Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Chapter 204: Renan’s Actually Fighting Back

The underground arena woke up all over again. Cheering and clapping, praising Lancet for accepting the challenge.

Luke turned fully toward Renan and narrowed his eyes with determination.

The duel was on!

The crowd burst into fresh noise, cheers and shouts ricocheting off the broken stone walls and shattered stands as the first-year students realized that they had been served something truly delicious.

Not one fight. Two. And the strongest Awakener in first year would be in both of them. The entire abandoned arena was being turned into a spectacle for students who were not supposed to be there in the first place.

Some of them were yelling Renan’s name. Very few were shouting for Luke. A few were simply screaming at the top of their lungs because they understood, in the primitive way Awakeners sometimes did, that they were about to witness something worth bragging about for months.

Luke planted his feet and lifted Sunpiercer with both hands, the blade angled forward in a posture that was equal parts challenge and defense.

His eyes were hard, jaw locked, posture rigid with the kind of fury that only grew when it was fed by humiliation and desire.

Renan, in contrast, looked almost infuriatingly calm. Black Gale rested low in his hand, the blade angled with relaxed confidence rather than tension, as though he had all the time in the world and had merely chosen to spend some of it cutting through Luke.

Lancet watched from the broken slab high on the side wall, his expression unreadable at first and then quietly sharp as he measured the distance between the two boys.

He knew what was coming. He had known it the instant Renan accepted the deal. If Renan wanted to, he could end this in one move, maybe two if he felt generous. Three if he wanted to indulge the crowd.

But this was the typical cliche scene of the character who saw themselves as a rival to the MC, facing the MC who didn’t really care about them.

It was expected that Renan would get him out of the way quickly to focus on what he wanted. A duel with Lancet...

Lancet didn’t particularly know why yet. But he wondered if Renan would entertain Luke a little bit anyway. Long enough to make the lesson sting.

Kasto, standing beside Lancet, folded his arms and muttered, "Luke is really doing it. He’s such an idiot. How does he think he’s going to beat him?"

Lancet didn’t look away from the arena. "He won’t... unfortunately."

"Yeah," Kasto said, concern in his voice. "But he’s doing it anyway."

Luke drew in a breath, and the moment he moved, Renan moved first.

Black Gale flashed forward in a clean, silver-black line, not an explosive strike but a measured one, the sort of opening attack that tested not just reaction but nerve.

Luke met it with Sunpiercer, the blades colliding with a crack that sent a ring of force through the arena. Orange smoke burst from Sunpiercer’s edge, silver haze rippling from Black Gale, the two colors colliding in a storm of heat and cold light.

Luke was shoved back a half step, boots scraping stone, but he held his ground and answered immediately with a slash aimed at Renan’s wrist.

Renan twisted his blade and turned the attack aside with a calm, efficient motion that made the counter look almost insulting.

Then heavenly pressure surged from him in a pale, compressed wave, not enough to kill but enough to drive Luke’s shoulders down and force a strain through his stance.

Luke’s eyes widened slightly as he felt the weight of it. This wasn’t the same Renan as before. He had been holding back in the last fight, Lancet could see that now with perfect clarity. This time he was fighting more seriously, and the difference was immediate.

Luke tried to close the gap anyway. He surged in low, Sunpiercer whistling toward Renan’s ribs, but Renan slid back with a Heavenly Step, the movement so clean it looked as though he had been pulled by an unseen current.

Black Gale cut down in a diagonal line and Luke had to pivot sharply to avoid losing an arm. The blade skimmed across the floor, carving a bright scar into the stone.

The crowd screamed.

"Look at that speed!"

"Looks like Renan’s actually fighting back!"

Lancet’s eyes narrowed. Luke was moving better too.

Not just faster. Better.

There was less panic in his feet, less desperation in his shoulders. It looked like he had gotten stronger since the last duel, and Lancet could see it in the way he recovered from the pressure without immediately losing his rhythm. He had learned how to carry himself under threat instead of just reacting to it. That mattered. It mattered a lot.

Luke’s left hand vanished from Sunpiercer for a fraction of a second.

Then a pair of heavy gauntlets snapped onto his arms with a metallic clack.

Gauntlets of Gravity.

The aura around them pulsed once, and the air itself seemed to deepen around his fists, as though weight had suddenly become a living thing.

Luke drove forward and punched toward Renan’s chest. Black Gale came up to block, but the moment Luke’s knuckles connected with the blade, the force did not merely strike. It dragged. The gravity in the gauntlet intensified, and the impact landed like a hammer blow even through the sword. Renan’s feet slid back a few inches across the stone.

The crowd’s roar changed instantly.

"No way!"

"He’s got another summon!"

Lancet leaned forward sharply. "Gravity gauntlets?"

Kasto stared. "Since when did he get those?"

Luke didn’t give them time to wonder. He followed the punch with a second one, this one heavier, the gravity effect compounding into the strike so that even the air around his fist seemed to thicken.

Renan raised Black Gale in time, but the force still drove him back another step. Luke had momentum now, and he knew it. He didn’t let up. Sunpiercer vanished into light and reappeared in his grip a heartbeat later, and he cut low, then high, then high again, trying to drag Renan into the kind of close-quarters chaos where his adaptability could matter more than raw strength.

But to Luke’s surprise, Renan had an instant response.

Black Gale swept upward...