Zorya escorted the challenger to her school’s battlefield without uttering a single word. Although she kept her mouth shut, her body language couldn’t conceal her true feelings; her movement had lost its grace and her steps were tense and strained.
Every now and then, Elem noticed how Zorya’s eyes strayed from their path and watched her inspect Hotto with a deep expression of disdain. He noticed the anger boiling below her quiet facade. It was pure rage and how could she not be upset? Hotto had come to her home and threatened her father who, as far as Elem knew, wasn’t fit enough to have a proper duel. It was an act beyond disrespect and Elem was certain that he would have felt the same way.
Due to the peninsula’s unique shape, Unagi’s main complex had no space for a proper battlefield and its official dueling stage was a ten minute walk from the summoning school. They walked back through the town and marched past the pebble beach until they reached a large rectangle-shaped stage extending into the ocean like a dock. Although it was obviously man-made, the stage seamlessly blended in with its environment. The ocean was valued by the local culture and this preference was reflected in its battlefield. The stage was surrounded by a collection of kelp-stained rocks reaching out of the water, resembling the teeth of an enormous crocodile.
“I assume she is gonna call a Water Summon?” Aja asked jokingly. “Anything else would be at a severe disadvantage in a place like this.”
“It can be a tricky stage when the tides shift but luckily for us the Unagi School specializes in Water Summons,” Dante explained without catching her sarcasm. “Luckily for us, Master Zorya grew up with the ocean and she knows how to roll with the waves better than anyone else.”
While the two duelists took their places on the beach, Elem and Aja followed Dante, Mei Mei and the other disciples to a set of bleachers cleanly carved into the adjacent cliffs.
Unagi was a small town and word evidently traveled quickly. As such, the duel had attracted many of the townsfolk and apparently everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of the arrogant man who had challenged Unagi’s retired master.
“How many Summons can you call?” Zorya asked Hotto, her gaze fixed at the ocean.
The challenger replied with a sigh.
“I am not in the mood to waste too much time on someone like you,” he said. “Send me your best Summon and I will do the same; one versus one. Let’s want to make this a quick affair.”
“As you wish.”
Zorya spread her toes in the sand as she stretched her arms horizontally across her body. It was an interesting stance that Elem had never seen before.
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“I summon the Siren, a Water Summon; dangerous beauty of the seas!”
“Interesting…” noted Hotto, his eyes were already glowing bronze. “I’ll be happy to crush that little fish. I summon the Lou Carcolh, an Earth Summon; the dark nightmare from the abyss!”
Both summons emerged at the same time. As waves crashed against the battlefield’s rocky walls, scattering foam and sea spray high into the air, the Siren leaped from the ocean and gracefully landed on a boulder on the far side of the battlefield. Simultaneously, the earth began to tremble and a chasm momentarily opened in the middle of the stage, spewing out Hotto’s terrifying gastropod.
“This is gonna be good,” Aja remarked. “Those are some top tier summons over there. Both are Legendary Class beasts with massive potential.”
Elem perched to the edge of his seat. His friend was right, this was going to be a great match to witness. He was still planning on challenging Zorya himself, so having the opportunity to watch her perform before he would duel her was a godsend. Although Hotto seemed like an unpleasant person, his time of arrival at the Unagi School couldn’t have been any more perfect for Elem’s strategy.
The Lou Carcolh towered over its opponent. Referring to the Earth Summon as a ‘nightmare’ wasn’t exactly an inaccurate statement. It was often described as a rough hybrid between a snake and a monstrous snail, but that description didn’t do it justice. The creature was not just unpleasant to look at, it was in fact hideous. Its entire body was covered with a thick layer of slime, reaching even its many tentacle-like appendages. On its back the Lou Carcolh carried an uneven, spiked shell, encrusted with moss and decaying remnants, and its cavernous mouth counted rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth.
However, while the Lou Carcolh was a sight to behold, Zorya and her Summon seemed undeterred. The Siren even threw her hair across her shoulder as a disinterested gesture of twisted elegance. It then let out a teasing giggle.
The Water Summon made Elem feel uneasy. Although its scaly skin was as pale as a corpse and its lower body glistened in the sun like that of a freshly caught fish, he felt an unexplainable sense of attraction to the Summon. The Siren wasn’t conventionally beautiful, with its elongated jaw and the ravenous look in its eyes, but yet it emitted a strange aura of irresistibility and mystique that kept drawing Elem in. Thankfully, the referee’s announcement pulled him from his thoughts.
“Summoners ready? Let's begin!”
Hotto didn’t waste a second and immediately sent the Lou Carcolh after the Siren. The Earth Summon was deceptively quick as it slithered towards its target, leaving a trail of bubbling slime in its wake. The creature’s appendages reached forward like an army of eels dangling from an underwater cavern.
Elem fully expected the Siren to leap out of the way- at least, that’s what he would have made his Kappa do- but the Water Summon did no such thing. It seemed unbothered by the impending attack and playfully swayed from side to side without leaving her rock.
“I think it's waiting for the perfect moment to strike,” Aja hypothesized. “It's just luring that fat slug in.”
Aja’s theory proved correct, the Siren allowed its opponent to come dangerously close and just when the gastropod tried to take hold of Zorya’s Summon, it slammed her powerful fishtail against the boulder and launched itself high into the air. As it shot up, the Siren opened its palms and cut through some of the Lou Carcolh’s appendages with its dagger-like nails.
“This will not be as easy as you thought,” Master Zorya told the challenger as the snail’s severed limbs eerily flailed on the battlefield’s floor.