Lily quickly formed a barrier of ice around herself. A low, crystalline wall of frozen spikes encircled her completely, facing outwards to prevent any easy advance over the ground. Along with this fully connected ring, numerous small shards orbited around her in the air, presenting a serious hazard to any airborne attacks.

The lionesses had initially seemed intent on charging her, but as soon as she conjured the ice they had become more cautious. Reluctant to advance, they circled her on opposite side in the same counterclockwise direction as her swirling shards.

One of them dashed forward. Lily reacted immediately, raising her staff and bracing herself for the attack. The monster left the characteristic cracked and burning ground in its wake. As it neared, the shards spun faster, and it struck the barrier with a fiery blast.

Steam rose up in a dense cloud, briefly obstructing Zoe’s view of the aftermath. Emerging from the cloud, the lioness shook itself off. Its fur was littered with chunks of ice, and shimmering rust red blood dripped to the ground, sizzling where it fell.

As the steam cleared, it became apparent that Lily was completely unharmed. The monster was the one who had taken the brunt of the damage — it seemed that the ice mage’s defenses were quite well suited to fending off her current opponents.

Seeing the fate of its companion, the other lioness continued to prowl. After licking its wounds, the first lioness did likewise, continuing to stalk around the mage with obvious irritation. After several full circuits, both monsters simultaneously closed in. But this time, instead of rushing forward, they roared, attempting to overpower her with flames.

Steam once again billowed upwards. After several seconds, the flames and ice cleared, revealing that Lily was still unharmed. She did look a bit harried, however — while her defenses had held, perhaps it had been a bit close.

Before the lionesses could retreat or try again, Lily struck them each with a blast of shards. The monsters leapt away — but not before being peppered with sharp bits of magical ice.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to actually hurt them much, as each shard burst into steam as soon as it made contact. Zoe frowned. This fight was shaping up to be quite a standstill — one of them was going to have to take a bigger risk to finish it.

Otherwise, it would probably become a total slog of who ran out of mana first.

It looked like Lily realized the same thing. Gripping a summoned blade of ice in her right hand, she slit her left wrist. Her own blood welled forth — and she continued to draw it out faster and faster with her own magic until she had what looked like about a whole liter swirling around her.

As they continued to circle, the lionesses eyed her warily. The blood stopped flowing. The blood that was already in the air swirled faster and faster, spiraling closer inward before lashing out in all directions.

Two spiraling blade arms swept across the entire pit, striking both monsters even as they tried to leap away. There was simply nowhere for them to go.

They were both still standing, but Lily was already recalling her blood — and shimmering, fiery rust red blood was now joining it. Bleeding from the gashes in their sides, the lionesses were helpless to prevent the blood mage from using their own lifeforce against them.

The monsters tried to dodge again, but they were even slower this time, and the next attack was even more powerful. Both lionesses collapsed to the ground — still moving, but clearly not for long. And even still, more shimmering blood flocked to Lily’s control.

Lily didn’t stop. Striking again and again, faster and faster, the blood mage tore the unfortunate monsters to ribbons. The pit was now filled with a maelstrom of shimmering, fiery blood. The beasts were clearly dead — at least for now — but Lily kept sucking more and more of their lifeforce out of them.

Zoe realized what she was doing. She was trying to rob the corpses of as much blood as she could before they mutated. Perhaps lacking blood would weaken them — and even if it didn’t, Lily would have even more blood to attack them with.

Recalling the blood into a gently swirling spiral close to her own body, Lily waited as the shredded corpses began to twitch and mutate. Their blood-soaked fur charred and peeled away, revealing sickly pale gray flesh beneath.

Before either of them could even stumble to their stumpy, ragged feet, Lily lashed out with another sweeping attack of spiraling twin blades. The attack was even more forceful than before, sending the two growing abominations slamming into the rock walls.

Unfortunately, it didn’t cut through them entirely — and Zoe began to feel that disturbing, sympathetic thrumming within her own chest. Using her {Manasight}, she saw that the black mana was only gaining in power and ferocity. Meanwhile, even though the flaming rust of the blood was far more potent, it was only declining in brightness as each second passed.

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Zoe had a feeling that Lily needed to end this fight quickly.

As Lily repeated the attack, one monster leapt over it and the other slid under. Reacting immediately, Lily coiled the blood back into a whirling shield around herself — even as the two rippling abominations rushed towards her.

It didn’t look like they were going to stop.

Evidently realizing the same thing, Lily struck straight towards each of them with an enormous spear of flaming blood. Each lionesses was impaled through the chest and immediately burst into flames.

Even as her own blood recoiled in fear and horror, Zoe cheered her new friend on. Remembering how the other lionesses had burnt up the remains of the first corrupted abominations, hope flared in her mind that their own blood would vanquish their corruptedf bodies.

