Chapter 43: Ready or Not

“A fight?” Scarlette looked bewildered. “Like, right now?”

“Relax,” Zara wore a gentle, but confident smile. “As you can see, we’re in our casual attire. We’re here to enjoy the barbecue, same as you.”

Scarlette flushed, realising how silly her question sounded.

"So... when, exactly?" she asked, trying to regain her composure.

“At your convenience. I heard your team is the strongest in your class,” Zara replied, her focus solely on Scarlette. Did she really not know who the true standout member of our team was?

“Where did you hear that from?” Scarlette asked, suspicious. Naturally, we were all wary of their sudden approach. It was important to respond with the right words.

“We had a run-in with a group from your class last session. They weren’t bad, but they proved to be no match for us.” Her tone was casual, as if victory had been inevitable.

“They told you about us?” Scarlette pressed.

"That’s right. The boy with the plasma ability gave you away as they escaped through a portal. He said, 'I’d like to see you fight Scarlette’s group.'"

Interesting. It seemed Kazen wanted to keep things fair between my group and Zara’s, providing as little information as possible for either side.

“Pretty courteous of you to request a fight.” Despite being unprepared, Scarlette was starting to hold her ground in this verbal exchange. “What if we decline?”

“We sought you out as more of a formality, really. You could take it as a warning, perhaps? Basically, what I’m saying is, the fight will happen, whether you decline or not.”

“You seem awfully sure of yourself.”

Zara laughed. “We saw the fight you had with Kazen at the Colosso Dome. You couldn’t control your own powers, right? If that’s the extent of your abilities, I’m afraid you won’t be a match for us.”

“That’s…” Scarlette faltered.

“Why don’t you reveal your Ability?” Kaede snapped. “Or are you too afraid to do so?” Leave it to Kaede to jump to a friend’s aid.

“Where’s the fun in that? A solid attempt at extracting information out of us, but we’re not stupid.” Zara’s composure was rock solid.

“If that’s all, we’d like to enjoy our food, thank you.” It was Jonah’s turn to join it. He appeared calm on the surface, but I could tell he was boiling on the inside.

“You’re right, sorry to disturb you. Next battle session, meet us here, at the beach.” Zara paused for a moment, then leaned in slightly. Her demeanour shifted in an instant from relaxed to sharp, and her gaze turned piercing, locking onto Scarlette. "Oh, and one more thing. You’re not the real leader of your group, are you?"

Scarlette could barely hide her surprise. “Baseless accusations are meaningless,” she sputtered.

"From what I’ve seen so far in our little interaction, you seem disappointingly incapable of leading this ragtag group to where you are now. It’s more like..." Her eyes drifted over each of us slowly, calculating, until they landed on me.

"You," she said, her voice steady, as if it was obvious thing in the world. "You’re the one holding this group together, aren’t you?"

I waved my hands in denial. “I think you’re misunderstanding something,” I said.

"Everyone on your team is tense. It’s written all over their body language—they’re uneasy. But not you. You’re too calm."

"Actually," I said, "I was just trying to figure out why your team didn’t tag any teachers earlier, given how confident you seem in your abilities—or your team’s. Surely it wasn’t because you were incapable of doing so?"

A frown engraved itself on Zara’s face. After a brief moment of silence, she wagged a threatening finger at me. “We’ll be looking forward to facing you.” With that, she turned and left, the rest of her team following suit.

Once they were gone, my friends heaved a sigh of relief.

“Way to ruin the mood!” Kaede exclaimed.

“Excuse me for a minute,” Scarlette got up and walked to a grass patch nearby, before collapsing on it. “Ahh so annoying!” she wailed.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I found myself smiling at her antics. “Looks like we have a fight on our hands,” I called, stretching my arms.

“Yeah. In all seriousness, they’re probably the strongest team here. We gotta be on our A-game tomorrow.” Despite her words, her face brightened. “Eh, we can worry about it later. For now, let’s just chill and enjoy the night!”

And that’s exactly what we did, making the most of our evening.

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The night passed peacefully, and I woke up feeling refreshed. It was the fourth day of the training camp—our final full day in the forest. After slipping into the fresh Abizium suits that were delivered to us yesterday, we ate breakfast and gathered to wait for Ms Reina’s morning announcements.

“Good morning, everyone. Today’s agenda is straightforward. From now until lunch, you’ll have free roam once again. In the afternoon, we’ve got some water activities planned. As for tonight, there’s another event, but we’ll keep the details under wraps for now,” she announced. Huh, keeping secrets, are we?

“Water… activities?” Scarlette groaned. I snickered at her dismay.

Upon the conclusion of her announcements, my group and I made a beeline for the beach. Last night, it was a place to party and relax. Today, it would serve as our battleground.

Fortunately, we managed to avoid the other teams on the way there. Well, it was more like they were avoiding us, which wasn’t surprising. As the hours passed, word that our team was one to watch out for had been rapidly spreading.

