The day of the quarter finals’ last match, the organizers had turned the entire arena into a celebration. Streamers decorated the stands, fanfare blared throughout the gathered crowd. Rieren had to continuously bat away confetti from off her head. It was almost as though someone was taking special pleasure in flinging extra her way.
Apparently, everyone was supposed to celebrate the day of the Elderlands unification into a single empire.
Thankfully, Rieren had missed most of the speech and other displays of imperial patriotism. A part of the celebration was of course the glorious fight everyone was about to witness. The combatants were already centred upon the battlefield, facing each other with such focus that nothing else in the arena might as well exist.
Rieren didn’t linger long on Ceraline. The impassiveness of her face was almost boring. That woman gave absolutely nothing away.
Though, that wasn’t entirely her own doing, so much as a product of her powers.
Essalina was, as usual, a lot livelier. She grinned hard, her posture of one who was going to force herself to enjoy the upcoming experience. Rieren wondered how much pressure she was hiding, how much rode on the outcome of this match for the Arteroth scion.
One of the reasons Essalina had risen so high in the ranks of her clan as well as cultivation was due to her ability to procure excellent results at an astonishing pace. Her people loved her because she had fallen like an avalanche upon the invading monsters and destroyed the threat they posed. She had almost reconstituted normalcy in her region.
That success was what had propelled her to become a Fury of the North. Rumour even had it that she could become Clanmistress before long, taking the mantle from her old father.
But the further the heights of success she drove herself to, the greater the mark any loss left upon her. She had constructed herself a podium from which she shone so brilliantly that even the smallest reduction in illumination made all those who gazed upon her falter.
The match official stepped away from both women, his hand held high. His every step made the tension climb higher and higher.
“Under the auspices of the Forborne Emperor,” the tournament commentator said as the match official’s hand fell. “May the best warrior win!”
And with that, their battle began.
Rieren wasn’t at all surprised by the initial proceedings. Essalina experimentally tried to attack Ceraline from range. The Arteroth scion’s Domain manifested black-and-gold flames of all sorts of shapes and sizes and consistencies. All of which were flung at Ceraline in an unending barrage.
The other woman had her typical response ready, of course. Papers fluttered out of her, their blank pages facing the Arteroth scion. All the flames struck them, converting into script that Ceraline flicked around with a nudge of her will, reverting all that her opponent had thrown in her direction. The golden-black fires collided with a heavy detonation.
Both combatants went unharmed. Essalina had retreated backwards quickly to escape the blast zone just as Ceraline had reflected her powers.
Rieren tutted and shook her head. Essalina’s pride would be her downfall. She knew about Ceraline’s powers, had seen them for herself, yet still persisted with a technique that wasn’t going to work. Madness.
Well, at least she wasn’t continuing her use of ineffectual moves. The very next step Essalina took threw her right at Ceraline.
Now the Arteroth scion was starting to employ the most obvious strategy that would work against Ceraline. Get in close and let her use none of her ranged paper abilities. Strong as Ceraline’s unique Domain and techniques were, she was nowhere near as proficient in close-quarters combat. Something that Essalina excelled in.
Ceraline did her best to evade and dodge, never fully taking on her opponent. She leaped away at one point, using her pages to step through the air as though each floating page held an invisible platform.
As Essalina struck down on the spot Ceraline had just vacated, the Arteroth scion was hammered by all the paper her opponent had left behind. They faced Essalina as one, glowing blue before launching a storm of cerulean fireballs that had her overwhelmed in a heartbeat. The crowd gasped and oohed in delight.
Essalina broke free, eliciting yells of triumph from her supporters within the audience.
Her flaming cloak bashed aside Ceraline’s attack. It also granted her passage through the sky, almost acting like a wing letting her take flight.
Ceraline was the more manoeuverable of the two, however. She was able to skip away no matter how fast Essalina came at her, especially since the Arteroth scion was forced to reduce her speed to control her momentum and Ceraline’s sharp turns better.
The crowd cheered in delight at the combatants keeping up a frenzy of chasing and attacking. Rieren just shook her head. Sure, Essalina might be going more and more feral as the battle wore on, the challenge of her fight enlivening her. And sure, the spectators might be more than satisfied with the display they were granted. But Rieren wanted them to get it over with.
She didn’t exactly get her wish, but they did take the battle up a notch.
Their movements became more frenetic, their clashes more direct. Essalina’s sword swings came ever closer to taking off one of Cerlina’s limbs. Meanwhile, Ceraline was blasting paper after paper in Essalina’s direction, rocketing out blue flames that struck directly.
The Arteroth scion tanked through them all. That was the difference between an Ascendant realm cultivator and someone still stuck in the Exalted realm. Rieren wasn’t even sure if Ceraline had reached Peak-Exalted yet.
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At one point, as Essalina swished through the array of blue flames that Ceraline had thrown out from her papers, she caught up to her opponent directly. For just a second, Rieren thought she might have caught a flicker of panic cross Ceraline’s normally expressionless mask. But she was too far away to be sure anyway.
And then her scrolls came out. The inherent power within the script she had stored inside her scrolls granted her just enough strength to weather the storm of blows that Essalina unleashed. It was when the Arteroth scion brought her skill to bear—the one that made her power grow with every successive strike—that Ceraline made a quick exit.
By unleashing all the strength in her scrolls at once.
It wasn’t a direct, physical blow. All Ceraline did was use the Essence stored as script to release another blue-flame technique.
Three copies of herself materialized around Essalina, flaming versions of Ceraline Selvier that attacked the Arteroth scion with no sense of self-preservation. As Essalina confronted them, her opponent made a quick getaway.
Though, of course, Essalina wasn’t going to let any gap exist between them for long.
