Magic filled the air and exploded one blast after another under the Horn Demon’s relentless claw strikes.

Wave after wave of violent shockwaves swept out, then crashed hard into the not-so-tall target in front of him, making the invisible air ripple in circles.

They were just claw strikes, yet they hit with the force of large-scale magic. Forget city walls—half a city could’ve been blasted open.

If the high platform had been made of normal materials, it would’ve been rubble by now.

Even so, the foundation still sank half a meter into the ground, dragging the platform closer to ground level.

The Horn Demon panted heavily, rough breaths whooshing in and out. Big beads of sweat rolled down his arms to his claw tips. Since it was close to winter, every droplet that fell left a faint trail of heat.

“Ha… huff… haah… huff, huff, huff… You’ve gotta be done for now!”

He wasn’t talking to himself, but when the Horn Demon thought about it, it wasn’t that different.

In his mind, Wang Xiaole absolutely couldn’t withstand that onslaught. Even if the guy was somehow still alive, he had to be lying on the ground, a bloody mess by now.

If his opponent was in that state, there was no way he could answer. Then wouldn’t the Horn Demon’s question get no response at all?

And a question with no reply—how was that any different from talking to himself?

In truth, it was very different, because this so-called “crushing victory” existed only in the demons’ wishful thinking.

Right before the exhausted Horn Demon could start laughing out loud in triumph, a twisted laugh beat him to it by a full second:

“Hehehehehehe… If by ‘can’t take it’ you mean ‘it’s too damn ticklish,’ then yeah, you’re right. If not… tough luck.”

Wang Xiaole stepped forward, hooked his thumb under his chin, and by simply standing there in the flesh, he smashed the Horn Demon’s expectations to dust.

This was already the second move.

The Horn Demon had been so sure that after three moves, Wang Xiaole would suffer a miserable defeat. But the result so far was brutal:

His first move only triggered a beginner-level outfit shredder, and the second hadn’t done a thing.

He’d bragged way too hard earlier, and now he could only regret it.

If he’d known, he wouldn’t have forced himself, let alone talk big about “ending it in three moves.”

He could only honestly brace himself for a long, drawn-out fight.

But what was done was done. Spilled water couldn’t be scooped back. The Horn Demon had no choice but to push it to the limit.

Even if he couldn’t win, he had to at least injure Wang Xiaole. If he stepped down while his opponent was completely unscathed, Ledux might fly into a rage and “clean house.”

That wasn’t some wild guess. The demons in the Elders’ Council knew very well:

Don’t be fooled by Ledux’s smiling, refined gentleman routine. Once he really got angry, there was nothing he wouldn’t do.

Getting kicked out of the Elders’ Council—was that a big deal for the Horn Demon?

Of course it was.

But compared to possibly losing his life after pissing Ledux off, exile was still barely acceptable.

With exile and even death hanging over his head, the Horn Demon didn’t dare hold back.

Since physical attacks barely did anything, he had to use magic to turn things around.

The moment he made up his mind, a fierce light flashed through his pupils. Torrents of black radiance surged behind him, condensing madly and churning the air around him.

Suddenly—

From within that deep darkness, endless shrieks echoed out. A black elemental spear slowly emerged from the gloom.

It was like a single cold gleam piercing the void.

The spear’s tip flashed with light, then the entire spear shifted backward for an instant, and in the next heartbeat it snapped forward like a rebounding spring, shooting ahead at insane speed.

This strike represented the absolute limit of the Horn Demon’s power. Gathering enough elements to forge that spear had eaten away a huge chunk of his stamina.

The all‑out attack rushed in from the front. Wang Xiaole knew perfectly well:

If that hit landed on him, it wouldn’t harm him in the slightest. But his clothes definitely couldn’t take any more damage.

Flashing his “little brother” to a crowd of girls? That was not on the menu.

With that in mind, Wang Xiaole decided to do something.

On the platform, he looked straight ahead, then gave a slight nod. His palm swept sideways before him, his hand tracing a curve in midair.

A faint ripple of divine power spread out from him in all directions in an instant.

A moment later, Sister Glasses and all the onlookers saw space twist. Four transparent, prism‑like planes appeared out of thin air around the platform.

The four prisms closed in from far to near, wrapping around Wang Xiaole’s body. As they drew together, they actually started to merge.

At the same time, a thin arc of light flashed over Wang Xiaole’s right hand. He thrust his palm forward, slapping that curved arc out before him.

The arc stretched and split into four straight beams, linking the four corners of the prisms. Bright lines ran upward from below, helping the four faces overlap completely.

In the blink of an eye, a huge transparent cube solidified around Wang Xiaole, big enough to cover his whole body.

