Leiya had succeeded in forging the partition, granting Xerxes the freedom to focus entirely on Nicolas. She held no doubts about his capability, deep within, she knew Xerxes was not the kind of man to surrender when faced with adversity.
He would embrace the challenge, relentless in his pursuit of victory, no matter how insurmountable the odds seemed.
She longed to embody that same tenacity. For months, she had spoken of change, of moving forward, yet words alone were meaningless. The world did not reward thoughts but actions. And so, she would act.
"Claudia," she called, her voice steady despite the chaos unfurling around them, "I need you to support Thornfum, and me, but him most of all. Right now, he doesn't know his left from his right. He's just… reacting. Can you do that? Let me handle the dwarves."
Claudia gave a sharp nod, and Leiya turned her attention back to the two adversaries awaiting her next move. Though they appeared disorganised, there was a rationality in their stance, the kind only seasoned fighters possessed.
'Visualise the victory, Leiya. How do I break through?'
Yet, every path she envisioned led to the same towering wall, one so impossibly high she couldn't even see its peak. This was the visualisation of her inner problem.
Merely glimpsing the summit of the 'wall' was a struggle in itself. But if she kept pushing, if she refused to yield… could she scale it?
But maybe It wasn't the climb that frightened her.
It was the fall.
She couldn't feel that helplessness again, about trying then seeing all of her actions to be useless. Though that fear was within her, at the very least she knew she had to move. At the very least, she would fight with everything she had, against any foe, against any odds.
"Darvis, let's make the boss 'appy," one dwarf sneered. "Ya ready? Obliterate the blue-head!"
The other dwarf muttered an incantation under his breath, and Leiya lunged forward. Her mana beast soul shard flared to life, amplifying the potency of her magic.
'Marauder's Grasp.'
A surging wave of water erupted from her palms, rushing forth with deceptive gentleness, no fury, no destructive intent, just an unassuming tide that drenched the battlefield, soaking the dwarves in its path.
They laughed.
"That's yer best?" one jeered, shaking water from his beard. "If I wanted a trip to the seaside, I'd've gone to the shores of Amento!"
Then, with a thunderous chant, they retaliated. They were adamant on showing Leiya a force greater than what she had invited to the battlefield.
"Earth Divide! Answer our call and bend this land to our will! Hollowless Shell!"
Darkened circles, like patches of rotted earth, spread across the ground in a fifteen-metre radius, even with that, Leiya didn't stop running.
The second dwarf roared, "Tectonic Rise!"
From the hollowed earth, fifteen jagged spikes out of thirty holes, erupted in a brutal onslaught. Leiya twisted mid-stride, narrowly avoiding a few, but not fast enough. One grazed her calf, another speared through her tricep.
She hissed through clenched teeth as the spikes retracted, leaving her wounds to weep crimson.
Darvis chuckled. "Yer wastin' yer time, missy. In this domain, yer nothing. Just a rat scurryin' 'fore the hammer falls."
His companion grinned. "Spikes'll keep comin'. No time fer incantations. Two of us, Tier Five an' Tier Six mages overpowa' you pretty. Yer trapped. May as well give up."
As if to punctuate his words, the spikes burst forth again. Leiya barely dodged, but this time, one impaled her foot.
She screamed.
Blood slicked the spike's tip as it withdrew. Around her, the cacophony of battle raged, Thornfum's enraged bellows, Claudia's frantic spells, the relentless clash of steel. The sounds clawed at her focus, amplifying the agony seeping through her veins.
'The mana beast soul shard… It's not just enhancing my mana senses. It's heightening everything—my pain, my hearing, even my vision. But what good is it if I can't use it?'
She forced herself to move again, narrowly evading the next volley. Her gaze flickered across the battlefield, analysing. She couldn't keep this up, the distance from the edge of the radius and her was too far though.
'He can't sustain this forever surely, Father told me in battle there's a pattern to everything, humans were creatures of repetition, whether it be mannerisms or anything else, there's a pattern to understand isn't there?. His mana is draining with each strike, but how? What am I missing?'
Pain clouded her thoughts, a relentless distraction, but one detail anchored her focus.
The spike stained with her blood.
