"Welcome to the Semifinals of the Champions League, 1994."
*Whoo**ooooh*
The stadium is packed with the audience who were cheering on top of their lungs.
"Let's welcome the first semifinalist from the solo category. Leah Pendragon."
Then, her opponent entered the stadium from the northern pavilion. Both of them stood on the edge of the barrier on opposite sides, waiting for the match to start.
Neither of them could see each other because of a 150-meter uneven rock on grassland standing between them.
After the five-minute countdown for preparations has been started on the screen, Skylark Flame from the Central Academy and Leah from the Heavenly Academy stepped inside the barrier.
Leah summoned her celestial grade Excalibur.
Meanwhile, Skylark took an assault rifle out of his storage card.
He didn't summon his metal golem as he knew that it will be useless against his opponent.
After all, his Arcana spirit is of gold grade. If he summoned it, just like previous matches, his opponent would just use her skill and turned it into her temporary slave to use it against her.
So, he thought the best course of action is to use the famed assault rifle that was temporarily loaned to him until the tournament is over.
With this gun that can even hold the power of peak-rank-7, he can shoot the targets up to 400 meters with ease.
The most distinctive of this rifle is that the user can shoot a maximum of 1000 soul energy bullets per minute.
The academy promised to reward this 100-million-credits worth weapon to him permanently on the condition that he wins the gold medal.
Until now, Skylark kept it a secret and used his personal machine gun so that he can surprise his opponent in the finals.
However, now that his opponent turned to be Leah, he was forced to use his trump card.
*Whistle*
As the countdown ended to zero, Skylark dashed towards rock to gain a foot on top of it and gain an advantage.
However, Leah, on the other hand, didn't move from the spot. She raised her sword instead.
A smile appeared on her face as she mumbled, "the rock is on the way. Let's remove it."
Excalibur started to glow in purple energy around it. Even a mortal was able to see that how dense the energy is.
Looking at it, the higher realm experts thought of Azzy's and couldn't help but compare each other.
While most of those experts realized that it was weaker when compared to his, still, they concluded that Leah's Arcana might be superior compared to Azzy's.
It is because the difference between their soul energies doesn't seem that great despite the fact that Azzy was a twin Arcana user.
Only advanced realm Arcana masters (rank-7 and above) knew that wasn't the case at all. In their eyes, Leah is still considered a top-tier genius but Azzy was a level above, a monster that shouldn't be categorized in the genius section.
Back to the battle, as Skylark was rushing towards the summit of the free-standing rock in the middle, Leah raised the sword and swung the sword horizontally.
A huge arc made of purple energy cut through the air and made its way towards the rock.
After unleashing the attack, she then mumbled. "Reflection seal"
Slowly, five mystical runes made out of soul energy formed around her left palm, creating a transparent shield.
Leah then pushed her against the ground and followed from behind.
At first, the arc was as small as one meter in length over its circumference but as it proceeds further, the natural energy in the surroundings was rapidly absorbed into it and increased its size.
By the time it reached the rock, it was already more than 50 times the size of the original.
Just as Skylark reached the foot of the rock, the soul energy attack collided with the rock and proceeds to cut through it.
Skylark jumped back in reflex as soon as he felt the attack.
"What the…" his pupils constricted in shock as he watched the rock was cut off at 5 meters spot and the remaining 145-meter big rock titled towards him and started to fall on him.
As he knew that he couldn't destroy the rock by firing the bullets, he attempted to dodge it by rushing towards the left edge of the grassland.
The only thing he needed to worry about is the debris from the collision of the rock and the ground.
Gripping the gun tightly, he waited until the giant rock fell on the grassland and several pieces of stones flew in random directions.
Pouring soul energy into the gun, he pulled the trigger and held on it to fire the energy bullets continuously.
However, those bullets didn't have the power of rank-5.
Since the target is just rocks, he didn't bother wasting soul power too much and continuously created energy bullets using only 101-110 soul power but with the power of peak-rank-2.
With its help, in just ten seconds, he reduced almost all the flying stones to dust and then, aimed at Leah who stepped onto the flat rock.
*bang*
An energy bullet was fired at her. Even though it looked the same as others, this bullet is a lot more powerful as it consumed more than ten percent of his soul energy.
Looking at the incoming attack, Leah halted for a moment and raised her left hand.
A smirk appeared on Skylark, "fool, it has penetrating properties. No shield could block the bullets fired by this weapon."
However, in the next second, he was frozen like a statue. "The hell..."
When the bullet was just a centimeter away from her palm, suddenly, it stopped for a moment.
Its blue color changed to purple and bounced off towards him in return at the same speed.
Skylark immediately ducked in reflex.
While he successfully dodged the attack, Leah took advantage of it and thrusts the sword into the ground, <strong>"Soul skill: Amalgamation of Ice and Fire."</strong>
"Ice." She raised her hand towards Skylark.
The soul energy from her soul orb gushed out of her body to freeze her entire surroundings.
Now that she stands at the center of the field, whether it is the fallen rock or where it is a tiny grass, the whole grassland turned into a frozen land.
Skylark protected his body with soul energy as he felt the ice below him is trying to freeze him too.
"Good." A smile appeared on Leah watching him looking fine. "Now, Fire."
All of a sudden, a beam of fire erupted from beneath her opponent's feet, hitting him dead on.
Because of the soul energy protection, parts of his skin only charred from the flames, and at the same time, he flew out of the barrier and fainted.
The proctor caught him at the perfect time and declared Leah as the winner.
Waving her hands to the cheering audience with a bright smile on her face, she walked away, leaving the experts in a daze.
No one expected that her soul skill would be this powerful. They felt like the power was beyond that of even a top-tier platinum grade Arcana.
"No wonder she's the favorite to win." "Excalibur, the sword of legends indeed lives up to its name" "Wah! The princess is so beautiful" "She really deserves to be the true daughter of heaven" "Is there a possibility of stealing her from the Heavenly Academy?" "Should we abduct her?" "This Pendragon is the perfect bride for his majesty" "I should inform young master about her and quickly send an envoy to Camelot"
Several spectators were enamored by her beauty and her strength. Even before this match, most of the audience believed that she'll become a top-tier expert in the future.
But now, after watching how she defeated a strong semi-finalist within 30 seconds, they firmly believed that she will become a rank-9 powerhouse.
Some even thought that she's destined to become a demi-god.
While the scouts of advanced academies have no intentions of recruiting her since it is impossible, the hidden organizations, on the other hand, have intentions of acquiring her.
Some scouts from evil organizations even have plans to abduct her.
Meanwhile, the servants of kings, princes, heirs of giant companies, and sects thought of match pairing with their respective masters even though she's only a 15-year-old girl.
There are only two persons within the stadium who were calm. One is the Draco-Galarian disguised as Vann. And the other is Azzy who thought it is normal as he knew that Excalibur is a celestial grade Arcana.
New n𝙤vel chapters are published on fre(e)webnov(l).com