Chapter 225: The Competition 9
"Dion, wait, it’s me!"
Seeing the sharp strings cutting through the air towards him, he shouted in panic and swerved to the side. But it was too late, the things pierced through his immaculate shadow wings.
And thin as the strings were, they were especially durable, so that particular shadow wing unraveled, leaving Aric with only one wing left, which was no doubt impossible to keep him in the air.
Aric fell towards the Dion, and Dion who was shocked at Aric having shifted his name couldn’t move away in time. The two tumbled on the ground, clearing a great chunk of snow as they skidded on the ice.
"Get off me, you idiot!" Aric growled pushing Dion off himself.
"You’re the idiot, who told you to sneak up on me?" Dion replied. "It was only natural that I’d attack you." he said, getting off Aric.
Aric didn’t reply, he knew he was the one at fault, so he couldn’t hold it over Dion for attacking in self defense.
"Have you gotten a sphere yet?" Dion asked after Aric stood up from the ground.
"Of course." Aric smiled, taking a red sphere the size of a small apple out of his pocket. "I fought three enemies for it."
"Why is it in your pocket?" Dion asked, puzzled. "Wouldn’t it be safer in your spatial..." Dion paused, catching himself mid air. "Wait, don’t tell me it refuses to enter a spatial storage."
"Exactly." Aric nodded.
"Arrgh, why did they have to make it this hard?" Dion sighed. He was thinking that once he got a sphere, he’d stash it in his spatial storage and began free from pursuit, but it turns out the proctors or whoever has designed this setting already took that into consideration.
"It’s not entirely a bad thing, everyone has to hold theirs in the physical world, which means, even if you don’t find one, you can just snatch it away from someone else " Aric reasoned, and Dion realized it wasn’t entirely bad.
"Since, you’ve gotten your own sphere," Dion placed a hand on Aric’s shoulder. "You are going to help me get mine." he smiled.
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In a rocky mountain path, a six people, two humans, a demon, two merfolk, and an elf were fighting amongst themselves for a red sphere that just hovered nearby as if taunting them.
Each was fighting to the best of their abilities, wanting to secure the sphere for themselves. Not even the two humans worked together, each wanted the sphere, nor did the two merfolk.
In the end, the demon emerged victorious after having killed all the rest, or rather, some killed some, and he finished the last contender.
As he reached for the sphere, the sphere didn’t run away, as if it was acknowledging his effort. However, his hand was just an inch shy of the sphere, when a red bead appeared before him out of nowhere.
"What..."
BOOM!
A blinding wave of radiance erupted from the bead, and a cataclysmic and world ending explosion flared into the surrounding as a massive mushroom cloud shaped itself into existence.
Hisssssssssss!
A blistering hiss echoed in the air as heat and devastation surged outward, erasing anything they touched. The very sand beneath the explosion shimmered, glowing intensely, its grains beginning to shift state, melting and fusing into glass under the intense heat.
It was pure pandemonium.
Inside the explosion, the red sphere still hovered, completely indifferent that it was at the core of the world ending explosion.
Step! Step! Step! Step!
However, the sphere wast the only thing at the heart of the explosion. A figure completely covered in incandescent flames walked through the flames as if they were taking a leisure walk by the beach.
The figure reached for the sphere, and caught it in their hand. "This was rather easy." Rose muttered, scrutinizing the sphere in her hands. She couldn’t make out what it was made of, but for it to be completely untouched by her earlier attack, that meant it’s durability was definitely at least at the Delta rank.
Soon the dust and debris clouding the area cleared away, but the searing heat in the immediate heart of the explosion was hot enough to melt a mundane human down to the flesh.
Even at the moment, there was absolutely no trace that any of the six who fought here existed. Be it the five who had died earlier, or the one who had been inches away from the sphere.
It was so hot that even a massive ice spike that shot towards Rose, vanished into steam before it could even reach her.
Turning around, Rose witnessed Isolde sitting on a large white tiger, both the summoner and the summoned beast completely shrouded in a white, snow like aura.