Daryul's voice cut through the storm. "She's being tortured! Does she even have a plan? Or the will to endure? This'd be frightening, even for me!"
Then, rain.
Torrential, unforgiving, it drenched the battlefield, mingling with the blood pooling at her feet. Her body was a canvas of wounds, the earth a grotesque mural of crimson.
'The rain… the blood… They leave marks. On the grass. On the spikes. My blood had left it's mark on the spike, the spikes aren't a new creation but a creation that is maintained, they simply move through the ground. I think I see it now.'
And in her mind, that wall, despite their being multiple to overcome within her life, she was able to climb it, she wasn't bound to fall now, her destiny was greater than that and it beckoned for her to keep on going, to not stop now.
Then, With deliberate subtlety, she dispersed her water across the terrain, masking it within the downpour, so that it marked all of the spikes
Her water was an extension of herself.
And even the smallest part of her could turn the tide.
The spikes rose once again, but this time things had changed for Leiya which turned the dwarves' face from confident to shock, a stark difference to what they believed the outcome would have been.
The mana beast soul shard sharpened her senses to a razor's edge now, she could feel the spikes before they erupted. With an unnatural ease, she dodged all of them.
"How can she move like that Darvis, increase the speed of the spikes, use all yer' magic, USE IT ALL!"
Leiya whispered, "Good.", as the spikes, instead of having a rest of a few seconds, they continuously struck out of the air, however for Leiya's acrobatics and sharp movements, it became child's play.
She played the defensive long enough, their conjoined mana was now on it's brink of giving up, but hers wasn't, ever since the start of the fight she still hadn't activated her move, 'Marauder's grasp', as it was a two part spell.
Oblivious to what was happening around them, the dwarves kept on persisting in hopes that the spikes would catch Leiya, but the very same pools of water they initially mocked beforehand, had become their own downfall.
"Marauder's grasp, entanglement" from the pools of water, Leiya activated the second part of the spell. Tentacles of water latched around them, emerging from the innocent poodles, and halted any concentration they had, creating an impossible situation for them to overcome.
Without the strength to resist, the water clamped down on them like the jaws of a beast from the fallen kingdom.
It was fitting, after all Leiya was from that very place, where beasts had hunted man for years, so what was different now.
Absolutely nothing.
Leiya planted her feet, her mana surging like a storm breaking its chains. The dwarves' eyes widened, fear flickering where arrogance had once been. They shook their head, attempting to scramble back, but it was too late. She was already moving.
Water coiled around her fists, serpentine and hungry. The pain that had once seared through her body was now a distant whisper, drowned beneath the tide of something far older, a memory.
Visions of Aemon flooded her mind.
His voice, steady and sure, as if he stood beside her even now, saying some of his last words to her once again:
"I see the truth, Leiya. You're destined to become a mage greater than I ever was. Your story doesn't end here, it begins."
Every strike she had ever thrown, every burst of mana, every desperate lunge from childhood to this very moment—flashed before her. The dwarves barely had time to raise their arms before she was upon them.
Her artefact thrummed, amplifying her mana in tandem with the emotions flaring in her being.
Her fist shattered the air. The water tendrils she had woven earlier yanked the dwarves forward, right into the path of her blow.
Crunch!
The sound was monstrous. Bones splintered. The force of the impact rippled outward, cracking the earth beneath them as the dwarves were hurled backwards, a blur of broken limbs and shattered pride, before crashing into the arena wall.
Debris rained down. Dust swallowed their motionless forms. A shaky breath left her lips. "4 against 2 now."
Or so she thought.
Blinding, searing gold erupted across the battlefield, forcing her to shield her eyes. The announcer's voice boomed, triumphant, and the words that followed made her individual victory meaningless in her eyes:
"AND NICOLAS HAS DONE IT—HE DID EXACTLY AS HE SAID! HE HAS WON!"
Her stomach dropped.
She whirled toward the source of the light, and her hand flew to her mouth.
Xerxes.
His torso was pierced, a gaping wound weeping radiant, burning blood that steamed as it met the air. They both mirrored each other, broken and bloodied, but in the faces of those who watched, it seemed clear that Xerxes was done for.