"Nero, can I go against you next?"
Uexpectedly, it was Azalea who asked this, making Nero pause. But he saw no need to refuse. Both were knights, yet they had never faced each other. It would be his first time facing a long-range attacker whose primary weapon was a bow.
Khione gave the signal.
The air hummed with a new kind of tension. Nero and Azalea faced each other, a stark contrast of crackling, grounded energy and serene, aerial control. With Khione's signal, the battle was joined.
Azalea moved with the fluid grace of a summer breeze. She didn't just draw her bow; she seemed to pull the very air itself taut.
"Sky-Piercing Barrage!" She loosed a single arrow skyward, which split mid-air into a hundred, then a thousand, projectiles of compressed wind. They fell like a divine rain, screaming towards the earth, a storm of invisible blades that left shimmering distortions in their wake. There was no space to dodge; the entire field was a kill zone.
