Chapter 162.

PART 1.

The tournament resumes, and Avinash and Aditya are chosen to be the first duelers of the day. both come to the ring and face each other. As they begin to exchange spells, Avinash finds himself on the backfoot.

The conjured iron spikes graze his body, and a blade of magic slices his chest. Avinash then receives a spell to his gut, knocking his breath out, and finds himself on the back, very close to the edge of the ring.

Aditya smirked at him and made the motion to blast him out, but instead of seeing Aditya, Avinash saw Porus standing there, smirking at him. he watched as the king prepared to finish him off, much like he had done to the other challengers, and his dream starting to slip from his fingers like water.

Unable to take this image, Avinash gets up, batting the blast spell aside. A section of the audience has to scramble out of the way, as their seats are shattered. Avinash then starts to take a step forward and starts another spell exchange with Aditya.

Aditya is an experienced dueler, but he hesitates in casting his spells, and he is also stepping back from the approaching Avinash. That is because the expression on his opponent’s face is scaring him. he has not seen this kind of madness in his life in the ring.

This time, Aditya is the one who is taking damage. His hair caught fire, despite the enchanted protections on them to stop it from happening, and many spells damaged his chest, breaking his ribs, and dealing small and large cuts to his arms. And Avinash kept coming closer during the entire time.

it does not take Avinash too long to corner his opponent in the ring, and Aditya then runs out of there to avoid the massive wave of fire coming at him. though he has protected his clothes and body against the fire, he is not certain he would be able to avoid crippling damage if he tried to take that spell. “Avinash wins.” Announces the yantra and the madness disappears from Avinash, as he finally registers a victory.

“That was an intense match,” said Nandan.

“Agreed. Though I am worried for that boy Avinash. Going berserk like this can be very dangerous.” Commented Dimitri. “If he makes it into the team, I have to work with him to fix this.”

The next duelists are Ravina and Josh. Josh starts to attack from the start, but once again, Ravina just dodges or uses the shields. Despite this, she did not avoid the damage entirely, as she got hit in the stomach, and a spell left a small cut on her cheek.

When Josh brings out his heavy spells with water elements, she creates a bunker in the middle of the ring with rocky walls surrounding her. They exchanged the spell fire from this position at first but did not deal any damage to each other. Josh turned the water acidic to melt through the rock, but by that point, it was too late. Ravina hid the beast she created after transmuting the rubble of the previous battles, and it pounced on Josh. He was dragged outside and lost the match.

Dimitri shook his head. “If only he were a little bit faster, he could have won.”

“He also needs to be more aware of his surroundings.” Commented Nandan, and Dimitri nodded in agreement.

The names of Vivek and Shin flash on the screen. But Vivek is unable to approach. “Shin wins by default since his opponent is in no condition to battle.” Declared the yantra.

Hatori is then chosen to face Daphne, and both of them come to the ring, ready to face each other. Hatori has a grin on his face. So far, Daphne has done wonderfully, and she is bound to be quite challenging for him. he, of course, won’t go soft on her, since it would be insulting to her skills.

The duel begins. They try to find any weaknesses in each other’s defenses, using small-scale spells on each other. When it becomes clear to both of them that this won’t work, they quickly start to use heavy spells. Hatori tries to blast Daphne out of the ring, but she manages to sidestep it. the spell was powerful enough to damage the floor of the ring, and Daphne had to deal with the flying shrapnel coming her way.

Hatori seizes this chance to continue attacking, bombarding her position with more spells, but Daphne does not remain passive for too long. She also retaliated with spells of her own, but most of them missed Hatori. though a few of them hit him, and judging by how he staggered after each hit, they did hit hard indeed. Daphne is annoyed after seeing that. all those spells could have floored anyone in the tournament, and yet they only made Hatori stagger a little.

But she smirks, as she observes him preparing to attack her again. “You should be more aware of what’s going on behind you.” she could not resist that jibe and punctuated it by bringing her hand down. She did not use her foci for this, but the audience did not see this.

Because the entire ring is then consumed in flames, as a cloud descends upon Hatori’s position, and the heat becomes so unbearable that the audience has to get far from the ring. Daphne commands these flames effortlessly, she alone stands untouched within this massive inferno.

This is the most destructive spell in the tournament so far, and some students are wondering whether this would be the first fatality of the tournament or not. “Hahahahahahahahahaha!” all the speculation is silenced by that laugh, as Hatori walks out of the flames, burns clearly visible on his body. “Master Zeko would have liked you as a student,” said Hatori.

