Chapter 65: Quarter-Finals (IV)

  Back on the arena stage, Tidus stood in front of Nolan as he faced off against Erik, who had a trail of blood running down his chin from the corner of his mouth. With the most innocent expression, Tidus shrugged his shoulders.

  “Unfortunately, my innate Stormheart Physique devours powers of lightning weaker than mine, so I am unable to return the absorbed Mystic Lightning. You will be compensated with some essence stones upon the conclusion of the Convergence. Now, it is time to prepare for the final duel of the quarter-finals. Please head back to your group.”

  Fuming, Erik gritted his teeth. His complexion fluctuated between red and pale, as he alternated between raging anger and bouts of coughing up some blood. Eventually, he turned around and walked away.

  “Thank you, Senior Tidus,” Nolan spoke out in a soft, dispirited voice from behind Tidus.

  Tidus faced Nolan and looked him over once, then sighed. “Boy, you need more training. Your biggest advantage as an Auron is when you’re on the ground. At least until you reach the Inner Fortress realm. You had already lost the moment you jumped. Make sure to take this loss as a lesson.”

  Nolan responded with a solemn bow before he put away his bladed boots and jumped off the platform. Clicking his tongue, Tidus’s gaze landed on Damon, who was chatting with his group.

  “Now, that boy is the intriguing one. For someone so young to have already formed a dual-element spell in the Node Awakening realm, albeit only being possible thanks to the assistance of runes… He really has a bright future. Maybe… I should cut him some slack on his custodial duties…” He mumbled as he mused whether he had treated the talented boy too poorly in the past.

  Having witnessed the sudden loss of one of the Academy’s participants, the crowd did not know what to do. Only hushed whispers and low murmurs resounded from the audience stands. Even the commentator’s terrace was quiet.

  “What should we say?” Wesley asked Alan with a frown.

  “What do you mean? Just explain the fight and praise Nolan’s good points and talk about how unfortunate he was to lose.” Alan responded nonchalantly.

  “Can’t you do it?” Wesley pleaded with a pouty face.

  His face scrunching up in disgust, Alan shooed Wesley away. “No.”

  Wesley glared at Alan and then reluctantly placed his hand on the crystal orb in front of him. He had to do his work properly, even if his partner was unwilling. Otherwise, they might withhold some of his payment for doing a sloppy job.

  “Well, that was a sudden end to the duel, wasn’t it? Nolan had been doing incredibly well, just with his speed. However, he had unfortunately fallen into his opponent's trap. If he had remained clearheaded until the very end, who knows what might have happened? Please give a round of applause for Nolan, who performed admirably as the fourth seed from the Academies.”

  The audience began clapping as they shouted out their support for Nolan. Finally, with Wesley’s words, the somber atmosphere in the Colosseum became slightly more lighthearted again.

  The mood inside the private room was quite tense as well. Nobody talked, and everyone sat completely still in their seats. Zeke, the usually relaxed and carefree Adept from Violet Mist, was not slumped back in his chair today. When Tidus had stopped Erik’s attack, he had sat up straight and glared down at the arena with his hands gripping the armrests of his chair so tight that the wood began to groan.

  At the very back, Zoltan leaned back in his chair with a smirk. Seeing his lopsided smile, Zeke asked in a calm, yet icy voice.

  “Brother Zoltan, I believe your Assembly owes us a Mystic Lightning. That was the second-tier Stormcall Lightning that Senior Aurelius had personally gifted him. Think carefully before you decide on how to handle the situation.”

  Zoltan continued to smile at Zeke for a while before opening his mouth. “That’s an impressive Mystic Lightning. Sadly, we don’t own any lightning of similar strength or value. We will provide some essence stones as compensation.”

  Zeke’s thin, wiry mustache trembled ever so slightly. “Brother Zoltan… That is not good enough. The outcome will not be favorable if I report the situation back to Senior Aurelius.”

  “Haa…” Zoltan sighed exaggeratedly. “Do that, then. Go ahead and report the situation.”

  The casual response caused Zeke to falter. He had expected the mention of the Violet Mist’s Warden would at least cause some strain on Zoltan, yet had been met by complete indifference. Perhaps even a little bit of mocking.