A few minutes later, we arrived. Interestingly, Zara’s team wasn’t here yet.

“Making us wait after inviting us? Not cool,” Scarlette impatiently tapped her foot.

“This could be an ambush,” I observed. “We’re out here standing out in the open.”

“Hmm, you think they would do that? I thought they were the type to fight fair after challenging us yesterday.”

I shrugged. “Combat’s a different story. Some people show a whole other side of themselves when things get serious.”

“You would know,” Scarlette teased. “Anyway, I give it a few more minutes before we continue on our way. We aren’t obligated to fight them.”

“If we want to collect sashes quickly, we’ll have to take them on,” I argued. Still, it was true that we were wasting precious time just standing around here. “Let’s conceal ourselves for now.”

Just as we began retreating into the forest, our opponents finally made their move and appeared.

“Wow, you actually showed up,” Scarlette grimaced.

“Hope we didn’t make you guys wait too long,” Zara seemed completely relaxed. “That said, it’s only etiquette for us to introduce ourselves, right? I’m Zara, as you know. Here are Claris, Belle and Kerri.” She gestured to the rest of her teammates respectively. “We don’t need a fifth member.”

“Do we have to?” Scarlette sighed but introduced our team anyway, albeit half-heartedly.

“Thank you. I make it a point to remember the names of the people we defeat. It’s the least we could do, given our unfair balance of power.”

This girl was incredible. She seemed to dwarf even Scarlette in terms of pride and arrogance.

“Well then stop talking, and get down to business,” Scarlette growled, a ball of flame building up in her hand.

Zara waved her hand, and the fire extinguished.

Scarlette blinked. “Huh?”

Like my teammates, I was momentarily startled. That looked like something out of my book.

“Quit playin’ with me!” Scarlette retaliated with an even bigger fireball this time, quickly launching it in Zara’s direction. Again, the fireball fizzled out midair.

I reached out my hand to freeze their group, just as I had done to so many others before. But as I did, I noticed my arm moving at an agonisingly slow pace. In my peripheral vision, my friends appeared to be moving in slow motion as well.

BAM! In a blur of movement, Kerri dashed toward Scarlette and drove a punch straight into her stomach. Scarlette doubled over, her movements still strangely sluggish, but Kerri was relentless—following up with a knee to the chin that sent her flying backwards. Before Scarlette even hit the ground, Kerri snatched the sash from her head, tearing it free with ease.

Slow motion plus super speed huh? Was this a combination of Abilities, or just Kerri’s? I activated my Ability, freezing every single member of their group. Immediately, they were all frozen in place.

Sensing an opening, Kaede clasped her hands together and unleashed a beam of plasma, striking Kerri hard in the side. Though it wasn’t a headshot—perhaps intentionally—the hit clearly stung. Kerri winced, her body tensing from the searing pain. Yet, with her kinetic energy absorbed, she didn’t flinch or stagger, standing firm despite the agony flickering across her face. Her eyes darted back towards Zara.

Despite her paralysed position, there was a trace of a smirk on Zara’s face. As I squinted my eyes, trying to see if I missed something, I suddenly felt light-headed. I turned to my friends, only to see them panting. It was getting increasingly difficult to breathe.

Fire extinguished. Breathing difficulties. I put the pieces together— air manipulation. It was one of the more basic forms of elemental manipulation, yet its users were exceedingly rare. Most of them were only able to generate moderate wind currents and make some objects float. Zara was able to manipulate it at such a level that she could extract oxygen from the air itself. To wield it at such a precision was a one-in-a-million skill. I already had my suspicions, but I had no doubt in my mind now that we were facing a 5-Star.

As my concentration flickered for a moment, Zara’s team broke free from their spell. A powerful, steady gust of wind whipped up a wall of sand between us, blocking them from my sight. As I absorbed the energy from the wind, effectively shutting the sand wall down, I realised they had disappeared.

A cry of pain to my right distracted me, as Kerri bolted into action once again, this time knocking Kaede over and grabbing her sash.

Admittedly, things were not looking good for us. With the threat of us losing consciousness, and with Zara and two of her teammates hidden amidst the chaos, I realised that playtime was over. I had been suppressing my counterattack out of concern of harming my friends, but I figured I didn’t have much choice.

I absorbed as much energy from the surroundings as I could and swirled the air around us. This time, it was like me taking a page out of Zara’s book. I created a vortex, pulling my friends closer to me and replenishing our oxygen with the large inflow of air. A large wall of sand and water whirled around us, offering us a temporary shield.

Suddenly, I felt my tornado being forcibly shut down. Zara was attempting to wrestle control of it away from me. However, all it did was supply me with even more energy. I expanded the circumference of my tornado, intending to create as much havoc as I could outside of its walls and injure them in the process.

Somehow, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be so easy.