"Do you intend to fight me for the sphere?" Rose asked without beating around the bush. She was never one for such nonsense.
Isolde didn’t say anything, but her expression revealed her stance. She very well wanted that sphere from Rose, and while the insanely overwhelming attack from Rose just now made her apprehensive, it didn’t mean she would back out.
Isolde was pretty confident in her own strength. Isolde’s ability was a pretty special one. It allowed her to summon nine different beasts, each with different abilities, albeit only one at a time.
If Isolde wanted to summon another beast, she would have to dismiss the current one she was using, before she would be able to summon another.
That was what most people knew of. But in reality, Isolde’s ability allowed her to use one of the ability of each of her summons.
And that was the reason why, Isolde was confident of taking that sphere from the human princess.
The white tiger she just summoned, possessed the ability of ice creation and manipulation, and by extension, Isolde currently did too.
"It is pointless." Rose spoke seeing the resolve to fight her in Isolde’s eyes.
"I guess we’ll have see about that, won’t we?" the demoness smiled.
<Cyro beam>
The white tiger Isolde was mounted on opened it’s mouth and let out a pure white beam of cold frigid energy that blasted towards Rose with unnerving ferocity.
"A pity." Rose muttered. She was starting to like the demoness because Isolde was also seemed like a no nonsense person just like she was.
Rose stretched her hand towards the incoming Cyro beam, and a massive compacted flame pillar erupted from her hand and met the Cyro beam mid way.
Instead of both energies meeting and exploding into a brilliant cascade of explosions, the collision between the two made the air hiss like an evaporating water, which birthed a cloud of steam, enshrouding the entire area and both princesses in fog.
Both the girls lost visibility for the time being, or so it seemed because the two attacked.
However the stalemate was soon broken as they Rose’s senses caught something. The Darkfell princess’s figure dissolved into a blur as she tilted her body to the side. Not half a moment later, a slender sword weaved through where her neck had once been.
But Isolde who was the holder of the sword transitioned into a thrusting motion. However, before the sword could reach its intended target, Rose parried the sword with her own which had appeared in her hand in an instant.
In the next moment, their afterimages filled the fog, flashing at different places and at different instances all at once.
One, a frigid cold white aura, and the other, a searing gold, almost incandescent aura.
Rose raised her sword.
<Fall>
A massive shockwave exploded outward from Rose’s center, instantly clearing out the fog.
Isolde didn’t care about that. Another cold beam shot out of her hand rushing towards Rose with maddening speed.
Rose’s black blade ignited in furious flames as she met the beam head on, cutting through it with a searing hiss and rushed to meet Isolde once more.
Their figures tore through the surroundings at blistering speeds. Beneath their feet, the earth shattered. The ground split and trenches tore open, unable to withstand the pressure of their movement.
Isolde’s summon didn’t join the fight. It wasn’t because it didn’t want to, but because it couldn’t. Seeing the opponent Isolde was fighting, it realized that Isolde had only summoned it for it’s ice abilities. Also, the two moved at speeds it could barely follow.
The battlefield was divided into chaos. One place could be extremely freezing to the bone, and another hot enough to melt said bones.
With another thunderous impact, their swords collided mid-motion, a jarring crack ringing through the air. Both were knocked backwards.
"You are strong, princess." Isolde muttered smiling. "It looks like it is going to take a lot of time to defeat you if ever. And even after that, I’ll be extremely weak or injured that anyone would be able to take advantage of me." She added.
"So I’ll let you have this one." Isolde said. After this short exchange, she believed that even if she managed to win against Rose, she wouldn’t come out of the battle unscathed.
"I see." Rose nodded and said nothing more.
Isolde nodded once more, before flickering next to her summon. Without wasting time, Isolde vaulted onto its back, and the beast vanished into the distance.
"Wise choice." Rose muttered staring into the distance where Isolde and her summon vanished to.
Had the girl not decided to leave, Rose was this close to unleashing that red bead she had used earlier, in the demon princess
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