Chapter 203: Mira vs Jared (2)
He slamd his hand into the stone again, launching another barrage of rock spikes, while Mira moved between them with quick, smooth steps.
The crowd could see the focus on her face, the calm control of her movents, and every ti a stone attack barely missed her, the spectators gasped loudly.
Three more stone spikes burst from the ground, shooting toward Mira from different angles.
Jared clearly had experience with the spell, because he was controlling the direction with frightening precision.
Mira jumped back, her boots sliding across the stone floor as another lance tore past her hip.
One of them grazed her sleeve. The cloth ripped slightly, and the crowd gasped, and Jared grinned.
"Run all you want," he shouted. "You’re not fast enough!"
On other platforms, fights were still happening, but the noise around them slowly faded. More and more people leaned forward in their seats, watching Platform Seven.
He slamd his hand down again.
"Stone Burst!"
The ground around Mira suddenly exploded upward. Jagged shards of rock shot toward her legs and torso like shrapnel.
But Mira raised one hand calmly.
"Fla Shield."
A burst of fire erupted around her body, swirling in a tight circle. The rock shards hit the spinning flas and shattered apart into harmless fragnts.
The heat wave rolled across the platform.
"Now this is what we like to see!" the hostess continued, clearly enjoying the spectacle. "Both fighters are showing excellent control over their magic! That young earth mage is not holding back, and the fire mage is responding beautifully!"
"Now that’s control!"
Jared clicked his tongue. "Let’s see you block this."
He stomped his foot down.
The platform cracked loudly as a thick stone pillar erupted upward from beneath Mira’s feet, trying to launch her into the air.
But Mira had already leapt.
She twisted in the air, her long hair whipping behind her as she flipped backward and landed lightly a few ters away.
Then her hands moved.
Two fireballs ford instantly in her palms.
"Fireball." The fireballs shot forward like bullets.
Jared raised his arm, and the ground in front of him lifted instantly. A thick stone wall rose up.
The fireballs exploded against it with a loud boom, sending sparks and smoke into the air. The crowd cheered loudly.
"This is a good fight!"
"These two are strong!"
Jared stepped around the broken stone wall and imdiately launched another attack. "Stone Rain!"
Multiple rock projectiles ford above Mira and dropped like heavy bullets. Mira dashed sideways.
One rock slamd into the platform where she had been standing, cracking the stone surface.
Another grazed her thigh as she moved. She winced slightly but kept moving.
Jared saw it.
"There we go!" he shouted with a grin. "You’re slowing down!"
Mira’s expression didn’t change. If anything, her calm smile only grew more annoying. She raised both hands.
Flas began swirling around her arms.
The fire did not explode outward like normal spells. Instead, it began spinning.
Faster.
And faster.
The air around the platform grew hot.
Very hot.
Jared frowned.
"What the hell are you—"
Then he felt it.
The fire was forming a vortex.
"Fire Whirlpool."
The flas exploded outward into a massive spiraling column of fire that rushed toward him like a burning storm.
By the ti Mira began forming the swirling flas of her Fire Whirlpool, the rest of the fights might as well not have existed.
All across the coliseum, thousands of eyes were locked on that single platform.
The roars of the spectators grew louder and louder, drowning out the sounds from the other battles.
Even those fighting in other matches began turning their heads toward the growing storm of fire forming around Mira.
The hostess laughed again as she watched the flas spiral higher.
"Ladies and gentlen, it looks like Platform Seven has stolen the spotlight!"
And the mont the Fire Whirlpool surged forward toward Jared, the entire arena seed to hold its breath.
The heat wave hit him instantly.
The Fire Whirlpool spun across the platform with terrifying speed, its core glowing bright orange while long streams of fla whipped around it like violent currents.
The heat rolled across the platform in waves, distorting the air and making the stone beneath it glow faintly red.
Jared’s eyes widened the mont he saw it coming.
"Shit—!"
He slamd both hands into the ground.
"Stone Wall!"
The stone platform cracked loudly as a thick slab of rock rose up between him and the incoming flas. The wall was solid, easily two ters thick, the kind of defense that would normally stop most first-year spells.
But the Fire Whirlpool hit it like a crashing wave.
The flas wrapped around the wall, twisting and pulling at it, grinding the stone apart piece by piece. Cracks spread across the rock as chunks began breaking off under the intense heat.
