Edward pointed his sword straight at the Duke's chest, the tip hovering only a short distance away. Mana surged around him in heavy waves, no longer suppressed and restrained by the Duke's domain. The pressure rolled outward, shaking the broken remains of the battlefield. The Duke could feel it clearly now.
The sword art Edward had used moments ago was not something meant for simple combat. '7-Star Sword Art: Form Nine - Dimensional Lash' was a killing technique aimed directly at the source of a mage's power. It ignored distance and defense, cutting through space itself to strike the mana core. Once damaged, a mana core could not recover easily. The flow of mana would collapse, cultivation would halt, and the mage would be reduced to a cripple in everything but name. For an Archmage, whose entire existence revolved around absolute dominance over mana, this fate could be seen as something far worse than death itself.
