At Nine am, the finals of the individual fight category of the Forty-two Block Leadership Competition officially began.
"The Finals. Class F Leader Drake Atticus versus Class K Leader Angus Farley."
In the middle of the arena ground, two teen boys were facing each other. Equivalent height but opposite appearance. One had blue hair like the morning sky on a spring day, the other had orange-red hair that glowed like the summer afternoon sun, representing for the two types of energy that fiercely opposite each other: Water and Fire.
In fact, recent years the final round of the Leader competition often witnessed two Fire dragons fighting each other, or one from Fire style and one from Lightning style. For some reason, the number of Water dragons that could make it to the finals was not much, if there was, it was still hard for him or her to win. The last time a Water dragon became Grade Leader was twenty-three years ago. It was one of the finals listed as "classic": A Blaze of Fire style versus a Tide of Water style. And the winner was the little Tide girl.
Memory flashed back. The gaze of everyone coincidentally looked towards the girl whose blue hair was unmistakably characteristic of the Tide race.
Facing thousands pairs of eyes, Ernesta only smiled and nodded slightly.
Ernesta Flair.
The genius of Water style. First time transformation was at thirteen years old. At the age of eighteen, she mastered the famous legendary skill "Water Mastery" of the Tide race. At the age of twenty three, she herself created the legendary skill "Blood Mastery" which could make anyone paralysis or even death after a few seconds of performing.
As mentioned ealier, the Tide race was well known for their excellent ability of controlling water flow. With this ability, they could perform almost all skills of Water style, from basic ones to high-level ones. This race also possessed some legendary skill with terrified power, one of which - "Water Mastery" was the most vivid visual proof for Tide's ability of controlling water flow. "Mastery" included both constrain and control. With "Water Mastery", a Tide could make the flow of water appear in the shape, amount, and speed, with offensive or defensive purpose that he or she desired, by the movements of hands.
"Blood Mastery" of Ernesta was a special variant based on the principle of "Water Mastery": Controlling blood molecules inside the body as the way of controlling water molecules in the natural environment, thereby controlling the opponent's movement, causing the opponent paralysis, injured, or even leading to death. Before Ernesta invented this skill, the history of the Dragon races only recorded twenty-three legendary skills. Then after going through a lot of controversy about its dangerous effects and nature, as well as hundreds of experiments, "Blood Mastery" was finally recognized and added into the list of legendary skills of Pacific. It was also from that time that Ernesta became famous nationwide. Because she was not only the inventor, but also the only one who could perform "Blood Mastery" until now.
Faced with Ernesta's gentle smile, the audience suddenly shuddered, then hurriedly took their gaze back, turned to look at Angus standing on the arena ground.
Could the Water boy this year recreate the miracle for one more time?
On the stands for teachers and guests, despite having asked Eugene a hundred times and being ignored a hundred times, now there was still a person asked the one hundred and one-th question: "Eugene, do your boy have any other secret weapon?"
The winner of this final would receive eighteen points. If only counting the competition in the capital, currently Drake lost to Angus five points. If Drake won this match... Even if Angus was the First-ranked of the Military course, the possibility for him to become the Grade Leader was not too high!
Hearing that question, Eugene's eyelids did not move a bit: "Guess."
Ha ha, guess! You guys liked guessing, didn't you? Come and guess it!!! Eugene whispered in his heart.
On the arena ground, after the referee's starting signal, Drake opened the match with a basic skill of Fire style: "Fire bullets!"
Now talking about the skills. For Fire style, "Fire Bullets" and "Multi Fire Balls" had similar execution and attacking methods, which was to rush towards the target and then explode. The only thing different was "Fire Bullets" were smaller in size but faster in speed than "Multi Fire Balls", and also consumed less internal power when performing.
As for Water style, there were also two skills with the names respectively opposite to "Fire Bullets" and "Multi Fire Balls", which were "Water Bullets" and "Multi Water Spheres". However, unlike Fire style, "Water Bullets" and "Multi Water Spheres" had very different performing methods.
This difference came from the properties of the two elements: Fire and Water.
Fire was the element of eruption, explosion, destruction, easier to attack than defend. Therefore, no matter what form and shape of the attacking skills, the result was only one: destruction. Meanwhile, Water was the element of softness, flexibility, normally easier to defend than attack – Only the "Ice" branch with its stiff, sharp properties could make up for the attacking power of the Water System. Thus, for the races that used water to fight like Ocean, Tide, Waterfall..., to compress water into the shape of a water sphere with a slow speed to defend against the "Multi Fire Balls" skill was quite easy, but to compress it into the shape of a water bullet which had relatively large destructive power like a fire bullet was much more difficult. Therefore, while "Fire Bullets" was just a basic skill, "Water Bullets" was classified as intermediate skills and only Water students who were gifted with good ability of controlling internal power could perform it.
