When the Misfits joined in the battle, Palvina was not surprised. She was a duelist at heart, and she only stopped participating in them because she lost all interest in them after fighting against Olivia. Nobody could come close to her skills, the fights lost their initial heat, and the adrenalin rush was gone forever.
"I forgot how great this is!"
She shivered with excitement, fighting against not just Koadriana but Sion too. Raufon and the rest of the Misfits were battling alongside Kafka's party while Lia and Aurora were facing Olivia. Unlike in the previous battle in the arena, she was not unarmed. She was wielding two longswords in her hands, both of them serving as her artifacts, channeling both of her elements with such quickness, it looked like she was wielding them simultaneously.
"Hah!" Palvina shouted, slicing with the one in her left hand, sending out arcs of blue electricity, parting Koa's water apart, aiming directly at her body. She wasn't intimidated by the incoming, quick attack and simply clasped on her wrist as three differently rotating magic circles appeared, blocking them. "Hmph!" She rotated her waist while harrumphing, blocking with her blade in her right hand. The edge of it was aflame with orange fire as it scattered Sion's incoming bolt of light, turning the night into day for a brief moment.
"She is fast!" Sion grumbled, holding two bone-white pistols in his hands, showcasing his own artifacts for the first time. Every time he pulled the triggers, they spat out a beam of light, soundlessly and without any prior notice, yet Palvina was moving her hand in a perfectly calculated way, slicing Sion's 'bullets' into two before impact. "Damn it, we are at the same tier, yet not!" He groaned, and it seemed Palvina heard his mumbles.
"I only fought against stronger opponents; you are dull compared to me!" She sneered at him, but before she could attack, she had to coat her whole body with electricity, moving fast as lightning and dodging a hand made out of water as big as Raufon, slamming down at her previous position.
"Stop running already!" Koa shouted, getting fed up, and she was letting her feelings and mana loose entirely. The next moment, multiple geyser-like explosions tore up the ground, coming from straight below them. They were releasing hissing-like sounds as they were scaldingly hot.
"Hah, this is easy!" Palvina mocked, dodging them and dancing around them, but to her surprise, Sion was right on her, zig-zagging between the rumbling columns of water. "Close-quarter battles?" She grinned, unafraid, dual-wielding her swords, attacking him in return.
"Just because of my choice of weapons does not mean I'm not good at it!" He replied, as from his pistols, white light spread forward in the shape of blades, like attached bayonets.
They met in the air, throwing sparks in every direction, finally turning Palvina's face into a much more focused look than before. She was getting irritated with the weird interference in the air and was angry that Sion, someone who she thought was weaker, managed to go toe to toe with her. She had to tilt her head multiple times as the fighting style of the ex-Disciplinary Committee member was properly unique. He used close-quarter combat moves, wielding his guns as daggers while also discharging them multiple times, trying to get in a shot at point-blank range, aiming directly at Palvina's face. None of them thought about holding back, and they were trying to kill the other.
"Shit!" Palvina cursed as she was lost in her battle against Sion for a moment and missed what Koa was doing in the background.
"Too late!" Her voice arrived, alongside a giant wave of water, materializing from a 10-meter-wide magic circle, flushing her away.
"FUCK! I'm here too!" Sion cried out, but it was late to dodge as it crashed into them.
"You'll be fine!" Koa replied hands clasped as she guided her spell, focusing it on Palvina. Even though it wasn't hurting Sion, he was still blasted off his feet, making him fall and almost lose his pistols from his grip.
Palvina, on the other hand, remained collected as she was swept away by the wild currents. Concentrating on her spatial ring, redrawing her swords, she let the water carry her away, swimming in it like a dolphin. It was dragging her away toward a tunnel, and she quickly realized how they were surprised by the Misfits' appearance.
"Going underground? Are you trying to flush me down? I was never afraid of changing sceneries for a good battle!" She thought, letting the current take her below the earth. It was as if she climbed onto some kind of ride on a fare, being taken into an underground room via a giant waterslide.
"Come!" Koa shouted, going after Palvina, and Sion followed her hurriedly.
"The interference from two Eggs will be much greater down there!" She warned, rushing after her.