The flaming version of Ceraline proved sturdier than they appeared. They didn’t dissipate when they were bashed by the Essalina’s greatsword, nor when she unleashed her black-and-gold fire upon them. That was one powerful technique.
But Essalina countered with something she had clearly been storing until she had to call it forth,
Powerful Domain Summons. From the fizzing fire at her feet, three wormlike creatures spiralled out, pitted with craters, cracks, and spikes. Their eyes glowed like molten metal.
All three summoned creatures shot at Ceraline with blinding speed, their spiny pincers snapping with the threat of delivering immediate death as soon as they caught her. She had been preparing more techniques to throw with her pages, but now she was forced to reroute her attention to the new Domain Summons she had to deal with.
Meanwhile, Essalina finished dealing with the flaming versions of Ceraline. They had required her to exercise a furious smothering with her fiery cape, but she was now free to attack.
Of course, Ceraline had prepared her own contingency. She had thrown herself high into the air again, landing upon one of her pages to steady herself. From there she unleashed yet another technique. Rieren tutted and shook her head. That wasn’t what Ceraline was truly going for.
This technique unleashed her blue flames in a shower around her. A rain of fire that normally would have been quite destructive had she not been facing someone so much stronger.
As it was, the hammering rain of fire hit struck the battlefield hard, quickly pushing back Essalina’s Domain summons. But Essalina herself acted next. She twisted her flaming cape around her body then launched herself at Ceraline with fiery speed. Her cannoning motion crashed through Ceraline’s pages and made them both crash to the ground.
Except, unlike Ceraline, Essalina was standing with her sword poised to strike.
It looked like it was over. Like there was nothing further Ceraline would have been able to do to overcome her stronger adversary, left with no recourse but to surrender.
But she made no move to do so. If anything, her body seemed to tense. She was preparing to act. This battle wasn’t over.
Ceraline’s hands shot out like a praying mantis. A page was in her hand ready to unleash whatever technique it held. But Essalina was already a step ahead. As soon as Ceraline had burst into motion, one of her Domain Summons burst out of the ground with a spurt of the signature Arteroth flames.
It struck Ceraline’s leg, making her stumble, her strike missing its mark wildly. But Essalina’s blow was spot on.
Which was what led to the Arteroth scion’s downfall.
As soon as her greatsword—the flat of it, since apparently, Essalina could control herself during the battle to not kill everyone she fought—struck her opponent, Ceraline exploded into hundreds of blank pages.
Rieren grinned. There it was. The technique she had been waiting for all this while. The trump card Ceraline had been holding back until she needed it against an opponent like Essalina.
As soon as Ceraline’s figure had turned into a storm of blank pages, every single piece of paper flew straight at Essalina. She had no time to react. The surprise was overwhelming enough. All those pages were too close as well. And far too numerous. They covered every bit of her from head to toe, including her hair. In less than a heartbeat, Essalina had been mummified.
She was already struggling to free herself, of course. Her arms swung this way and that, before finally clutching herself in an effort to tear off the papers covering her. The Domain summons came in to assist as well.
But there couldn’t have been many people paying attention to her struggles, shocking as it was. No. Like Rieren, almost everyone in the audience was watching the other combatant.
Ceraline appeared from the edge of the arena like she had materialized from behind an invisible curtain. That was the best way Rieren could describe that other technique of hers. One where she shrouded herself in a bunch of her papers which replicated the nearby environment as a form of camouflage. In this case, Ceraline had chosen to mimic the arena wall.
She burst out of her cover and rushed to Essalina’s position with blistering speed, moving too fast for the crowd to even gasp in appreciation. She reached the Arteroth scion just as she managed to tear off the first of the papers clinging to her. The pages that were masking her face.
Essalina gasped in newfound freedom, only to immediately start rearing back. Ceraline was attacking with another scroll in her hand.
Despite the pages constricting her motion, Essalina was still able to move backwards just enough to dodge the incoming blow. But she hadn’t foreseen that scroll unfurling even as Ceraline attacked. Its end shot out, slapping Essalina on the cheek, the script at the end activating at the same time to unleash a blast of Ceraline’s blazing blue fire.
Right onto the Arteroth scion’s unprotected face.
The crowd yelled and Rieren grinned, while Essalina screamed. Those pages hadn’t just been a distraction and a cage. All the script now glowing on their backs was evidence that they had sucked out any Essence they had come into contact with as soon as they had struck Essalina.
And the only Essence that condition satisfied was her concentrated Essence armour.
That inescapable blast was enough to send Essalina sprawling to the ground, clutching her face as she tried to stifle her cries of pain. All attempts to get rid of the other pages covering her were long forgotten.
Ceraline stood over her, still with the same impassiveness she always maintained. More of her scroll dropped to wrap around Essalina. She had the Arteroth scion in her clutches.
There were definitely some words exchanged. Rieren could see it when Ceraline leaned down to speak with her adversary. The exact words never reached the audience, however, and not even Rieren could listen in with her better hearing. Ceraline just wasn’t someone who cared about things like leaving no question about her victory to the audience.
Nevertheless, the match official understood that he had to step in, and upon confirmation, he signalled to the commentator in the stands far above.
“Folks!” he yelled. “The final battle of the quarter finals has come to a close. Our victor is Ceraline Selvier!”
For a moment, shocked silence greeted the pronouncement. Essalina was a champion of the people. Most people watching the Trials of Ascendance expected her to win, if not at least give the eventual winner a strong run for their money. It was an undoubted truth that she was likely the most powerful participant in terms of pure progress in cultivation.
But slowly, eventually, the spectators cheered and clapped. Even if their favoured tournament winner had fallen, it had still been a brilliant showing by Ceraline, one deserving of their praise.
For once, Rieren agreed with them. Ceraline had once again displayed how clever use of one’s powers could overcome brute strength differential. Something Rieren would always appreciate.