Harem System In A fantasy World - Chapter 243: Epic
Chapter 243: Epic
Elion, Aria, and Isolde returned to the waiting room after wandering around for a bit longer. He had reluctantly forced his mind to move on from the Liora matter. He pushed the doors open just as a pair of seventh years were stepping onto the stage.
The room was already quieter than before, as most people had their eyes glued to the screens with excited looks on their faces.
“Ah, you’re back,” Tessa’s voice came first.
Elion looked over.
Mira, Tessa, and Lyra were all there.
“You guys are done already?” Elion asked.
“Of course,” Tessa grinned, cracking her knuckles, “you think I’d struggle with some puny opponent?”
Lyra rolled her eyes slightly.
“She almost killed him,” she said calmly.
“I did not—”
“You did.”
Mira chuckled softly from the side.
“He surrendered before she could finish,” she added.
Elion snorted. “Sounds about right.”
Aria stepped forward quickly.
“You all won?” she asked, her eyes bright.
“Un,” Mira nodded.
“Nice!” Aria beamed.
Isolde gave a small nod as well. “Congratulations…” she said softly.
Tessa grinned at her. “Thanks.” Then her eyes shifted to Elion. “You missed it,” she added.
“Unfortunately, I did,” Elion replied dryly.
“No one forced you to leave. You could have watched.”
“That is true. Did you want my support that much?” He teased her as he walked closer to her.
“Not a chance…” She pushed his face away and stepped back to make some distance.
Lyra tilted her head slightly as she looked over at Isolde and glared at Elion. “Where did you guys go?”
“Out,” Isolde said simply.
“With us,” Aria added quickly, hugging his arm and pulling him away from Tessa.
Tessa raised a brow, “…Of course you did.”
Mira just smiled.
The room quieted a bit, and someone muttered. “They’re starting.” Everyone turned toward the screens as they flickered.
Two figures stood on the platform.
“That’s the second pair of seventh years today…” Lyra said softly.
“You missed the first one! It was epic, but I bet this is still worth watching,” Tessa muttered.
Elion folded his arms. “Let’s see.” On the screen, the proctor stepped back.
“You may begin.”
And instantly, the two guys on the platform moved. The wind mage vanished in a streak as he became nothing but a blur.
The earth mage stomped his foot down at the same time, making the platform crack as thick slabs of stone rose around him like armor, forming a layered defensive shell just as a slicing arc of compressed wind tore through the space where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier.
“They’re fast…” Isolde whispered.
“It didn’t even seem like there was any delay between his actions and the spell forming,” Aria added.
Elion also focused on the fight. He didn’t need to worry about the split-second casting delay because he had a cheat, but that was not the case before.
There was a time when he needed to think about cooldowns and spell formation speed while casting. The only way to improve on it was through years of experience.
Among the first years, Isolde had a somewhat decent casting speed, but it was still within an acceptable low margin. These guys had definitely surpassed such limitations.
The wind mage reappeared above; he was already attacking again. His hand swept down as dozens of blades of compressed air sliced downward like a storm.
The earth mage raised his hand, and the ground answered to his call.
Walls surged upward in overlapping layers. They looked thick and dense, each one taking the brunt of the attack as the wind blades tore through them one after the other.
The stone exploded into fragments, as dust burst into the air, and then the wind mage broke through. He didn’t slow down.
He drove straight through the collapsing defenses, his body coated in a thin layer of swirling wind as he closed the distance instantly, his fist already moving.
“Close range?” Tessa leaned forward.
“He’s very confident in his skills, to dive in headfirst into the enemy’s jaw like that,” Mira said softly.
The earth mage didn’t flinch, though. He stepped forward as well, and he met him head-on.
Boom!
The impact shook the platform. Stone cracked, and air exploded outward.
The two figures collided, their bodies blurring as they exchanged blows at a speed that made the surrounding air ripple violently.
Each strike was reinforced by its respective elements, wind accelerating, earth reinforcing, offense meeting defense in a relentless clash.
“Damn….Look at that control…” Lyra murmured.
Elion didn’t reply; his eyes were locked in.
The wind mage twisted his body mid-exchange, vanishing again before reappearing behind his opponent’s blind spot.
He threw out an enhanced kick.