"You keep her bogged down; I'll get the Egg! I have an idea!"
…
….
……
Around Olivia, the forest was burned to a crisp, and their battlefield was separated from the rest of the groups. While clashing and waving the wand between her fingers, she masterfully kept Aurora away from her; Lia was occupied with dodging her homing fire missiles and could focus on Kafka and his annoyingly fast and bending beams of light. While fighting, they moved further away until they were entirely out of the Shadow Egg's influence, and then their battle truly picked up the heat in all senses.
"You two are nothing but annoying pests!" She scoffed, creating floating wisps of flames, and when Aurora got close, they automatically exploded, forcing her to dodge or back away.
Aurora was unflinching and barely blinking her purple eyes, watching Olivia's every movement like a hawk. What she hated to admit was that Olivia was an experienced fighter who could ignore her presence with some automatic defenses or with the use of a wide range of area of attacks. It was a dark night, lit by only Olivia's flames, painting dancing shadows everywhere. It was the perfect surrounding for Aurora to utilize her strengths and gift. She could blend into the dark and move silently without telegraphing any of her attacks, yet Olivia managed to parry them time after time.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"What am I doing wrong?" She thought, trying to analyze herself and their battle while launching from a supposed blindspot, aiming to slice Olivia's neck. Yet, once again, getting only a step close, a spark flew off from Olivia's hair, exploding loudly in a flash, blinding Aurora, forcing her to back off and give up the attack. "Shit…" She cursed in her head, hurridly blinking out the tears from her eyes and seeing nothing but white for a few seconds.
"Your attacks are too direct!" Kafka's voice appeared in her ear, and when her vision returned, he was standing before her, surrounding themselves in a bubble of light. It was constantly rippling as a hail of fireballs was assaulting them, trying to blow them up. If not for him, Olivia's counterattack would have killed her. It remained eerily calm and soundless inside Kafka's protective zone as if they were separated from reality by a veil of light, saving her at the last minute.
"..." Aurora just furrowed her brows, hearing Reyra's voice in her head saying the same thing once.
At first, she didn't understand it. When fighting against the Undead, it always brought results. Striking quickly, aiming at vital points, it was the Amarin army's modus operandi. To kill the Undead before it could realize they were there. Even when there were groups of them and an ambush could only work against one or two, what ended the battles quickly was the fact they cut their heads off and burned away their bodies before they could reassemble themselves.
"...!" She flinched, suddenly coming to a realization, watching Olivia, who was trying to catch Lia with a lasso of fire, only missing because Kafka was on her open back, forcing her to change targets.
She wasn't fighting an Undead now. She was fighting a mage who was well aware of her surroundings and her and her enemies' strength. With what she can and can't do and she could predict the attacks aiming at her weak spots. They were so evident, and Aurora was going for them exclusively. No wonder Olivia managed to counter her every time.
"Intelligent Undeads are a whole different breed, Aurora." Solren once told her, "You are not ready for them yet. You are too frigid and would break against them."
"I understand now…." Aurora opened her mouth, but no voice came from her throat, but her eyes were gleaming with eagerness to join the fray. Yet she felt her stomach burn up before she could, and she immediately knew what was happening. She was experiencing her tribulation of fire right now. "Damn…!" Aurora groaned inside her thoughts, trying to suppress it, but it was useless; the pain was worse than she expected. It was as if Olivia's burning, hot flames were pushed down her throat, exploding inside her body.
"Unlucky." Olivia noticed her predicament quickly, recognizing the patterns at a glance. "You die first!" She thought, refocusing her efforts, going straight for Aurora.
With a wave of her wand, her body was the epicenter of an outburst. A ring of fire exploded out of her body, sweeping Lia off her legs and making her roll on the ash-filled ground. Kafka was forced to stand in front of the now kneeling Aurora, clutching her stomach.
"Good, stay there if you want!" Olivia grinned, pointing straight at them, and as she was twirling and swinging her hand, a flaming serpent appeared around her. Its hisses came from the fact it was burning up the oxygen in the air at an alarming rate as it opened its mouth extra wide, jabbing its long body towards Kafka and Aurora at the same time.
