Looking at the mechanical puppets, Blake could bet his left kidney that there was something wrong with these puppets.
'Seems there is only one way to find out.' Blake thought as he waited for the signal for the start of the exercise.
"Begin!"
Once Instructor Zirrack made the announcement, the mechanical puppets encased their entire body with mana before dashing towards Blake's team.
'What the hell. Even I don't have that much mana control' the entire team had the same thoughts as Brian.
'Just like I suspected." Blake couldn't help but furrow his brow when he saw their mana encased body parts.
Synching his breathing rhythm with that of nature, Blake activated an enhanced lightning reinforcement and engaged one of the approaching puppets.
With his enhanced speed, Blake threw 2 quick punches aiming at the puppet's head. The mechanical puppet managed to block one of the blows, but the other went landed on its face creating a deep crack.
The force of the punch jerked the puppet's head back and Blake followed up with punches at the shoulders, before giving it a knee to the abdomen.
"Huh??"
To Blake's surprise, the mechanical puppet wasn't reacting to the pain. Once it recovered from the punches to the shoulders, instead of blocking the knee attack it tried to hold on to Blake.
'What the fuck??' Blake was shocked by such behavior, but thanks to his incredible speed Blake dodged grip but that was when the system's warning came.
[Behind you!]
Right behind Blake was a mechanical puppet coming at him with a roundhouse kick.
BOOM!
Before the mechanical puppet could get close to Blake a large ball of golden flames shot it out of the way.
"They don't feel pain and they regenerate any injury that they sustain." Blake informed the team as he retreated.
'Mana cannons?!'
Just when they thought they would have little time to organize themselves, mana cannons were raining hauling towards.
'Just like I suspected this wasn't meant to be easy in any way.' Blake thought as he conjured a mana barrier.
Not only were they able to use strong arcane spells, but their combat skills and team coordination were outstanding.
As they were being bombarded with arcane spells 2 of the mechanical puppets got past Blake and Luciano and went for the weakest link Tessie.
'This is bad…' Seeing the puppets heading for Tessie, 5 tendrils appeared behind Castiel as he intercepted them.
Although his close combat skills weren't on par with that of Blake, thanks to the tendrils he was able to defend against the 2 puppets, but no matter how he tried he couldn't land an attack.
Seeing that hand-to-hand combat wasn't effective against Castiel's tendrils, the mechanical puppets turned the mana on their hands to sharp blades.
"2 can play that game." Castiel did the same thing by reinforcing his hands and tendrils with mana, but when he reengaged with the puppets they easily cut one of his tendrils.
'How?!' For a moment Castiel was shocked by the turn of events, but this was more than enough for the mechanical puppets to end him.
Cutting the remaining tendrils protecting Castiel, the mechanical puppet gave him a heavy blow to the abdomen causing him to wince in pain before receiving an uppercut that made his feet leave the floor.
With the mechanical puppets being in perfect synch, the second puppet had already positioned itself behind Castiel ready to finish him off with a mana blade, but that was when thorny plant vines erupted from below and held it in place.
Seeing that its other counterpart wasn't in serious danger, the mechanical puppet was about to finish Castiel who just landed on the floor, but it suddenly moved out of the way.
BANG!
A lightning bolt swept past the area the puppet was and went straight at the constricted puppet.
"Retreat to the flag!" Blake shouted to his teammates as he grabbed Castiel and ran to the flag.
'I have a plan. Brian create a dome around us and the flag, make it as thick as possible. Castiel get ready to cast Night mist.' Blake said as he regrouped to the flag.
Earth vault!
Night mist!
3 layers of earth erupted from below and formed a dome around the group and at the same time, dark gaseous mists began coming out of Castiel and escaping through holes on the walls of the dome and into the battle ground.
At this point of the battle, every team except that of Blake and Damon which consisted of Haldor, Camilla, Esmeralda, and Layla, every other team had been eliminated.
Although 2 matches were still on, almost all of them had their eyes on Blake's team.
From the regrouping and holing themselves up in a dome to the Night mist that covered the entire battlefield. Everything was totally confusing.
They thought that if they were unable to beat the mechanical puppets then staying in a dome was pointless, but they had no idea that Blake had figured out the main goal of the exercise.
…
BANG!
BANG!
Inside the dome that was being bombarded by arcane spells, the team had no idea why they had regrouped but there were no complaints since Blake said he had a plan.
"Alright, you guys should trust me on this one." Blake began quickly explaining his plan to the team.
"Any objections? Alright let's begin." Blake said.
On the outside, the students had watched as the 1st layer of the dome was destroyed by the arcane spells being rained down on it.
Soon the second layer began cracking, but that was when an ethereal dome appeared over the 2nd layer.
The students turned to instructor Zirrack thinking he would disqualify them, but to their surprise he didn't say anything.
Since he wasn't doing anything they didn't think much about it, besides it was only a matter of time before they lost. Or so they thought.
When they turned back to the battle ground, they saw multiple earth spikes erupting from beneath the dome and moving towards all sides of the battle ground.