“Yes, it was sound.” The king heaved a long sigh as he responded to Ajax’s awed remark. “As far as we can work out Sonic mana is a Legendary mana type, a rather devastating one at that.”
“Legendary?!” Ajax was even more surprised and slightly more ashamed that he had overlooked this for so long. “He doesn’t have the affinity.” Ajax’s follow up statement was very sure of himself.
“Nobody has managed to get that affinity in any of the records we possess.” the king said. “Despite that there are more than one or two spells that have been recovered from ruins throughout the years that have allowed mages to use the mana type.”
“After a certain volume sound causes vibrations.” Lexi tried her best to help Ajax understand the basics of what made the mana type so dangerous, not knowing that he knew some things even better than she did. “More than that sound actually travels faster the denser the mana is in an area.”
As the conversation was going on both fighters were going for one another. After his stealth had been broken Shadow was forced to rely on his throwing knives in order to keep pressure on the mage as he closed the distance as best he could. Aranor had fallen back to his trusty overchanted ice lances as he fired them one after another.
Aranor quickly realized that his tactic wasn’t sustainable, for every three lances he threw out only one connected with the beastkin. Under normal circumstances this would be a good outcome for him but the ice lances that missed smashed full strength into the arena’s defensive barrier and that couldn’t take too much of a pounding.
“But how does the world sync up with sound travels faster in mana dense regions?” Ajax knew that the world as they saw it was a lie, it was something that his highschool physics teacher had done a memorable demonstration on. Sound traveled much slower than light and it was the brain that picked up the information and processed it correctly to make the sound line up with the movie his eyes recorded. Not only that but could sound spells be stopped with a shell devoid of air? Would the mana powering the spell allow it to travel through space even?
“Impressive that you figured so much out yourself.” the crown prince said with a raised eyebrow. “But you underestimate your own body. There is a reason why everybody can feel when they are in a highly dense mana zone or one that is dry. Your body learns to make the adjustment, though big sudden changes have been known to cause migraines as the brain adapts to the change.”
As Shadow managed to slowly close the gap he had finally gotten close enough to pull out his favorite trick. A quick release of the shadow mana he had been gathering influenced both his own shadow and Aranor’s to shift and combine.
Unlike every other time he did this however Aranor was not only expecting it but he had a counter in place. The enchantment on his staff surged with mana as a shower of powerful rays of light emitted from the top of the staff, more than one of which shined down on the combined shadows.
“RRRRGGGGGHHHHHH” Shadow roared in pain as he was violently ejected from his shadow travel. His advanced mobility spell clearly came with a few drawbacks when it came to vulnerability. This was clearly evidenced by the few chunks of flesh that were missing across his body. Unlike a normal cut or burn the wound simply looked as if the flesh that was there was simply erased from existence.
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“That was risky.” Xavier said as he looked at the bleeding beastkin. “It seems he could have done some serious damage with that.”
“It was controlled.” the king’s oldest son corrected. “Every single one of those light beams only hit the edges of the shadows, you can see the wounds are limited to his limbs.”
It was so easy for Ajax to forget that despite the fierce battle going on both fighters were actually giving each other a good safety margin. Seeing how the topic of the conversation shifted, Ajax returned to an early point as he whispered to Lexi “What did you mean sound causes vibrations when it’s loud enough?”
“Just what I said.” Lexi doubled down. “We don’t know why but a loud enough sound will generate vibrations.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Ajax said as he shook his head. “Why do you say only when it’s loud enough, I thought all sound was vibrations.”
Despite being whispered their conversation was easily heard by everyone in attendance with a high enough Perception stat, Ajax’s observation drew odd looks from all of them.
“Wait, not only do you think that all sound produces vibrations.” Lexi said as she frowned a little. “You say that all sound is vibrations. You’ll have to explain that to me sometime.”
Lexi wasn’t the only person there that was interested by Ajax’s theory, especially considering his previous accomplishments, but everyone knew now wasn’t the time to ask for an explanation, the fight was moving into its final stages.
Now that the fighters were so close to one another they both had to focus on speed. Shadow’s slashes barely had any power behind them focusing more on making contact in time. Aranor on the other hand could barely do a single chant of his spells before releasing them.
This essentially turned the offensive abilities of both opponents into wet noodles. Neither of their attacks was strong enough to make it past the enchanted protections runes they each wore but the with every landed attack the momentum of the blow let them gain a better position while also slowly draining through the enchantments of their adversary.
“Why is he using such wide attacks?” Ajax couldn’t help but asked as he watched Aranor release a wind burst that covered everything in front of him. “He was so precise at the start.”
“Because his body can’t keep up.” Anna answered. “Most spells, especially the shorter variations, have the hands as a launch point. Sure any fine tuning is done with your mana control but the general direction is decided by where you point your hand.”
“When Shadow was far away his hand would just need to point in his general direction and he would be able to use his mana to target the spell correctly.” Lexi said with a hint of bitterness that told Ajax she had gone through something similar during her training. “Right now Shadow is moving around faster than Aranor can turn his hand.”
This was the advantage of physical fighters. Even from ten paces away Shadow could actually run halfway around Aranor before the man could rotate his body and arm in the same manner.
Then it happened, for the first time since the fight started Shadow had managed to actually draw blood from Aranor as his knife slashed across the elf’s open palm. Despite the pain however Aranor was smiling.
A wave of frost traveled up the bloody blade over Shadow’s hand and halfway up his arm, all the way to the elbow. The move clearly surprised Shadow and in the moment of shock as the beastkin registered his frozen limb Aranor was quick to release a frost nova that locked Shadow’s feet to the ground.
“The elves must be more desperate than we thought.” the king said as he watched Shadow break his feet free of the ice. “To use frozen touch in the arena.”
“What’s wrong with that spell?” Xavier asked.
“It bypasses defensive enchantments.” the king’s oldest son said. “Certain rules are there for safety that we have to follow. The only reason the match wasn’t stopped was because Aranor used that spell passively as his hand was slashed.”
Despite Shadow reacting too quickly he was put fully on the defensive. With his left hand now frozen it was only a matter of how long he could hold out as the mage started to ramp up the volley of spells he was churning out.
It didn’t take long for Shadow to signal his surrender. Unlike the other matches in this tournament, despite the official match ending the fight wasn’t as clear cut. In an open field Shadow would have been able to disengage and recover without issue. Still rules were rules and both fighters silently walked out of the arena, for once the healers waited on the sidelines with no massive injury requiring them to dash in the arena.
Ajax didn’t even wait for the arena to start remodeling as he stood up. He looked across the field towards his next opponent as she also stood up at the same time. The challenge was clear in her eyes, even her snake was staring at Ajax and though he couldn’t hear it from so far away he was sure it was hissing.