Daniel saw Leslie taking her sweet time to go up the platform and he frowned, but since they couldn’t start the fight until Stella announced the rules, he remained silent.
The screens changed their focus to Stella, making all those who were talking among the spectators to stop.
“Welcome to all the students and guests, today the second half of the tournament will take place, and so we have new rules for the upcoming matches”.
“Unlike before, the participants are formally separated in two groups, the formal elite class leaded by Daimon Licht and the trial elite class leaded by Alexander Jolbaris, for a total of sixteen people, just like yesterday the match for the captain’s position will be upheld at last”.
“Now for the new rules… there won’t be the option of forfeiting, the match will only end when one party can’t move anymore or has left the platform, also the matches will have a limit of thirty minutes, without further ado let’s start with the first of today’s four matches”.
The referees jumped out of the platform and the screens changed their focus to the participants.
From the bench, Daimon observed Daniel with a slightly frown on his face.
Daniel Jolbaris has a mix between brown and orange hair, he is rather tall and judging by his metal armor a knight, a wise chose considering he didn’t want to be a support and his affinity is water, but the most important thing was that he was already a middle stage two-star knight.
‘His base is unstable, he pushed himself to advance with pills, what a fool’, thought Daimon, the star ranks are meant to be foundation of mages and knights, the better their bases the easier it will be for them to advance later on.
The problem was that the star ranks were the only that could be easily swept using alchemic products, so the temptation of advancing faster was quite high for the beginners.
Daimon stole a gaze at Alexander and saw him glaring at him, with a hatred filled expression, it was obvious that the option to forfeit being removed had something to do with him.
‘Idiot you just made your tomb deeper’, thought Aster as he focused his attention on Leslie.
While her appearance hasn’t changed that much, with his current eyes he could notice that although she still had that slender agile figure, there was a slightly noticeable increase in her curves, but that wasn’t what caught his attention but the fact that her autumn leave colored hair seemed to had a certain bright, something he never saw before even when he was actively injecting mana on his eyes.
“Oh, are we on the hunt again?”, asked Evangeline in an amused voice as she noticed Daimon looking at Leslie.
Daimon inwardly chuckled as he answered.
“Are you feeling jealous?”.
Evangeline froze, choosing to remain silent, Daimon finally learned the best way to get back at her, whenever she tried to tease him, he just had to do the same.
…
While Daimon and Evangeline were having a little discussion, the referees gave the greenlight and the battle started.
Although Daniel despised Leslie for being only a one-star mage, he didn’t underestimate her, a light blue colored battle aura covered his whole body, he took out his weapon, a whip which was covered in a current of water.
Leslie on the other hand took out her weapon of choice, a fan with metal spikes, as orange flames gathered, before they condensed in a few streams that swirled around her body.
‘A battle of opposites’, thought the spectators, when fire and water clash, normally the winner is the one with the highest realm, specially when it comes to mages and knights fighting.
“Haaa!”, Daniel didn’t wait for Leslie to do the first move, he let out waves of his battle aura as he rushed towards Leslie, in a long range battle a fire mage has a huge advantage, so he wanted to make this a close combat.
‘You are dead meat’, he thought as he launched the first punch accompanied by the martial art, aura fist, aimed directly at Leslie’s chest.
Just when everyone was imagining the horrible image of a slim girl like Leslie taking the punch of a knight, flames covered her legs and her figure flashed as she dodged sidewards.
Leslie closed her fan and a wave of flames was shot from one of the metal spikes, taking Daniel by surprise, he jumped backwards but was a bit slower which caused a couple of his hairs to be burnt.
“Woaaah!”, the spectators went crazy, Leslie’s feet elegantly slid on the platform which combined with her flames and the movement of her fan, made it look as if she was dancing.
Daniel frowned, looking at the armor on his arm he noticed a few burn marks, where he was exposed to those streams of fire.
He stomped creating waves of battle aura that flew towards Leslie, although it was water oriented, it was still battle aura which is known for having mass, and so the waves left behind traces on the platform.
Leslie jumped sidewards but the waves followed her, water’s property is flexibility it was easy even for a knight to manipulate the trajectory of their attacks.
“Humph”, Leslie softly snorted, she rolled her body and used her fan to shot one of the streams of fire which were floating around her, the flames and the battle aura clashed cancelling each other and creating a large amount of steam.
While most thought it was a tie, those who were paying attention noticed a big detail, Leslie has a lower realm and yet her flames were on par with Daniel’s battle aura.
Leslie saw the ends of her dress that were a bit wet due to the steam and she waved her hand, using her fan to disperse it before using the heat of her flames to dry up.
Daniel felt Alexander’s gaze on his back and he gritted his teeth, if he lost, he could forget about having a decent position in the Jolbaris family.
His battle aura flooded the scenario as he changed his stance.
‘I was going easy on you, since you are a woman, but you all are getting in my way’, he shouted on his heart as he swung his whip towards Leslie.
Leslie simple dodged it, but the current of water on the whip then changed directions and tore a piece of her skirt leaving a slight red mark on her leg.
