The battlefield was a warzone of scorched stone, lted tal, and ash.
Albrecht stood near the edge of the arena, his hand pressed to his temple as spiritual power flowed out of him in precise pulses to try and sowhat stabilize the poor condition of his contracts.
In his star space, the Scaldhide Ore Demon groaned weakly—its core barely holding together after its violent self-detonation. It would survive, but only barely, and only if the match ended soon.
He couldn’t afford to lose it permanently. Then he’d go from one of the top young talents of the Empire...to a cripple with a broken star.
Even if, with the royal family’s or the College’s help, he managed to restore the star space after the broken contract, it’d be hard to find a contract as talented as his Ore Demon...not to ntion their emotional connection.
With a reluctant breath, he turned toward the unconscious Copper-rot Weaver and recalled it back to the star space. Its legs twitched faintly as it vanished in a dull glow—its condition too poor to be of any further use.
The Leechling hovered slightly off the ground as if raised by a magnet. Its quicksilver surface was pockmarked and cracked from absorbing both enemy attacks and having so of the Copper-Rot Weaver’s corrosive blood splash onto it. It twitched erratically, like its neural circuits were misfiring. Still functional. Barely.
The Virulent Iron Elk stamped once, lowering its glowing antlers. The Corrosteel Tiger’s limbs flexed as steam hissed out from beneath its armour plates—damaged, but still in fighting condition. The Hooked Chain Wyrm reared up, the chains surrounding its body. These three, while slightly injured, still retained most of their combat strength.
Across the field, Serena exhaled slowly. Her gaze swept over her side.
Starweaver’s wings drooped slightly, the cosmic shimr around them flickering. It was surrounded by a shimring barrier composed of starlight that protected him from most of the blast. It was pretty much unhard, but clearly exhausted. Fortunately, a steady infusion of spiritual power from Serena reinvigorated it. Its spiritual power flared to full strength once more.
Prismarin, bounced in place as if to re-energize its stiff limbs. It too had taken no significant damage, though the fatigue from dodging toxic mist, skirmishing with the Elk, almost getting struck by the Corrosteel tiger, and then having to defend against a blast (all of which occurred within seconds of each other, back to back) showed in its slightly uneven movents—until another surge of energy from Serena smoothed it out.
The Elental Guardian, however, had not been as lucky. Targeted early by the Leechling and struck by the periphery of the Ore Demon’s explosion, it now stood in its earth-attribute form. Its stone exterior was cracked and chipped, mossy growths flickering with dim energy. But thanks to a hastily triggered defensive shift and Balens’ interference, it had avoided crippling damage.
And then there was Balens himself—still coated in ash.
His golden brass scales were hidden beneath soot, his silhouette rigid and silent. But his balance plates had begun to rise again, slowly resetting into a neutral position. Despite the gri clinging to every inch of him, the emanascion construct looked no weaker. Just disgruntled and in need of a good polishing.
However, it and Serena were still in a relatively positive mood.
Now their nurical disadvantage had been eliminated
It was 4 versus 4.
But Albrecht knew the true imbalance: his remaining contracts were injured, low on energy, or both. Serena’s contracts, by contrast, had been refreshed with help from her gift of unlimited spiritual power and were not nearly as injurred as his own.
The odds of Albrecht winning were now much lower. Not without so luck on his side.
But worst of all—he was beginning to suspect that Balens was affecting luck and probability itself. So he couldn’t even hope for Lady Luck to smile upon him.
The referee, sensing the montary lull, gave a light cough.
Almost as if it were an unofficial signal to resu.
And as if on cue, the battle reignited.
The Hooked Chain Wyrm struck first this ti, launching a volley of anchor-tipped chains in a wide arc toward Starweaver. The chains moved unpredictably, snaking through the air at odd angles, but the winged humanoid made of starlight was already moving—its wings flickered once and it blinked out of sight, reappearing in a burst of starlight at the edge of the field.
anwhile, the Tiger and Elk surged forward together.
The Corrosteel Tiger’s movent was strange now—less fluid, more erratic. Its plating had lost so of its seamless cohesion, but it was still fast. It leapt for Prismarin, claws extending into mirrored blades, trying to catch the rabbit off guard.