"Not good!" Kafka gulped. He felt that despite all their fighting, Olivia was still just getting started. He could dodge, but then Aurora was to be hit and even teleported out before death; she surely would be burnt badly before the System decided she couldn't take it anymore.
"Leave my Big Sis alone, you BITCH!" Arrived Lia's cry, which Olivia initially ignored, but then a blue streak of unnatural flames shot past her 'snake' that she could no longer ignore.
The sudden appearance of the blue flames immediately affected Olivia's spell. Her snake trembled, and her connection to it was forcefully cut away, jolting her backward, making her hands shake, and almost dropping her wand. Kafka looked on with awe as the incoming fire was frozen in mid-air. Its dancing, flaming body was turned into ice, and Lia was standing atop its head, both of her hands ablaze with blue-colored fire.
"I hate you!" She shouted, sliding forward on the frozen spell-body, jumping at Olivia, aiming to punch her in the face.
"What is this?!" She gasped, not understanding the young girl and her strange powers. Olivia was raising a curtain of fire around her, but when Lia's fist arrived, her spell was again torn from her control, flash-frozen into solid form, and blasted through by the tiny fist that came straight at the middle of her chest. "Ugh!" She vomited out a mouthful of blood, being sent flying by the immense strength behind Lia's punch.
Olivia's body rolled on the ground multiple times before she landed back on her feet, standing, watching Lia, who was huffing and puffing, her body occasionally letting blue wisps of fire fly off into the night. Those mismatched eyes were glinting dangerously, and she could feel a mix of emotions transferring from Lia's gaze straight into her own mind. There was anger, rage, and a similar amount of coldness that she thought to be because Lia was looking down on her.
"You dare to look at me like that?!" Olivia said, and her voice started out as a whisper but quickly turned into a loud shout, going forth with all of her might, summoning multiple similar snakes as before, sending them all at Lia.
Her target felt the scenery slowly come to a crawl, just like before, against Palvina. Her blue colored eye was moving independently from her red one, calculating and determining the patterns the snakes would take. Where they will be a millisecond later and where she should be to avoid them. On the other hand, her red eye was giving Lia the correct path between the snakes to reach Olivia's body with the least amount of mana used up from her almost depleted mana pool.
"Slow!" Lia shouted, her voice coming through the fire of Olivia, reaching her just before a flash blinded her eyes.
Before moving, Lia summoned a rifle made out of her regular crimson fire, the same move she used against Yanura on her first day at school. As the bullet, she propelled herself through the calculated trajectory, looking as if she dodged Olivia's attack with exceptional ease. By the time anyone caught her figure, Lia was headbutting the Student Council's leader in the stomach. She could swear she heard something break or tear apart and could feel the warm blood splashing on her as Olivia vomited once again.
The pain Olivia felt was enormous. She was sure that many of her internal organs were torn apart just now, blown to smithereens. It was a wonder how Lia was intact or why she didn't tear her to shreds. She couldn't understand why. How did she dodge it? How did she freeze her flames before? What was going on? And why was her body this strong? It was like a beast's body, not a human's!
"...!" Then she remembered. There were rumors that Reyra Amarin's husband was a beast folk. It was never acknowledged but never denied, either. Now she knew it had to be true. This strength was not that of a human.
"Then we will die together!" Olivia gritted her bloody teeth and torn-up gums, grabbing onto Lia's body with two hands as they were flying through the air, soon to be crashlanding from the impact.
"...?!" Lia flinched but had no real strength to move away and could feel Olivia's fingers burn through her clothes and straight into her flesh.
Olivia's whole existence started to glow, but before the impending explosion could come, she disappeared, and Lia landed flat on her face. She was skidding multiple meters, hitting a tree with a loud, painful yelp.
"...."
Both Kafka and Aurora were speechless, as what happened did so in under a minute… yet the one who remained in the competition was Lia… and not the unrivaled champion of the Dueling List.
"Owie…" She sat up, her front scratched into oblivion and filled with mud, sending stinging pain through her, while her arms were severely burnt, leaving behind Olivia's mark. "That wasn't nice…." She grumbled, turning back towards Kafka, showing a weak grin and a V-sign with trembling fingers.