Folduin stood at one end of the arena, Kiyomi at the other end.

Her biggest concern was the accuracy of her spells that needed a target. AOEs would probably be fine though.

“You got this, Ki!” Sako cheered from the sidelines. She could be a cheerleader.

“Begin,” Elora spoke from beside Sako, barely audible.

To get a head start, Kiyomi had applied her buffs beforehand. And her cloak hid her current effects so she wouldn’t be caught (her cloak masked all her stats except her level and class. Same for Sako). No one had said cheating wasn’t allowed. Her MP bar gradually went down but went back up again. It went down a quarter then up to full again. Then to half. Then slowly back up. He was draining it somehow, but it seemed she didn’t need to worry about the fluctuation since her high regen countered it.

A soft ringing sounded from her right and the sound of a pebble rolling along the concrete. Instinctively, she looked to the right to find the source but there was nothing. A distraction?

“ROB!”

Kiyomi looked back to find a large, purple hand flying towards her. A shield appeared around her to block it, but the hand went right through—through the shield and into her chest. It hadn’t penetrated her flesh or even just her clothes. Some sort of metaphysical attack? Inside of her chest tingled.

The hand came out and retracted to Folduin.

Physically, she felt fine, but something was lacking. She felt an emptiness. While mentally running through the list of skills she had, she noticed 100 skills were missing. No…it couldn’t be.

Folduin smirked.

“You son of a bitch! Did you really just—”

“Ha! You catch on fast!” Folduin lifted his hand into the air. “Shards of annihilation, divide the skies and shower! Enka!”

Thousands of black shards rained down from the sky—each one about the size of her body.

“Eeglia!” With his other hand, he shot black streaks of lightning in her direction.

Kiyomi’s instincts told her to block everything with a shield or jump out of the way since she had the agility, but either one would be too mundane and simple. She had a better idea for something aggressive. He had the audacity to steal 100 of her spells, most of which were high-end, so she wouldn’t mind taking a limb or two off him. And his class was likely Thief or something else that was just as shady despite his spell usage. His demeanor said it all.

She thought of a perfect counter. Vector Shift. It would let her change the vector of any Dark spell. The lightning bent and ran back in his direction. The falling shards redirected their path to him. A huge serpent sprang up from a magic circle beside her. For now, she would put it on standby.

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He shrieked and dashed away from the lightning. “HEY! YOU CAN’T DO THAT! THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

“OH LOOK WHO’S TALKING,” Kiyomi countered.

“Umbrella of Heaven!” He held up a black stick. It grew into a black, starry umbrella wide enough to cover a good portion of the arena. The shards shattered once they fell onto the umbrella. He tossed it aside, and it vanished.

That was another one of her fucking spells. “BE ORIGINAL. JEEZ.” With a quick motion, she pointed her staff forward as a signal. The serpent lunged forward, though slanted, across the arena, mouth open to eat him. Her accuracy was way off, but since the serpent understood the intent, it curved to adjust itself in her intended direction.

“Grant me providence, WALL OF OBSCURITY!” He slammed his staff on the ground with a click. A black wall shot up before him. It was too late for the serpent to stop, so its whole body ran into it, swallowed up by the darkness inside the wall. The wall sank back into the ground.

What annoyed her the most was that Folduin’s mastery of her spells was near perfect. He still had to say the words aloud with a few seconds of cast time, meaning he couldn’t cast anything instantly with just a thought like she could. And the spells weren’t as potent and up to her standards. Her MP bar started dropping rapidly. He must be using Mana Drain passively.

She pulled a celery stick from her pocket. Fortify. Vector Shift. Ribbons of Darkness. Zero Sign. Once she threw the stick in midair, it hardened, turned obsidian, and grew about as big as a whale. With Vector Shift, it went even faster. Black ribbons emerged from his shadow behind him. Zero Sign cloaked its location, so he wouldn’t sense it. The ribbons enveloped him, binding him in place and prevented him from evading.

“NEGATION!” A black dome covered the arena to nullify all the spells.

Negation override. The dome popped at Kiyomi’s command. The spells continued.

He screamed. “CLOAK OF ASTIUS!” A black cloak appeared on him, much like hers and Sako’s that they were using to hide their stats. The difference was that the cloak he wore had a purple glow. Folduin turned into goo and fell into the ground. The giant stick flew past and crashed into the wall. BOOM!

She was surprised he still had some mana left after casting all that. “Shouldn’t you be out of mana now?!” Canceling his cancellation left her MP bar at half, but after some seconds, it filled back up. If he turned into goo… he would likely… She looked down at her shadow. It turned the same purple with the glow. Even if she moved from her spot, as long as her shadow followed her, she couldn’t avoid his next attack. In that case… Disconnect. She stepped away from her shadow, narrowly missing a black column of flame that shot up from it. The heat was intense.

“I almost had you!” Folduin stood at his initial spot again.

It was obvious now that he used a lot less MP for stolen spells. Such a pain. He wasn’t a Thief. Thieves weren’t this adept at spellcasting. Chaotic Spellweaver. That must’ve been it. In that case, she had the perfect solution. Black Door. A simple black door appeared next to her. The door gave her access to a few unique spells. The options emerged in her mind. Unfounded Chaos, Tier 10. About 100 hands of every color possible burst through the door and stretched towards him.

“NEGATION!”

The black dome reappeared, but the hands ignored it.

Kiyomi was sitting on a black chair she had conjured up. Yeah, he’s not getting out of this one.

“SHADOW EATER!” He held his hand out, palm faced at it. A shadow far larger than the hands combined with eerie, glowing eyes rushed out of his palm. “DEVOUR!” He closed his palm into a fist. The shadow opened its mouth.

The hands spread apart. Some wrapped around the shadow and squeezed it tightly. The rest of the hands continued their course and grabbed his limbs, draining all his MP and stamina and reclaiming her spells.

“AAAAHHHH! OKAY! OKAY! I GIVE UP!”

A blue flame came up from the center of the field and morphed into Elora. “That’s time,” she said in an unenthused voice. “Can I go back to sleep now?”