So... when a person from Water style faced "Fire Bullets", if he or she could not use "Water Bullets" to respond, which skill should be used to defend effectively? The answer was "Water Wall" or "Multi Water Spheres"!
Which option would Angus choose? The answer was, he didn't choose any option of those but just... dodged!
Currently, what the audience saw in the arena ground was Angus did not perform any Water skill to fight back Drake's "Fire Bullets" but just constantly dodged. In terms of speed, Angus was much faster than Fire dragons of the same age, including Drake. Thus, three of Drake's consecutive skills "Fire Bullets" failed to hit Angus.
Drake reacted very quickly, immediately switching to another skill: "Multi fire balls!"
Fire balls had slightly slower speed than fire bullets, but their size was larger, the range of the explosion was also larger. Just a few "Multi Fire Balls" in a row could also lead to an explosion within the whole arena ground. Drake did not think that Angus could dodge forever!
As expectation of a genius of the Atticus clan with pure blood of Blaze, the number of fire balls of Drake's "Multi Fire Balls" was much more than that of the "Multi Fire Balls" of other Fire students at the same age! There were more than twenty fireballs heading towards Angus.
Angus continued to dodge that skill. In an instant, another twenty fire balls appeared with lightning speed at the position that Angus had jumped into, just like Drake had foreseen Angus' direction.
"Multi water spheres!" Finally, Angus performed his first counter attack.
The water spheres appeared from Angus' side and accurately struck Drake's fireballs. Fire and Water collided, making such a powerful explosion sound. Smoke and dust from the explosion fell down on the area of two boys.
Before the smoke and dust cleared, Drake rushed towards Angus, his fist was about to hit Angus. Angus did not flinch at all, using his hand to block the blow.
It was often said that the Fire races had great strength, Water races were flexible and enduring, and Lightning races got amazing speed. So when being in a hand-to-hand fight with Fire style, especially a strong opponent like Drake, certainly the students of the Water style would not want "using hard to fight against hard"(*) but just dodging to make the Fire opponent consume their energy.
However, making the audience wide-eyed was this time Angus did not dodge any more but he chose "using hard to fight against hard", immediately involved in a duel with Drake! Left hook punch, right hook punch, leg sweeping, body moving, etc. All of the hand-to-hand fighting movements were applied smoothly by two of them. What made the spectators and viewers even more surprised was that Angus seemed to not inferior to Drake at all in terms of physical strength!
Being equal to Drake in terms of physical strength, but faster than Drake in speed, Angus quickly reversed the game, gaining the upper hand in this hand-to-hand fighting!
Then suddenly, right after Drake moved his body to dodge one of Angus's punches, he saw Angus' left hand carrying something like a red and blue ball approaching his waist.
What the hell was that??? Drake's inner self shivered, instinctively he leaned his body to dodge that ball. The moment that blue-red ball grazed Drake's waist and he truly felt the terrifying heat radiating from it, his face turned to pale.
Fireball? It was a Fireball??
What the hell! Angus was from Water style, where could he get the Fireball???
A daring thought crossed Drake's head, and he looked at Angus frightenedly: "You... you are a Metis????"
In contrast to Drake's pale face, Angus still remained as calm as usual, spitting out a word: "Yes."
Drake was stunned: "This, this is impossible..."
The corner of Angus' mouth curved slightly: "Nothing in this world is impossible."
Just finished the saying, Angus immediately took the opportunity to continue to attack Drake, while Drake was still in a blank mind situation.
Angus coordinated both hand-to-hand attacks and internal power attacks in short distance. The red and blue fireball was always ready in his hand, it seemed that he did not take much effort to concentrate his internal power. As for Drake, it seemed that he was still not surprised after Angus' words, so he was passively dodging Angus' attacks instinctively.
Not only Drake was both frightened and surprised at the same time but all the spectators on the stands and viewers watching via television at home also did not believe in their eyes.
What were they seeing?
That Water dragon boy... was using Fire power?
Being able to use both Water power and Fire power – He was a mixed-blood?
A mixed-blood could go to the final round of the Grade Leader selection competition?? And even being on a par with a pureblood Blaze of the Atticus family???
Fast speed! Strong physical! This mixed-blood owned all the advantages of both Water and Fire two styles!!!
