“This next match is set to be quite the spectacle, audience members!” Rebrin enticed over the Boom Voice mick that projected his words around the coliseum grounds.
“Two spellcasters at the peak of their ranks, who is ready for collisions of colossal powers?” Strolbem added.
The crowd got loud as the two combatants faced each other down across the arena.
Logan’s opponent had long silver hair that was tied into a ponytail, and piercing blue eyes that were almost as cold as the season. His stance demanded respect, his face a story of previous encounters as scars marked it. Tanned white skin showed the man was well-travelled and experienced, his robes a beautiful midnight blue with intricate patterns displaying the wealth he had accrued.
Aside from his robes, the man lacked any other trinkets, obviously employing a similar trinket to Logan, or some form of magic, to hide what he had at his disposal.
The sun above had moved past the mid-point, its ability to cast an orange hue over the yellows of the coliseum was impeded by encroaching dark clouds. The buzz of excitement grew louder and louder, Wizards, Sorcerers, and Devouts were eagerly awaiting a match between “their own kind” as they saw it.
“One side is the cunning and enigmatic Logan Hall, the other the fierce and flourishing Wace”, Bref introduced.
The announcers continued their amping-up of the fight, while the clouds rumbled, droplet offspring starting to release onto the earth. While the barrier of the coliseum’s viewer stands protected the crowd from most harmful effects, causing many onlookers to flirt with the edges of their seats, it still allowed non-harmful winds and rain.
A calming pitter-patter of peaceful rain penetrated the barrier, its emerald hexagons refracting light in a flowing motion as it accepted the piercing of its veil. The roof of the coliseum protected all but the front-row seats from the weather.
The two magi had their hair droop and their clothing darkened. As they moved into readied stances, Logan with clawed hands, his opponent with their staff nestled in a reverse grip under their armpit and a single, polite, hand aimed at the ground, the rain got louder.
Rebrin announced louder than usual not to get drowned out by the rain, “Let the match begin!”
The rain had turned into a thunderous downpour, be it intentional or coincidence the pair of magi saw fit to add lightning to the thunder. Crackles of aquamarine jolted from both sides of the arena.
As the opposing forces clashed they also danced. Pinpricks collided and arced away, hitting countless raindrops in the air, creating a spider web of white and blue. A static sound purveyed the pounding of water.
Logan pulled back both hands and dragged them up, large portions of rock at the feet of his foe cracked and erupted, splashing water and death unto his enemy.
Wace placed his hand in front of himself and let off an Air Blast, propelling himself back from the attack whilst parting the rain in a radius.
Logan was about to let loose more spells if it weren’t for two torrents of water bending around the sandstone shards. Tunnelling snakes of aqua snaked their way through the air towards the Spellthief, their eye a mass of power that Logan didn’t want to experience.
Using his own Air Blast, Logan blasted his body skyward and avoided the would-be drowning attacks. A surprising turn was that of the watery attack bending harshly where Logan was previously, titling upwards they followed the Spellthief as he soared upwards.
Prying two knives from his cloak, Logan threw them into the mouths of the aquatic spells. The daggers cut through and had the waters explode in all directions as the spell collided with a powerful obstacle, the daggers digging into the sandstone floor beneath.
Two large spikes of ice then formed amongst the flooding rains around Logan, prized to impale him ready for a snow shower in the rain. Logan’s form sucked into the centre, taking with it wind and water as the icicles instead got destroyed on the upper heights of the arena’s barrier.
Apparating with an outward blast of the atmosphere he took with him, Logan blasted away the rain again. With flames primed in his palm, Logan reached out to grab Wace’s back but instead was met by a massive wall of sandstone that blocked his grasp. Recoiling quickly, Logan narrowly avoided tiny hands sprouting from the rock that aimed to grab him in return.
Jumping back a bit, almost hitting the far wall as Wace was already close to it, Logan ducked diagonally to avoid another stalactite piercing the wall of rock, crashing and turning to a nubbed end as it collided with the arena walls.
Logan, with his hand close to the floor, clawed at it and dragged upwards, chanting, “Earthen Eruption”, causing large spikes to cascade upwards and through the magic wall, demolishing it and narrowly missing Wace who was darting away.
