Chapter 169.

PART 1.

Today is the final day of the tournament. The first match is between Shin and Aditya. At the start of the match, Aditya creates a fissure on the ground, and Shin has to jump away to avoid falling inside of it.

Aditya takes advantage of this and tries to hit Shin with some spells while he is in the air, but Shin makes a circular shield around himself, blocking those spells. the air starts to heat up, and Aditya is pushed around by the air. it also makes it hard to breathe or see for him. A note reaches Aditya’s ears, and he finds himself buried under several rocks by the end, unable to move or defend himself. Therefore, he lost.

“Hmm. some earth element. Good. good.” praised Dimitri. Shin needs to realize that he has to diversify if he wishes to defeat his opponents in the tournaments.

Shin is happy that he is ending this tournament on a winning note, but he is still not happy with his win/loss ratio. ‘Maybe it would have been better if I took it seriously from the very beginning.’

Tom and Josh are the second fighters of the day. they start by hurling conjured sharp blades at each other, which are then blocked by iron sheets, conjured to avoid the damage just in time. Dimitri is missing the commentary for the first time in this tournament after watching that exchange.

Tom attacks with the flames shaped in the style of dogs, but Josh conjures a water snake, which extinguishes these flames. Taking advantage of the steam, Tom tries to maneuver behind Josh, thinking to take advantage of the poor awareness he has displayed so far in this tournament. But Josh is on him, and he turns around, and fires ice shards at Tom, some of which do hit his face and thighs. But Tom is not behind when it comes to dealing damage, he taps his staff after a stabbing motion, and Josh finds himself looking at a wave of rocks coming at him, ready to trap him. he blasts them away, but these shards are sent back by Tom, and they struck Josh’s arms and his face.

Josh attacks Tom with a few non-elemental spells, but it turns out to be an illusion. The real Tom is to Josh’s right, and Josh is pierced by many of his conjured nails. Tom is just about to channel fire through these nails, but Josh removes them in a hurry, and the area around him gets slowly covered in his blood. Josh uses the water he has already extracted from the air and used earlier in the fight to create more ice shards. Tom is not ready for this and finds himself with similar wounds.

Another piece of Ice comes from the side, and hammers Tom, knocking him out and concluding this bloody match.

the healers swarm the ring to take both fighters away to get patched up.

Praduman is facing Ravina. When the match started, he was expecting her to defend against his spells, like she had done from the beginning. But instead, she moved out of the way of his slow spells and counterattacked. Caught flat-footed with this response, Praduman had to defend himself hastily and move out of the way of Ravina’s spell, and after that, she made him run all over the ring.

Not once she relented, or let him regain his footing. Praduman is defending as best as he can, but he is unable to deal with those fast spells. he can’t block all of them, and he can’t outrun them. he is unable to just stand there and take it all and lash out because these spells are quite damaging.

In the end, he is on the floor, gasping for breath, while Ravina is victorious. She breathes deeply. ‘Maybe I’ve gotten lazy. I have to work on my own stamina as well.’ she thinks.

She considers herself lucky that she got Praduman as an opponent today. His bulky form made it easy for her to exhaust him. The same thing might have worked on Josh, but that guy hangs around Hatori, he likely has better stamina than Praduman.

Yatharth faces Daphne. He knows that she is a strong one, so he opens with some fire arrows from the get-go. Though the archery style is hard and impractical sometimes, Yatharth loves it for there is no other way to use elemental magic quicker than this. No swishing, slashing, flicking, or other such motions. Only fociless casting can match this, and if he remembers the events of four years ago correctly, only one person can cast fociless magic in this tournament.

Daphne blocks these fire arrows with water and then counterattacks. She tries to damage Yatharth’s arms to make it impossible for him to draw on his bowstring since it is not possible to draw it with one hand. But despite his rather lackluster movement, Yatharth is managing to avoid her spells.

Yatharth thinks about the current position and decides that it is going nowhere. So he draws his bowstring once more and lets loose the most recent spell he has learned. He is surprised that he actually managed to cast it in a duel perfectly, though he is not confident that he can do it once more without practice.

A cloud of smog descends on Daphne, impairing her vision. At first, she thought it would do this one thing only. But slowly, her movements start to become sluggish, and she feels groggy as if she has not slept for the last five days. ‘Poison!’ she thinks.

Though she doesn’t have a cure for this toxin in the smoke, she still has her movement. It hasn’t crippled her completely yet. So, she jumps out of the smoke and attacks Yatharth again with fire spells. Yatharth was not expecting this. As a result, the string of his bow is burnt. After that, he surrenders, and healers come to the ring to pick up Daphne.

“Somehow, this sight looks wrong.” Said Hatori to Raven, who has shown up to see the final matches.

“Ssshhh. Your words are showing that you have regained eyes.” He spoke. “And yeah, it looks wrong alright.”

“Eat a dick!” said Hatori. he does not show his blindness or sight through his speech, thank you very much.

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Raven just smirked and ignored Hatori’s curse.