Peering closer with the power of her {Manasight}, Zoe saw that the fire mana was penetrating deep into the hearts of the monsters. A tide was exploding throughout their bodies, incinerating everything in its path.

At the same time, extremely thin, delicate tendrils of black were seeping back up the trails of blood, taking root and expanding searching fingers throughout the shimmering blood. Zoe held her breath as she watched the corruption take root. She couldn’t honestly say whether she was feeling dread or excitement.

Either way, she was held rapt with anticipation.

Where at first the creeping tendrils had been faint, delicate things, within just moments they had grown into thick, veiny, pulsating roots that continued to devour and corrupt the fire mana.

The corpses both exploded. A rain of fire and charcoal fell down over the pit. The abominations had been completely burned to a crisp — there was absolutely no fight or even life left within them.

Lily sunk down to her knees. After a moment of horrible indecision, Zoe was about to cry out to warn her — but the captain shoved her back down violently.

Finally, the trails of blood began to discolor even to the naked eye. They darkened and thickened into a slick, oily sludge — a sludge filled with lumps and stringy bits and all manner of nameless gore.

Finally realizing that the fight was far from over, Lily blasted the blood away from herself.

Halfway to the perimeter of the pit it stopped. The ring of what was once blood writhed and squirmed in the air. A battle of magic and will was being fought. Just as Lily was obviously attempting to push it away, something was trying to squeeze it back towards her.

For a moment it was a stalemate. And then the dark liquid blasted away — only to suddenly swirl into a single rushing stream with a spear-like tip and thrust itself down on Lily’s position from above.

The mage darted out of the way as the corruption blasted into the sand behind her. It then snaked under the ground like a cartoonish depiction of a molehill before erupting in front of her and striking again.

Lily was forced to drop to the ground and roll to the side this time — just barely managing to avoid another downward plunge. It was more by sheer luck than any particular skill, in Zoe’s opinion.

As the swirling stream of gore and oily sludge prepared to squeeze in on her, Lily conjured a small, crystalline sphere of ice around herself. It was just barely large enough to contain her, no larger than a large exercise ball really. The corrupted fluid streamed towards her, striking at her hasty defenses.

They held.

Swirling around her in agitation, the corruption began to spin faster and faster, clearly attempting to squeeze in and tear the ice dome to shreds. Zoe’s heart pounded irregularly. She suddenly realized her leg was shaking, and she was breathing quickly.

The whirlwind of blackened gore closed in, and a blast of frost radiated outward to meet it. And then another one. Wave after wave of chilling cold — visible to the naked eye — rolled over the oily trails.

Slowing down, the corrupted liquid began to crack and shatter as bits of it were frozen solid. In moments, the whole ring had shattered, leaving only small amounts of true liquid remaining. These dropped to the ground and began to pool together into an oily puddle — but another wave of frost froze it solid.

A moment later, cracks spread across the top of the dome and it shattered. Peering through the shell of ice, Zoe saw that the mage was almost unconscious, lying in a pool of her own crimson blood.

Her blood seemed to have poured down from her mouth and ears — and even her eyes. She was just barely breathing — Zoe closed her eyes in relief when she saw the ice mage’s chest heave up and down.

Standing up, the captain began clapping slowly but thunderously. The sound of several dozen other people rising to their feet joined it, followed by moderate applause.

“Another pass,” Captain Hart called out. “And good graciousness, someone get out there and bring her to Marge before she bleeds out or that blood magic shit thaws out.”

Zoe rushed to his side even as the little man stepped cautiously into the pit through the iron grate. “Let me help her, I have strong healing abilities.”

But the captain only pushed her back and shook his head. “Save it for your own trial. Marge will take care of her, I guarantee it.”

Resigned but not satisfied, Zoe crossed her arms and watched as another man came out and helped the first one lift Lily and carry her back inside. Once the gate was shut, the same four lionesses leapt down and covered the whole center of the arena in a roar of flames.

They kept at it for about half a minute. When they were done, nothing remained but sand and glass and dark soot.

“Is it weak to fire?” Zoe asked.

Tilting his head, the captain frowned. “Weak? No, not really. At best I would say its vulnerable.”

Nodding, Zoe continued to stare. The rush of sensations within her body and spirit had now since subsided — but she was still shaken. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling that having that same corruption latent inside of her was no good.

And that was a pretty reasonable feeling, she thought.

A moment later, the captain patted her on the shoulder, startling her so badly she nearly jumped down into the pit. “Are you ready?”

Zoe nodded. “Good. You’d better be.” He grinned. “I always like to save the best for last.”