With an evil eye set on his foe, Logan warped again and grappled Wace’s shoulders with his hands, blasting two jets of air from the soles of his feet to grind his enemy’s back on the sandstone floor. Water and rubble flew upwards as the pair slid across the floor, the crowd cheering loudly, but drowned out by the rain that slowly turned to hail.
Logan’s hands started to ignite with flames again, but Wace’s body warped away, leaving Logan to land his hands on the floor in a slide. Tilting his head, Logan looked past his legs in the air, handstand sliding, to spy Wace in the air and two icicles at his sides.
Logan warped again, landing a hand on one of the icicles and kicking Wace in the face deftly. Blasing off the ice, destroying it, Logan blasted the air again to dart towards his foe. Letting loose two volleys of flames, Logan sent Wace plummeting to the sandstone floor.
As Logan began his descent, the flames surrounding Wace dissipated and turned to steam with the hail, revealing a blue hexagon Barrier in front of the Sorcerer’s palm, no doubt negating Logan’s assault.
Logan tutted, “If only I could just absorb that”, he cursed in his head, not wanting to display his Spellthief powers too brazenly.
Landing in a puddle that cracked apart its frozen sections, Logan darted his head around as he formulated a plan to counteract his magical opponent.
“It seems like Logan’s normal tactics aren’t working as he planned against another caster”, Rebrin narrated.
“Perhaps he hunts non-magi more than others”, Strolbem added.
Opening his left hand, Logan formed fires within it and smashed them into his chest, “Flame Cloak”, he chanted, having the embers explode outwards and wrap around his form. Logan’s entire body was coated in licking reds and oranges, steam billowing from it as the hail melted before it reached the Spellthief.
The steam erupted fiercer and thicker, like the fog from hills that are too quiet, after Logan chanted, “Skin of Ice”, coating his skin in a blue crystalline protective film that quickly melded back into its normal colour. Both his body and the environment were now having the moisture evaporate, creating a unique cover of white wisps.
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“Identify”, Logan commanded in his head, the set of red vaskt eyes tore apart his skin and stared death at his foe.
“Wace: Sorcerer 21…” a window informed Logan, but he had little time to read it fully.
“Look at that! There’s a rare skill indeed”, Bref announced as he stood up straight on all fours.
“What? What is?” Rebrin asked as he leaned forward and squinted.
“The ‘Vaskt Eyes’, or ‘Vaskt Vision’. It seems Logan is a well-versed shapechanger to have adapted those without worry”, Bref continued.
“Those specks of red? Isn’t that blood?” Rebrin asked again.
“Logan has yet to suffer any hits in this bout”, Strolbem informed.
“What do they—” Rebrin began to ask, but Logan’s next actions cut him off.
“Aqua Shot”, Logan chanted, letting fly a large glob of water at his foe, collecting hail within its confines as it flew.
Wace moved his arm to block the projectile with his Barrier, but he didn’t need to.
Logan pulled his hand back, Silentcasting a Flame Skystrike to collide with his watery attack. As the fire collided with the water it instantly transformed into a wave of mist that coated Wace and a large area around him.
The crowd oo’ed as the hexagons of the barrier that protected them sheened a lighter green as it showed what was going on behind the mist.
As Logan chanted, “Haste”, his body increased its speed as he darted into the mist, bringing his own with him.
Several loud sounds of raising solids erupted within the foggy battlefield, Wace’s counter being that of a Wind Shot to push away what blocked his vision. The retaliation instead only went a few feet and impacted a hole in a wall of ice.
Logan cooled the area down further, the hail scratching across larger formations of frozen water, while his coat of fire continued to melt the solids into liquids and gasses.
Wace darted his head around, tutting as he couldn’t see through the thick white prison he found himself within. Dimensional Jaunt was an amazing defensive tool, but useless when sight was hindered.
A dark silhouette moved through the fog, an almost invisible blade cutting through it as Logan swiped out at Wace with his frozen lord edge. The dagger sliced out a part of Wace’s face, his whole body moving with it to avoid a deeper cut as his back hit into a tall column of ice.
Rolling to the side, Wace avoided a following attack from Logan, whose Vaskt Vision saw in the fog much easier.
The sound of ice slicing into magical energy emanated in the fog, a mix of crushing ice and laser sounds. While the hail continued to pound the sandstone, Logan was able to plant his feet firmly on the slippery floor while avoiding his own Frost Walls, however, Wace slid every so often and had his side bash into a cold partition.
