"Let's start with a thundering waltz!" said Stephany, her giggles never contradicting her elegance and grace.
A giant halo of lightning formed in the sky before crashing down on Frank with several powerful lightning strikes.
"Shit!" Frank, evading the first attack at the last second, then dashed around without ever letting a single strike hit him.
Stephany giggled as she opened her fan, gracefully sweeping the air like she was executing the most beautiful and enchanting dance in the world. In response, the lightning strikes rained down on Frank fiercer than before.
"Let's see if you can evade this one, Mr. peeping tom~"
"I'm toast!" Frank thought, the attack hitting its target in a dust cloud explosion.
"I hope you enjoyed the performance," said Stephany as in that instant, she took on an elegant bow like a performer exiting the stage at the fall of the curtains. "Mr. peeping tom?"
Rising up from her bow, before she could turn around…
The ground shook under Stephany, exploding into a wave of catapulted rocks.
Surprised by the ambush, Stephany lost her footing as flickering lightning started forming around her, her entire form drowned under the stacking boulders formed by Frank's counterattack.
In the meantime, Frank turned tail and ran away. While he got further and further away, flickers of electricity surrounded the boulders before exploding.
With a few coughs, Stephany blew the dust away with her fan.
"I thought that would do it, but it seems that I got a little over my head," she thought as she gripped her fan with her teeth while she tied her hair into a long ponytail.
With the clouds growing darker and her fan in hand once again, a determined gaze accompanied by a subtly gentle yet devilish smile drew themselves on her face.
"Now then, time to go discipline someone on how to properly attend to a lady," she said as a giant surge of mana emanated from her, electrifying her surroundings.
At the same time, with a single raise of the arm that held the fan, countless magic circles appeared in the sky.
With a single descending motion of the arm…
<…Ragnarok>!
She unleashed a torrent of lightning strikes that flew off like a barrage of spears.
Trees, bushes, rocks, everything either blew up in smoke or burned to a crisp. The lightning and thunder struck like the divine judgement of the gods.
Frank, his mind racing with countless thoughts and strategies to escape his current predicament, was still running away as fast as he could while evading the countless spears of lightning that came crashing down on him.
"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!!!" he cursed as he noticed one of the attacks closing in on him. "I've got no choice but to use it now. My orders were to lay low, but against the Princess, there's no way I can take it easy anymore."
Within a single swift step, Frank shifted his body with a smooth flip. He faced the attack head-on with his arms and hands extended towards it as a more powerful orange aura emanated from him.
Back where she was, Stephany also reacted to the change in Frank.
"What's with that spike of mana? It can't be him, can it? How did he increase the amount of mana he had?"
A giant earthquake shook the entirety of the land. Every contestant in the competition could feel it. It was strong enough to the point where everyone who was in close vicinity lost their footing without being able to rise back from the ground.
But that wasn't the end of it.
Before the lightning attack could reach Frank, the cause of the earthquake didn't wait to show itself as a tsunami of giant stone spikes appeared from the ground, engulfing everything in their quake at an alarming speed.
It was hard to believe a single student could do this. Though Frank had barely blocked Stephany's attack, he had still been hit by the explosion of the collision.
In the meanwhile, his attack, still in direction of Stephany, didn't differentiate between other contestants. Anyone who was in the way of the spell was annihilated.
"Hehe," Stephany observed the incoming attack with stupefaction and dread. "I suppose it'd be rude for a lady to not show proper decorum to a worthy opponent."
As she opened her fan, rain came down from the clouds and her aura became more and more intense. The mana she was releasing was unlike what she had previously shown up to this point.
I call thee from the heavens,
Let your roar strike my foes,
And turn them to ashes.
She chanted as the dark clouds started flashing with lightning.
Come down,
Lightning bigger, brighter and stronger than ever came down in an instant, destroying Frank's last ace-in-the-hole and the landscape in a blinding flash of light. The sound of thunder was enough to give a heart attack to anyone or make them faint from shock.
As the chaos died down, and the several elimination announcements continued, Stephany silently walked towards Frank who was lying on the ground exhausted and barely able to defend himself.
"I'm surprised you had such a trick up your sleeve, mister peeping tom," said Stephany, an indiscernible smile etched on her face.
"It's Frank, not peeping tom," retorted Frank with a ragged voice.
"Pardon me. Frank, is it?" she said crouching down. "How is it that someone of your strength has been off radar for so long?"
"Well, orders are orders. I can't let my cover blow up. Huh?" he thought internally before noticing a gaze focused on him and Stephany… one full of murderous intent. "What the…?"
'BANG!'
A shot pierced Frank's head without Stephany even noticing.
"What!?"
"Ace… you fucker…" Frank stole a glance in the distance, instinctively guessing who had taken the shot.
"One participant has been eliminated!" an announcement called out Frank's elimination.
While Stephany tried to figure out where the shot came from, Ace, silently distancing himself from the scene, reflected on what he had just witnessed.
"Well, that was one hell of a secret he was hiding. Who knew he was that strong? If it wasn't for my Shadow Arcane skill, I'd definitely be out of the game by now. Well, thanks to that Princess I was still able to steal the kill, so I guess all's well that ends well."