"She's actually able to stand up after taking a strike from the Ice Phoenix. Her defensive power is truly shocking." Stephanie murmured, but right after, astonishment emerged on her face.
"G… ahh!"
The extinguished phoenix flames on Erza's body ignited once again. Whether it was her aura or the intensity of the flames, none of them were weaker than before. Erza raised the Heavenly Flame Sword. With a loud bellow, she slashed out a gigantic red coloured sword beam, and lashed towards Elsa shortly after.
"...Not only did she stand up, she didn't even weaken. How could this be?"
The inflamed Heavenly Flame Sword was like a dancing fire phoenix coiling in the air in the midst of its phoenix cry. The profound energy imbued Ice Phoenix Ribbon was equivalent to a white snake, and charged at the dancing fire phoenix while releasing an incomparably frightening freezing power.
Divine weapons were extremely difficult to subdue. Within Heavenly Flame Sword rested the soul of a young fire phoenix, while within the Ice Phoenix Ribbon rested the soul of an Ice Phoenix. Both were evenly matched in terms of quality and strength.
Erza released attack after attack in a crazed, unrestrained manner. Lightning Dance of the Phoenix Wing, Phoenix's Fury, Hundred Sword Petals, Lesser Purgatory… Each one of those skills could shake the heavens, but in front of Elsa who had activated the Ninth Form of Ice Phoenix, they were easily knocked down one after another.
Elsa's retaliation was often more terrifying. If Erza did not have superior speed over her, she wouldn't be qualified to be in a brief stalemate with Elsa.
*Boom!*
An ice lotus exploded on Erza's left shoulder, causing Erza to tumble onto the ground. Her left shoulder was completely bloody and damaged, but she acted as if nothing happened and suddenly leapt up from the ground. She once again reignited her phoenix flames and attacked. The blazing sword swung widely without the slightest weakening in power.
*Bang!*
Her blazing sword was forcefully pushed aside, and the Ice Phoenix Ribbon shot towards her, firmly wrapping around Erza's body extremely quickly, and raised her into the air.
In a blink of an eye, all of the phoenix flames on her body were extinguished and what replaced it was a thick layer of ice that bounded her entire body. Then, she was ruthlessly smashed onto the ground by the Ice Phoenix Ribbon.
*Bang!*
The thick ice burst open and a huge hole had been smashed out on the ground. Erza had already disappeared from the surface of the stage and had been smashed who knows how deep beneath ground.
This heavy strike had let the surrounding students cry out in shock, they silently thanked their lucks for not being paired against Elsa. This kind of strike would have completely knocked out most if not all of the students, cause severe internal damage, and scatter their energy.
Yet Elsa had suddenly felt a tyrannical counter force from the Ice Phoenix Ribbon. The Ice Phoenix Ribbon's binding had actually been roughly broke apart!
Erza jumped up from within the crevice and fiercely sent a Phoenix's Fury towards Elsa... Although her clothing was completely tattered, the fire within her eyes was raging furiously, yet was calm. The profound energy she was emitting from her body had not even weakened by a bit compared to before.
Everyone simultaneously felt an unexplainable terror in their hearts.
In terms of strength, Elsa completely crushed Erza. In Erza and her exchanges, Erza was at a complete disadvantage and mostly ended with bruises. However, no matter how many times Elsa knocked her down, she would always stand up. Even if her entire body was covered with injuries, both her aura and her momentum had never reduced. She was like a true phoenix, always rise back from the ashes.
The audience could only stare in bewilderment.
Although Elsa's strength had reached the middle level of the Knight Realm, keeping up the Ninth Form of Ice Phoenix with this kind of profound strength was extremely taxing. Gradually, her aura had been decreasing at steady pace. On the other hand, the strength of Erza's aura did not weaken throughout the match.
Looking at Erza who stood up once again and imbued herself with phoenix flames, Elsa was trembling inside. And at this time, all of the ice essences around her body had already started to become slightly fainter. Her breathing had also gotten slightly heavier.
Deep within Elsa's heart, a voice was telling her that she had to quickly finish this duel. Otherwise, if this dragged on even longer, it was unknown just what unexpected events might occur.
"Let's end this..."
Elsa's lips slightly moved, and her snow white hands slowly clasped together before her body. In an instant, all of the surrounding cold energy within several kilos of radius swarmed in, and concentrated into a enormous whirlpool of frozen cloud before her.
Erza was just about to advance towards her, but suddenly stopped in her steps... The aura force on Elsa's body surged up, and the frozen cloud whirlpool grew bigger and bigger. Then, it suddenly transformed and condensed into a gigantic Ice Crystal Phoenix. At the same time, a chilling cold pressure engulfed the entire arena, and made everyone's heart shudder.
The Ice Crystal Phoenix faced the heavens and let out a cry. Extending out its huge wings, it charged towards Erza with a cold energy that could freeze the surrounding fifty kilometres. Where ever it passed, it caused the air to condense by the inch.
"WAAAAAHH... It's over, it's over! Be careful, Erza!"
Linda clenched both of her fists tightly while shouting in panic. Even though Elsa had used all of her power, she had mostly been defending and counterattacking during their exchanges. She had never taken the initiative to attack.
However, this time, she finally decided to attack first. Elsa unleashed a frighteningly large Ice Phoenix imbued with freezing power, capable of shaking the entire arena. Even the observing Mozart was able to feel how terrifying this Ice Phoenix was. At fifth year students' seats, Ling Men was also equally shocked... He was not sure if he was capable of blocking this level of attack.