The next match is between Vivek and Ranveer. Once more Vivek is not in the arena, and despite being given extra time, he does not show up. “Enough. Give the win to Ranveer.” Orders Dimitri and the Yantra follow, declaring Ranveer the winner.

Then, the final names come up on the screen, and Avinash and Hatori make their way to the ring.

“This should be interesting. the boy has done wonderfully well in the latter half of this tournament,” said Dimitri, referring to Avinash’s slump in the first part of the tournament.

“Hatori is no slouch either. He won’t go down easily.” Said Nandan, observing the audience making distance, and huddling together on the safe points far from the ring.

This behavior is expected, as both competitors are glaring daggers against each other, with unhinged smiles on their faces, and the magical pressure that is causing the floor to crack already before the match has even started.

“Begin!” declares the yantra, and two spells collide in the middle of the air.

both fire blast spells explode against each other in the air, throwing intense heat everywhere, and Hatori and Avinash are ready with their next spells, with no shields or defense in mind. As far as they are concerned, there is no time to take defensive measures in this battle. More elemental spells come, both of them displaying their mastery of multiple elements. They try to predict the next spell and use the elements to cancel it. Hatori did manage to extinguish many fire spells before they reached him, but he is unable to judge all the spells on time, so he has a large burn to show on one side, while he is drenched on the other side.

Avinash is in the same boat. Hatori matches him every step of the way, and he expects nothing less from him. They both pause after this elemental exchange. One side of the ring is flooded, while the other side is melting under the heat. They both are standing on the ice which they have recently used to attack each other.

“You’re not using lightning. You’ll pay for this insult.” Declared Avinash.

“You want some,” said Hatori, and his body started to spark. “You’ll get some.” The sparks turn into the same bird that Hatori used against Daphne, an eagle made of lightning.

Avinash smirked, and conjured flames. The flames take the shape of a tiger, and these elemental conjurations start to duke it out with each other, and the audience gets a view right out of a fantasy battle.

“Note it down, note it down!” said one student.

“This is going to be so popular!” said the writer, already planning to use this visual in multiple ways in their future work.

though it would have been advantageous for the eagle to take flight, and attack the flaming tiger from the skies, Hatori didn’t want to use this strategy. So, both beasts fight head-to-head. One savage strike of the beak of this eagle causes the tiger to lose the flames of his side, which disappears into smoke. One of the wings of the eagle is also damaged, and it fizzles out. both spells continue to attack each other, and the eagle ends up in the mouth of the wounded tiger.

“Hahahahahahaha! What will you do now?” asked an elated Avinash.

“Shock you, of course.” Replied Hatori, sweating under the heat, as well as under the stress of maintaining this complicated spell. he breathes in relief, as he lets go of his control over lightning, and it streams over the tiger.

Avinash is struck by multiple lightning bolts, and the tiger destabilizes. Hatori is caught in the explosion. When the smoke clears, Hatori is lying on the rubble of the ring, half burnt, while Avinash is spasming on the other side.

Avinash gets up despite the jitters on his body, but Hatori is unable to get up. the yantra waits, and still, he does not get up. “Avinash wins.” Announces the yantra, and Avinash then surrenders to his nerves, sitting on the floor, unable to stay on his feet anymore.

Meanwhile, James comes to pick Hatori up and put him on the stretcher. “Idiot.” He said softly.

If he had taken potshots at him, instead of facing him directly, Hatori could have won this match. but then again, it is probably something about competitiveness. James does not dwell on it much. instead, he rather learns to fix these foolish people.

after this match is done, the ranks are displayed on the screen. Tom, Hatori, Avinash, and Vivek are not here to see this. perhaps, he shouldn't show up in the case of the latter. Hatori is in the first rank, he won all of his matches, except two. Tom is on the second rank because his losses are more than Hatori's. he lost three times.

Avinash has the third spot, despite his rather shaky start, and Daphne is in the fourth position. Ravina and Josh are fifth and sixth respectively, while Shin and Praduman are on the seventh and eighth spots, rounding out the team. Aditya, Yatharth, and Ranveer share the ninth, tenth, and eleventh spots, and Vivek is the last one.

PART 2.

“So, coach Dimitri. what do you think about your team?” asked Corvus while sipping his tea, and looking at the names in the top eight.

“It is an interesting team, to say the least. all of them have a different style of fighting. Truth be told, I cannot wait to get them started on their training.” Said Dimitri.

“Indeed? Why? something tells me it is not just the excitement.” Asked Corvus.

“You’re correct, headmaster.” Nods Dimitri. “While they are all interesting in their own ways, I feel some of them do need immediate training. Shin, Josh, and Praduman come to mind.”

“What about the others?” asked Corvus.

“In their cases, some pushes and nudges will be needed in the case of the girls and Avinash. Tom and Hatori can be left to their devices for the most part, apart from a few pointers here and there.”

“Well then, let’s hope you enjoy your stint as a coach.” Smiled Corvus.

“Thank you, headmaster.” Nods Dimitri, and then leaves.