The same as other people, Hawley sitting on the stands already fall into the shock.
He clearly remembered that during the three-second period when he focused his internal power for the "Multi Fire Whips" skill yesterday, Angus didn't make any attack but just stood and watched in caution. At that time, Hawley simply thought that Angus was tired, and he needed some time to recover internal power. But now, at this moment, he realized that it was just because Angus wanted to give him a chance. Hawley could not help but sigh. After all, he did underestimate the person named Angus!
On the arena ground, Drake was struggling to find an opportunity to escape from the hand-to-hand duel with Angus. After he made it, he stood a few dozen meters away from Angus, gasping for breath. Seeing Angus still calmly standing on the opposite side, some speculation popped in Drake's mind.
This Angus Farley... He intentionally not showed his full strength in the previous rounds. He tried to hide his "cards" until today! In the first round, he showed the advantage of swimming speed, then in the team competition round, he only used Water skills. All of those moves were just to make people mistakenly think that he was weak Water dragon. Even in this knock-out round, he also intentionally restricted the use of internal power attacks. It's only until he faced Hawley who was also a pretty strong contestant that he used a high-level skill – But it was still a Water skill!
So... It was Fire power that was his secret weapon? How could a twenty-aged boy calculate so carefully...
Drake was threatened by his own thoughts. He hurriedly regained his spirit.
It seemed like I had to use the decisive card to end this match! Drake told himself.
Drake took a deep breath, then he spoke up loudly: "I admit that you are very strong! This is the first time that I've been struggling like this! But... what if this match becomes two-on-one?"
Two-on-one? What did he mean? The whole arena held their breath and waited. Even Angus also raised his guard with the posture of being ready to fight.
Drake concentrated his internal power. Immediately the ground under his feet appeared a red circle with mysterious patterns inside, looked like a small 'magic circle'.
An orange-red air flow appearing from the 'magic circle' covered Drake, then... the air mass gradually become bigger and bigger, then vaguely split into two air masses. Three seconds later, when the airflow gradually cleared, the magic circle gradually faded and disappeared, people saw... there were "two Drake" standing facing with Angus.
One second later, the voice of the commentator sounded: "This, this is the Clone technique, ladies and gentlemen! Yes! It is the Clone technique that belongs to the Blaze race, one of the legendary skills of Fire style!!!... Well, honestly... I don't know what to say now... I can only say that there have been so many surprises in this year's competition! Congratulations to the Atticus family for having another amazing, phenomenal genius!!!"
"Clone" was the legendary skill of Fire style which could be performed only by the Blaze race. Currently, the number of Blaze dragonmen who could perform this skill was counted on the fingers, including Drake's grandfather – the famous Army General from Atticus clan with the ability to create up to three clones!
Not all geniuses of the Blaze race could perform this "Clone" skill. At least Drake's father could not – even though he could also be considered as a genius with the first time of transformation at the age of fifteen.
The whole stand was stirred, and then, each round of applause mixed with loud cheers sounded. All of them simultaneously exclaimed, indeed the heir was chosen by the Atticus clan! This level of talent, the level that could successfully perform the most difficult legendary skill that only a handful of Blaze could do, how many people can reach?
In the stands for students, the Class F members belonging to the Drake supporter group chanted the slogan: "Leader Drake! Leader Drake! Leader Drake!" Even the members did not support Drake, their eyes had vaguely appeared a change. The Dragon races worshiped power. Today, Drake held nothing back, he showed his full power in this arena. Even though before how unconvinced those opposers used to be, now they had no choice but being deeply convinced!
After showing their compliments for Drake, some spectators quickly turned to observe Angus' reaction, but beyond their expectation, on the face of the blue-haired teen boy, except for a slight frown, there was no flinching or terrified expression at all!
Faced with Drake's provocative gaze, Angus also concentrated his internal power. After that, a blue magic circle with mysterious patterns inside appeared on the ground at his feet.
The crowd of spectators gaped.
Another magic circle? Hey, hey, when did magic circle become such popular???
On the arena ground, a stream of water coming out of the blue magic circle at Angus's feet, swirling upward, then slowly covered his entire body. Three seconds later, the water slowly receded, leaving behind a person... looking exactly like Drake – or to say, this was another "Drake".
The atmosphere fell into a dead silence.
A long time later, someone suddenly shouted: "Simulation! Oh My God! It's the Simulation skill!!!"
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(*) Using hard to fight against hard: "Hard" here means solid, firm, rigid. In Vietnamese, we use this expression to describe the practice of using strength, only pure strength, to attack and defend.