Group 6’s battles finished, and a dark horse emerged in this group.
A silver level 10 won the battles against three others and even defeated the Super Rookie that was in the group.
Maya Himdar—a light brown-skinned girl with dark blue wavy hair. She was six feet tall and a natural beauty, awakened in the previous month like Almond, Lily, and Natalia.
Nobody knew about her class ranks, but she appeared to have ice elemental mastery and water elemental mastery.
The super rookie of the group—Eliara Venholm Silver level 30, from the 4th rank Ironclad Guild, came in 2nd place as Maya defeated her.
Group 7’s winners were both Super Rookies of the group. They were from the 9th rank Lightstrike guild and 11th rank Shadowforge guild, respectively.
Finn Arelion — Silver 30
Mira Nilok — Silver 30
In the next group, one more dark horse arose, defeating another Super Rookie despite being Silver level 10 as he had awakened the previous month.
Marcus Venath, a tall chap with broad-shoulders and a square face with black-brownish hair and blue eyes.
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Apparently, he wasn’t affiliated with any guild or family yet like Maya, so both of them were like a tasty piece of meat for the top forces to grab.
The super rookie who lost to Marcus was Talia Graves, from the prestigious Graves family, who was well-versed in gunplay as a former military-heavy family and had found a unique usage of Mana to create magic firearms. Their specialized classes also had a theme that screamed gun-based mages.
Unfortunately, Marcus was a tanky warrior type with some good moves and skills matching that as he defeated Talia and emerged as a dark horse.
The two advanced to the next round, and then finally came the Group 9’s battles.
The group’s first match started with Natalia facing the best of the group and one of the favorites Super Rookie—Kira Ryugiri!
As Gelato asked what weapons they wanted, Kira asked for a katana, and Natalia summoned her instruments as 50% of her Maximum Mana was locked, while her Mana recovery drastically increased as a result.
“This will be my weapon,” Natalia said as she grabbed the Chaosbound Flute.
“A summoner, eh? Alright. Good luck.”
Kira curiously looked at the four instruments as she stood in a stance, “That’s a very interesting class. Could I get its name, please?”
“Chaosbound Serenador,” Natalia grinned. “My specialized class. Cool, right?”
“Very cool,” Kira nodded while smiling as she stood in a creative katana stance of her family called the Crescent Moon stance—she held the sword in an arc-like shape to unleash smooth, wide cuts that mimic a crescent moon’s curve. “Let’s have fun.”
The countdown began.
Lily looked at Kira’s stance and asked Almond, “What do you think about her sword stance?”
“An interesting stance. It seemed to be used to keep an adequate distance from the target and use the katana’s maximum range for shallow cuts, based on how her feet are positioned, to keep her speed consistent and allow for multiple rapid slashes or swift counterattacks and guards. It feels like an all-rounder stance, special stance.”
Lily turned to him with a wry smile, “You can read that much?”
Almond chuckled, “Well, I just imagined myself in that stance with that katana, and I could explore its possibilities. It’s a fun stance, especially with Weapon Enfold and other skills that allow for projectile or extended magic slashes. I would say it’s a very refined stance as long as her footwork is properly synergized with it.”
“I see…” Lily looked at Kira and also imagined herself in Kira’s place while holding the Katana. “Hmm….this gives me ideas on how to use my daggers…and I might want a new pair of unique daggers now, long and less curved,” she muttered as her eyes glinted.
“Oh, you’re visioning it good. Imagining and putting it into practice is a good way to improve and innovate. I do that all the time.”
“Mhmm,” Lily nodded.
The battle between Natalia and Kira began.
Natalia’s all three instruments activated as they started their orchestra.
The Chaosbound Drums began drumming as she had set its consumption at 10 Mana per second. It increased her physical Strength and reduced the target’s physical strength in equal amounts, scaling based on her maximum Mana. Right now, she could reduce enemies’ Strength stat by 9 and increase hers by 9 per 10 Mana consumption per second.
The Chaosbound Cello started singing as well, with a Mana consumption of 5 per second, increasing the potency of her skills, basically making her Mana stronger so her Mana techniques and any magic-based attacks became stronger, making them 5% more potent.
The Chaosbound Piano started dishing out melodies in ears and curvy slashes in the air towards Kira. The shape of these attacks was decided by Natalia, with Mana consumption set at 10 Mana per second.