The crowd gasped.
"Is it going to hold?!"
For a mont, Jared thought it might.
Crack!
Then the stone shattered.
The fire vortex tore straight through the wall and continued toward him. Jared stumbled backward and fell, fear finally appearing on his face.
He tried to cast again, raising his hand in desperation, but the swirling flas were already right in front of him.
"Stop!"
The proctor’s voice bood across the platform.
A barrier flashed into existence between the two students just as the flas reached Jared. The vortex slamd into the barrier and exploded outward into harmless sparks that scattered through the air.
The proctor stepped forward imdiately, his hand still raised.
"Match over!"
The flas faded.
Smoke drifted lazily across the platform.
For a second, the entire coliseum was silent. Then the crowd exploded.
A deafening roar rolled through the stadium as thousands of spectators jumped to their feet.
"What a finish!"
"That fire spell was insane!"
"She broke through his defense like it was nothing!"
High above the arena, the hostess clapped her hands with genuine excitent.
"What an incredible display!" she exclaid. "The fire mage overwhelms her opponent with a powerful finishing spell! Ladies and gentlen, that is the kind of battle we ca here to see!"
On the platform, Mira lowered her hands slowly, her breathing a bit ragged as the last sparks of her spell faded away.
She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand to wipe away the beads of sweat forming on her brow. Only then did she notice sothing strange.
She glanced down.
Jared was on the ground, frozen in place, staring at the ground.
A dark, wet stain had spread across the stone floor beneath him.
He had pissed himself.
For a mont, Mira simply stared.
Then she let out a short snort of amusent.
"Pathetic." With that one word, she turned and began walking calmly toward the exit of the platform.
The crowd roared again as she left the battlefield.
"That was incredible!"
"Did you see that control!"
"First year?! That girl is a first year?!"
"She’s so beautiful too! I think I’m in love!"
Interestingly enough, the screens never showed the exact mont after the flas faded.
The broadcast had shifted angles almost imdiately, focusing instead on Mira standing calmly on the platform and the proctor announcing the end of the match.
Lucky for Jared.
From what most people could see through the magical screens, he simply looked stunned and defeated. Nothing more.
Whether that cara shift had happened by chance or whether soone controlling the broadcast had deliberately cut away at the right mont, no one could really say.
Either way, most of the crowd never noticed his unfortunate accident.
But not everyone relied on the screens.
There were those in the stands with sharp eyes, the kind of eyes that had seen countless battles before.
Even from hundreds of ters away, they could observe the battlefield clearly without any magical assistance.
A few of those people had definitely seen it.
They saw the dark stain spreading across the stone floor beneath Jared’s feet. They saw the panic in his face before the proctor stepped in.
And they saw Mira pause for that brief mont before letting out that small snort and walking away.
Still, none of them bothered ntioning it.
To most of them, it simply wasn’t worth talking about.
A young fighter losing control of himself when faced with overwhelming pressure wasn’t exactly unheard of. If anything, it just proved how terrifying Mira’s final spell had been.
And besides—
The tournant had already moved on.
Back on the floating platform above the arena, the hostess had resud her comntary as if nothing unusual had happened.
"What a powerful opening match!" she announced brightly. "The first-year fire mage demonstrates incredible spell control and ends the battle spectacularly!"
The crowd cheered again.
"And the tournant continues!" she added with excitent. "Let’s turn our attention to the other platforms where more battles are reaching their final monts!"
The screens shifted again, showing several other fights that were still ongoing across the arena.
High above in the balconies, several important figures nodded in approval.
Guildmaster Rhea from the Adventurers Guild nodded slowly.
"Excellent spell control from the girl."
Nearby, the well-dressed man from the rchant Guild rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he watched the girl leave the platform.
"Her na..?" He spoke almost to himself, not really asking anyone. "So that is Gale’s girl, huh..."
He nodded slowly.
"I don’t know how that greedy rchant managed to birth a mage this strong, but she is impressive."
Around him, several rchants quietly agreed while nodding. Because even though Jared had lost, no one thought he was weak.
His earth magic had been strong, fast, and well-controlled.
But Mira’s calmness in battle... And the overwhelming power of her final spell...
That had caught the attention of many powerful observers.
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