Chapter 177: Two Siblings Battle

The translucent barrier flared to life behind them, sealing the twin siblings inside the two hundred foot arena stage. The barrier hummed with high density mana, isolating them from the crowd.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" the commentator’s voice boomed over the speakers.

"A TRULY UNFORTUNATE CIVIL WAR IN MATCH TWO! FROM THE AETHER BLESSED ACADEMY, WE HAVE THE TWINS OF HOUSE MUSK! PETER MUSK. VERSUS AVA MUSK.

Then the referee shouted "Begin"

The moment the announcement ended, Peter took a fast step forward, his hands opening as cold, mist like affinity began to spill from his wrists. Frost began to form on the stone around his boots.

"Ava, listen to me!" Peter shouted, his voice echoing inside the barrier. "I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for everything! I tried to message you! You blocked me on Instalite, and everywhere. I wish we could just talk. We used to back each other up. Why are you doing this?! Why are you choosing him over your own family?."

Ava took a low combat stance, her knees bent, her fingers twitching as thin strands of bright white lightning began to crackle over her knuckles. The lightning lit up her face with a harsh, electric glow.

"Shut up, Peter," Ava said, her tone as sharp as shattered glass. "You lost the right to call yourself my brother the second you tried to plot with Julian to destroy Lynx. You don’t get to act like a victim now. You made your choice. I made mine. You chose your pride. I chose power."

"He’s using you!" Peter yelled, his face twisting with desperation as he channeled his internal mana pool, his Unshaken Pride blessing flaring under his skin to push back against the instinctual dread he felt facing her. "He’s an anomaly. He’s corrupted you! He’s brainwashed you! I’m trying to save you from him! Our father wants you home."

"Save yourself," Ava cold voice cut him off. "Because I’m not stopping until you’re off this stage. Father will see which of us is worthy of the Musk name, and to be honest," she smiled. "I don’t care about that anymore."

Peter shook his head, his blond hair flying as his expression hardened into one of stubborn resolve. He knew talking was useless now. "Then I’ll break your guard and drag you off this stage myself. I’ll beat you, and then I’m coming for him!"

Peter slammed both palms down onto the stone floor with a guttural roar.

"FROZEN DOMINION!"

BOOM!

A blinding wave of frosted blue light erupted from Peter’s hands, expanding rapidly across the stone floor in a perfect twenty meter circle.

The temperature inside the barrier plummeted instantaneously, frosting the air into visible clouds of ice crystals.

The Frozen Dominion array gripped the ground, attempting to apply its baseline stat suppression field onto Ava while granting Peter a direct physical stat boost. The stone floor cracked under the sudden freeze.

However, Ava didn’t wait for the ice to coat her boots.

CRACK!

Her body blurred as her A Rank Lightning Affinity surged at four times its previous baseline capacity, a direct result of her intense dual cultivation sessions with Lynx over the past several days.

Her physical attributes had surpassed her old stat sheets completely. Her agility now rivaled Year 4s Elite completely.

With a deafening thunderclap, Ava vanished from her starting position, leaving behind a scorched circle on the stone floor where her lightning had burned the frost away.

Peter’s eyes widened in sheer shock. "So fast?! That’s not how your speed was or how it should be."

Before his mind could even register her vector, Ava appeared directly to his left.

Her right hand was pulled back, encased in a violent, swirling sphere of condensed electrical energy that hissed and spat with raw power.

She thrust her palm forward with lethal precision, aiming straight for Peter’s ribs.

Peter’s combat instincts, honed by years of private martial training, barely saved him.

He didn’t try to dodge, he knew he couldn’t match her raw agility. Instead, he channeled his secondary C Rank Earth Affinity, that he had be horning for the past weeks alone, summoning a thick wall of reinforced stone directly from the floor between them while simultaneously layering dense ice over his forearm.

BOOM!

Ava’s lightning infused palm shattered the stone wall as if it were dry chalk, sending jagged fragments of rock flying in every direction. The barrier rippled from the shockwave.

The residual electrical wave slammed violently into Peter’s iced forearm, shattering his defensive frost coating and sending him skidding back fifteen feet across his own frozen domain. His arm was numb, his fingers tingling with electric shock.

Peter gritted his teeth, his arm throbbing with numbness as electric current danced across his uniform. ’I can feel she’s at least four times stronger than she was during the test at the Restricted Area! How is her mana output this high?! What did that monster do to her?!’

"Is that all you’ve got, Peter?!" Ava’s voice echoed from three places at once. She was moving so fast she was creating afterimages.

Peter’s heart hammered against his ribs as he looked up, sweat mixing with frost on his forehead.

