing right now is still the interference of gravity on my body.* Alan silently calculated in his mind.
Meanwhile, Peter on the opposite side was also startled; could sword waves forged from lightning actually ignore his gravity? Then he would directly target Alan! Both of them formulated their tactics the instant they clashed.
"Fall!"
Having made up his mind, Peter launched the first strike, heavily swinging his wand from top to bottom, and then Alan suddenly plummeted downward at an extremely fast speed. This was actually unavoidable. Alan had been flying downward to maintain balance against the previous upward force, meaning he was constantly exerting downward force. As a result, Peter suddenly changed the direction of gravity, the upward force instantly converting to a downward fall; combined with the original gravity, he instantly plummeted downward at several times the speed of freefall, making it look as if Alan was actively crashing downward.
The sudden change caught Alan somewhat off guard, but fortunately, his current overload form made his perception and magic control extremely sensitive. In less than a second, he reacted and stabilized himself again with a Levitation Charm, but even so, he was only one or two meters from the ground at this point, nearly landing face-first and crashing into the ground as if committing suicide.
"How troublesome!" Alan was also very annoyed at this moment.
The opponent's method of directly controlling gravity was completely different from his own method of controlling others with control magic from a distance. Being affected by control magic similar to a Shield Charm could be broken free from with one's own magic, and the force of long-distance control itself attenuated. But with direct gravity control, Alan could only constantly move in the opposite direction to counteract the effect of the force. However, Peter only needed to frequently change the direction of gravity to quickly disrupt his balance. No matter how fast Alan's reaction was, he would still need some time to adapt. This was like two people playing a life-or-death tug-of-war, and one of them suddenly let go and even maliciously kicked you.
If this continued, Peter would only need to keep moving him up and down, back and forth, left and right. He wouldn't even need to use any offensive spells; Alan would be completely disoriented in no time. Thinking of this, Alan knew he couldn't continue to stalemate, or he would eventually be played to death by his opponent. He gritted his teeth, and then the constantly steaming plasma on his body rapidly contracted toward his form, until the blue-silver plasma completely adhered to Alan's skin, as if forming tight-fitting armor.
"Overload - Phantom Incorporeal!"
On the other side, Peter, upon realizing that he hadn't directly crushed his opponent with that move, thought of repeating the tactic. But he immediately noticed that Alan's speed suddenly increased several times, and he shot out to the side with a whoosh, as if transforming into a bolt of lightning. In Peter's vision at this moment, the opponent seemed to have transformed into a meteor, circling around him, even leaving afterimages in his wake. For a time, just keeping up with the opponent's movement trajectory was extremely difficult.
"Repel!"
Seeing this, Peter tentatively used a repulsive force, attempting to disrupt Alan's balance, but even though he had prepared in advance, the attack still missed. And the moment he attacked, Alan's form completely vanished from his sight, leaving only a large area of afterimages formed by electric light around him.
"Thunderous Sword - Blade Array Cyclone!"
Just as Peter was trying his best to find the opponent's physical form, Alan seized the opportunity to launch an attack. Over a dozen short swords made of lightning, like meteors, attacked Peter from all directions, as if he were surrounded by enemies. Moreover, these meteor-like stabs came quickly and fiercely, and combined with Alan's frequent changes in direction, the attack angles were not entirely from the same plane; some stabbed from diagonally above, while others attacked from below. For a moment, Peter seemed to have become a target standing in the middle of the arena!
The sudden burst of offense made Peter somewhat flustered. Since these Wild Thunder blades were largely unaffected by gravity, he basically couldn't block all of them simultaneously. So Peter could only constantly dodge and weave in the air, while simultaneously casting Shield Charms to parry, and when occasionally several Wild Thunder Meteors approached him at once and he couldn't dodge, he could only immediately activate a Full Body Shield Charm to endure the impact, which suddenly made him look quite disheveled.
"Using super-high-speed movement to prevent me from locking on, and then seizing the opportunity to attack? That's a good plan." Peter, parrying clumsily, was also calculating how to break the deadlock. *Use a large-range repulsive or attractive force to disrupt his balance? No, if the range is too wide, the force will attenuate. Alan has been keeping this far from me, probably because he realized this. In that case… I'll just outlast you and see how long you can maintain this high-intensity movement!*
Having made up his mind, Peter's eyes suddenly became extremely fierce, and then he roared, "Rise!"
With his roar, the entire judgment chamber shook violently, and then the tables, chairs, and benches on the ground, as well as the shattered stones caused by the battle's aftermath, suddenly rose as if entering a zero-gravity space. They then spun and revolved around Peter, forming a nebula as if he were its core, and these rising fragments of architecture slowly floated around him, instantly becoming his barriers and shields, doing their best to block Alan's sword array attacks.
And the wizards still hiding below, witnessing this scene of divine combat, all crouched on the ground, trembling. This was too terrifying. Was this really a battle between wizards? Why did I have a sense of doomsday déjà vu?
Among them, a few daring reporters even risked raising their cameras to snap photos of the two in the sky. For them, what was big news? This was big news! Those so-called political upheavals might not even be as eye-catching as this prolonged duel. However, no matter what these people were thinking at the moment, they all now had a clear understanding: the combat power of Peter and Alan was completely on a different dimension than theirs. Especially Alan; they felt as if they were re-acquainting themselves with this alchemy master. Young, wealthy, successful in his career, and incredibly powerful—was this truly something a normal person could achieve?
"The door is open, the passage is open!" Just as everyone was huddled in the corner watching the battle, a cheer suddenly erupted nearby.
It turned out that under Andre's command, the giant rocks blocking the side door had finally been cleared, and to ensure a smooth escape, Andre had even specially widened the door considerably. In truth, the efficiency of these Aurors was not slow; it only took a few minutes to open the passage. The main reason was that the current battle scene between Alan and Peter was simply too explosive, making everyone feel as if time was passing by like years.