The air in the room was tense. In part due to the sudden burst of mana that Lusha had expelled, and in part due to the creeping anxiety. The sound of several hands unsheathing swords and preparing themselves for magic casted a nice melody throughout the room.

“H-hey now… Let’s not get a bit brash here. This is no time for jokes.” Blight chided.

“Oh, I’m not joking. Trust me on that.”

“But yo-“

“Don’t worry. I’ll be just fine.”

“I-its not you I’m worried about here.” Blight sighed. It didn’t seem like she wasn’t going to let up on this idea any time soon.

She looked around the room and observed the faces of everyone. Stern and confident eyes boring back at hers. “Good. I like the fire I’m seeing.” She then turned away from Blight, revealing her back to the man. “Don’t worry. All of you. I won’t cause any extended harm for your coming event. In fact, you should all be able to test the effectiveness of your methods.” She looked to Blight for confirmation. As if to say ‘Is that acceptable?’

Blight couldn’t explain the feeling of hesitancy he was carrying with him, but the girl did provide a good argument. A method to test their prowess against someone of her caliber might be useful to the group as a whole. Blight was hesitant to accept her request, but could see that he was getting nowhere. At last, he finally got her to agree to several terms of the bout.

“Everyone. Let’s go.”

Pushing past Lusha and the rest of his men, he headed confidently to the door. This time showing his back to the wretched witch. The boost of morale that followed from his men there-after was tantamount to the feeling of attaining victory.

There she stood, a good 100 meter distance away from the fortress. “C-come on now… isn’t this rather brash.” Blight asked cautiously. Behind him, a total of 32 people stood outside with their weapons drawn. Some had looks of serious disdain upon their faces, others showed clear disinterest in the whole ordeal. They maybe thought that it was too bothersome to send out the entire bulk of their power to deal with one single girl.

“I’d like to reiterate… I want you all to come at me as if trying to kill me. Anything short of that will be a breach of the terms we’ve set…- and trust, you don’t want me breaking the terms as well.”

“A-Hey… you never said anything about that.” Blight curled his lip and ordered everyone into position. The 30 members spread out in an arc in front of Lusha. They were clumped together in 11 different units of 3, positioning themselves in triangle formations. Two members at the front and one singular member at the very back. From what Lusha could gleam, the members on the back were most-likely mages. Evident by the fact that they had not yet drawn their blades, nor do most of them even carry blades on their person.

Eri watched from the sidelines a safe distance away from the rest of them. Her excitement at getting to witness Resha in action could only be heightened the more each second passed. It was enough for her to have forgotten it was still heavily raining.

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“Very well… whenever you’re ready—“Lusha spoke. “You may begin.” And just like that, everything became dark for her. It was as if someone had instantly removed the light from the world. What’s more, she couldn’t even sense the energies of anyone nearby.

‘hoh… interesting. What’s the nature of this technique?’ She attempted to voice her praise, only to realize she could not even hear her own voice. Suddenly she felt the feeling of losing balance, falling over onto the ground. Lusha was quite familiar with mind techniques. This however—was nothing like it. She could tell right away that her mind was not under influence. This then had to be the work of something else.

Upon feeling another blow strike the side of her face, she grabbed onto the arm the moment it made contact. Flame began to engulf her hand, peeling away at the skin. ‘This must be that one Morse brat.’

She quickly tossed the man behind her, remembering her previous vow not to harm them. She carefully plotted the situation. This type of technique wasn’t an illusion, that much was certain. Furthermore, judging by the various hits she had just received, knocking her off balance, it was very clear that it wasn’t a barrier. A barrier would have had to encompass the entirety of a certain field. Should the enemies have entered the radius, they themselves would fall victim to the effects as well. That however, was not the case.

It must be the case that there are several spells at play here. Yet again another feeling of a blade pierced her flesh. She pull forward, pushing her pierced forearm deeper into the blade, piercing through her arm and into her shoulder blade. As the man attempted to retreat, Lusha’s unperturbed launch forward ensured that was a difficult task. A sharp kick launched into the attacker’s side. She could definitely feel the connection having hit. This was only noticeable due to the fact that spikes protruded into her leg upon contact.

The impact still made it sure that the man felt the kick as plain as day. “This is quite bothersome.” She spoke, yet no words left her mouth.

Eri watched from afar. The events of the fight were getting confusing. She couldn’t quite understand what was happening. One moment Lusha had just declared the fight to begin, and the next moment she became engulfed in a dark shroud, appearing to be nothing more than a silhouette. It became apparent a minutes later that this was not a technique that Lusha had augmented. The sequential attacks were unrelenting, and yet she had no defense against it. This was looking more like a massacre than anything. Of course, Eri doubted that this was unintended. Knowing the great Resha, she had wanted these events to play out like this.

“Careful. She’s quick.” Garn said, clutching at his bruised ribs. “She’s reacting immediately after I strike her.”

Blight nodded. “Alright, Victor. Are you able to eliminate physical touch?”

Blight waited for a couple more seconds, to see if Lusha would concede before launching the next sequence of attacks. It appeared she had no qualms with her current situation and forfeiture was unlikely. He motioned for the next group to attack her, putting his thumb, middle and ring finger. Each of the fingers represents one of the groups. Limn, Semi, and Damanak. These were all close ranged individuals, armed with just their blades and fists. He was preserving the mid-length combat and the far ranged combat in the case that the young woman frees herself from the technique.

Though it was quite a tricky technique regardless. This was a conjunction of techniques made possible by Victor’s “Spatial Magic [Void Coat]” A powerful technique robbing the opponent of light and sound or sensory. Thusfar, it was a technique that he himself had not found a way out of. Of course, the void coating alone was not enough for a case like this.

“Careful. She’s quick.” Garn said, clutching at his bruised ribs. “She’s reacting immediately after I strike her.”

Blight nodded. “Alright, Victor. Are you able to eliminate physical touch?”

Victor shook his head. “The truth is—I tried already. She has a strong mental block. It’s impossible for me to get into her mind.”

Illusionary arts were a unique form of magic. However, it is not without its draw backs. In order to enter the target’s mind, you have to be able to find weaknesses within their mental fortitude. You can brute force it by applying more Mana than they have, but they can usually fortify their mind with mana as well. In this case, no matter how much he tried, her mind was fortified naturally- even when he added mana to it.

“Alright. Switch to long range attacks then.”

A full minute passed by before everyone regrouped and changed their formation. Now Lusha stood entirely surrounded as elemental attacks began to conjure. That was around the time Lush silently mouthed the words “Absolute Domain”.