"This is the last match for the winner's bracket quarterfinals!"

"Participant seventeen are you ready?"

Kai closed his eyes and once he opened them, he nodded.

"And, participant eighteen?"

"Nn."

Erina responded.

"Ready..."

Kai gripped his sword as a multitude of thoughts went by his head. After this match, whether he won or lost, he planned to tell Erina and Amelia the truth but he still felt reluctant. He had already come to terms with his feelings after the guardian had berated him.

"Go!"

Kai was the first to move and he arrived in front of Erina in a flash.

BOOM

His sword struck the ground and created a crater but Erina was nowhere in sight. He turned around and blocked with his sword, Erina had attacked from behind.

"Flash Step, and you're almost at Yoko's level."

Kai was surprised. After all, Erina hadn't trained in martial arts like Yoko and the rest. Although he knew that Amelia was training her in that, he didn't think she'd be able to master it this fast.

But, although she was almost at Yoko's level, there was still a gap between them that couldn't be filled in the short-term. Not to mention that Kai was levels ahead of Yoko.

Kai responded to Erina's attack by using Flash Step to change the angle of his sword. Now, his sword was going to hit Erina in the neck.

Normally, a person would evade that attack subconsciously but, Erina used Flash Step not to go backward or to dodge, but to go forward. Kai's eyes widened and he redirected his sword, Erina took advantage of that gap to go underneath his field of vision and struck out with her rapier in quick succession.

Something like that would be unblockable as Kai's sword was still far away from his body but, Flash Step was a technique that defied normal means. His sword appeared in front of Erina's rapier and blocked all of the strikes then he slammed his sword's tip down into the ground causing a huge explosion of dust and debris.

Erina was forced to retreat and destroy all of the debris heading her way. Kai didn't attack her during that time. He chose to watch her slowly before talking.

"You're... taking advantage of my reservations."

Kai didn't want to hit Erina as unlike Kai, she didn't have regeneration or healing magic. Even Erina knew that fighting Kai like this was a foolish plan, but that would be if his opponent was an 'enemy'.

The only time Kai had ever truly gone against Erina with all of his power was when they were children but ever since then, he held back when facing her no matter the situation.

"Amelia must've come up with this... sheesh..."

Kai sighed. But, even if he knew, he still wouldn't be able to prevent himself from holding back. Erina smiled lightly under her mask but she refused to answer.

"Well, even if I can't really go all-out, it doesn't mean I can't use my techniques."

Just as Kai's words fell upon Erina's ears, she felt a huge burst of mana gathering around Kai.

"Null Distance Sword: Shorten the Path, Reveal the Exit."

Erina remembered when Kai had fought Wake, he used the same move. It employed the same movements as Flash Step but this skill was many times faster. Erina subconsciously raised her sword to block but she was suddenly struck from the side by the hilt of Kai's sword and was sent rolling away.

"Ugh..."

Erina groaned as she propped herself up with her rapier. It wasn't made of ice, it was the one that Kai had given her before the tournament.

"..."

Kai was silent as he looked at Erina. At first, he planned to knock her out with a strike to the neck right then and there but in the instant that Kai disappeared, Erina froze her vitals prompting Kai to hit her in the ribs instead.

The normal person wouldn't even know that they'd be hit yet Erina managed to secure her vitals.

Erina stood up and pointed her rapier at Kai. Her silver hair began glowing and her eyes flashed underneath the mask. She was now using the power of the Goddess of Frost.

"[Fragile Steps]."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Erina stepped forward and left behind several clones of ice in her wake. She instantly traversed the entire distance she had been blown away in an instant. The clones she left were stuck in a variety of poses but all of their swords were aimed at Kai's direction.

Shards of ice were flying around in the air and it made for a beautiful scene but Kai had no time to admire the beauty of her attack and quickly met her attack.

He countered the rapier and was about to strike Erina but at that moment, she retreated. He stepped forward to follow her but as soon as he passed one of the ice statues, it exploded and turned into water to envelop him. He deployed a barrier to block it but instead of being dispersed, it wrapped around his spherical barrier and froze.

"[Ice Thorns]!"

Erina shouted and the frozen water sprouted thorns and pierced through Kai's shield and extended towards him. It was a move that would spell death for most caught in it.

But Kai was different, his eyes flashed and he slashed out in a rotation. All of the thorns that were heading towards him were cut and he proceeded to chase after Erina. He passed through several of the statues at once and all of them moved towards him much like the same way the first one had.

He also tried destroying them but it proved fruitless.

All of a sudden, just as one of the statues exploded, Erina vanished from her spot and reappeared in front of Kai. She waved her arm and shouted, "[Ice Pillar]!"

Three of the statues broke and accompanying the one that was heading towards Kai, they formed a massive pillar which then barreled over to him. But, Erina wasn't finished, "[Ice Thorns]!"