  Having been informed by Hikari that they would be in attendance during this Crucible Convergence, it was possible that an agreement had already been settled between the higher-ups, and Zoltan had already received news of the outcome. If that was the case, there was nothing else he could do. Even so, he was unwilling to back down from Zoltan’s provocation.

  “Why don’t we both take a step back? There’s no need to involve the Seniors. Even if your Assembly does not possess a Mystic Lightning of similar strength, you must own other valuables. How about just compensation of equal value?”

  Zoltan scoffed. “Our Assembly will provide some essence stones. That’s final. If you want additional recompense, why don’t you claim it from Tidus directly? He’s the one who actually took away your Initiate’s lightning.”

  “...” Zeke had no way to respond to Zoltan’s haughtiness. He also did not have the confidence to demand compensation from Tidus, as he was no match for Tidus’s combat prowess. Unable to argue any longer, he looked away with a harrumph and slouched back into his chair.

  With a smug smile, Zoltan looked down at Tidus with shining eyes.

  Atop the platform, Lilith stood arrogantly on one end with her arms crossed on her chest as she looked down at Nox as though he were prey. Funnily enough, Nox stood on the opposite side with a very similar expression, though his seemed more mocking, whereas Lilith’s was just filled with boundless confidence.

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  “Don’t try to pull off something like you did during your last match, Nox. Otherwise, you will come to regret it.” Tidus warned Nox, but he just waved it off without a care. Having said what he needed to say, Tidus decided not to waste any more time. He pointed his hand to the sky and fired a ray of light as the signal. Immediately after, he flew up as well.

  Before the signal had even exploded into sparks, Nox raised both his arms and pointed all 10 of his fingers at Lilith. Ten small balls of white light materialized and grew bigger. However, unlike his usually speedy light-based attacks, these continued to grow larger as a dark, inky light emerged and mixed into them. The black and white lights fused before shooting out in a straight bolt.

  On the other end of the platform, Lilith did not remain idle. She had begun chanting the moment the signal was fired, just like Nox. Clumps of dirt and rock appeared and began gathering around her, forming large jagged balls. For the first time in this tournament, she had cast an actual spell rather than augmenting her body with weight or rock armor. However, she used the balls formed from the Rockfall spell in an unorthodox manner.

  Just as the first earthen ball finished forming, Lilith drew back her arm before throwing a punch at it. The moment she hit it, it zoomed forward, leaving behind a small trail of dirt.

  The 10 bolts of black and white light had just left Nox’s fingers when a large sphere of rocks and dirt appeared right in front of him. It clashed with the middle six rays, snuffing them out, before crashing down on Nox. He responded by dodging to the side, gliding on his own shadow to boost his speed. Even so, the attack glanced past his left shoulder and caused his bracers to light up in defense. Two barriers were broken in the blink of an eye, and the third one caved in and began cracking from the force of the attack before the ball finally fell apart.

  Lilith now faced four rays of black and white light. To defend herself, she punched two clumps of rock, which had only just begun forming, at the incoming attacks. Though the size was smaller, they broke through the black and white bolts with ease, nullifying Nox’s first attack completely.

  “Wooo!” The audience began cheering when the two combatants paused after their initial trade of blows. Having seen Lilith come out on top, the electrifying excitement returned to the crowd.

  “That’s the way to go! Regardless of what Nox tries, all you have to do is beat him down with pure physical strength and weight! That’s how you do it! Come on, Lilith, you can do it!” Wesley was the loudest of all.

  Next to him, Alan rolled his eyes at Wesley’s loss of control. It seemed he was a fan of Lilith, seeing as how they were both from the Military Academy.

  Lilith bared her teeth at Nox, a low vibration, similar to a growl, humming in her throat as she began chanting her next spell. The same thing happened, and balls of earth began forming in front of her.

  Nox, on the other hand, did not fall into a rage upon being hit by her attacks, unlike during his last match. This time, his eyes narrowed into slits as he clenched his jaws tight. He abruptly opened his mouth, and a black gas began pouring out. It quickly consumed the area around him, shrouding him in darkness. It continued to grow, the inky mist crawling along the air like the tendrils of some nightmarish monster.

  Lilith frowned when she couldn’t see Nox anymore. Her eyes glowed a bright amber as she attempted to use arcane sight, yet it was blocked out by the curtain of darkness. Unable to aim at a hidden target, she stopped channeling her power into the Rockfall spell as she came up with a new idea. She jumped back so she was right on the very edge of the platform, so that there was nothing behind her. Then she kneeled down on one knee and began chanting a new spell.

