Kain stepped onto Stage One to the hum of tension crackling in the air.
Addison stood across from him, fire swirling at her heels, shoulders squared and eyes locked on him with gleaming determination. The heat in her aura pulsed like a prelude to an explosion.
"Don't go easy on ," she called across the arena. "I didn't co this far for charity."
Kain sighed. "I was trying to be considerate."
"Don't."
He smirked. "Fine. But if you cry, I'm making fun of you."
"Bring it, Father-in-Law."
Kain flinched. The disease had spread.
The referee raised his hand. "Match start!"
Addison didn't hesitate.
Four flares of fiery light burst out around her—each one swirling into a winged fire-attribute spiritual creature—similar but different from her twin's A-ranked affinity for winged wind-attribute spiritual creatures.
First ca her Fire Sprite, a nimble humanoid fire with mischievous eyes and large beetle-like wings. It zipped into the sky like soone had lit a sparkler and launched it from a cannon.
Next ca a fire-attribute spiritual creature resembling a butterfly, a majestic, ash-winged creature that scattered trails of glowing cinders with every beat. Elegant, intimidating, and giving off just enough "you will burn alive with a touch" energy to make the front row shuffle back in their seats despite the transparent barrier around the stage.
Then, the Crimson Kite, sleek and obsidian-feathered, each flap of its wings unleashing heatwaves due to superheated air. It screeched high overhead like a war horn to signal the start of battle.
Finally, the newcor—a massive Ashen Illusion Moth-like and silent, cloaked in curling smoke that seed to spontaneously form into the shapes of frolicking animals. It was a rare dual fire and illusion attribute spiritual creature. Its wings shimred with a silk-like quality, and wherever it moved, the battlefield warped.
Kain took a mont to appreciate the lineup. He was proud of his friend, as an evolutionary planner, he could easily tell the quality of her contracts and that she'd picked the best evolutionary forms for them. They were clearly well-trained and well-bred.
He nodded. Respect.
Then sighed again. This was going to be awkward…
He tapped into his star space.
"Aegis."
A shimr of deep black light cracked against the ground as Kain's ever-trusty 'shield' erged—a sleek obsidian humanoid, plated in matte tallic rock armour that seed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
Glowing lines of violet and amber coursed across Aegis' fra like veins of molten crystal. His chest bore a 'core'—not his real core, which was microscopic and mobile. If struck, this fake core wouldn't harm Aegis too much. It was used to contain excess Abyssal energy, and if an opponent dared to strike it believing it to be his weak point…then they'd be in store for a horrifying explosion of Abyssal energy.
So in the crowd leaned forward. Even second-year who he had class with hadn't seen this new form before. They didn't know what to expect. However, others, particularly the ones with the greatest difference from Kain in level, had to vacate their seats close to the stage in favour of watching the action from the back. The pressure Aegis emitted as a blue-grade spiritual creature was too imnse.
Addison arched a brow and then frowned. "Just him? I said not to hold back."
He gestured lazily at Aegis. "Ahem…" Kain could only cough awkwardly. How could he tell her that if he dared to summon his other contracts, her clearly already intimidated spiritual creatures may just drop from the sky like flies under the pressure.
She muttered sothing that sounded suspiciously like "smug jerk" after he didn't give a satisfactory reply.
Her contracts rose into the air.
The Butterfly and Swallowtail beat their wings in wide arcs, layering the battlefield in glittering cinders and smoke. The Sprite flickered between them, gathering a ball of heat in its hands, and the Kite soared high, preparing a dive.
It was a perfectly coordinated attack.
Kain watched the whole setup and tilted his head.
'Maybe I should let it land,' he thought. 'It's not like Aegis would actually get hurt. Might make Addison feel better.' After all, Kain wasn't dumb, he'd already realized that Addison seed less than pleased with him only summoning Aegis. Maybe beating up Aegis a bit would make her feel vindicated…
He sent a ntal ssage. 'Let it hit. Should be fine.'
Aegis, ever the model of obedience, imdiately stopped mobilizing the earth-attribute energy in the arena to build protective walls. He let his guard down—just enough to let the attack connect.
The sky lit up.
A burning spear of compressed heat from the Kite, flanked by a swirl of smoke illusions from the Swallowtail and a barrage of ember shards from the Butterfly. The Sprite hurled its fireball last, a final punctuation mark on the combo.
Kain almost wanted to applaud the great display of teamwork.
They all hit Aegis dead-on.
The impact lit the stage in fla. The crowd gasped.
When the smoke cleared…
Aegis stood, unchanged.
Perfectly steady. Completely unhard.
Not even a smudge on his armour. Not even pushed a step back from his initial location.
Despite Kain's orders and the lowering of the rock walls, his passive defence—Abyssal Foundation—had kicked in, manifesting for a brief second as a translucent black sheen before vanishing again.
Addison's enthusiastic expression faltered. A lot.
Kain sighed again. Couldn't Aegis have… stumbled a bit?
'Aegis', he ntally called out dryly. The golem turned to look at him innocently, 'Could you pretend it hurt just a little?'
After giving Kain a brief, slow nod, Aegis slowly turned back toward the opponents.
Then, in a deep, grating rumble, it let out a noise generated by vocal chords that seed to be composed of grating stones.
A long, deliberate, utterly emotionless: "Oww."
Kain buried his face in his hands.
Addison looked like she wanted to launch herself off the stage.
"Are you—" she began.
"Nope," Kain interrupted quickly, conscience stinging.
She clenched her jaw. "Fine. Round two."
Her contracts flew again.
The Swallowtail cloaked the field in a smoke-like illusion that was ant to conceal the movents of its allies. The Sprite darted forward with feints. The Butterfly used a wide burst to conceal movent, and the Kite ca in at an odd angle outside of Aegis' line of sight.
Aegis took all of it.
Without blinking.
Without budging.
He turned, flicked one glowing hand upward, and disrupted the entire illusion field with a pulse of released abyssal energy stored in his core.
Three contracts popped back into vision form where they were concealed by the illusions, one after the other.
Addison stared.
The last one, her Butterfly, gave a brave flutter and tried to swoop again.
Aegis raised a palm.
Addison sighed. "Wait, wait—I yield! Don't—!"
The butterfly was knocked out a second later anyway, preempted by Aegis' faint shimr of suppressive abyssal-tinged aura.
"Victory to Kain Newman," the referee called, mostly to make it official.
The crowd was quiet again.
Not out of disappointnt. Just… second-hand embarrassnt at the completely anticlimactic duel.
Addison walked across the arena slowly, arms crossed, smoke still clinging to her hair.
"You suck."
"I know..."
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