The pillar that was going to hit Kai grew thorns on its surface and now, blocking it with the body wasn't an option. If Kai's condition was to defeat him, perhaps he would've caught it with his hands despite bleeding but now, he only had limited options.

"Break!" Kai shouted and slashed the pillar in half but as soon as it broke, Erina kicked the two halves and appeared in front of Kai.

"[Blizzard]!"

Accompanying Erina's shout, the entire field was covered in ice and bombarded by snow. The audience was in an uproar over the sudden change in weather. All of their views were blocked and only a few, like the Blind Swordsman and Memento Mori were able to see the battle.

Erina used the sudden dim of the environment to thrust out with her rapier towards Kai's mask. If the environment someone is in changes from light to dark, there needs to be a buffer time for the eyes to adapt—but Kai was different.

Let alone dimness, even if this place was devoid of any light, he would still be able to see and feel his surroundings. He avoided Erina's thrust and used the wind to blow away both the Blizzard and Erina much to her chagrin.

"[Ice Chains]!"

Erina shouted and from her hand, several chains wrapped around Kai. She pulled on them which made Kai fly towards her and she once more thrust out with her rapier.

"Noble Sword: Sixty-four Thrusts!"

She was attacking so fast that the onlookers could only see one of her arms moving but, there were sixty-four attacks coming from that one rapier in that second.

"[Spherical Storm]."

Kai muttered and the chains that wrapped around his body were broken apart by the wind. The ground he was standing on was being ripped to shreds and all of Erina's attacks were blocked.

The wind surrounding him was moving so fast that Erina couldn't even see Kai inside. It was exactly what Kai called it, a storm in the form of a sphere.

Erina clicked her tongue and retreated several meters, all the while leaving ice statues.

"[Icicles]!"

She pointed her palm at Kai and hundreds of icicles shot out but none of them were able to pass through the storm and shattered just outside.

Kai walked forward and the statues Erina had left broke apart but they couldn't envelop Kai like they had before and just dispersed.

At this point, the entire audience was dumbfounded.

Erina grit her teeth and clapped her hands together before shouting, "[Permafrost]!"

All of a sudden, a square formation was set up around Kai and starting from the corners, it rapidly froze the entire area it covered. The ice wasn't cloudy, instead, it was very clear and they could near Kai's storm without breaking as easily as the others.

The frost only froze the ground and didn't sprout any thorns or spikes but Kai's feet were forced to a halt as the permafrost froze his feet in place. Normally, Kai would've been able to ignore something like frozen feet but was surprised to find that he couldn't move in the least.

He continued on rotating the storm surrounding him and used heat on his feet but let alone melting, it didn't even crack. Next, he found out that the ice outside of the storm and inside were different.

"Eternal Frost..."

Kai muttered. The surroundings outside were covered in normal ice but the ones that froze Kai's foot was made of Eternal Frost. Kai quickly channeled golden flames on his feet to burn it off but at that moment, his storm was split in half and revealed Erina who was emitting extreme fluctuations of mana.

Even Kai was shocked at the amount of mana she was using. As an S-class, that amount of magic power was enough to destroy the entire arena and then some.

"[Niflheim]!"

Erina waved her hand and a huge cloud of cold air manifested in her hands that swarmed over to Kai. When Kai laid his eyes on that cloud, alarm bells rang inside his head and he quickly manifested all of his power to defend. This was the first time in the entire match that Kai finally felt danger from Erina's technique.

"[Muspelheim]!"

Kai yelled out and black flames formed to create a shield in front of him, then it slowly spread out. The ice that was in the area had already been thawed out now, the cloud of cold air and the black flame were charging towards each other with neither one gaining an advantage.

Both of them held out their hands out towards their respective attacks to keep supplying mana but at that rate, it would be Kai's victory.

Erina looked at her left hand and didn't hesitate to bite into her thumb causing it to bleed.

"[I offer my power, Goddess of Frost, overwhelm his flames]!"

(A/N: This first appeared in chapter 63 but all of the names were covered in blanks. The blanks were Eternal Frost and Goddess of Frost)

A huge gust of wind blew Erina's cloak away, revealing her silver hair but her face was still covered by a mask. She was covered by the light produced not from the attribute, but rather her mana. The mana was so thick that it produced visible light.

In an instant, the power struggle between her Niflheim and Kai's Muspelheim was finished and the former came out on top. The black flames dispersed and the cloud of cold air became larger and overwhelmed Kai.

At some point during the match, the clouds became dark and nobody could see the stage well but the black flames and the cloud of cold air were something that all of them saw. The overwhelming amount of mana produced from the two's fight also caused a big part of the audience to get knocked out.

Erina looked at Kai's figure frozen inside the ice and breathed a sigh of relief. At some point, their match of swords turned into one of magic but that was understandable, Erina wasn't a swordsman in the truest sense.

"Please lose with this..."

She held out her rapier towards Kai's frozen figure and thrust out.