  Within the cover of the black miasma, Nox watched Lilith carefully. He saw her retreat to the edge and smirked. He raised his arms to either side of him, the same black and white lights forming at his fingertips. After a couple of seconds, they shot out before curving in a large arc, travelling in a semi-circular pattern. They left the sides of the expanding mist before turning back around to target Lilith’s back. The trajectory was controlled precisely by Nox so that she wouldn’t be able to see the incoming projectiles from her position.

  Still kneeling, Lilith had her eyes closed and her right palm resting on the platform. Her chanting suddenly stopped as she opened her eyes. A blinding amber glow exploded from her irises as she shouted a single word. “Erupt!”

  The ground beneath Nox quaked before erupting upwards in a shower of stone. Nox had not expected the sudden attack from below, but still managed to react in time. He continually cast mini barriers beneath him with every wave of his hand, the black barriers managing to keep most of the projectiles. Still, several managed to slip through and broke his third bracer barrier, battering down and cracking the fourth.

  After finishing her spell casting, Lilith had immediately rolled forward without hesitation. The black and white missiles bombarded her previous location, exploding into a cloud of black miasma. She had thought she had evaded all the attacks, yet two bolts burst through the cloud and struck her in the chest. Her bracers shone with a bright verdant light as they activated to ward off the attacks. Each bolt broke through one barrier each.

  However, that was not the end. They burst into a black cloud, which seeped into the third barrier, turning it black. Even the bracers gained an inky hue, as though they were being corrupted by darkness. While she was distracted by the changes to her protective artifact, the black mist had almost covered the entire stage.

  A shadow figure emerged silently from beside her, lunging at her with a long dark spear. At the same time, thick black Shadow Spikes erupted from Lilith’s own shadows and stabbed toward her back.

  With a roar, Lilith smashed the ground with both her fists covered in an amber glow. Stone spikes shot out from the white tiles of the platform in a circle around her, breaking apart the black spikes and piercing the figure in the chest. However, the figure just broke apart into black mist.

  Four more figures jumped out from the mist, each holding a different weapon. They were a sword, a flail, an axe, and a halberd. They swung their weapons at Lilith as they fell.

  “Damn it!” Lilith exclaimed through her gritted teeth, unable to move quickly enough to defend against the attack.

  While Lilith was looking up at the falling shadows, Nox appeared between the stone spikes. He did not make a single sound as he glided past the spikes and approached Lilith without her knowledge. In his hand was another dagger, the same one he had used to kill Jackson in his previous duel. In fact, this dagger actually looked more solid and ornate than the one he had used previously. The tiniest details were visible as though it were a real dagger made from a single type of black ore.

  Suddenly, a dazzling flash of light emerged in front of Lilith as Tidus appeared. Thin strands of crackling lightning covered his body. He did not even glance in the direction of the four shadow figures above him as four arcs of purple lightning shot out from his back and pierced them in their chests. They exploded into black gas before dispersing into the atmosphere.

  Tidus only had his eyes set on Nox, specifically the dagger in his hand. He had also been informed by Kaspar that he should not be able to produce another Chaosblade. However, an even more menacing and powerful one was currently in his hand.

  “That’s enough…” Tidus began speaking when Nox leaped forward without a care in the world. It was as though he had not even noticed Tidus had arrived, and rushed at Lilith with only a single thought in his mind. To kill.

  Without hesitation, Tidus raised his arm and pointed his hand at the incoming Nox. Bright purple lightning erupted from his palm, appearing in front of Nox in the blink of an eye. It struck him in the chest, causing him to wince as he yelled out in agony, but he still managed to throw his dagger forward.

  Pointing his other palm at the dagger, another thick bolt of lightning emerged and struck the dagger. The lightning struck the blade, yet it did not deflect. Instead, the lightning disappeared into it, as though it was consumed.

  The dagger gleamed with a darkness so thick that it felt like looking down the deepest abyss. It looked like a void had formed mid-air and was flying directly at him. Before Tidus had the time to react, it suddenly sped up and arrived right in front of his face. Now, it resembled the gaping maw of a ravenous beast, about to swallow him whole.