Grendolyn smiled as she saw their expressions, satisfied with herself for having caused a commotion. In the whole room, only she knew that she had cheated. Out of all the captains here, she'd picked the perfect target to defend against, Tess.
This was not to say that she was the easiest to defend against. From everyone here, Grendolyn actually considered Tess to be the one who posed the largest threat to her. The others were melee users, which meant that they needed to reach her first before actually posing a threat.
With Travis's men as an example, warriors fighting close range would be hit by her magic before they could even reach her range. There were always exceptions to the rule as there were warriors who could close distances beyond what the eye could see, or those who could sense mana when it was being used allowing them to close in without getting hit. But she had no fear of that in a second level country like this one. Archers however, were the natural enemies of mages.
A mage's spell dealt high damage, could hurt several foes at once and could be done from a pretty long distance. In theory a mage was the best class that anybody could hope to be. Their only drawback, the casting time. As long as an attack landed on the mage's body before they were able to finish casting, no one had anything to fear of.
This was where the archers came in. They were the complete opposite of mages, only hitting one at a time, had a smaller distance than mage spells and dealt minimal damage. Against any other class, their attacks would barely be able to damage armor, any kill would be the result of supremely accurate shooting instead of a heavy blow. But mages posed none of these problems for them.
Out of all this the greatest weakness a mage had against an archer was definitely speed. Since they were both ranged types, it came down to who could hit the other faster. Unfortunately, there was no way constructing a spell would beat the speed of drawing a bow.
Not only that, there was a question of whether the attacks would actually hit even if they were launched at the same time, where as archers were physically able to dodge incoming attacks because their jobs had naturally required them to continue moving from place to place in order to get a good aim on their targets, mages were known to be more sluggish, hence why they usually went with a defender or prepared a life saving spell. The point of this was to say that, for Grendolyn, Tess was considered a natural enemy.
Even with how fast Grendolyn's casting was, she didn't dare to gamble with her life as drawing speed was not something that required a high level of cultivation, all an archer needed to practice was going through the drawing motions again and again. Even if they had a weak arm, they could opt for a weaker bow allowing them to achieve a faster drawing speed albeit decreasing the distance and arrow could fly.
There were any number of factors that could've affected the outcome, and judging by the result, she was right. Tess for all intents and purposes had done her job and practiced the weapon to an incredible degree.
Her drawing speed might've matched Grendolyn's casting speed but if they were both released, Grendolyn would've probably been hit by the arrow first before an earth barrier could cover her. This was of course, not a problem between mages and archers but more so the weakness of her element of choice
Earth magic had two weaknesses as far as anyone was concerned, one was the speed of the spell's effects even after they had been cast. The other was that the usage of such magic required people to be connected to the ground. Send an earth mage airborne or swimming, and there was little chance they would survive an attack.
This was also applicable to their spells, they couldn't send rocks flying around willy nilly, there always needed to be a connection between their attacks and the ground. Hence, even if Tess's arrow heads were made from metal that Grendolyn could manipulate, Grendolyn could not just point her hands in her direction like m*gneto and manipulate it to her will.
So with these odds staked against her, Tess was naturally her best choice of opponent. Why? Because as much as she knew her disadvantages, so did every captain here. By taking down the person who had the highest chance of beating her, she was making sure they knew how capable she really was.
But the real question was, if she really had that many handicaps, how did she succeed in pulling off the stunt she just did with her magic and beat Tess?