Chapter 15: Seems Fair
Everyone turned to the woman — and then their expressions turned weird. On the left side of her face was a big purple bruise shaped like a fist.
The moment Niara attacked, the woman's partner reacted instinctively, channeling energy from his ring into her. That was one of the basic skills a Summoner could have, letting their partner drastically boost their defenses.
But the energy cost for that was insane. That's why it was only meant for emergencies.
If not for that, Niara would've had enough strength to blow that woman's head off without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, a Summoner was like heaven and earth compared to an ordinary Mannaz.
"Are you trying to solve your problems, or make more of them?" asked the Elder, snorting.
"Celestia Academy has a rule for settling issues between everyone, right?" the woman said seriously. "Anyone can request an Elder to supervise and then start a fair challenge between the parties. The loser has to accept the defeat and take a heavy loss in silence."
The Elder nodded slightly. There were exceptions, but usually, Summoners didn't have many conflicts with each other. Everyone just wanted to get as strong as possible so they could save their universe.
It wasn't about being nice — they just knew how terrifying the Risen were. Even if they didn't like someone, they'd try not to let that get in the way of the bigger goal, since everyone's survival depended on cooperation.
But... the egos of the Spiritual Guardians from other universes were off the charts. They were the ones who always caused trouble. Save the universe? All they cared about was squeezing as many benefits out of it as possible.
That's why Celestia Academy came up with this method: a challenge where one side would lose a huge chunk of resources — exactly what a Spiritual Guardian valued the most.
The Elder looked a bit puzzled. He could tell this wasn't really a fight between Spiritual Guardians. Once he noticed all the Summoners were from the Divine Dragon bloodline, it was obvious this was an internal mess between a bunch of proud folks.