“Talk about giving your opponent the cold handshake”, Rebrin joked.
Wace aimed at the floor to Air Blast high, but Logan waved his hand as he twirled around to his opponent’s side. Wace propelled upwards, pushing away fog and water, but had his back crunch into a newly formed panel of ice above him that formed with the brick walls.
Dropping his staff, the Sorcerer spun around and made a rippling motion with his hands causing countless spikes of sandstone to erupt around him and upwards, colliding with ice, brick, and barrier alike.
Logan jumped several times away, dodging the desperation attack. Blast after blast of rocks followed suit as they went in all directions, Wace joining his spells to get away from the translucent domain of fog, small portions hugging his form as he did.
Wace downed potions from his own magical clothing, Logan Air Blasting towards his foe with a dagger primed. The Sorcerer waved a hand over the floor to create another earthen blocker, but Logan warped before it fully erected, apparating behind Wace.
Throwing his hand out with a shadowy claw, Logan collided with a larger Barrier as Wace placed his own hand behind him, enlarging the area of the barrier to fully block his back.
Logan copied his foe with his off-hand, forming an opposing Barrier as Wace used his other hand to barrage Logan with flames.
Reds and blacks flowed against a stark protective blue as both casters had a contest of offence and defence. The colours swelled as both recast and upcast to use the third-level variants, the magical powers reaching over twenty feet tall and wide away from them.
“This is a true caster clash!” Strolbem narrated.
“But who is stronger?” Rebrin asked rhetorically.
“As a Wizard, Logan has the upper hand in the quantity of spells, while Wace as a Sorcerer may utilise any spell in his arsenal.”
“It’ll come down to how many spells they’ve used, but Logan seems to have used more to reach this point”, Rebrin added.
“However, Wace has used many more higher-level spells”, Bref calculated.
The pair’s onslaught was broken with the loud sound of shattering glass, their final Barriers breaking as they began to collide with their energies. Before they could meet, the pair warped at the same time, swapping places, to collide their spells regardless.
Shadows and flames coalesced, encircled, and danced upwards as they destroyed the hail around them.
Warping again, further apart, the duo clashed lightning and wind together as they changed up their spells to find a break in the other’s defence. The sparks of blue parted away horribly as Logan’s wind beat Wace’s electricity.
Another warp had Logan pick out his dagger again to cut at Wace, but Wace teleported just again. Appearing above Logan, Wace aimed down with a torrent of ice, but Logan teleported above Wace and did the same.
Ice collided with another Barrier from Wace, his body landing solidly and jumping away from a pursuing Logan.
While Wace attempted to drink a potion, no doubt to restore his MP, Logan let off a quick Force mick to destroy the vial before it could be drunk.
Kicking off the floor with the remainder of his Air Blast, Logan soared at Wace and landed a deep cut in the Sorcerer’s Barrier. Wace grimaced as cracks formed over his protection, and flinched when another strike from Logan almost cut it in twain.
As Logan was prized to land a final strike, Wace called out, “I yield.”
Logan stopped immediately as he slid on the watery floor, and accepted the surrender.
“Wace has surrendered. Logan is the victor!” Rebrin announced, signalling the crowd to cheer loudly over the heavy hail.
Chapter 172 - Tournament XP [https://i.postimg.cc/267pJBfY/Chapter-172-Tournament-XP.png]
Wace fell to a knee as he held his forehead, obviously suffering from mental fatigue after casting so many spells, Logan wasn’t as bad due to his skills, but he still felt a twinge in the back of his head.
“I was getting low on spells too”, Logan thought to himself, seeing only 9 MP left in his tank, and many spell slots used up.
Wace meekly stood and walked over to Logan, “An exhilarating fight, Logan. It's always a good time seeing another competent caster”, he said as he offered a handshake.
Logan confidently took it, “Same to you. I felt the fatigue coming too.”
“So it wasn't already full force? You must have a few demonhood stages or rare skills.”
“It'd be better if there weren't so many fights in the day”, Logan replied as he looked at his portcullis gate rising.
“What tower do you hail from? I'd enjoy a longer conversation.”
“No tower. Check out the V.I.P guild in the city”, Logan offered as the two were ushered out by the ending narration of the commentators.
“No tower…?”
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