*Swoosh* *Swoosh*
Two energy arrows collided in the sky, releasing a hundred thousand joules of energy toward Iphi and her flaming eagle, pushing them back.
Garuda, the giant sky eagle flapped its wings and covered the distance before Louis shot another energy arrow. Iphi shot the arrow at the incoming attack.
Once again, she and her flaming eagle were pushed back. The Sky eagle goes forward again and restricted the path.
After this same thing happened several times, eventually, Iphi and the flaming eagle were cornered. They were only a few feet away from the exit of the barrier. Realizing that she cannot handle him head-on, Iphi ordered, "Pyro, look for a way to get over to the other side."
The flaming eagle let out a screech and flew to the left. It planned to fly under the sky eagle's giant wing and escape to the other side. However, Louis had no intention of letting her go.
He drew the bow and unleashed the soul skill. It was quite similar to Azzy's whirlwind soul skill except that the arrow was the center of the horizontal tornado.
Iphi tried to defend by ordering the flaming eagle to unleash the soul skill of a flame wall but Louis' attack didn't have any casting time. It was quite instant. As soon as the arrow was fired, the powerful tornado formed with it as its eye and it engulfed both of the targets before Louis motioned his hands. The tornado arched towards the sky after exiting the barrier so that Iphi won't be able to return within the 5-second time limit.
Once she was out, he controlled the arrow's path to arch downward, thereby making her crash to the ground along with the eagle. As he dismissed the tornado, Iphi rose to her feet with a darkened expression. "Damn it. One day, I will stand on the summit for sure."
The audience couldn't help but feel pity for the 11-year-old girl who lost terribly but compared to the other teammates, she fought more valiantly and they lauded her for her efforts.
Iphi then shifted her attention to the rest of the battles. There were already three unconscious figures on the battle platform.
Along with the captain, Vice-Captain Savannah, as well as the poison user Lilie, are out of battle, leaving only two members against five opponents.
Evelina Crow is currently engaged in a tight battle against Mia and Calder. The former appeared to be at a disadvantage.
As for the substitute Cecilia who was the summoner of a giant centipede, she is almost on the brink of defeat with her summon getting crushed under the weight of the leviathan while she was getting bombarded by arrows one after another.
Watching it from the stands, like several other scouts and experts, two old-aged-looking men were having a discussion about the ongoing battle. Both of them are the elders of the Temple of War, an ancient organization similar to that of the Church but the members are more battle-crazed.
If Azzy had seen them, he would have recognized at least one of them. Elder Gedalya of War Temple had attended the auction where he had acquired the Djinn from Principal Barton through a three-way transaction.
The other one is a fellow elder named Aviran Bach, an 8-star Arcana Master.
As Gedalya was praising Team Twilight, Elder Aviran nodded, "I agree. Team Twilight had chosen their strategy perfectly. First, they had taken out the captain. After that, they have rearranged their positions, sacrificing their weakest members to hold against the opponent's strongest, then, using their strongest against the remaining opponents."
Gedalya then commented, "We expected the moon clan's descendant to have something up her sleeve but it appears that we have underestimated her. But then again, it is a pity that I didn't get to see that boy's battle." He momentarily shifted his eyes toward Azzy.
Both of these old men were interested to recruit Azzy like several other organizations. However, as Azzy was already claimed by WAMO, poaching him would be a tough task. They need to think of the benefits their temple can offer him that WAMO couldn't.
Anyway, back to the battle, after the substitute also had fallen to Estella's attacks, the rest of the three gathered at a spot and cheered the remaining two who were fighting Evelina. Surprisingly, her rank-6 platinum grade giant bear was actually being held down by the Oak Tree, which is of gold grade and peak-rank-5.
"Mia, go from the left and punch below the armpits where she was wounded." "Claire is there to help your tree. So, don't need to worry about that and focus on your enemy" "Calder, just focus on shielding Mia and only attack when you see the opening."
While cheering for them, Estella also acted as an instructor while Claire provided healing from far away. So, Evelina felt like she was battling four people at once.
Because Claire kept on healing the Oak Tree, it went all out, using all the branches to tightly imprison the bear. While it captured its target, the tree was also absorbing the bear's life force and strengthening its grip.
On the other hand, the tired giant bear had already used all of the soul skills and could only depend on its basic strength or the interference from its master who was trying her best to battle her opponents.
"Oraaaa"
In her final struggle, she used all of her remaining soul energy in her right fist and threw a punch at Mia. Calder came to his teammate's rescue as he was doing for the past few minutes. He used the shield to block her punch and was blasted away at least a dozen meters and crashed onto the floor.
As Claire once again healed him and his Arcana while Evelina takes out her energy recovery card to refill her soul power, Mia licked the trigger of the handgun and held onto it.
All the soul energy she slowly stocked up in her rank-7 weapon during the past few minutes was released from the barrel in the form of a concentrated beam. However, it was a bit too strong for a lower-ranked Mia.
As the beam of energy struck her opponent, Mia was pushed back at the same speed. Calder charged forward and stopped her while taking the support of the shield.
Evelina blasted out the barrier and crashed onto the ground with a hole through her stomach. Her team's instructor, Carmella Hearth hurriedly used a healing skill card on her and saved her life.
*Graaaa*
The bear roared in anger, going into a berserk state. As a superior platinum-grade beast, it could move even if its master is unconscious.
With Mia using almost all of her soul energy, her Arcana didn't have the support it needed to continue restricting the bear's movements. Now that its target went into a berserk mode, the Oak Tree's branches couldn't stop its escape.
Once it escaped, the giant bear charged at Mia to kill her. Neal turned serious. He raised his hand to kill it right away but before he made his move, Louis shot an arrow at it. As soon as his attack struck the target, a portal opened up and swallowed the bear, teleporting it outside the barrier to near its master.
There, Carmella quickly restrained it with energy chains and spoke loudly, "your master is safe and sound. Now, calm down and leave, or else, I will be forced to kill you."
The platinum-grade beast usually understands the human language of someone other than its master. It glared at Mia and Calder for a moment and then disappeared.
"The winner of the match is Team Twilight. Congratulations to the members of the winning team on entering the semifinals."
Amid cheers and huge applauses, Azzy and others cleared the field and made their way to the waiting rooms to take a rest or watch the next matches as the seats are pretty much filled out there.
After a couple of minutes, the next pair of Quarterfinalist teams were called to the field.
While Team Twilight's performance surely captivated the audience, the next match made them almost forget the previous match.
Team Abel consisted of seven people, where the weakest of them have a soul power of 920k (peak-rank-5) and the strongest of them has over 8.2 million (high-rank-6).
But, their soul power isn't the special thing here. The fact that they won the match even a Quarterfinal match without even one of them summoning their Arcana was something that attracted the attention of spectators and made them the favorites of the tournament.
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