The evening passed away and both of the girls returned to Silver city by midnight as group knockouts going to start in the morning.
Meanwhile, Round-68 started for Azzy and Leah. Even though Leah was behaving the same as usual, Azzy was a little bit uncomfortable while having physical contact with her.
After the previous day's incident, Azzy, who realized that he can have fun even if he goes a date with a female friend other than Claire, felt guilty and ashamed of his feelings. As a result, he kept his conversation minimum with Leah. Unless there was an absolute need, he kept silent as much as possible and also decided to keep their relationship more professional.
It means that he will not share any personal things with Leah from now onwards. Maybe, Leah also grasped the truth after chatting with him for a bit. She restrained herself from getting too close but still maintained her calm personality as if she was unaffected.
Coming to the battles, as there are only 34 battles to go, Azzy and Leah got their turn just a few minutes before noon.
Both of them stepped into the barrier and found their opponents were already waiting for them on the opposite side with their summoned Arcana.
Azzy and Leah's opponent team consists of two guys who have similar features to some extent. Both of them were paternal cousins. The elder cousin was a Spear user and the younger one uses a Saber.
Unfortunately, both of their Arcana were only in purple grade.
Despite such a massive disadvantage, the cousins had not only made a breakthrough to the Upper Elite realm before they turn 100 years old but they also survived the battle royale earlier. That itself indicates that they can't be taken lightly.
If only they have different opponents, they would have been underestimated. And somehow, the cousins will try to take advantage of the mistakes made by the opponent team.
To their bad luck, they had to match up with Azzy and Leah of all the people. While their performance sure made an impression on several participants along with the Proctor, this pair of cousins didn't know the extent of their powers and only took them as geniuses.
In fact, the match was ended the moment it began but Leah thought differently. She felt like they are the perfect guys to experiment with the new technique.
As a result, just like in the previous match, Azzy summoned Ruby, the black lotus; and Leah summoned Excalibur along with Izarok.
Both of them also joined their palms like before.
"Soul Amalgamation: Merge"
Seeing that their opponents are doing an attack, the cousins tightly gripped their weapons and rooted to their spots. Rather than taking charge, they decided to counterattack. They were rather good at it.
However, to their surprise, the sword in Leah's hand was merged with the black lotus, resulting in the Excalibur's blade turning black and tiny lotus flowers sprouting at its hilt.
As Leah and Azzy expected, the sword retained its personality rather than creating a new one because of unbalanced powers or each Arcana. It's more like the Excalibur just got an upgrade.
With the addition of new soul skills, Protos energy, and crystal attribute, the Excalibur might have a weird appearance but its strength has considerably increased.
Azzy then took a step behind and Leah took control of the match. She raised the sword, "Kneel before the Queen."
As soon as the words escaped her mouth, the purple grade Arcana that are in the form of weapons, which belonged to the opponent team, flew from their hands and fell on the platform, taking them by surprise.
Taking advantage of their momentary confusion, Leah made her next move.
"Izarok, transform into formless."
The aqua girl collapsed onto the floor before expanding all over the platform. Within just five seconds, everyone found themselves standing in a pool, although with 3ft depth. Threatened by a possibility of an unknown attack, the two cousin brothers summoned a flying card and took a leap while abandoning their Arcana, which is submerged in the water.
"Chris, it looks like that sword's control over our Arcana is too powerful." The Elder cousin said as he controlled the flying card to fly away from the still water.
The younger cousin nodded in agreement while taking out a pair of skill cards and handing one of them to his cousin, "Yeah, let's use energy weapons just in case."
Upon activating the skill cards, an energy saber appeared in the hands of the younger cousin and an energy spear was wielded by the elder one. Maybe, they have been through several battles. They were a lot calmer as they tried to adapt to the situation.
But, no matter how hard someone works, some people cannot catch up to extremely talented individuals.
The current situation is something similar to that.
Neither of their experience, calmness, or wits helped them once Leah made her third move.
Raising the decorated black sword, she unleashed one of the soul skills of Excalibur to test how much its power had increased.
"Soul skill: The Queen's Domain"
Ripples of energy erupted from the sword and formed a dome-shaped illusionary barrier within the main barrier that was created by WAMO for the sake of the tournament.
At first, no one felt any difference. But, then, everything changed as the princess of Camelot motioned down the sword and announced loudly, "except for worthy ones, all must respect the Queen. Kneel."
All of a sudden, an enormous amount of pressure descended on the cousins. They collapsed onto the pool without being able to resist. On the other hand, Azzy didn't face any pressure as he was excluded by her.
Meanwhile, a trace of surprise appeared on Leah, "Hmm, it looks like the maximum range of the domain was increased to as far as 500 meters and the time limit also increased to 90 seconds. That's an almost half-a-fold increase on both. This terrifying negative cosmic energy is indeed marvelous. I wonder what will happen if Excalibur is merged with either the black lightning wolf or the Death Scythe."
Putting away her thoughts, she focused on the struggling opponents who were trying their best to get free but to no avail. This is the domain of the Queen. When activated, she becomes the absolute ruler against weaker targets, but against stronger people, it will be useless.
Of course, this also had a weakness. It's the massive consumption of her soul energy. To make sure the future opponents don't realize it, she acted quickly.
"Izarok, Water Prison."
The huge volumes of water then gathered around the opponents, forming a huge water sphere while imprisoning the targets. Adding to the enormous gravitational pressure they were facing, both of them were also being affected by water pressure from all sides. Not to mention, the breathing only became tougher. The Proctor felt like they were going to die at this rate.
However, before he acted to save them, Leah raised her sword and pointed straight, "go..."
The water sphere rose in the air and flew out of the barrier, carrying the prisoners before it was dismissed. The two men slowly fell to the ground, ending the match.
For a moment, silence filled the audience as they were shocked by how Leah alone took care of her opponents.
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