The earth mage reacted instantly, raising his arm as layers of stone coated it, taking the blow head-on, the impact sending cracks through the armor but not breaking through completely.
He grabbed the leg. “Got him!” Tessa grinned. But the wind mage smirked. His body dissolved into a swirl. And just like that, he was gone again.
“An afterimage?” Aria whispered.
“No,” Elion said quietly. “Movement speed. He was just that fast.
The wind mage appeared again at a distance with both hands raised. The air around him twisted as he compressed it.
“Uh oh…” Tessa muttered.
A dense, unstable sphere of wind formed in front of him. He fired it a few seconds later, and it screamed through the air.
The earth mage slammed both hands into the ground, making the platform split.
A massive wall surged upward, thicker than anything before.
Boom!
The impact was catastrophic. The barrier shattered, and then it exploded outward.
Fragments rained down like shrapnel as the shockwave rippled outward, forcing even the nearby barriers protecting the arena to flicker.
“Holy—”
“He broke through!?”
The dust cleared. The earth mage stood there. He was visibly breathing heavier, but he was still standing, though his stone armor was cracked.
“…Wow,” Isolde whispered.
The wind mage didn’t stop. He rushed in again, faster, sharper, and deadlier.
Their bodies blurred once more, clashing with each other in a flurry of strikes that no normal eye could follow.
Only the flashes of impact and bursts of mana marked their movements as they pushed each other further and further, neither giving ground, neither holding back.
The earth mage stomped again, and the entire platform shifted.
Dozens of spikes erupted, and dozens became hundreds.
The wind mage danced through them.
His movements looked beautiful, weaving between the deadly forest of stone with impossible agility, his body flickering from point to point as if he wasn’t bound by normal motion at all.
“He’s insane…” Aria muttered.
“He is.” Mira added.
The earth mage raised his arms—
And pieces of the platform began to rise and form a massive construct. A golem. It formed beside him, and he jumped right on top of it while it was still forming.
“No way!” Tessa grinned.
The wind mage laughed, then he vanished.
The air twisted violently as the air pressure dropped, then it spiked an instant later as a vortex formed above and below.
Everywhere.
The battlefield became a storm as people watching from within the Arena were blocked from seeing directly. It was now impossible to see except from the screens.
And right in the center, they clashed again.
The wind mage did not let the momentum die for even a second; the vortex around the battlefield only grew more violent as he moved through it like a fish through water, his robe snapping behind him.
His body flickered in and out of sight as currents of compressed air bent around him, and every time he reappeared, another strike followed, another blade of wind, another kick, another crushing blast aimed at the earth mage who stood in the middle of the chaos like a mountain refusing to be moved.
The earth mage’s eyes narrowed as he planted both feet and drew in a deep breath, the shattered platform beneath him rumbled violently as huge slabs of rock rose from below, layering around his body and around the great half-formed construct beneath him until it looked less like armor and more like a fortress wrapped around a man.
When the next blast of wind came screaming toward him, he did not dodge, he threw a fist forward, and the giant stone arm behind him mirrored the motion, smashing into the incoming air blast with such force that the impact exploded outward in a ring of dust and broken stone.
“Damn,” Tessa muttered, leaning forward with a grin that made it look like she wished she were down there instead. “They’re not holding anything back at all.”
“They can’t,” Elion said quietly, his eyes fixed on the screen. “At this level, once you hesitate, you lose.”
Aria hugged herself lightly as she watched, her eyes wide. “They really fight like veterans…”
The wind mage suddenly shot upward, his figure becoming a streak as he rode one of his own spiraling currents higher and higher into the air above the battlefield
He spread his hands wide as dozens of crescent-shaped blades formed behind him, thin at first, then broader, sharper, heavier with mana, each one spinning and shrieking as they hovered in the air like a storm of guillotines waiting to fall.
The earth mage glanced up once, then struck both palms downward toward the platform, and in the next instant, thick stone pillars erupted all around him in a circular formation, rising so high that they looked like the beginnings of a cage.
The slabs connected them one after another until an immense stone dome was forming over his position. It was dense, layered, and packed with mana so thick it made the whole structure glow faintly brown.
The wind mage smirked from above.
Then he dropped his hands.
The storm fell.
