Iesa continued her advance on the tribeswoman in front of her, panting slightly as she ignored her burning lungs and heavy limbs. Sweat dripped down her forehead, sizzling as it hit the flames burning around her body… She raised a hand, drawing on some of the last of her strength to collect the rampaging fire in her palm.

  “I’ll make sure not to burn you to ash!” The flame disciple called out mockingly, letting out some of the frustration of the past hour.

  From the rim of the Basin Tirr watched impassively, around him many of his followers were letting out sighs of appreciation and even praising Iesa’s strategy. Her fellow flame disciples cheered the loudest their own spirits burning brightly.

  As Dun turned to the young god to ask him how early he realized Iesa’s plan, he found him frowning. Tirr watched the sweat dripping off Iesa, watched as her breath came hard and fast…. Finally, he shook his head…

  Dun looked down at him in confusion, but before he could ask, Maria’s voice cut in… “She took too long…”

  Dun glanced at the young woman sitting beside them. Her hands still gently teased Garm, forcing the pup this way and that and he bounced happily, yet her eyes had shifted down into the basin and she had the same slight frown as her god.

  Tirr grunted in agreement, “She needs to win now, or she won’t win at all…”

  “That should be easy though, right?” Dun muttered turning back to the Lakebed…

  “If she didn’t have to worry about not killing then probably yeah…”

  On the lakebed, Koti seemed calm even as she faced flames on all sides and the approaching young woman in front of her. Seeing that she wasn’t planning to give up, Iesa frowned slightly but didn’t hesitate as she launched her hand forward. The ball of flame spinning towards Koti wildly.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The young warrior crouched quickly, her hand pressing against the ground as she seent energy surging through her shard. The ground in front of her suddenly rose, forming a wall of rock and earth just as the flames reached her. The fireball struck the rocky wall and exploded, sending flames scattering and further scorching the area.

  Koti ran out suddenly, more stones launched towards her opponent before raising another rocky wall just in time to block another ball of fire. She moved using the remaining space as well as she could as she worked around the frustrated flame disciple.

  Iesa knew she couldn’t let this last much longer. She stopped throwing the weaker fireballs, ad instead focused on concentrating and compressing the one n her hand, feeling her energy drain further from the focus required. The ball of fire within her hand shrunk while growing brighter and brighter, soon becoming no more than a pinprick of light shining brightly in her palm.

  As Koti raised another wall but quickly realized that there wasn’t another explosion. She reacted instantly, keeping her hands on the ground while channeling even more energy into the shard. Her mind dove through the layers of sand and dirt to the solid rock lining the bottom of the lakebed below them. Finding it, she gripped it tightly in her mind and twisted.

  Iesa, compressed the flame as far as she dared to, yet before she could unleash it the ground beneath her suddenly heaved. Sand and dirt went flying as the ground split and cracked, sections rising and falling with a rumbling roar.

  Iesa was sent flying in the sudden commotion, her flare flying into the ground and having almost no impact upon the chaos already happening. The rocky walls that Koti had raised defensively now became weapons among the shifting earth, forcing Iesa to scramble out of the way. Eventually though between the falling debris and hazardous ground Iesa found herself caught, buried under the continuous rubble.

  The crowd watched in shock as the dust settled slowly over the field, revealing an exhausted Koti panting above the uneven and upturned terrain. Suddenly a hand reached out from the sand pressing down to raise the rest f the body as Iesa rose, her anger causing the sand around her to heat to a fiery red…

  “You…” She muttered as she crawled from the sand, her arm hanging uselessly from her side, yet the ground around her was starting to melt from the intense heat she was emitting. “I’ll kil…”

  “We resign from this match…” Tirr’s voice spread over the basin in a quiet resolve, shocking and distracting the crowd from the horrifying sight below…