Using her Storm Monarch blessing, Ava had not merely increased her raw stats, she had activated her signature high tier technique. Thunder Clones.

Three identical afterimages, composed entirely of high density lightning and flickering mana, materialized in a triangular formation around Peter.

Each clone held a low, predatory stance, their eyes glowing with pure, unadulterated electric wrath. They buzzed with lethal energy.

"Get away from me!" Peter roared, his posture breaking as panic began to override his tactical judgment.

He thrust both arms outward, summoning a massive ring of jagged ice spears from his Frozen Dominion field, launching them outward in a three hundred and sixty degree barrage to clear his personal space.

The ice spears tore through the air, whistling as they pierced through the three afterimages.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

The moment the ice spears made contact with the clones, the compressed lightning within the afterimages detonated simultaneously.

BOOOOOOM!

A series of violent electrical explosions detonated within five feet of Peter.

The concussive shockwaves shattered his ice domain, blasting chunks of frozen stone high into the air. The light was so bright the crowd had to shield their eyes.

Peter was hurled backward by the concussive force, his body tumbling across the hard arena stage floor before he managed to dig his boots into the stone, coughing up a mouthful of bright red blood.

His deep blue Aether uniform was torn in multiple places, scorched black from the sheer heat of the lightning detonations.

His HP and MP gauges, had taken a massive, sudden hit. His MP was already below half.

In the spectator tiers, the crowd was screaming in wild excitement, standing on their feet.

"Look at her speed! She’s dominating him!"

"Is she really a Year 2?! That lightning density is at the level of a Year 4 student! House Musk has a monster daughter!"

Up in the higher spectator seats, Isabel smiled faintly, resting her chin on her hand. "She’s not showing him any mercy at all. I like her. She understands that family means nothing if they betray you."

Beside her, Eira gripped her skirt tightly, her eyes locked on Ava. "She’s so fast now... Lynx really transformed her... she was never this strong before."

On the stage, Peter dragged himself up, his chest heaving as blood dripped from his lower lip onto his collar. His legs were shaking.

His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a frantic, unyielding refusal to lose. He could not lose to his own sister in front of the entire continent. His father was watching.

"I won’t... I won’t lose to you, Ava!" Peter snarled, pushing his mana circuits to their absolute, dangerous limit. Veins bulged on his neck.

He forced his remaining MP into his Frozen Dominion, expanding the field to its maximum limit, creating a towering blizzard of ice shards around his body. He combined his Earth and Ice affinities, creating a thick, heavy suit of frost encased earth armor over his upper body, transforming himself into a slow, immovable juggernaut.

"I am the heir of House Musk!" Peter roared, charging forward through the frost storm, his heavy, armor clad fist aimed squarely at Ava’s head. The floor cracked under his heavy steps.

Ava stood in the center of the storm, completely unfazed. Her hair whipped around her face in the violent wind, but her eyes remained cold, focused, and utterly devoid of doubt.

"You are nothing," Ava whispered, her voice barely audible over the howling blizzard.

She didn’t try to evade his heavy charge.

Instead, she activated the full power of her Storm Monarch blessing.

Her entire body transformed into a blinding, golden form of living thunder. The air around her ionised instantly, burning away the cold blizzard created by Peter’s domain in a single heartbeat. The ice melted into steam.

THUNDERCLAP!

Ava moved. She didn’t just step forward, she became a localized lightning strike.

She passed directly under Peter’s heavy, armored right hook, her speed bypassing his defensive perception entirely.

Appearing behind him, she delivered a brutal, lightning charged knee strike straight into his spine, shattering his earth armor into dust. The armor exploded into pebbles.

CRACK!

Peter let out a strangled gasp of pain as his breath was instantly ripped from his lungs. His eyes bulged.

Before he could fall, Ava spun on her heel, her right leg whipping around like an iron axe wrapped in violent, arc lightning, catching Peter squarely across the side of his neck.

BOOM!

Peter was launched sideways like a cannonball, slamming violently into the translucent barrier wall thirty feet away.

The barrier rippled violently, absorbing the massive kinetic impact. The impact left a spiderweb crack in the air for half a second.

Peter slid down the barrier, hitting the stone floor with a sickening thud, lying flat on his stomach, gasping desperately for air as blood pooled beneath his face.

The match had taken exactly ten minutes.

Silence fell over the arena for a brief second before the commentator’s voice shattered the quiet.

"CRUSHING DOMINATION! TEN MINUTES OF ABSOLUTE LIGHTNING SPEED! WINNER OF MATCH TWO: AVA MUSK FROM AETHER BLESSED ACADEMY!"