Leslie made a small pained expression, although the whip barely touched it, and the cut was quite stretch it was rather deep, Daniel clearly aimed at her legs to immobilized her.
“Stop restraining yourself, burn his ass!”.
“Destroy him”.
From the benches, Yvonne and Liliana cheered Leslie, which seemed to be not giving her all for some reason.
Daniel felt insulted and while he was being pressured by Alexander, his opponent was receiving support from her classmates, something other spectators also noticed.
‘Whatever, let’s put an end to this’, he thought, his whip made circles around him as more battle aura was poured in, until the current of water took the form of a water tiger.
Daniel’s face paled a bit, this was his best movement, a legacy martial art passed down by his father’s family, since they were all born with water affinity.
Leslie saw the three-meter-tall water tiger and she steeled her heart, her eyes hair and eyes glowed with an orange light and flames exploded behind her, after a couple seconds the flames changed their shape into a pair of large wings.
Daniel knew this exchange will decide the winner, so he retreated and then swung his whip which was connected to the tail of the water tiger to make it rush towards Leslie with its claws ready to tear her to pieces.
Leslie tapped her right foot on the platform a couple of times, she jumped upwards and used the wings to glide completely avoiding the tiger, if she tried to evaporate the tiger, she would collapse, as her reserves of mana weren’t as big as Daniel’s reserves due to the difference in their realms, with spells or martial arts like that, the best option was to attack the one controlling it.
As soon as she landed, Daniel smirked, the tiger suddenly changed the position of its head and tail, before Leslie could react, she was hit on her back by a large paw making her body fly a few meters until she regained her balance.
Daniel spat some blood, due to the reaction of manipulating his martial art in such an extreme way, but Leslie was the same, she had three marks of claws on the back of her blouse which pierced the leather armor leaving behind bloody cuts.
Still, she clenched her fists and enduring the pain, made the flames which she purposedly scattered to form the wings again, but there was a difference, their color became brighter and they also seemed to be… running wild.
Leslie smiled while a faint trace of blood came out of her little lips, flames exploded on her legs and she disappeared from where she was standing, Daniel realized this was her last resort so he did the same, the water combined with battle aura which was giving form to the tiger, dissolved and gathered around Daniel forming a dome which then started rotating.
“Tiger cascade shield!”, he shouted.
Leslie didn’t stop her charge, but instead of clashing against the shield, she landed a few centimeters away from it, then with her fan on her hand she started making circles around it, with time, streams of flames hit the dome making it tremble, the spikes of her fan one by one were shoved on the dome, then the streams of flames propelled them creating a loud impact.
“No way!”, Daniel nearly lost it, practically all his reserves of battle aura were condensed to form the shield and it just cracked, but he still laughed as the spikes were stopped cold by a second hidden layer of the dome.
“You lost… aghhh!!!”, Daniel’s eyes were suddenly flashed by a dazzling orange light, before tons of feathers pierced the second layer of the dome landing directly on his body before they exploded.
“Damn”, one of the referees immediately swept the flames that exploded revealing a Daniel which was burnt to the point that was unrecognizable, the metal armor melted and stuck to his skin, and most of his body had third degree burns, it was quite a horrible sight.
Leslie covered her mouth with her hand resisting the urge to puke while she also gasped for air.
An uncomfortable silence fell on the arena, even the spectators which were cheering Leslie before, couldn’t help but find her vicious and cruel now, but not everyone thought the same, Aleah on the skybox of the elite class along with Aliya and Boris were convinced by the result, unlike those who were raised like flowers in a greenhouse, she showed the decisiveness of someone that has been in a critical situation and managed to survive.
Let alone Calvin or Michael, even Daimon was surprised by the outcome.
‘What a dangerous kind of ballet is that, she purposedly received the attack of the tiger and that somehow made her flames become stronger’, he thought.
The referees were used to see real fights, so besides the uncomfortable smell of burnt flesh, they ignored the wounds and inspected Daniel, although healing was going to be painful as he had metal melted on his skin, he was alive and the flames didn’t burn his internal organs, his eyes on the other hand were gone, but nothing that couldn’t be healed.
“The winner, Leslie Risha”.
Only after hearing the announcement, Leslie let her body collapse on the platform, but before closing her eyes she looked at Daimon, just to see he didn’t have any kind of disgust towards her, in fact his smile was the last thing she saw before she fell asleep, due to the exhaust of depleting her mana reserves.
“Yvi, Liliana, you two take her to the resting area”, said Daimon without caring about that no one had done that before, it was always the staff chosen the ones that had to take the students to the infirmary or at least out of the platform.
The referees frowned, but there was no rule against it too, and the winner was already declared so they allowed it.
At the skybox of the elite class, the three Risha mothers were impressed by Leslie’s performance.
“That girl has grown up quite a bit”, said Veronica as she smiled from ear to ear, unlike her, her daughter was a bit soft hearted, and their flames were more destructive than normal due to their lineage.