Jethro and Kekius weren’t the only ones to be stunned by the extraordinary mismatch. The rest of the students reacted with raised brows, chuckles and murmurs. Most of them had no idea who Oand Wexley was, but it hardly mattered. Watching a nobody about to face Eryn Fenlor was cause enough for morbid amusent.
They all knew how this would end: a nobody versus a legend was destined to be brutal.
The laughter and murmurs intensified as the cylindrical energy field materialized, depositing Oand and Eryn into the arena. And they were all directed at Oand, who stood rigid with nerves, white-knuckling his Glimrpond Toad— Froggy —like a lifeline.
Across from him stood Eryn Fenlor, radiating regal superiority as his lips curled into a lazy smirk. On his shoulder was his burning orange chbeast, a Paragon Phoenix, while at his feet sat his Pyronic Beaver.
Neither chbeast was a laughing matter.
Both had heat related powers with the Paragon Phoenix being the stronger of the two. It was a Platinum Rank beast, though a Grade D. Its tallic skin was coated with sunlight fire that never hurt its master, and its eyes burned with ancient intelligence the color of gold.
The Phoenix has an arsenal of abilities that spanned through solar, plasma, light, including an overpowered ability that allowed it to self-kill obliterating everything in its path, only to be reborn from ashes.
The Pyronic Beaver was less grand but terrifying in its own way. At Gold Rank (Grade E), it controlled liquid fire in ways a Titanic Liongolem or a Cyclops Magmabear couldn’t.
It specialized more on the earth-based powers of magma, creating lava moats and napalm rocks. Its hamr-tail could create superheated steam geysers when they stuck the ground, while the coat created by its Vincintine skin could summon ember storms when shaken.
Oand visibly shrank. There was objectively nothing he could do in a fight like this.
From the stands, Jethro watched grimly, tension plastered on his face. ’What the hell is this professor thinking? This isn’t like Durn versus . Oand has no chance!’
"Comnce!" commanded Professor Xan just after the wall shield had risen again, securing the participants inside.
Eryn lingered for a mont, watching Oand with a patronizing smile on his face. "You’re a friend of that scrap tar, aren’t you?" He eyeballed Oand with detached amusent. "His roommate."
Oand swallowed hard. "Are you asking about Jethro?"
Eryn smirked. "Are there any other scrap tars in the Academy?" Then, with elegance, he raised a hand. "This isn’t personal. But I am going to use you to get a lesson across."
Oand’s eyes widened. "What?"
A vortex of hot orange flas shot out of Eryn’s open palm in that mont and spiralled towards Oand with the speed and hunger of a living thing. Oand clutched his Toad tight and began to run, heading sideways to escape the fire.
However, in a blink of an eye, Eryn moved and caught him by the side. And with the montum of his speed, he struck Oand with a fiery blow that exploded on contact, hurling him across the arena into the wallshield with such impact that students gasped, half-expecting it to splinter.
Froggy slipped from Oand’s grasp, flailing backwards across the cold tal floor. Oand collapsed face first to the floor.
So of the crowd cheered: the Eryn Fenlor loyalists and so Knight Faction mbers. Jethro watched with creased brows and a difficult vein straining on his forehead.
"Pathetic," Eryn sighed, advancing casually, his Pyronic Beaver waddling beside him, magma dripping from its jaws. "Friends of that scrap feeding scum are sure to be as weak as him, but you’re just utterly pathetic. You stand on the sa ground as Eryn Fenlor, yet all you can do is run and fall so shafully on the ground."
He lifted his hand and a small tornado of fire, not as powerful as it could be, but strong enough to lift Oand off the ground materialized. "Don’t you want to impress ?!" Eryn jeered as the whirlwind whipped Oand head over heels then slamd him brutally onto the floor again.
"Get up and show you deserve to stand on the sa ground as a Fenlor!"
Oand could only manage to weakly reach for his chbeast. The Toad was pathetically attempting to roll over to its feet, ribbitting with desperation and fear.
"Froggy..."
Eryn watched with irritation. "Look at this scene," he scoffed. "How truly pathetic."
With a last clumsy flop, the toad finally righted itself, then bounded towards Oand with desperate little hops. Oand turned his reaching palm into a pointing finger, aiming it at Eryn who stood so distance away. "Froggy... use Glimr Spray."
The toad turned around, tilting its head at Eryn who looked at it with a disgusted frown. "What the hell is Glimr Spray?"
Suddenly, Froggy puffed up its throat and spat out what appeared to be multiple floating spores with varying colors that drifted toward Eryn.