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Then, a cloud appears on the ring. But this time, it is a raincloud. But instead of water, it rained lightning, crackling and booming every time the lightning struck Daphne’s position. Every strike is coordinated with Hatori’s staff as if he is a conductor of an orchestra in stormy weather. Daphne could not shield against the lightning, as they would be breached. So running is the only option for her, and making sure that she does not suffer shocks too badly.

Her hands have gone numb, as a result, she loses control over the fire, and the spell fades. But Hatori’s lightning cloud still remains. “This isn’t fun anymore,” he muttered, though Daphne heard him clearly. “Hmm. maybe I can manipulate the shape entirely?”

The cloud starts to change its shape, and instead of a cloud, it turns into an eagle made of lightning. Daphne suddenly finds herself running faster all over the ring, as the eagle chased her much faster than the cloud. She could not run forever, and the bird caught her in its talons. She is shocked by the very touch of this shape-shifting spell and loses consciousness a few seconds later.

While Hatori basks in his victory, four people are having the same thoughts. Raven, who is sitting in the audience near the competitors, James who is with the healers and retrieving Daphne, Shin, and Josh who are sitting with the competitors, all thought the same thing: ‘Did he have to grandstand so much?’

“That felt like more of a flirt than a fight,” said Dimitri, ignoring the destruction in the ring.

“Well,” said Nandan, “The distinction can be narrow sometimes.”

The next duel is between Ranveer and Yatharth. Dimitri is disappointed to see this duel. There is nothing good or exciting about it. granted, after the performances given by Avinash, Hatori, and Daphne today, any duel would feel lackluster. But Dimitri feels that this duel would have been the same, no matter what day he watches it.

Thankfully, it does not take too long for it to be over, and the next, and the final duel of the day to begin. Tom and Praduman are coming to the ring. A match between two powerhouses. “If nothing else, it should be interesting to see two bulls fight each other.”

“Come now master, give them more credit.” Said Nandan. “They are better than the bulls.”

“Yeah, at least they’ve got magic,” said Dimitri, as the fight started.

While the match between Daphne and Hatori was destructive, this one was bloody. They did not use large-scale elemental magic. instead, both of them stick to small-scale magic, such as small fireballs, or rocks. But Tom’s fireballs have a more concentrated fire, and the rocks and stones that Praduman used to pelt him with felt like the bulky boy was personally bashing him with those since they did not lose their force while traveling the small distance to hit Tom.

As a result of this, both duelers are injured and bloody by the end, but Tom emerges victorious, after pinning Praduman’s arms to the ground with heavy chains and threatening to blast his face with a spell.

As the duelers walk out with the audience, an injured Vivek glairs at Shin and Tom, while Avinash is giddy with his first win.

‘I must continue this momentum!’ he thought to himself.

PART 2.

The atmosphere in the room is hostile. Dimitri is sitting on one side, while a group of professors is sitting in front of him. Corvus is sitting in the middle, and wondering why are these people ruining his tea time.

“Look, I understand that you need to select the team members,” said Professor Mohanlal, “But it does not mean that you can just make them fight all the time. you should let these kids rest.”

“Much like how you let them rest from the intrigue?” Dimitri shoots back. “Tell me, do you have any idea of what a dueling tournament is like? Any of you?” he asked, getting headshakes in the process.

“None of you have ever participated in one. these students would be going to a different country to face schools from all over the world. there would be pressure on them, and they won’t get much time to recover. They have to be good at enduring, or else they will collapse.” Said Dimitri. “I checked the last team’s performances. You sent such students who cried to their parents after the very first match to call them home.”

“I understand that, but why can’t you increase the duration of the tournament?” asked another professor.

“Because that will shorten the training time,” explained Dimitri. “The team won’t be set, I won’t be able to help them out individually. I was hired as a coach to teach them dueling and take them in this tournament. And I won’t let the soft academics ruin my stint as a coach!” Dimitri slammed his hand on the table, as the argument started to rage.

The professors yelled at him for half an hour, but after getting their throats sore from arguing and yelling for this long, they realized that Dimitri was not going to change his mind. So, they leave in a huff. The future coach turns to the headmaster.

“I don’t know how you handle these people.” He complained, rubbing his ears.

“Experience. That, and my reputation ensure that they would think a hundred times before raising their voice against me,” replied Corvus, sipping his tea.