Once the announcement was made, a heavy sword appeared out of nowhere beside the elf. He climbed the horizontally floating sword and flew into the air. Before the shocked crowd could get their bearings, thousands of swords of all types materialized around him. They arranged themselves in a lotus shaped formation with the elf standing at the seed pod position. The sword lotus slowly rotated around the elf while radiating horrifying sword intent.
" Sword lotus : second form : ten thousand petal blossom; " with the elf's voice, ten thousand swords, arranged as petals of the flower, expanded as if the sword lotus is blooming, while pointing towards the tortoise. Sensing the danger, the tortoise hid in his shell and braced himself for the impact. The swords shot out like arrows towards the tortoise shell in a frenzy.
~~ Bang !! ~~ x10,000 with loud banging sounds, the swords hit the shell again and again creating sparks. They were only a distraction as the elf, holding a broad sword, stood in a piercing stance while tilting towards the opponent. He rushed like a streak of lightning and slashed at the shell releasing a small gust of wind that passed unimpeded through the shell.
" AAAHHH !! " with a loud scream, the opponent leaped out of the arena while raising a fountain of blood as he came out of his shell. A large gash ran along his neck just missing the jugular. He lost without a chance to counter-attack at all. The last attack was completely out of expectations. He was thoroughly frightened and ran away from the arena into the stands, panting for breath.
" This is the first time I have seen a tortoise run so fast. " Someone from the crowd joked resulting in an explosion of laughter. The duels in the other arenas ended after a while without much suspense or unexpected scenarios popping out.
The elf was about to get off the arena when a person from the no-weapon-no-artefact-no-totemic-beast arena challenged him right away. He immediately accepted the challenge and jumped into that arena. Since the 24 arenas were all air-bound and in proximity to one another while being enclosed in a force field, it was possible to jump from one arena to another as long as there is no duel in progress in them. Nevertheless, it was a daunting task to jump from place to place hundreds of meters above ground. Even the audience podium was floating a safe distance away from the arenas.
When the opponent declared he was ready, pure spiritual energy gushed out of the elf like a torrential flood engulfing the opponent wave after wave decimating his confidence and pride completely. He was barely able to put some resistance when the intensity of the energy doubled out of nowhere toppling him.
The elf was once again challenged, this time, to a waltzing arena. The opponent chose an eager boy from the crowd while the elf chose the lightning girl. A gentle music played as the couples danced around in the mini stages floating around the arena along with the pairs on the dais. The judges were paying attention to the elf-girl pair with interest as the elves, in general, lived in their own realms, away and aloof from humans, not teaching their ways to the humans or learning their ways at all. It was a rare occurrence to see an elf waltzing, especially, this beautifully.
It was a tough competition, but, the elf-girl pair won just by a hair's breadth. The judges were extremely impressed by the performance of both the pairs and made an exception of declaring it a draw. Both the pairs happily left the arena while smiling at each other.