They slled vaguely of ponds and river leaves. Eryn looked at them with no fear at all, only a dismissive curiosity because he knew that nothing a Glimrpond Toad could do would ever harm hi—
Boom!
The spores exploded into a greenish smoke that imdiately covered Eryn’s face, entering into his nose and filling his lungs. Eryn struggled to breathe for only a mont, before taking a deep exhale that pushed out flas from his lungs, incinerating the oppressive toxic fus out of him.
Outside the smoke, Oand had picked his Toad and was about to make a run for it.
But a burst of flas cleared the greenish smoke, and Eryn’s angry face erged. "Alright then," the prince smirked, his eyes locking at Oand. "Now I’ll make you pay for that."
He exploded out of the smoke with unpredictable speed, landing a horrid punch across Oand’s face. The boy’s head whacked to the left, and when the other punch ca, his head whacked to the right.
Then a ball of fire conjured between Eryn’s palms crashed into Oand’s gut, the shock propelling him backward. Froggy flew from his arms once more, skidding away with a frightened squeal.
"Cindy. Rocks," Eryn commanded his chbeasts. "Deal with the amphibian."
CAWWWWWW!
The Phoenix’s electrifying cry filled the battleground with thrumming energy while the Beaver shrieked with excitent. It had slamd its tail on the ground right beside the cowering toad.
The steel floor shattered under the impact, and Froggy was sent tumbling as it squealed in fear. Rather than hitting the wall, it was caught in the Paragon Phoenix’s beaks and as the chbird flew high, it shot out a spiral of flas from its throat that hit the Toad which such power that it caused it the steel floor to implode inwards when the chbeast fell.
"NO!" Oand cried out, genuine anguish in his voice as he tried to scramble towards his chbeast.
But Eryn spun in the air, summoning flas around his fist as he targeted the boy’s back. "I think you should be worrying about yourself at the mont," he whispered venomously.
Then, KABOOM! The flaming fist struck Oand on his upper back, causing him to collide with the steel floor chest-and-face first. His whole body wracked in agony as Oand let out a cry of pain.
Silence filled the arena. Eryn walked calmly to Oand and pressed his boot down onto Oand’s head, grinding him into the cold tal.
Jethro gritted his teeth. ’He’s been toying with him all this while and now he’s mocking him. Just what kind of asshole is this guy?’
"I barely even used ten percent of my power, little Oand Wexley," Eryn taunted as Oand groaned under his feet. "You Bronze Ranks are way too weak to be in the sa school as but that Grey Rank is even worse."
He pressed tighter. Oand whimpered, the tal biting into his cheek.
"I hope you’ve learnt your lesson," Eryn muttered. "Go ahead now. Yield."
"I yield!" Oand cried imdiately. "I yield. Please!"
Eryn looked down at him and scoffed as his chbeasts returned to his side and the neon shield collapsed.
Once he let the boy go, Oand scrambled forward on his knees and carefully scooped Froggy up, then curled his body around the chbeast, and lay there, whimpering, burns at the back of his clothes.
"The winner of the final match up is Eryn Fenlor!" Professor Xan declared, his words t by cheers from Knight Faction mbers. "Forty points to Knight Faction for the Prince’s display of brute power and relentless defeat of his opponent!"
Jethro’s face tightened at the words.
Then after the cylinder force took Oand and Eryn out of the battleground, Professor Xan stepped into it, signaling that everyone remained still.
"Today," he began once he was at the center, "you witnessed the honesty of battle. The bitter reality you must face as fighters, as tars, as future Riftwalkers. In battle, you must do whatever you can to win. But there are factors that are inevitable— such as Eryn Fenlor’s power. A Dual Bond tar, Platinum Rank, against a Bronze Rank. It showed you one brutal fact: Rankings are not a joke. They are asurents that an sothing especially when you step into the battlefield. Especially when the gulf between the opponents is that vast."
Jethro ’s jaw was clenched tight. He didn’t disagree with the lesson because it was true, he was only annoyed Oand had to be the one to suffer in order to teach it.
"But at tis," Xan continued, "intelligence and cunning can bridge the gap when power falters. Of course this depends on how big the gap is, or just how unintelligent or unfocused your opponent is. As in the case of Jethro rrick against Durn Jacob."
His hand swept towards Padva’s side of the arena. "For the Princess of Sector Twelve, she and Skarion had the tightest match of the day. But when Skarion’s power edged hers, she used skill and tactics. Because dear young tars, skill, honed to perfection, can dissect overwhelming force. So master your abilities while you cultivate your powers. Raw force is not all. Magic is a tool, not only a weapon."
He let the lesson hang in the air for a while, resonating with all the students— at least the ones who cared —before announcing: "Class dismissed!"
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