At that exact moment, the black spear that tore through the air slammed in, its savage tip stabbing at the cube’s surface. It looked like it would hit its target in a blink.

But Wang Xiaole’s figure stayed like a mirage—visible, yet untouchable. The near side of the cube was like a curtain of light.

An indescribable storm of magic erupted from the spear’s tip, crashing against the transparent light wall.

A shrill screech ripped through the arena as the spear stabbed wildly at the barrier, but it couldn’t break through the defense that was just an arm’s length away.

Instead, in the very next instant, the spear shattered back into a stream of black light and shot backward, straight toward the Horn Demon.

It happened too fast. Not just the demons—everyone present, except Wang Xiaole, froze stupidly at what they were seeing on the stage.

A few demons had been secretly hoping that Old Six’s fierce strike could at least injure Wang Xiaole and win the Elders’ Council some face.

But that so‑called finishing blow, which so many demons pinned their hopes on—and which the Horn Demon himself had bet everything on—was now retreating at full force, like it was going “one-eighty miles an hour” in reverse.

It was like watching a trendy line come to life:

Protecting my enemies, and nuking my allies!

The Horn Demon couldn’t believe even his own attack was “betraying” him.

Thoughts were thoughts; he still had to act.

If he just stood there and let that black light hit him, he’d probably become the first demon in the Elders’ Council to be killed by his own ultimate move.

He was rushed, but he still managed some defense.

He raised both claws, crossing his ten sharp talons in front of him in a blocking stance. That was about as much of a guard as he could throw together.

An unsolvable problem that had driven countless obsessive types mad since ancient times popped up right there—

Which is stronger: your own spear, or your own shield?

That question was about to be answered.

With a sharp hiss, the black light came roaring back and smashed into the crossed claws. Spear and shield crashed together with everything they had.

Every gaze snapped to that point of impact.

There, wild spirals of wind tore outward, but they didn’t immediately break through the crossed claws’ defense.

However, as the wind spread, the elements and magic within it lashed the Horn Demon’s exposed body like whips, hitting him again and again with nowhere to dodge.

“Ow, what the hell!”

A wail echoed out as his shadowy figure was blown backward in disarray. He spun once in midair, then crashed hard at the edge of the platform.

He spat a mouthful of blood on impact. Clearly, the backlash had given him some serious internal damage.

Injured by his own finishing move.

Congratulations to the Horn Demon for unlocking a brand-new achievement.

Once the golden stars dancing in front of his eyes faded, he wiped the blood at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. Frowning, he stared at the terrifying ripples of power still spreading through the arena, his expression much more wary than before.

Fear was fear, but he still had to complain.

As soon as he felt slightly better, he raised one hand again to draw Sister Glasses’ attention, then shouted in protest:

“She cheated! She promised she wouldn’t fight back…!”

Sister Glasses was too tired to even snark at him. In her head, she was thinking:

A private promise has nothing to do with the rules. And this isn’t even an official tournament match. Protesting to me as the referee—what good is that supposed to do?

But the Horn Demon wouldn’t let it go, like he was ready to make a huge scene if nobody gave him an answer.

Just as Wang Xiaole was finding it a pain, Ledux suddenly called out to the Horn Demon in a voice completely different from his usual tone, face dark:

“Old Six, quiet. That guy didn’t break the terms of the bet.”

The Horn Demon turned his head. Besides his instinctive fear of Ledux, there was a lot of unwillingness in his tone:

“But…”

“No buts. Can’t you see? That girl—” he meant Wang Xiaole “—never attacked on her own. And what she just used wasn’t magic. It was a forbidden spell.”

A strange term rang through the arena. Most spectators looked blank, but the lords raised their heads to stare at Wang Xiaole like they’d just seen a ghost.

Forbidden spells were high-level, long-lost magics that weren’t spread around like normal spells.

If regular magic was already mysterious, then forbidden spells were “mystery on top of mystery,” often creating miracles even great archmages found hard to believe.

The four prisms Wang Xiaole had just summoned were a forbidden spell with a reflection effect. They could block and send back almost any non-physical attack.

To put it simply, it was “reflect armor against non-physical attacks.”

The Horn Demon’s elemental spear counted as a non-physical attack, so the spell bounced it back at full power just now, almost taking his life on the spot.

The reason the Horn Demon and most of the crowd couldn’t recognize it was simple: in Dibiles, only the royal family, the local branch of the Church of the Supreme God, and the top-ranked demon in the Elders’ Council had access to forbidden spells.

Now some random girl, who’d popped up from who‑knows‑what mountain ditch or backwater stream, also wielded a genuine forbidden spell. How could that not choke the air out of the entire venue?

Sister Glasses, not knowing the truth, assumed Isabella had leaked royal secrets, which was why this girl surnamed Wang could use forbidden spells at all.