The Virulent Iron Elk cast another toxic fog toward the center, trying to block vision and restrict movent. Working together, they didn’t believe their prey could continue evading them.
Prismarin’s form shimred and with a ’pop’ went out of existence. It had long replaced its true body with an illusion.
Moreover, next that one illusion multiplied—over ten afterimages blooming outward like a reflection shattered across rippling water. The Tiger swiped through one, missed, and imdiately turned to intercept the next. Its claws hissed with suppressed corrosive energy.
"Now," Serena whispered. Balens had made so more wishes in order to protect itself, and its allies during the blast. aning that a small amount of bad luck had been stored again.
But just a little bit. Likely not enough to make the opponent self-detonate again even if not divided into 3, but enough maybe get one of the more injurred opponents to make a fatal mistake.
Balens raised one plate. The other dipped.
Albrecht stiffened. He had only seen those plates go unbalanced once before, and it had resulted in his contract exploding beyond his control. He was unsure how or why, but he was sure that the imbalanced scale was the key.
He couldn’t see it—but Kain could.
Threads. Again.
Kain focused, activating Threads of Destiny.
This ti, only one thread erged, and it went toward the Elk.
The Elk, mid-charge toward Prismarin’s true body (identified after much difficulty), stumbled. Its hooves skidded against the ground, montum faltering.
One of its antlers struck a massive boulder chipped off the stage from the blast and rebounded awkwardly, sending it lurching sideways into the path of the already heavily injurred Leechling. With a horrible crunch, the Elk’s sharp antlers scraped along the Leechling’s side. The Leechling screeched—a high, warbling tallic sound—as the impact threw it off balance. Its semi-liquefied form splattered unevenly, twitching. The Elk tried to stabilize, but its back legs tangled in the sticky residue emitting from the Leechling. Both contracts collapsed in a heap of twitching limbs and rippling tal, the Elk’s toxic glow flickering erratically and hurting the Leechling crushed beneath it, and the Leechling emitting a sticky and corrosive residue—it was a scene of mutual harm.
Albrecht swore under his breath as he watched two of his remaining four contracts fall into disarray—not from enemy attacks, but from misfortune alone.
The Wyrm surged toward Balens again—its chains now forming a net.
"Make the links snap," Serena said to Balens.
The frontmost chains split cleanly mid-air. The Wyrm’s lunge overextended. Balens didn’t move. The broken links scattered like confetti across the field.
The Elental Guardian, sensing an opening, charged in with a sudden eruption of wind and fire—a temporary return to its fused state with the help of the Starweaver. It body-checked the Tiger still focused on one of Prismarin’s illusions mid-swipe, sending it tumbling into a nearby arena wall. The plating along its side cracked again.
Starweaver descended from above in a streak of constellation light, pinning the tiger in place with a blast of pure astral force.
Albrecht’s eye twitched. He could already see the victory slipping from his grasp. And as if in answer to that bad feeling, Serena’s contracts didn’t let up at all.
Prismarin darted between the tangled ss of the Elk and Leechling, its fur shimring as if covered by frost. With a graceful hop, it landed beside them, ears glowing faintly. The remaining illusions circled once—then collapsed inward, converging.
A blast of icy mist surged outward, wrapping both the Elk and the Leechling in a shimring do. The pressure spike was instantaneous.
A mont later, both creatures were forcefully recalled in bursts of white light—Albrecht reacting just in ti to salvage what remained of their forms. The crowd erupted into a shocked chorus.
Only two opponents remained.
The Corrosteel Tiger growled low, only to be intercepted mid-charge by a sudden pillar of stone erupting from the field—an assist from the Guardian. It stumbled back.
And the Wyrm, attempting another strike at Serena herself, found its chains unravelling mid-air—unlucky timing, a stray glimr from Balens’ raised scale.
Prismarin darted in, followed by a double pulse from Starweaver’s wings.
With a brilliant flash, the battlefield cleared.
Both the Tiger and the Wyrm collapsed—unconscious or forced into the star space.
The match was over.
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