The slash burning with flame energy was the first to strike the first shield created by Zona's copy card.
The shield broke like glass as soon as it was hit. However, at the same time, it almost absorbed the attack too. As a result, the 5 meters large Arc reduced to 1-meter before it hit the second shield.
Due to the reduced power, it wasn't able to do any damage to the second shield as its attack power wasn't enough. Right then, the flame Salamander strikes it.
As a result, while both of Swordmasters' attacks were blocked, Team Unicorn still has a shield left before them.
To break it, this time, Rowan took out a skill card and activate it while throwing it.
As the card hit the ground, an enormous amount of water started to gush out of the glowing card. Soon, the entire platform was covered with water. Bay and others saw their legs were sunk by at least half a meter.
Due to the magical barrier around the platform, the water that was formed by soul energy never got out of it and helped Swordmasters.
Team Swordmaster didn't stop there. Everyone took out a two-star skill card and activate it at the same time.
They started to float in the air, one meter above the ground.
Members of Team Unicorn's face turned serious. Upon seeing the water and their floating, they had an inkling of a soul skill attack by the lightning user.
Only the expressions of Leo and Zona are unchanged as if they don't care about it.
<strong>"Soul skill: Rising water serpent."</strong> Rowan raised his sword and unleashed the soul skill, first.
His sword turned into a flexible water sword in the shape of a serpent. He spun around and thrust the sword into the air. The water serpent sword suddenly extends as it made its way towards the shield.
Upon seeing the attack, all the members of Team Unicorn realized that the next attack would be from the lightning user once the shield disappears.
Looking at the expressions of Bay and Katherine, Zona smiled, "don't worry. I will take care of it."
Upon her reassurance, they calmed down.
As soon as the water serpent attack collided with the shield, both of them burst into pieces and disappeared.
Following the plan, Rowan's teammate Macon, who was a lightning user, unleashed his soul skill while pointing his sword to the surface of the water. "Soul skill: Ten thousand volt shock."
Lightning energy was discharged from the sword and was supposed to conduct electricity through the water body and paralyze the opponents.
However, just as the tip of the sword was about to touch the surface of the water, Zona raised her hand, <strong>"Soul skill: Underground Roots."</strong>
All of a sudden, dozens of roots erupted from the ground and tightly captured everyone's legs.
At the same time, the roots greedily absorbed the water and they thickened. However, the members of the Swordmasters team didn't have the time to care about it as they are too busy slashing at the never-ending attack of roots.
At first, they managed to get free from them. But, after they got strengthened because of water, they felt more difficult to get out of the situation.
Rowan was taken aback as he realized that his plan only backfired onto him. Instead of helping out his teammate, he helped out the enemy.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Leo made the move.
"Argh!" A heavy punch was landed on the lightning user, first. He was knocked out instantly. The next one to be hit was Rowan who was startled by the sudden attack by Leo.
"When did he come here..." Just as such a thought passed through his mind, a kick was landed in his stomach. He flew back and passed through the barrier before landing on the ground. He lost his consciousness, right away.
Leo was originally a peak-rank-4 Galarian beast with peak-rank-6 strength. So, the spell of Fairness that restricts one's soul did nothing to him.
So, as long as the spell is activated, he was actually invincible on the field. Naturally, the outcome is obvious. All he needed is one hit to take down each of them.
Looking at his swift attacks, the students of even top academies became serious. For the past three rounds, they saw Leo exchanged a few blows before defeating them.
But now that they saw his skill, they realized he was just playing until now and only took them seriously at the last second, considering Team Swordmasters worthy.
"Prince Light" "Prince Light" "Unicorn" "Prince Light"
Amid the crowd cheers, Leo and the others step down from the ruined battle platform.
Meanwhile, Mia Leveret's eyes lit up, "I never thought of using this combo. Indeed water skill cards can strengthen the roots. Not just the roots, water itself is a supporter of the wood element."
Now, she no longer felt displeased for her skill to be copied. She felt that she would have realized it sooner.
"Congratulations Team Unicorn for reaching the finals," Exea announced loudly. The battle indeed brought back the excitement of the audience.
After the battle platform is replaced by a new one, Exea announced the second semi-finals, which is between Team Twilight and Team Rampage.
"Go Twilight…" Barbara was cheering loudly along with the surrounding audience as soon as the members of Twilight stepped onto the stage.
Azzy didn't know what happened but ever since Barbara found out Claire and Gideon are a part of a team, she became their supporter. Is it because Gideon is her family, or is it because she became close to Claire? Or maybe it's because both of them are his friends? He wondered.
Meanwhile, Team Twilight, which is made up of Mia, Snivy, Claire, Gideon, and a tenth grader named Calder, moved into their positions for the battle.
Unlike the earlier teams from the first semi-finals, there weren't any complicated tricks or combos or anything. The five of them separated the enemy and went into five vs five single battles.
Snivy was the first one to finish the battle. It only happened in 5 seconds. She just hit the opponent with her giant hammer. While it didn't do any life-threatening damage, he still flew away and landed outside of the barrier.
After finishing her battle, she joined Mia. While both of them were overpowering their opponent, Gideon killed the opponent team member's beast with his super-speed and joined Calder who was defending from the attacks.
Meanwhile, Claire finished her battle with the Rampage team's leader.
The match was pretty much over within a minute. The crowd erupted in cheers but didn't appear as excited as when Team Unicorn won the match and went to the finals.
By ending up at the top 2, alongside Team Unicorn, Team Twilight also secured their participation in the Champions League.
***
<strong>Elite division Female Dormitories;</strong>
Everyone is having dinner in the dining hall. Claire, Mia, Snivy, another classmate named Minerva, sat together at a table.
With their popularity explosion, many girls approached them some with intentions of scouting and others, well, just to socialize and nothing more.
There's even a girl from Egrein Academy who was acting as a messenger of love from her teammate who seemed like he fell for Claire.
However, as Claire was stuck with her friends, none of them have gotten the opportunity to talk to her.
"I heard that the Sun Academy is incredibly hard to get into…" Snivy said as she continued to munch the food.
Claire nodded, "Yeah. My sister said that it is easier to graduate from Dragon Academy than Sun Academy. Their graduation exam is a lot stricter than you imagine. One has to kill a rank-6 beast of purple grade by themselves. The higher its grade and stage, the greater their marks would be."
As the girls gasped, Claire sighed, "That's why the Academy only a few students. Even with mid-rank-7 soul power, my sister took several tests to become an instructor."
"Well, with your strength, I don't think it poses a problem, anyway," Minerva commented.
"Say, Claire, how's going with Azrael? Did he ask you out, yet?" All of a sudden, Mia drops a question out of nowhere.
*pff*
Claire almost spilled the food, "what are you talking about?"
"Soon, we'll become tenth graders. So, there's not much time we have left in the Academy. I heard that he was sitting with some girl from Moon Academy these days. If you keep quiet, you will only regret it, later, you know." Mia suggested her to make a move if Azzy isn't doing anything as Valentine's Day is roughly a month away.
"I know that. You don't need to tell me…" Claire mumbled while looking down in disappointment.
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