Kira faced the batches of three sound slashes coming at her each second, but she calmly destroyed them with her katana slashes, sometimes even taking two with a single slash.
Natalia only waited for three seconds before she also started playing her flute, going all out.
The flute released a spherical-shaped pale golden projectile with a glowing black center point, super fast and precise, it arrived in front of Kira, making her eyes flicker as she finally moved, taking a backstep while slashing horizontally.
*Boom!*
The flute’s attack exploded in a small area with strong potency.
‘Powerful,’ Kira’s eyes flickered in excitement as she finally attacked, releasing a starry blue slash at Natalia before her figure blurred as she used a movement-type skill.
Natalia deliberated, suspended three flute-based attacks in front of her, and exploded, destroying her incoming slash and obscuring her view briefly.
Kira’s Focus Field could still observe her, but she suddenly saw two identical auras in her field.
Two Natalias holding flutes appeared, and both released the same type of flute attacks toward Kira.
Natalia’s Primary Class’s skill Mirage Clone had reached A-rank because it was upgraded with a level-up boon. Its Mana cost increased, but it could now mimic her attacks at 80% potency for the duration it was active.
“What a battle!” Gelato shouted, and the audience cheered as both Kira and Natalia fought intensely, destroying each other’s attacks.
Kira was swift and precise, exuding proficiency and appearing to have the upper hand as she was pushing Natalia despite her large number of chaotic attacks.
But it was going evenly thanks to Natalia’s kit of having insane Mana recovery that allowed her to make up for her lack of combat ability against Kira.
‘Fun,’ Kira stopped her dash, her eyes shining, and her aura surged as she suddenly dodged a wave of attack with a movement skill and slashed her katana four times in an insane motion speed as if she suddenly accelerated, which was the result of her S-rank skill—Sword Bending Motion, Ryugiri Clan’s most prized learnable skill.
Two horizontal slashes and two vertical slashes, enchanted with her water attribute in a masterful way as those slashes had high-speed sharpened water motion that increased the attacks’ sharpness to a whole new level.
She also buffed herself with her specialized class skill, increasing the attacks’ speed and power further.
Natalia wanted to dodge as she and her clone moved in different directions while she determinedly aimed her attacks from Piano and Flute on Kira.
Alas, Natalia didn’t have enough speed, and these four slashes superimposed on each other to create a board of tic-tac-toe was large enough to cover herself and her clone both.
Natalia didn’t have any movement-type skill, and this attack required a powerful one to even be able to dodge.
The attack struck Natalia and her clone. She failed to dodge, and her clone was also destroyed.
The beep sound rang, but it was just one sound. There were two sounds because Natalia’s wide and multiple attacks from her Flute and Piano also struck Kira at the right time, not giving Kira a chance to dodge.
The battle ended in a draw.
“Wonderful battle, Natalia Lorzach and Kira Ryugiri! I can’t believe it resulted in a draw!”
The audience erupted in a loud ruckus as they watched another intense battle and the emergence of a new dark horse!
Almond wryly smiled, “Kira’s last attack would’ve rendered her sound attacks useless and cut past them even if she tried to defend herself…Well, that was a good decision on her part to go all out on Kira instead of defending herself.”‘
Lily had a happy smile on her face as she nodded, “She didn’t lose. But I must say, the Mana Crystalline played a big part. If it wasn’t for that, she would’ve exhausted her Mana faster and lost.”
“Yep. She needs to practice and hone her combat style further,” Almond nodded. “And she needs a powerful movement skill.”
On the platform, Kira walked towards Natalia while grinning, “Good Battle, Natalia.”
Natalia got up and rubbed her stomach, “damn, I thought I was gonna die.”
Looking at Kira, she responded with a wry smile, “I wasn’t expecting to win, but I didn’t want to lose. Good battle, indeed.”
“Your flute attacks were dreadfully precise and fast,” Kira smiled as she stretched her hand. “You must have practiced a lot to learn this new style based on your class.”
“Yep, but yours were even more scary,” Natalia rolled her eyes as she shook hands. “I had to use three of my attacks to destroy one of yours. But I’ll get better at my style and defeat you!”
“I’ll wait for the rematch,” Kira smiled.
“Wonderful battle, lovely ladies! A round of applause for Kira the Crescent Stormblade and Natalia the Chaos Symphony!”