As a terrifying level of pressure came charging towards her from the front, Erza retreated extremely quickly, her steps as fast as lightning.
As the phoenix flames on her body burned and the Ice Phoenix approached, a flash of madness could be seen within Erza's eyes. She imbued all of her profound energy and phoenix flame into Heavenly Flame Sword and created a gigantic visage of a Fire Phoenix. Following her roar, with a swing of her hands, Heavenly Flame Sword flew towards the Ice Phoenix, carrying the visage of the enormous Fire Phoenix with it.
The Ice Phoenix and Fire Phoenix violently collided in midair, and both phoenix fire and ice energy exploded at the same time. The cries of both phoenixes resonated throughout the sky as they clashed.
The barrier surrounded the fighting stage shattered as the sky was completely enveloped by azure and scarlet light. Half of it was frozen, and the other half was burned into distortion. Without the obstruction of the barrier, the audiences on the eastern side felt like they had fallen into an icy hole as their entire body stiffened. As for those in the west, they felt as if they were about to combust from being roasted by the fire.
Only after they immediately started releasing their protective energy, did they barely managed to protect themselves. The shock in their hearts had subsequently increased by several folds... Just the residue of their strength was already this shocking, so it was imaginable as to how truly terrifying Elsa's ice and Erza's flame had been.
However, this kind of balance did not maintain for a long time. Ice and fire were both natural counters to each other. Fire could melt ice, while ice could thwart fire. There were no natural advantages to either side.
The fire phoenix and ice phoenix intensely clashed and rampaged in midair. The interweaving ice-blue and scarlet-red radiances interweaved and covered the entire arena.
After the chaotic radiances lasted for a few breaths of time, the radiance of the ice phoenix slightly surpassed that of the fire phoenix. But if an advantage forms, it would become irreversible like a broken dam.
In the blink of an eye, the fire phoenix became smaller and smaller. In the end, it was completely devoured by the ice phoenix, and all that was left was a frozen Heavenly Flame Sword in midair. The ice phoenix that only shrunk by one-third of its size fiercely rushed forward and dove at Erza amidst a cold and long cry.
As the pale blue visage of the ice phoenix quickly grew bigger within her eyes, Erza heavily huffed as both her eyes stared straight at the ice phoenix mirage. She did not retreat, and only the sound of a low mutter could be heard in the air....
"Empyrean Chronos Art... Time Paradox!"
*BOOM!!!*
The ice phoenix exploded, and its pale blue radiance completely swallowed Erza. The dispersing ice shards were like razor sharp blades and deeply penetrated into the ground.
"It finally ended. Who knew it would drag out this long." Stephanie said.
"Although Elsa used the Ninth Form of Ice Phoenix, she had never attacked with full strength. Coupled with Erza's unexpected tenacity…Mmn... AAAHHH!" Before Bella had even finished speaking, she suddenly let out a surprised shriek.
From within the pale blue radiance left behind by the ice phoenix, Erza shot out like a bolt of lightning. Her body was surrounded by a translucent spherical barrier that was almost hard to see with the naked eye.
The space and time around her was heavily distorted and she started to look strangely incorporeal.
In order to maintain Ice Body Jade Bones, Elsa had already expended quite a bit. Furthermore, in order to swiftly defeat Erza, she had exhausted even more energy to release the ice phoenix.
She was now in a temporary power deficient condition and had not recovered yet, and in addition to believing that this was a strike that could directly decide the match, she simply wasn't on guard at all. No matter what, she had never expected that Erza would actually emerge unscathed from the the ice phoenix's diving attack.
Erza quickly advanced toward Elsa as she easily passed by the Ice Phoenix Ribbon's defence. The ribbon hit an empty air as Erza's body surprisingly went through it. The audiences were totally bewildered. They really did not know what was going on.
At this moment, Elsa, who had always been as calm as snow, lost all the colour in her rosy face for the very first time. She had not expected Erza to be able to break free from the ice phoenix's charge.
Just in the nick of time, a thick layer of ice rapidly appeared on her body, and quickly wrapped around her entire body...
However, another strange thing was happening as Erza easily passed by the thick later of ice barrier and arrived in front of Elsa. She then released a heavy punch straight to Elsa' stomach.
*Bang!*
Elsa flew all the way to the edge of the arena and the terrifying impact smashed open a large portion of the ground. And the direction in which she had been thrown in, just happened to be where Menzel Clan was seated, which was about to meet with disaster. Even though Tony and family's seating area was completely protected, everything else in front of them was completely wrecked.
The whole arena fell into dead silence. Everyone was speechless while looking at the massive ravine, which stretched from the centre of the stage, all the way to its edge.
As the dust settled, Elsa stood up. Only, she was no longer able to maintain Ice Body Jade Bones and its effects had already vanished. Her eyes were no longer blue, but had returned to their original black colour. Her face was covered with a layer of a faint paleness and the strength of her aura had immensely weakened. She covered her stomach with her right hand, and a touch of red slowly spread on the snow-white clothing of the stomach.
"Can you tell me how I lost?" Elsa asked Erza with a pale smile.
"I will not go into details as this is related with my Time Magic ability. Basically, the me in front you is not real. I come from the future and I could also come from the past. I could return to present and become real again whenever I wish."
Erza explanation was a bit confusing but Elsa decided not to pursue it further.
"I admit defeat."