Chapter 745 - Invisible Maze
The stone giant held the powerful staff that he was grasping forward. Nearly imdiately, a mass of elental mana gathered on its tip, as if concentrating. However, nothing was visible on the outside. Usually, by now, at least traces of sothing could be seen. But of course, it was unnecessary to see the magic to realize that sothing was happening, considering the concentration of the stone giant mage.
However, Rudia didn't let go of the opportunity given to her through said concentration, and quickly nocked an arrow onto her bow. She pulled back the string, and let go the mont she knew that she had gathered enough power for a good attack. However, right when the arrow ca close enough to the stone giant, it once more stopped. In an instant, the stone giant had activated a spell. The mana that it had concentrated at the tip of his staff expanded suddenly, creating this current effect. Sothing that only Eisen was truly capable of seeing through. It did seem like this situation was getting a lot more troubleso for Rudia, but he was still confident that she was going to win.
What the stone giant had been doing was not simply gathering his mana for a powerful attack, but rather, he was creating a detailed structure in the compressed mana that he was preparing in a way that it would keep its shape upon expansion. And now, the mage only had to let his elental mana flow through the already-established structure to strengthen it. But at the sa ti, that ant that Rudia's best chance was now.
However, even she, although she wasn't able to see what was going on, was able to realize that sothing had happened, and that the whole air in the arena changed. Slowly, she slid her feet forward, as if trying to carefully creep forward toward sothing. And then, her foot hit it. An invisible wall. This was the stone giant's elent. In just an instant, he was able to create a sort of solid mass the mont sothing impacted with his mana.
Earlier, the arrows that Rudia shot were hitting the spherical barrier that he had created around himself, and the mont that the arrow's tip ca in contact with it, it solidified around it. And then once the arrow was completely stopped, the solidified mana quickly loosened up again, letting the arrows drop to the ground. However, this solid mana wasn't infinitely powerful, shown by the fact that the arrows could break through it. Using her natural, powerful instincts, Rudia may not have figured out all aspects that made up the mana, but she knew what she had to do in order to get past it. That was all she thought about. But now? The stone giant went for a different tactic. He had created a maze throughout the arena. One that he was able to sense perfectly, while Rudia had no way of getting through it.
While there were no permanent walls, the mont that she tried to get through the mana, it would push back against her, so there was really no effective difference. But there were two important things that were shown through this tactics, especially the mont that the stone giant started walking through the maze. Eisen hoped that Rudia would be able to realize these quickly. First, however, she did sothing that seed to surprise the stone giant. She shot an arrow into the sky.
"Trying to hit from above?" He laughed, "Sorry, that's not happening." The mont that he said this, the arrow hit the invisible ceiling that had been created above the maze. Otherwise, Rudia would have been able to escape from here from above. This was a thing that the mage had thought about, however. With a confident laugh, he continued through the maze, but Rudia simply continued trying to figure out her chances. She tapped the surface of the invisible walls of mana around her, figuring out the position of the wall relative to her. Then, she nocked another arrow onto her bow. This ti, it was an arrow that she had specially requested to bring with her on different occasions, just in case. It was a survey arrow. When shot, it would start giving off a high-pitched whistle, one that not many ears were able to pick up. However, as a half-dragon, Rudia's ears could. She had trained her senses intensely, and soon gained the ability of echolocation while making use of this sound. To make things easier, the arrow was given a rubber tip, so that it would bounce off of different surfaces to allow for slightly more complex soundwaves for her to pick up.
While sound seed to pass through the mana without solidifying it, making her echolocation useless, the rubber tip definitely wouldn't simply pass through. Rudia had asked Eisen to make this arrow for this battle just in case she lost her vision sohow, but it ca in useful in a totally unexpected situation.
Rudia shot this arrow at the wall at an angle. Using her elent, she made the arrow a lot lighter and faster, allowing it to bounce around far more than normal. It wouldn't do any major damage, but it really didn't need to either. All that Rudia was using it for was to figure out the structure of the labyrinth around here. The arrow flew through the air, seemingly bouncing off of nothing, but Rudia was already creating a ntal map for herself. She ran after the arrow each ti, picking it up off the ground as soon as she could just to shoot it off again. And like this, to the stone giant's surprise, Rudia was able to get through the maze without issue. She did hit so dead ends a few tis, but that didn't change that he was in trouble if things continued like this.
However, then, Rudia's arrow bounced off sothing in a weird way. It was shooting through the air quite horizontally, but then it was suddenly pushed nearly straight up and hit sothing just a mont later, before then falling onto the ground. Rudia had been sprinting after the arrow the whole ti, but now, she stopped. This was one of the traps that had been set up in this maze. It seed that the mage was not only able to create straight walls, but more complex structures too. Like a wall covered in spikes. The mont that this beca apparent, Rudia knew she had to be more careful. If he spread these out over the ground randomly too, then she couldn't move around carelessly. She felt lucky that nothing had happened thus far, with the way that she had been running around.
At this point, it didn't seem like it still mattered, though, since the mage soon reached a certain spot in the invisible maze. It was the exact center of the arena, and it didn't seem like he was planning on moving away from there anyti soon. And then, sothing botherso happened. Eisen already noticed that there was sothing unique set into the staff that the mage was using. A mass of fire started gathering in front of the staff, and a pillar of flas soon shot forward, pushing right through the mage's elental mana.
Seeing the flas approach, Rudia of course ran back through the labyrinth, trying to dodge them for now while she was thinking. anwhile, Eisen let out a deep sigh. The Grandour looked at him with a broad grin on his face, "What, did you just realize you will lose this round?"
"Hm? Oh, no, of course not." Eisen replied imdiately, "I'm just glad that I was worried for nothing."
"What? Worried for nothing? Those flas even injure us Fire Giants!"
"Right, but Fire Giants aren't the most fire resistant race out there, you know?" Eisen pointed out, and the Grandour looked at him confused, "What do you an? She's just a sowhat special lizardman, nothing else! Even if her scales gives her fla resistance, it can't be stronger than ours!"
Eisen turned his head toward the Grandour, "Did you not listen to what I called them? They're my Dragon Knights. That is not just a title to make them sound stronger." The old man pointed out, while Rudia had finally finished thinking. She had stopped and turned around, now running straight into the horizontal pillar of flas being shot at her. Eisen smiled lightly, "They're half dragons, you dimwit."
The Grandour turned his head toward the arena, "She's a-"
"Right. She's half a red dragon. You know... the ones with the greatest power over fire?" Eisen chuckled slightly, watching as Rudia jumped up with her feet in front of her as she was becoming enveloped in flas. As her feet hit the elental mana making up the maze, the mana solidified. However, it was sharing a space with the flas. Not only did the fire mana push the unique mana to the side, making the wall overall weaker, but the flas that were caught within the wall as it was being created weakened it even further. Like that, Rudia, with her superior physical abilities, was able to kick through the maze's walls, running in a straight line toward the mage, who had no idea what was going on, thinking he had already won the duel with this.
But before he knew it, Rudia kicked the staff out of the way, pulling the small knife she carried with her out of its sheath, pressing it against the underside of the stone giant's chin. Her armor had been heavily scorched and was partially burning and lting away, but Rudia simply looked at the mage in front of her with a big grin, not caring for this fact at all.
"It's my win, you smug bastard."
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